to be done. He rode direct
to Mid-Calder; and, on inquiry at the hostelry, if any such travellers had
been there the day before, found that they had passed through the town,
only stopping to bait their horses, and no particular attention had been
paid to them by the landlord of the house. Here his inquiries necessarily
terminated. In the meantime, Helen and her assistant had been employed
laying out the corpse of the murdered woman, and tending the orphan boy.
Tied by a silken cord, a curious gold ring, of massive workmanship, was
suspended from her neck, and lay resting upon her bosom.

"A true love-gift," ejaculated Helen, "an exchange o' plighted faiths.
Dearly had you loved the giver, for, even in sore distress and death it lay
upon thy bosom. Cruelly has your love been requited; but rest in
peace--your sorrows are past. I will keep this for your babe, and, as soon
as he can speak, I will tell him where I found it. I fear it will be a' I
will ever be able to inform him of either father or mother." She then
placed the ring in her own bosom, until she could shew it to her husband;
renewed her offices to the dead; took the babe in her lap, and, weeping
over it, resolved, as she thought of its desolate state, without a relation
in the world, that, so long as she had life, she would be a parent to
it--for death had been a spoiler in her own family of three sons, all of
whom it had been her misfortune to bury.

The minister arrived again in the evening. They shewed him the ring, and
told where it had been found. He examined it closely; but there were
neither armorial bearings nor cypher upon it, to lead even to a guess of
the person to whom it had belonged--yet the make and chasing were peculiar,
and might lead a person who had once examined it to remember it. The mother
was interred; the babe baptized by the name of William, put out to nurse;
and the usual routine of the cottage once more restored. The boy grew up
under the roof of his kind protectors. To his education the minister paid
particular attention, and was proud of his pupil--for William Wallace, as
he was called, did honour to the labour bestowed upon him. He was quick to
learn, yet his mind was not given to literary pursuits--for he delighted in
feats of strife, and dwelt with rapture on the feats of the warrior. Sir
William Wallace was the hero of his youthful imagination--and he longed to
be of man's stature, only that he might be a soldier. Thus years rolle