Learn, brave earl, to discriminate between a warrior's glory and his shame; between the defender of his country, and the unprovoked ravager of other lands." Montgomery blushed scarlet at these words; but it was not with resentment.

He looked down for a moment: "Ah!" thought he, "perhaps I ought never to have drawn it here!" Then raising his eyes to Wallace, he said: "Were you not the enemy of my king, who, though a conqueror, sanctions none of the cruelties that have been committed in his name, I would give you my hand, before the remnant of his brave troops, whose lives you grant.

But you have my heart: a heart that knows no difference between friend or foe, when the bonds of virtue would unite what only civil dissensions hold separate." "Had your king possessed the virtues you believe he does," replied Wallace, "my sword might have now been a pruning-hook.

But that is past! We are in arms for injuries received, and to drive out a tyrant.
For believe me, noble Montgomery, that monarch has little pretensions to virtue, who suffers the oppressors of his people, or of his conquests, to go unpunished.

To connive at cruelty, is to practice it.
And has Edward ever frowned on one of those despots, who, in his name, have for these two years past laid Scotland in blood and ashes ?" The appeal was too strong for Montgomery to answer; he felt its truth, and bowed, with an expression in his face that told more than, as a subject of England, he dared declare.
The late respectful silence was turned into the clamorous activity of eager obedience.