imed with a loud voice, 'Now pass
onward as thou wert wont, and Douglas will follow thee or die!' The
action and the sentiment were heroic, and they were the last words and
deed of a heroic 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 quive