"Well, sirrah, are these rebels still determined to hold out?" said the king.
"There are many murmurs in the town, sire," replied the man; "and were it not, as fame reporteth, that a rich citizen hath given the governor a thousand Flemish nobles, on condition that he marry his daughter, I do believe that not another noble would have been wrung from any one in the whole city."
"And what is the name of this rich citizen?" said Bruce.
"How could it be any other than Peter of Ghent?" said the man, with a smile; "for is he not the richest citizen of Perth?"
"We have heard of this same Peter of Ghent," said Bruce; "and, by our crown, we should not be ill pleased to be present at the wedding of his daughter. We have some French knights here, who would dance merrily, in honour of the fair bride. What is her name?"
"Anne of Ghent she is called," replied the man; "and, by'r lady, she might, for the matter of beauty, be the wife of a king."
"And when is the wedding to be?" rejoined Brace.
"When the governor can declare the town to be safe from the Bruce," replied the man.
"And that will be when the hares in the pass of Ben Cruachan are safe from the wolves of Lorn," replied Bruce, laughing, and looking around to his chiefs. "Now, look around you, sir, at these warriors, and after thou hast made a gauge of their numbers, and learned that every castle we have yet attempted hath fallen before us, go and tell William Oliphant that we intend to be present at his wedding with the fair Anne of Ghent, and cannot think of waiting either for the succours of King Edward, or for our own defeat. Hie thee on our message, sirrah."
The man was accordingly liberated; and Bruce, during that same day, having resolved to perform by stratagem what seemed to be impossible by the fair play of arms, took with him Sir James Douglas, and went to reconnoitre. Great and even marvellous as was the courage of these far-famed assertors of their country's freedom, it may be doubted whether their genius for daring and successful stratagem did not excel the chivalrous spirit of fair-fighting by which they were actuated to perform deeds of arms that have made the whole world ring with their fame. The capture of the peel or castle of Linlithgow, and that of Edinburgh, afterwards performed, were the most cunningly-devised pieces of military stratagem that had ever been witnessed; and the work of old Polyænus on the warlike acts of the strategists of Greece exhibits nothing that can be compared to them. Bruce had already exhibited this talent for scheming, in the affairs of Lindon Hill and Cruachan Ben; but his powers in this respect were yet to be developed on a grander scale, and as it were by gradation, till the final triumph of Bannockburn should establish his fame for ever. The capture of Perth was one of those intermediate and probationary trials that were fitting the great master for that final and glorious display of all his talents for war; but, small as it was in comparison of what followed, it exhibited perhaps as much of his peculiar genius as had yet been shown. Accompanied by Sir James, he went, during the hours of twilight, up to the margin of the fosse.