Swiss victory for ever freed a people from a grasping foreign tyrant;
and it is a matter of rejoicing to all who love liberty till to-day,
and, like other great events, it is the subject of national traditions.

53. According to one of these, a young native of Friburg, who had been
engaged in the battle, keenly desirous of being the first to carry
home tidings of the victory, ran the whole way--a distance of ten or
twelve miles--and with such overhaste that on his arrival at the
market-place he dropped with fatigue, and, barely able to shout that
the Swiss were victorious, immediately expired. A twig of lime-tree,
which he carried in his hand, was planted on the spot in commemoration
of this event; and till the present day are seen, in the market-place
of Friburg, the aged and propped-up remains of the venerable tree
which grew from this twig. In most of the towns of Switzerland a "tree
of Liberty" is preserved, which came from scions of the original tree
at Friburg.




CHAPTER IV.

_BRUCE AND BANNOCKBURN._

1. Six hundred years ago the duty of defending freedom fell to King
Robert Bruce and the Scotch. And this is how it happened. The time was
during the crusades, when all Europe was marching to the East, and
engaging in battle with the Moslems. Scotland had been an independent
country for many years, but some of her princes were too weak for
those troublous times. The witches that deceived Macbeth seem to have