saw Bruce thus protecting the retreat of his followers, rushed on the King at once.  Bruce was on horseback, in the strait pass betwixt a precipitous rock and a deep lake.  He struck the first man a blow with his sword, as cut off his hand and freed the bridle.  The man bled to death.  The other brother had meantime grasped Bruce by the leg, and was attempting to throw him from horseback.  The King, setting spurs to his horse, made the animal suddenly spring forward, so that the Highlander fell under the horse’s feet, and, as he was endeavouring to rise again, Bruce cleft his head in two with his sword.  The father, seeing his two sons thus slain, flew desperately at the King, and grasped him by the mantle so close to his body, that he could not have room to wield his long sword.  But with the heavy pummel of that weapon the King struck this third assailant so dreadful a blow, that he dashed out his brains.  Still, however, the Highlander kept his dying grasp on the King’s mantle; so that, to be free of the dead body, Bruce was obliged to undo the brooch, or clasp, by which it was fastened, and leave that, and the mantle itself, behind him.  The brooch, which fell thus into the possession of MacDougal of Lorn, is still preserved in that ancient family as a memorial.

The King met with many such encounters amidst his dangerous and dismal wanderings; yet, though almost always defeated by the superior numbers of the English, and of such Scots as sided with them, he still kept up his own spirits and those of his followers.  He was a better scholar than was usual in those days, when, except clergymen, few people learned to read and write.  But King Robert could do both very well; and we are told that he sometimes read aloud to his companions, to amuse them, when they were crossing the great Highland lakes, in such wretched leaky boats as they could find for that purpose.  Loch Lomond, in particular, is said to have been the scene of such a lecture.  You may see by this, how useful it is to possess knowledge.

At last dangers increased so much around the brave King Robert, that he was obliged to separate himself from his Queen and her ladies.  So Bruce left his Queen, with the Countess of Buchan and others, in the only castle which remained to him, which was called Kildrummie, and is situated near the head of the river Don in Aberdeenshire.  The King also left his brother, Nigel Bruce, to defend the castle against the English; and he himself, with his second brother Edward, who was a very brave man, went over to an island called Rachrin, on the coast of Ireland, where Bruce and the few men who followed his fortunes passed the winter of 1306.  In the meantime 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.