e, and they stood one on each side of their
guest, grasping their weapons with fevered zeal.

Then began a fierce and deadly onslaught in that little room, and many a
time it seemed as if the three brave defenders must go down; but
Wallace's arm had the strength of ten, and the old man laid on right
bravely, and the old woman gave many a deadly thrust with her lance from
behind, where she saw it was needed, and so it came to pass that at last
every Englishman was slain, and Wallace and his bold helpers were left
triumphant.

"Now, surely, I can eat in peace," said he, sitting down to his sorely
needed meal, "and then must I begone. For, with thy help, I have done a
work here this day that will raise all the English 'twixt Perth and
Edinburgh. Mayhap, goodman, thou canst get help to throw these bodies
into the river. 'Twill be better for thee that the English find them not
in thy house, for I must up and away."

"That can I," said the old man, "for the good folk of Perth think much
of thee, and very little of the English, therefore will they give me a
hand."[2]

[Footnote 2: Help me.]

So once more Wallace took the road to the North, and as he retraced his
steps across the North Inch, he passed the rosy-cheeked maiden again,
busy at her work. She was laying the clothes out to bleach now, and she
gave him a friendly nod as he approached.

"I hope, fair sir, that thou hast seen the English," she said, "and that
thou hast come by food at the same time?"

"That have I," said Wallace; "thanks to thy gentle charity, I have eaten
and drunk to my heart's content. I have seen the English soldiers too,
and, by my troth, the English soldiers have also seen me. The day that I
visited that little hostler-house is not likely to be forgotten by the
English army."

Then he put his hand in his pocket, and drew out twenty pounds in good
red gold.

"Take that," he said to the astonished damsel, pressing the money into
her hand as he spoke. "Thy half-crown brought me luck, and this is but
thy rightful share of it."

So saying, he took his way quickly towards the hills, leaving the girl
so bewildered, that, had it not been for the money in her hand, she
would have been inclined to think that it was all a dream.

As it was, she never quite believed that it was a human being who had
taken away her silver half-crown, and brought her back twenty gold
pieces, but talked of ghosts, and visions; and some people, when they
heard of