CHAPTER XL.
The Governor's Apartments.
The sun rose on Wallace and his brave legions as they traversed the once romantic glades of Strathmore; but now the scene was changed.

The villages were abandoned, and the land lay around in uncultivated wastes.

Sheep, without a shepherd, fled wild from the approach of man; and wolves issued, howling, from the cloisters of depopulated monasteries.

The army approached Dumblane; but it was without inhabitant; grass grew in the streets; and the birds which roosted in the desert dwellings flew scared from the windows as the trumpet of Wallace sounded through the town.

Loud echoes repeated the summons from its hollow walls; but no other voice was heard, no human face appeared; for the ravening hand of Cressingham had been there! Wallace sighed as he looked around him.