At last dangers increased so much around the brave King Robert, that he was obliged to separate himself from his queen and her ladies; for the winter was coming on, and it would be impossible for the women to endure this wandering life when the frost and snow should set in.  So Bruce left his queen, with the Countess of Buchan and others, in the only castle which remained to him, which was called Kildrummie.  The king also left his youngest brother, Nigel Bruce, to defend the castle against the English; and he himself, with his second brother Edward, who was a very brave man, but still more rash and passionate than Robert himself, went over to an island on the coast of Ireland, where Bruce and the few men who followed his fortunes passed the winter of 1306.  In the meantime, ill luck seemed to pursue all his friends in Scotland.  The castle of Kildrummie was taken by the English, and Nigel Bruce, a beautiful and brave youth, was cruelly put to death by the victors.  The ladies who had attended on Robert’s queen, as well as the queen herself, and the Countess of Buchan, were thrown into strict confinement, and treated with the utmost severity.

It was about this time that an incident took place, which, although it rests only on tradition in families of the name of Bruce, is rendered probable by the manners of the times.  After receiving the last unpleasing intelligence from Scotland, Bruce was lying one morning on his wretched bed, and deliberating with himself whether he had not better resign all thoughts of again attempting to make good his right to the Scottish crown, and, dismissing his followers, transport himself and his brothers to the Holy Land, and spend the rest of his life in fighting against the Saracens; by which he thought, perhaps, he might deserve the forgiveness of Heaven for the great sin of stabbing Comyn in the church at Dumfries.  But then, on the other hand, he thought it would be both criminal and cowardly to give up his attempts to restore freedom to Scotland while there yet remained the least chance of his being successful in an undertaking, which, rightly considered, was much more his duty than to drive the infidels out of Palestine, though the superstition of his age might think otherwise.

While he was divided between these reflections, and doubtful of what he should do, Bruce was looking upward to the roof of the cabin in which he lay; and his eye was attracted by a spider, which, hanging at the end of a long thread of its own spinning, was endeavoring, as is the fashion of that creature, to swing itself from one beam in the roof to another, for the purpose of fixing the line on which it meant to stretch its web.  The insect made the attempt again and again without success; at length Bruce counted that it had tried to carry its point six times, and been as often unable to do so.  It came into his-head that he had himself fought just six battles against the English and their allies, and that the poor persevering spider