I go to Bothwell, in expectation that he will join me there.

In making it his home he will render me happy, for my friendship is now bound to him by bonds which only death can sever." Halbert took the horn, and promising faithfully to repeat the earl's message, prayed God to bless him and the honest soldier.

A rocky promontory soon excluded them from his sight, and in a few minutes more even the sound of their horses' hoofs was lost on the soft herbage of the winding dell.
"Now I am alone in this once happy spot.

Not a voice, not a sound.
Oh, Wallace!" cried he, throwing up his venerable arms, "thy house is left unto thee desolate, and I am to be the fatal messenger." With the last words he struck into a deep ravine which led to the remotest solitudes of the glen, and pursued his way in dreadful silence.

No human face of Scot or English cheered or scared him as he passed along.
The tumult had so alarmed the poor cottagers, that with one accord they fled to their kindred on the hills, amid those fastnesses of nature, to await tidings from the valley, of when all should be still, and they might return in peace.