This story was about Robert of Scotland who later became King of Scotland because he was so hard working and never ever gave up. Long, long ago, about 700 years ago, Scotland was ruled by the king of England. The people of Scotland did not like this since they wanted to be ruled by their own men. One of them, Robert the Bruce declared himself King of Scotland. King Edward I, the King of England, was not happy and so he sent a big army to fight Robert. They had many battles and King Edward’s army defeated Robert’s army several times.
Poor Robert managed to escape and was living on a cold and lonely small island called. He had hardly any food and he lived in a small hut. It was bitterly cold and Robert was feeling very sad.
Robert was thinking. He had fought so many battles with King Edward and lost them all. A lot of people had died in the battles. He had spent a lot of money on fighting the war. But what was the point. It
seemed like the enemy was too strong. He thought that maybe he should give up and stop fighting. But that made him very sad since he loved his people very much.
As he was thinking…..he suddenly he saw a little movement near the door. It was a little spider. It has strung a silvery thread from a beam above his head and was trying to swing itself across to the next beam so that it could build a web. It failed the first time. So it tried again and failed. It tried again and again.
Watching it Robert felt that he was like the spider, trying again and again to do a very hard job. Silly spider, he thought, what is the use of trying so hard. But the spider did not stop. It tried again and again. It did not give up hope. Robert was interested by this time. And he thought, “If that little spider does not give up hope, maybe I should not give up hope either. I must try more, I must try harder”. Then he thought “if that spider succeeds this time, I will not give up my struggle”. Then he sat up to watch the spiders work. The spider swung itself one last time. It swung wide and pooof – it had crossed the space between the beams and had crossed over to the other beam. Now it had this thin thin bridge which it could use to string a lot of fine threads which together formed a strong web. Robert saw this and smiled. He got up and decided to continue his fight.
He did fight a long time, for eight long years. Robert was finally able to win the war. He became King of Scotland. Robert Bruce was known as 'Good King Robert' and was known as one of Scotland's greatest rulers.
