In Freedoms Cause | Page 9

remained behind and asked Wallace for the fish he had taken. He
replied that they were welcome to half of them. Not satisfied with this,
they seized the basket and prepared to carry it off. Wallace resisted, and

one of them drew his sword. Wallace seized the staff of his net and
struck his opponent's sword from his hand; this he snatched up and
stood on guard, while the other four rushed upon him. Wallace smote
the first so terrible a blow that his head was cloven from skull to
collarbone; with the next blow he severed the right arm of another, and
then disabled a third. The other two fled, and overtaking the earl, called
on him for help; "for," they said, "three of our number who stayed
behind with us to take some fish from the Scot who was fishing are
killed or disabled."
"How many were your assailants?" asked the earl.
"But the man himself," they answered; "a desperate fellow whom we
could not withstand."
"I have a brave company of followers!" the earl said with scorn. "You
allow one Scot to overmatch five of you! I shall not return to seek for
your adversary; for were I to find him I should respect him too much to
do him harm.''
Fearing that after this adventure he could no longer remain in safety
with his uncle, Wallace left him and took up his abode in Lag Lane
Wood, where his friends joining him, they lived a wild life together,
hunting game and making many expeditions through the country. On
one occasion he entered Ayr in disguise; in the middle of a crowd he
saw some English soldiers, who were boasting that they were superior
to the Scots in strength and feats of arms. One of them, a strong fellow,
was declaring that he could lift a greater weight than any two Scots. He
carried a pole, with which he offered, for a groat, to let any Scotchman
strike him on the back as hard as he pleased, saying that no Scotchman
could strike hard enough to hurt him.
Wallace offered him three groats for a blow. The soldier eagerly
accepted the money, and Wallace struck him so mighty a blow that his
back was broken and he fell dead on the ground. His comrades drew
their swords and rushed at Wallace, who slew two with the pole, and
when it broke drew the long sword which was hidden in his garments,
and cut his way through them.

On another occasion he again had a fracas with the English in Ayr, and
after killing many was taken prisoner. Earl Percy was away, and his
lieutenant did not venture to execute him until his return. A messenger
was sent to the Earl, but returned with strict orders that nothing should
be done to the prisoner until he came back. The bad diet and foul air of
the dungeon suited him so ill, after his free life in the woods, that he
fell ill, and was reduced to so weak a state that he lay like one dead --
the jailer indeed thought that he was so, and he was carried out to be
cast into the prison burial ground, when a woman, who had been his
nurse, begged his body. She had it carried to her house, and then
discovered that life yet remained, and by great care and good nursing
succeeded in restoring him. In order to prevent suspicion that he was
still alive a fictitious funeral was performed. On recovering, Wallace
had other frays with the English, all of which greatly increased his
reputation throughout that part of the country, so that more adherents
came to him, and his band began to be formidable. He gradually
introduced an organization among those who were found to be friendly
to the cause, and by bugle notes taken up and repeated from spot to
spot orders could be despatched over a wide extent of country, by
which the members of his band knew whether to assemble or disperse,
to prepare to attack an enemy, or to retire to their fastnesses.
The first enterprise of real importance performed by the band was an
attack by Wallace and fifty of his associates on a party of soldiers, 200
strong, conveying provisions from Carlisle to the garrison of Ayr. They
were under the command of John Fenwick, the same officer who had
been at the head of the troop by which Wallace's father had been killed.
Fenwick left twenty of his men to defend the wagons, and with the rest
rode forward against the Scots. A stone wall checked their progress,
and the Scotch, taking advantage of the momentary confusion, made a
furious charge upon them with their spears, cutting their way into the
midst