"My sword springs from its scabbard to meet it; and ere its good steel be sheathed again," continued he, shaking it sternly, "what deaths may dye its point!" Wallace shuddered at the ferocity with which his colleague contemplated this feature of war from which every humane soldier would seek to turn his thoughts, that he might encounter it with the steadiness of a man, and not the irresolution of a woman.

To hail the field of blood with the fierceness of a hatred eager for the slaughter of its victim--to know any joy in combat but that each contest might render another less necessary--did not enter into the imagination of Wallace until he had heard and seen the infuriate Kirkpatrick.

He talked of the coming battle with horrid rapture, and told the young Edwin he should that day see Loch Lomond red with English blood.
Offended at such savageness, but without answering him, Wallace drew toward Murray, and calling to Edwin, ordered him to march at his side.
The youth seemed glad of the summons, and Wallace was pleased to observe it, as he thought that a longer stay with one who so grossly overcharged the feelings of honest patriotism, might breed disgust in his innocent mind against a cause which had so furious and therefore unjust a defender.
"Justice and mercy ever dwell together," said he to Edwin, who now drew near him; "for universal love is the parent of justice, as well as of mercy.

But implacable Revenge! whence did she spring, but from the head of Satan himself ?" Though their cause appeared the same, never were two spirits more discordant than those of Wallace and Kirkpatrick.

But Kirkpatrick did not so soon discover the dissimilarity; as it is easier for purity to descry its opposite, than for foulness to apprehend that anything can be purer than itself.
The forces being marshaled according to the preconcerted order, the three commanders, with Wallace at their head, led forward.
They passed through the forest of Glenfinlass; and morning and evening still found them threading its unsuspected solitudes in unmolested security; night, too, watched their onward march.
The sun had just risen as the little band of patriots, the hope of freedom, emerged upon the eastern bank of Loch Lomond.