Know, then, the Bruce's hand is red with the traitor's blood, and yet, fearless and firm in the holy justice of his cause, he calls on his nobles and their vassals for their homage and their aid--he calls on them to awake from their long sleep, and shake off the iron yoke from their necks; to prove that Scotland--the free, the dauntless, the unconquered soil, which once spurned the Roman power, to which all other kingdoms bowed--is free, undaunted, and unconquered still.

He calls aloud, aye, even on ye, wife and son of Comyn of Buchan, to snap the link that binds ye to a traitor's house, and prove--though darkly, basely flows the blood of Macduff in one descendant's veins, that the Earl of Fife refuses homage and allegiance to his sovereign--in ye it rushes free, and bold, and loyal still." "And he shall find it so.

Mother, why do ye not speak?
You, from whose lips my heart first learnt to beat for Scotland my lips to pray that one might come to save her from the yoke of tyranny.

You, who taught me to forget all private feud, to merge all feeling, every claim, in the one great hope of Scotland's freedom.

Now that the time is come, wherefore art thou thus?
Mother, my own noble mother, let me go forth with thy blessing on my path, and ill and woe can come not near me.