CHAPTER II.
Lanark.
The darkness was almost impenetrable.

Musing on what had passed with Monteith, and on the likelihood of any hero appearing, who, by freeing his country, could ever claim the privilege of investigating the mystery which was now his care.

Wallace rode on till, crossing the bridge of Lanark, he saw the rising moon silver the tops of the distant hills; and then his meditations embraced a gentler subject.

This was the time he had promised Marion he should be returned, and he had yet five long miles to go, before he could reach the glen of Ellerslie; he thought of her being alone--of watching, with an anxious heart, the minutes of his delay.

Scotland and its wrongs he now forgot, in the idea of her whose happiness was dearer to him than life.