The regent's arrival soon spread throughout the province, and the hall of the castle was speedily crowded with chieftains, come to pay their respects to their benefactor; while an army of grateful peasantry from the hills filled the suburbs of the town, begging for one glance only of their beloved lord. To oblige them, Wallace mounted his horse, and between the Lords Ruthven and Athol, with his bonnet off, rode from the castle to the populace-covered plain, which lay to the west of the city. He gratified their affectionate eagerness by this condescension, and received in return the sincere homage of a thousand grateful hearts. The snow-topped Grampians echoed with the proud acclamations of "Our deliverer," "Our prince," "The champion of Scotland," "The glorious William Wallace!" and the shores of the Tay resounded with similar rejoicings at sight of him who made the Scottish seamen lords of the Northern Ocean. Ruthven beheld this eloquence of nature with sympathetic feelings. His just sense of the unequaled merits of the regent had long internally acknowledged him as his sovereign; and he smiled with approbation at every breathing amongst the people which intimated what would at last be their general shout. Wallace had proved himself not only a warrior but a legislator. In the midst of war he had planted the fruits of peace, and now the olive and the vine waved abundant on every hill. Different were the thoughts of the gloomy Athol as he rode by the side of the regent. Could he by a look have blasted those valiant arms--have palsied that youthful head, whose judgment shamed the hoariest temples--gladly would he have made Scotland the sacrifice so that he might never again find himself in the triumphant train of one whom he deemed a boy and an upstart! Thus did he muse, and thus did envy open a way into his soul for those demons to enter which were so soon to possess it with the fellest designs.