CHAPTER XVI.
The hardships and dangers attendant on King Robert's progress southward, mingled as they were with the very spirit of romance, are so well known to every reader of Scottish history that they must be excluded from our pages, although a tale of chivalry would seem the very place for their insertion.
The life of no hero, no sovereign, no general, presents us with a parallel to the lone and dreary passage of Loch Lomond.

We hear of an ancient and a modern Hannibal crossing the snowy Alps, but it was at the head of triumphant armies; it was carrying war and victory into an enemy's land, and there was glory in the danger--the glory and pride of successful ambition.

But there was greater and truer heroism in the spirit which struggled on when the broad, deep waters of Loch Lomond lay between them and comparative safety; when 'mid falling snow and howling winds he cheered his drooping and exhausted followers by reading aloud a spirit-stirring romance, to which they listened enwrapt and charmed, little imagining their own situation was one of far greater peril, of more exciting romance than any which the volume so vividly described.

A leaky boat, which scarcely allowed three men to cross in safety, was their only means of conveyance, and a day and night passed ere the two hundred followers of the Bruce assembled on the opposite side.

The cheerful blast of his bugle, which sounded to form them in bands before him on the beach, was answered by one whose unexpected appearance occasioned such joy to the heart of the king, that the exertions both of body and mind of the last few hours were forgotten.