Lord Mar, between Murray and Edwin, followed; and the servants and guard completed the suit.
Being well mounted, they pleasantly pursued their way, avoiding all inhabited places, and resting in the deepest recesses of the hills.
Lord Mar proposed traveling all night; but at the close of the evening his countess complained of fatigue, declaring she could not advance further than the eastern bank of the River Cart.

No shelter appeared in sight, excepting a thick and extensive wood of hazels; but the air being mild, and the lady declaring her inability of moving on, Lord Mar at last became reconciled to his wife and son passing the night with no other canopy than the trees.

Wallace ordered cloaks to be spread on the ground for the countess and her women; and seeing them laid to rest, planted his men to keep guard around the circle.
The moon had sunk in the west before the whole of his little camp were asleep; but when all seemed composed, he wandered forth by the dim light of the stars to view the surrounding country--a country he had so often traversed in his boyish days.

A little onward, in green Renfrewshire, lay the lands of his father; but that Ellerslie of his ancestors, like his own Ellerslie of Clydesdale, his country's enemies had leveled with the ground.

He turned in anguish of heart toward the south, for there less racking remembrances hovered over the distant hills.
Leaning on the shattered stump of an old tree, he fixed his eyes on the far-stretching plain, which alone seemed to divide him from the venerable Sir Ronald Crawford and his youthful haunts at Ayr.