Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1911-05-26
" IF" THAT MADE HISTORY.
One of Them Changed the Fate of
Scotland.
From the San Francisco Bulletin.

not taken heart from the quite perse-
verance of a spider Scotland might
never have won freedom. The man
was Robert the Bruce (known as
Robert Bruce'O. He was the victim
of one of history's worst hard luck
stories. He had dared to strike blow
for his crushed country's liberty. In
punishment he was routed, his COM
rades were slain, his estates were con-
fiscated, his brothers were hanged or
beheaded, his wife was thrown into a
dungeon, his sisters were imprisoned
like wild animals in iron cages. He
himself was fugitive with price on
his head and with hundreds of armed
men hunting him down. The reward
for unsuc cessful patriotism in the four
teenth century was death.
Scotland never had been wholly sub
dued by the English. But it had at
last been forced into a condition of
semiservitude that was little easier for
brave men to bear than actual slavery.
At last, in 1896, William Wallace-a
man of the people-rose to his stricken
fatherland's defence. The Scotch
mobiles stood aloof the purest patriotism.
But the poorer classes focked to his
standard. He won many battles against
England's mighty steel clad armies;
proving to all the world that the well
led peasant could hold his own against
: tho orronro1 rAh1oroo, D,,t h,, IL
force of numbers, the English finally
crushed the gallant little peasant army.
Wallace was seized, was carried to
London in chains, was rushed through a
mock trial and hanged. And once more
Scotland lay helpless under England s
heel.
Then it was that Robert Bruce-a
Scottish Earl whose early life had given
little promise of greatness-c came to his
country's aid. Gathering a band of
patriots about him and having himself
crowned King Of Scotland he sought to
make Roadway against the English.
But he was defeated again and again.
At last his followers were all scattered
or slain, his family executed or lodged
in captivity. He himself was forced to
flee alone into the wilderness.
His hopes were dead. The man-hunt
ragged hot at his heels. Capture meant
death. The best fate he could hope for
was to slip through the line of his pur-
suers and escape to some foreign land;
there to end his days in lonely exile
In his wretched flight, Bruce paused
for an hours rest in deserted tumble
down cave hut. There he crouched in a
dark corner, listening for the approach
ing footsteps of his foes. AS he lay
there, his eyes fell upon a spider that
was swinging from the ceiling at the
end of its gossamer web. The tiny in
sect was evidently trying to make the
: dangling strands swing far enough to
one side to touch the wall, so that a
complete web might be woven between
wall and ceiling.
Back and forth swung the spider, try
ing in vain to get up enough momentum
to reach the side of the wall Each time
the effort was failure and the poor lit
tie creature would swing back to the
starting point. There seemed no posi-
BILE chance for it to accomplish the feat
it had set upon. But the spider kept
on, not realizing it was beaten.
And the exhausted fugitive in the
corner Whose greater intelligence told
him he himself was beaten past all
hope) found himself watching the
spiders effort with the morbid interest
that one failure so often feels for an
other.
In moments of great stress peoples
minds somtimes center about petty
things. And so it was that Robert
Bruce for the moment forgot his own
peril and misery inswatching an insects
struggle to spin web.
Six times the spider swung furiously
toward the wall. Six times it fell back.
An odd idea came into Bruce's mind.
Stirred by the tiny spinner's pluck, he
suddenly resolved that if the spider
should succeed on the seventh attempt
he would accept the success asa good
omen to himself, and would continue
the hopeless struggle for Scottish
liberty.
A seventh time the spider swung
across space. This time it reached the
wall and clung there triumphant. 1t
was the age Of superstitions and omens.
Bruce accepted the spiders victory as a
sign. He went forth, rallied his sur
viving comrades and took up the fight
once more.
And now, as though the omen of the
spider had really been true message
to him, Bruce was as successful as once
he had been unlucky. Castle after