Wallace now recollected a passage in Lady Mar's letter which, though not speaking out, insinuated how she expected he would decide. She said: "As your interest is mine, my noble friend, all that belongs to me is yours. My kindred are not withheld in the gift my devoted heart bestows on you. Use them as your own; make them bulwarks around your power, the creatures of your will, the instruments of your benevolence, the defenders of your rights." Well pleased to avoid another rencounter with this lady's love and ambition, Wallace sent off the substance of these dispatches to Murray; and next morning, taking a tender leave of the venerable Gregory and his family, with Edwin and Sir John Graham, he set off for the Frith of Forth. Chapter XLVIII. Loch Awe. It was on the eve of St. Nicholas that the boat which contained Wallace drew near to the coast of Fife. A little of the right towered the tremendous precipice of Kinghorn. "Behold, Edwin," said he, "the cause of all our woe! From those horrible cliffs fell the best of kings, the good Alexander. My father accompanied him in that fatal ride, and was one of the unhappy group who had the evil hap to find his mangled body among the rocks below." "I have heard," observed Graham, "that the sage of Ercildown prophesied this dreadful calamity to Scotland." "He did prognosticate," replied Wallace, "that on the eighteenth of April, a storm should burst over this land which would lay the country in ruins. Fear seized the farmers; but his prophecy regarded a nobler object than their harvests. The day came, rose unclouded, and continued perfectly serene. Lord March, to whom the seer had presaged the event, at noon reproached him with the unlikeliness of its completion. But even at the moment he was ridiculing the sage, a man on a foaming steed arrived at the gate, with tidings that the king had accidentally fallen from the precipice of Kinghorn, and was killed. 'This,' said the Lord of Ercildown, 'is the scathing wind and dreadful tempest which shall long blow calamity and trouble on the realm of Scotland!' And surely his words have been verified, for still the storm rages around our borders--and will not cease, I fear, till the present dragon of England be laid as low as our noble lion was by that mysterious blast."** **Alexander III. was killed in this manner on the 18th of April, 1290, just seven years before the consequent calamities of his country made it necessary for Wallace to rise in its defense. The like discourse held the friends till they landed at Roseyth Castle, where they lodged for the night; and next morning recommencing their journey at daybreak, they crossed the Lomonds under a wintery sun, and entered Perth in the midst of a snow-storm.