life, for Douglas fell, overpowered by his enemies; and three of his knights, and many of his companions, were slain along with their master.  On the succeeding day, the body and the casket were both found on the field, and by his surviving friends conveyed to Scotland.  The heart of Bruce was deposited at Melrose, and the body of the ’Good Sir James’—­the name by which he is affectionately remembered by his countrymen—­was consigned to the cemetery of his fathers in the parish church of Douglas.”

A nobler death on the field of battle is not recorded in the annals of chivalry.  In memory of this expedition, the Douglases have ever since carried the armorial bearings of the Bloody Heart surmounted by the Crown; and a similar distinction is borne by another family.  Sir Simon of Lee, a distinguished companion of Douglas, was the person on whom, after the fall of his leader, the custody of the heart devolved.  Hence the name of Lockhart, and their effigy, the Heart within a Fetterlock.

THE HEART OF THE BRUCE

  It was upon an April morn,
    While yet the frost lay hoar,
  We heard Lord James’s bugle-horn
    Sound by the rocky shore.

  Then down we went, a hundred knights,
    All in our dark array,
  And flung our armour in the ships
    That rode within the bay.

  We spoke not as the shore grew less,
    But gazed in silence back,
  Where the long billows swept away
    The foam behind our track.

  And aye the purple hues decay’d
    Upon the fading hill,
  And but one heart in all that ship
    Was tranquil, cold, and still.

  The good Lord Douglas walk’d the deck,
    And oh, his brow was wan! 
  Unlike the flush it used to wear
    When in the battle van.—­

  “Come hither, come hither, my trusty knight,
    Sir Simon of the Lee;
  There is a freit lies near my soul
    I fain would tell to thee.

  “Thou know’st the words King Robert spoke
    Upon his dying day,
  How he bade me take his noble heart
    And carry it far away;

  “And lay it in the holy soil
    Where once the Saviour trod,
  Since he might not bear the blessed Cross,
    Nor strike one blow for God.

  “Last night as in my bed I lay,
    I dream’d a dreary dream:—­
  Methought I saw a Pilgrim stand
    In the moonlight’s quivering beam.

  “His robe was of the azure dye,
    Snow-white his scatter’d hairs,
  And even such a cross he bore
    As good Saint Andrew bears.

  “‘Why go you forth, Lord James,’ he said,
    ’With spear and belted brand? 
  Why do you take its dearest pledge
    From this our Scottish land?

  “’The sultry breeze of Galilee
    Creeps through its groves of palm,
  The olives on the Holy Mount
    Stand glittering in the calm.