The absence of scars from his countenance is more than once remarked upon by Harry:
His face he kepyt, for it was euir bar,
With his twa handis, the quhilk full worthi war.
In retreat he was as terrible as in attack:
Sic a flear befor was neuir seyn;
Nocht at Gadderis, off Gawdyfer the keyn,
Quhen Alexander reskewed the foryouris,
Mycht till him be comperd in that houris.
My friend Mr. Brown has essayed to trace the sources of the Wallace portrait given by Harry, and has concluded[1] that it came from the alliterative Troy Book.[2] The main things, however, are not from that work: they are from Barbour's Bruce. Barbour describes James of Douglas:
Bot off lymmys he wes weill maid,
With banys gret and schuldrys braid.
·······Quhen he wes blyth he wes lufly,
And meyk and sweyt in cumpany;
Bot quha in battaill mycht him se,
All other countenance had he.
·······Till gud Ector of Troy mycht he
In mony thingis liknyt be (Bruce, i. 385–96).
As for his wounds, there is no doubt whatever that Harry's Wallace got them from James of Douglas. The episode in Spain is familiar how, meeting Douglas there, a knight, bearing a countenance all rueful with scars, wondered at Douglas's freedom from such:
He wend his face had wemmyd beyne
Bot nevir ane hurt in it had he (Bruce, xx. 370).
