"Hah! my lady's falcon!" cried Halbert alarmed, doubly, for the fate of his master.

A sudden agitation of the branches having excited an indefinite suspicion in a body of archers who stood near, with one impulse they had discharged their arrows to the spot.
Halbert's ready excuse, both for the disturbance in the tree and his lady's shriek, was prompted and warranted true by the appearance of a large bird, which the rushing of the arrows had frighted from her nest; she rose suddenly from amongst the branches, and soared away, far to the east, with loud screams.
All being again still, Marion hoped that her husband had escaped any serious injury from the arrows; and turning with recovered composure to the officer, heard him, with a glow of comfort, reprimand his men for daring to draw their bows without his orders.

Then addressing her, "I beg your pardon, madam," said he, "both for the alarm these hot-headed men have occasioned you, and for the violence they have committed in forcing one of your sex and beauty before me.

Had I expected to have found a lady here, I should have issued orders to have prevented this outrage; but I am sent hither in quest of Sir William Wallace, who, by a mortal attack made on the person of the Governor of Lanark's nephew, has forfeited his life.

The scabbard of his sword, found beside the murdered Heselrigge, is an undeniable proof of his guilt.