It was re-echoed by shouts from behind the passing enemy, and in that moment the supporting piers of the bridge** were pulled away, and the whole of its mailed throng was precipitated into the stream.
**This historical fact relating to the bridge is yet exultantly repeated on the spot, and the number of the Southrons who fell beneath the arms of so small a band of Scots, is not less the theme of triumph.-( 1809.) The cries of the maimed and the drowning were joined by the terrific slogan of two bands of Scots.

The one with Wallace toward the head of the river, while the other, under the command of Sir John Graham, rushed from its ambuscade on the opposite bank upon the rear of the dismayed troops; and both divisions sweeping all before them, drove those who fought on land into the river, and those who had just escaped the flood, to meet its waves again, a bleeding host.
In the midst of this conflict, which rather seemed a carnage than a battle, Kirkpatrick, having heard the proud shouts of Cressingham on the bridge, now sought him amidst its shattered timbers.

With the ferocity of a tiger hunting its prey, he ran from man to man, and as the struggling wretches emerged from the water, he plucked them from the surge; but even while his glaring eye-balls and uplifted ax threatened destruction, he only looked on them; and with imprecations of disapointment, rushed forward on his chase.

Almost in despair that the waves had cheated his revenge, he was hurrying on in another direction, when he perceived a body moving through a hollow on his right.

He turned, and saw the object of his search crawling amongst the mud and sedges.
"Ha!" cried Kirkpatrick, with a triumphant yell, "art thou yet mine?
Damned, damned villain!" cried he, springing upon his breast: "Behold the man you dishonored!-behold the hot cheek your dastard hand defiled! Thy blood shall obliterate the stain; and then Kirkpatrick may again front the proudest in Scotland!" "For mercy!" cried the horror-struck Cressingham, struggling with preternatural strength to extricate himself.
"Hell would be my portion did I grant any to thee," cried Kirkpatrick; and with one stroke of the ax he severed the head from its body.