The Scottish Chiefs Part 63

"Go on!" cried he; "hide neither word nor circ.u.mstance, that my vengeance may lose nothing of its aim!"

She proceeded:

"Her majesty then talked of his beautiful eyes; so blue, she said, so tender, yet proud in their looks; and only a minstrel! 'De Pontoise,'

added she, 'can you explain that?' I being rather, perhaps, too well learned in the idle tales of our troubadours, heedlessly answered: 'Perhaps he is some king in disguise, just come to look at your majesty's charms, and go away again!' She laughed much at this conceit; said he must be one of Pharaoh's race then, and that had he not such white teeth, his complexion would be intolerable. Being pleased to see her majesty in such spirits, and thinking no ill, I sportively answered, 'I read once of a certain Spanish lover, who went to the court of Tunis to carry off the king's daughter; and he had so black a face, that none suspected him to be other than the Moorish Prince of Granada; when lo! one day in a pleasure-party on the sea, he fell overboard, and came up with the fairest face in the world, and presently acknowledged himself to be the Christian King of Castile.'

The queen laughed at this story, but not answering me, went to bed.

Next morning, when I entered her chamber, she received me with even more gayety, and putting aside my coiffure, said, 'Let me see if I can find the devil's mark here!' 'What do you mean?' I asked, 'does your majesty take me for a witch?' 'Exactly so,' she replied; 'for a little sprite told me last night that all you told me was true.' And then she began to tell me with many smiles, that she had dreamed the minstrel was the very Prince of Portugal, whom, unseen, she had refused for the King of England; and that he gave her a harp set with jewels. She then went to your majesty, and I saw no more of her till she sent for me late in the evening. She seemed very angry. 'You are faithful,' said she to me, 'and you know me. De Pontoise; you know me too proud to degrade myself, and too highminded to submit to tyranny. The Countess of Gloucester, with persuasions too like commands, will not allow me to see the minstrel any more.' She then declared her determination that she would see him; that she would feign herself sick, and he should come and sing to her when she was alone; and that she was sure he was too modest to presume on her condescension. I said something to dissuade her, but she overruled me; and, shame to myself, I consented to a.s.sist her. She embraced me, and gave me a letter to convey to him, which I did, by slipping it beneath the ornaments of the handle of her lute, which I sent as an excuse for the minstrel to tune. It was to acquaint him with her intentions, and this night he was to have visited her apartment!"

During this recital the king sat with compressed lips listening, but with a countenance proclaiming the collecting tempest within--changing to livid paleness or portentous fire, at almost every sentence. On mentioning the letter, he clinched his hand, as if then he grasped the thunderbolt. The lords immediately apprehended that this was the letter which Soulis found.

"And is this all you know of the affair?" inquired Percy, seeing that she made a pause. "And enough, too?" cried Soulis, "to blast the most vaunted chast.i.ty in Christendom."

"Take the woman hence," cried the king, in a burst of wrath, that gave his voice a preternatural force, which yet resounded from the vaulted roof, while he added--"Never let me see her traitor face again!" The baroness withdrew in terror; and Edward, calling Sir Piers Gaveston, commanded him to place himself at the head of a double guard, and go in person to bring the object of his officious introduction to meet the punishment due to his crime. "For," cried the king, "be he prince or peasant, I will see him hanged before my eyes, and then return his wanton paramour, branded with infamy, to her disgraced family!"

Soulis now suggested that, as the delinquent was to be found with Bruce, most likely that young n.o.bleman was privy to his designs. "We shall see to him hereafter," replied the king; "meanwhile, look that I am obeyed."

The moment this order pa.s.sed the king's lips, Gloucester, now not doubting the queen's guilt, hastened to warn Bruce of what had occurred, that he might separate himself from the crime of a man who appeared to have been under his protection. But when he found that the accused was no other than the universally feared, universally beloved, and generous Wallace, all other considerations were lost in the desire of delivering him from the impending danger. He knew the means, and he did not hesitate to employ them.

During the recital of this narrative, Gloucester narrowly observed the auditor, and the ingenuous bursts of his indignation, and the horror he evinced at the crime he was suspected of having committed, the earl, while more fully convinced of his innocence, easily conceived how the queen's sentiments for him might have gone no further than a childish admiration, very pardonable in a guileless creature hardly more than sixteen.

"See," cried Wallace, "the power which lies with the describer of actions! The chaste mind of your countess saw nothing in the conduct of the queen but thoughtless simplicity. The contaminated heart of the Baroness de Pontoise descried pa.s.sion in every word, wantonness in every movement; and, judging of her mistress by herself, she has wrought this mighty ruin. How, then, does it behove virtue to admit the virtuous only to her intimacy: a.s.sociation with the vicious makes her to be seen in their colors! Impress your king with this self-evident conclusion; and were it not for endangering the safety of Bruce, the hope of my country, I myself would return and stake my life on proving the innocence of the Queen of England. But if a letter, with my word of honor, could convince the king--"

"I accept the offer," interrupted Gloucester, "I am too warmly the friend of Bruce--too truly grateful to you--to betray either into danger; but from Sunderland, whither I recommend you to go, and there embark for France, write the declaration you mention, and inclose it to me. I can contrive that the king shall have your letter without suspecting by what channel; and then, I trust, all will be well."

During this discourse, they pa.s.sed on through the vaulted pa.s.sage, till, arriving at a wooden crucifix which marked the boundary of the domain of Durham, Gloucester stopped.

"I must not go further. Should I prolong my stay from the castle during the search for you, suspicion may be awakened. You must therefore proceed alone. Go straight forward, and at the extremity of the vault you will find a flag stone, surmounted like the one by which we descended; raise it, and it will let you into the cemetery of the Abbey of Fincklay. One end of that burying-place is always open to the east. Thence you will emerge to the open world; and may it in future, n.o.ble Wallace, ever treat you according to your unequaled merits.

Farewell!"

The earl turned to retrace his steps, and Wallace pursued his way through the rayless darkness toward the Fincklay extremity of the vault.

Chapter LX.

Gallic Seas.

Wallace having issued from his subterranean journey, made direct to Sunderland, where he arrived about sunrise. A vessel belonging to France (which, since the marriage of Margaret with Edward, had been in amity with England as well as Scotland) rode there, waiting a favorable wind. Wallace secured a pa.s.sage in her; and, going on board, wrote his promised letter to Edward. It ran thus:

"This testament is to a.s.sure Edward, King of England, upon the word of a knight, that Queen Margaret, his wife, is in every respect guiltless of the crimes alleged against her by the Lord Soulis, and sworn to by the Baroness de Pontoise. I came to the court of Durham on an errand connected with my country; and that I might be unknown, I a.s.sumed the disguise of a minstrel. By accident I encountered Sir Piers Gaveston, and, ignorant that I was other than I seemed, he introduced me at the royal banquet. It was there I first saw her majesty. And I never had that honor but three times; and the third and last in her apartments, to which your majesty's self saw me withdraw. The Countess of Gloucester was present the whole time, and to her highness I appeal.

The queen saw in me only a minstrel; on my art alone as a musician was her favor bestowed; and by expressing it with an ingenuous warmth which none other than an innocent heart would have dared to display, she has thus exposed herself to the animadversions of libertinism, and to the false representations of a terror-struck, because worthless, friend.

"I have escaped the snare which the queen's enemies laid for me; and for her sake, for the sake of truth, and your own peace, King Edward, I declare before the Searcher of all hearts, and before the world, in whose esteem I hope to live and die--that your wife is innocent! And should I ever meet the man, who, after this declaration, dares to unite her name with mine in a tale of infamy--by the power of truth, I swear that I will make him write a recantation with his blood. Pure as a virgin's chast.i.ty is, and shall ever be, the honor of William Wallace."

This letter was inclosed in one to the Earl of Gloucester, and having dispatched his packet to Durham, the Scottish chief gladly saw a brisk wind blow up from the north-west. The ship weighed anchor, cleared the harbor, and, under a fair sky, swiftly cut the waves toward the Gallic sh.o.r.es. But ere she reached them, the warlike star of Wallace directed to his little bark the terrific sails of the Red Reaver, a formidable pirate who then infested the Gallic seas, swept their commerce, and insulted their navy. He attacked the French vessel, but it carried a greater than Caesar and his fortunes; Wallace and his destiny were there, and the enemy struck to the Scottish chief. The Red Reaver (so surnamed because of his red sails and sanguinary deeds) was killed in the action; but his younger brother, Thomas de Longueville, was found alive with in the captive ship, and a yet greater prize! Prince Louis, of France, who having been out the day before on a sailing-party, had been descried, and seized as an invaluable booty by the Red Reaver.

Adverse winds for some time prevented Wallace from reaching port with his capture; but on the fourth day after the victory, he cast anchor in the harbor of Havre. The indisposition of the prince from a wound he had received in his own conflict with the Reaver, made it necessary to apprise King Philip of the accident. In answer to Wallace's dispatches on this subject, the grateful monarch added to the proffers of personal friendship, which had been the substance of his majesty's emba.s.sy to Scotland, a pressing invitation that the Scottish chief would accompany the prince to Paris, and there receive a public mark of royal grat.i.tude, which, with due honor, should record this service done to France to future ages. Meanwhile Philip sent the chief a suit of armor, with a request that he would wear it in remembrance of France and his own heroism. But nothing could tempt Wallace to turn aside from his duty. Impatient to pursue his journey toward the spot where he hoped to meet Bruce, he wrote a respectful excuse to the king; but arraying himself in the monarch's martial present (to a.s.sure his majesty by the evidence of his son that his royal wish had been so far obeyed), he went to the prince to bid him farewell. Louis was preparing for their departure, all three together, with young De Longueville (whose pardon Wallace had obtained from the king on account of the youth's abhorrence of the service which his brother had compelled him to adopt), and the two young men, from different feelings, expressed their disappointment when they found that their benefactor was going to leave them. Wallace gave his highness a packet for the king, containing a brief statement of his vow to Lord Mar, and a promise, that when he had fulfilled it, Philip should see him at Paris. The royal cavalcade then separated from the deliverer of its prince; and Wallace, mounting a richly-barbed Arabian, which had accompanied his splendid armor, took the road to Rouen.

Meanwhile, events not less momentous took place at Durham. The instant Wallace had followed the Earl of Gloucester from the apartment in the castle, it was entered by Sir Piers Gaveston. He demanded the minstrel. Bruce replied, he knew not where he was. Gaveston, eager to convince the king that he was no accomplice with the suspected person, put the question a second time, and in a tone which he meant should intimidate the Scottish prince--"Where is the minstrel?"

"I know not," replied Bruce.

"And will you dare to tell me, earl," asked his interrogator, "that within this quarter of an hour he has not been in this tower?--nay, in this very room? The guards in your antechamber have told me that he was; and can Lord Carrick stoop to utter a falsehood to screen an wandering beggar?"

While he was speaking, Bruce stood eying him with increasing scorn.

Gaveston paused.

"You expect me to answer you!" said the prince. "Out of respect to myself I will, for such is the unsullied honor of Robert Bruce, that even the air shall not be tainted with slander against his truth, without being repurified by its confutation. Gaveston, you have known me five years; two of them we pa.s.sed together in the jousts of Flanders, and yet you believe me capable of falsehood! Know then, unworthy of the esteem I have bestowed on you, that neither to save mean or great, would I deviate from the strict line of truth. The man you seek may have been in this tower, in this room, as you present are, and as little am I bound to know where he now is, as whither you go when you relieve me from an inquisition which I hold myself accountable to no man to answer."

"'Tis well," cried Gaveston; "and I am to carry this haughty message to the king?"

"If you deliver it as a message," answered Bruce, "you will prove that they who are ready to suspect falsehood, find its utterance easy. My reply is to you. When King Edward speaks to me, I shall find the answer that is due to him."

"These attempts to provoke me into a private quarrel," cried Gaveston, "will not succeed. I am not to be so foiled in my duty. I must seek the man through your apartments."

"By whose authority?" demanded Bruce.

"By my own, as the loyal subject of my outraged monarch. He bade me bring the traitor before him; and thus I obey."

While speaking, Gaveston beckoned to his attendants to follow him to the door whence Wallace had disappeared. Bruce threw himself before it.

"I must forget the duty I owe to myself, before I allow you, or any other man, to invade my privacy. I have already given you the answer that becomes Robert Bruce; and in respect to your knighthood, instead of compelling I request you to withdraw."

Gaveston hesitated; but he knew the determined character of his opponent, and therefore, with no very good grace, muttering that he should hear of it from a more powerful quarter, he left the room.

And certainly his threats were not in this instance vain; for prompt was the arrival of a marshal and his officers to force Bruce before the king.

"Robert Bruce, Earl of Cleveland, Carrick and Annandale, I come to summon you into the presence of your liege lord, Edward of England."

"The Earl of Cleveland obeys," replied Bruce; and, with a fearless step, he walked out before the marshal.

When he entered the presence-chamber, Sir Piers Gaveston stood beside the royal couch, as if prepared to be his accuser. The king sat supported by pillows, paler with the mortifications of jealousy and baffled authority than from the effects of his wounds.

"Robert Bruce!" cried he, the moment his eyes fell on him; but the sight of his mourning habit made a stroke upon his heart that sent out evidence of remorse in large globules on his forehead; he paused, wiped his face with his handkerchief, and resumed: "Are you not afraid, presumptuous young man, thus to provoke your sovereign? Are you not afraid that I shall make that audacious head answer for the man whom you thus dare to screen from my just revenge?"

Bruce felt all the injuries he had suffered from this proud king rush at once upon his memory; and, without changing his position or lowering the lofty expression of his looks, he firmly answered: "The judgment of a just king I cannot fear; the sentence of an unjust one I despise."

"This to his majesty's face!" exclaimed Soulis.

"Insolence--rebellion--chastis.e.m.e.nt--even death!" were the words which murmured round the room at the honest reply.

Edward had too much good sense to echo any one of them; but turning to Bruce, with a sensation of shame he would gladly have repressed, he said that, in consideration of his youth, he would pardon him what had pa.s.sed, and reinstate him in all the late Earl of Carrick's honors, if he would immediately declare where he had hidden the offending minstrel.

"I have not hidden him," cried Bruce; "nor do I know where he is; but had that been confided to me, as I know him to be an innocent man, no power on earth should have wrenched him from me!"

"Self-sufficient boy!" exclaimed Earl Buchan, with a laugh of contempt; "do you flatter yourself that he would trust such a novice as you are with secrets of this nature?"