The Scottish Chiefs Part 79

At these words, a peal of thunder burst on his ear, and seemed to roll over his tent, till, pa.s.sing off toward the west, it died away in long and solemn reverberation. Wallace rose from his knee, on which he had sunk at this awful response to his Heaven-directed adjuration. "Thou callest me, my Father!" cried he, with a holy confidence dilating his soul. "I go from the world to Thee! I come, and before Thy altars know no human weakness."

In a paroxysm of sacred enthusiasm he rushed from the tent, and, reckless whither he went, struck into the depths of Roslyn woods. With the steps of the wind he pierced their remotest thickets. He reached their boundary--it was traversed by a rapid stream, but that did not stop his course; he sprung over it, and, ascending its moonlight bank, was startled by the sound of his name. Grimsby, attended by a youth, stood before him. The veteran expressed amazement at meeting his master alone at this hour, unhelmeted and unarmed, and in so dangerous a direction. "The road," said he, "between this and Stirling is beset with your enemies." Instead of noticing this information, Wallace inquired what news he brought from Huntingtower. "The worst," said he.

"By this time the royal Bruce is no more!" Wallace gasped convulsively, and fell against a tree. Grimsby paused. In a few minutes the heart-struck chief was able to speak. "Listen not to my groans for unhappy Scotland!" cried he; "show me all that is in this last vial of wrath."

Grimsby informed him that Bruce being so far recovered as to have left his sick chamber for the family apartment, while he was sitting with the ladies, a letter was brought to Lady Helen. She opened it, read a few lines, and fell senseless into the arms of her sister. Bruce s.n.a.t.c.hed the packet, but not a word did he speak till he had perused it to the end. It was from the Countess Strathearn, written in the triumph of revenge, cruelly exulting in what she termed the demonstration of Wallace's guilt; congratulating herself on having been the primary means of discovering it, and boasting that his once adored Scotland now held him in such detestation as to have doomed him to die.

It was this denunciation which had struck to the soul of Helen; and while the anxious Lady Ruthven removed her inanimate form into another room, Bruce read the barbarous triumphs of this disappointed woman.

"No power on earth can save him now," continued she; "your doting heart must yield him, Helen, to another rest than your bridal chamber. His iron breast has met with others as adamantine as his own. A hypcrite!

he feels not pity; he knows no beat of human sympathies; and like a rock, he falls, unpitied, undeplored--undeplored by all but you, lost, self-deluded girl! My n.o.ble lord, the princely De Warenne, informs me that William Wallace would be burned as a double traitor in England, and a price is now set upon his head in Scotland! hence, there is safety for him no more. Those his base-born heart has outraged shall be avenged; and his cries for mercy, who will answer? No voice on earth! None dare support the man whom friends and enemies abandon to destruction!"

"Yes," cried Bruce, starting from his seat, "I will support him, thou d.a.m.ned traitress! Bruce will declare himself! Bruce will throw himself before his friend, and in his breast receive every arrow meant for that G.o.dlike heart! Yes," cried he, glancing on the terrified looks of Isabella, who believed that his delirium was returned. "I would s.n.a.t.c.h him in these arms, from their murderous flames, did all the fiends of h.e.l.l guard their infernal fire!" Not a word more did he utter, but darting from the apartment, was soon seen before the barbican-gate, armed from head to foot. Grimsby stood there, to whom he called to bring him a horse, "for that the Light of Scotland was in danger." Grimsby, who understood by that term, his beloved master was in peril, instantly obeyed; and Bruce, as instantly mourning, struck his rowels into the horse, and was out of sight ere Grimsby could reach his stirrup to follow.

But that faithful soldier speeded after him like the win, and came in view of Bruce just as he was leaping a chasm in the mountain path. The horse struck his heel against a loose stone, and it giving way, he fell headlong into the deep ravine. At the moment of his disappearance, Grimsby rushed toward the spot, and saw the animal struggling in the agonies of death at the bottom. Bruce lay insensible, amongst some bushes which grew nearer the top. With difficulty the honest Englishman got him dragged to the surface of the hill; and finding all attempts to recover him ineffectual, he laid him on his own beast, and so carried him slowly back to the castle. The a.s.siduities of the sage of Ercildown restored him to life, but not to recollection. "The fever returned on him, with a delirium, so hopeless of recovery," continued Grimsby, "that the Lady Helen, who again seems like an inspired angel amongst us, has sent me with this youth to implore you to come to Huntingtower, and there embattle yourself against your own and your prince's enemies."

"Send me," cried Walter Hay, grasping Wallace's hand, "send me back to Lady Helen, and let me tell her that our benefactor, the best guardian of our country, will not abandon us! Should you depart, Scotland's genius will go with you! again she must sink, again she will be in ruins. De Valence will regain possession of my dear lady, and you will not be near to save her."

"Grimsby, Walter, my friends!" cried Wallace, in an agitated voice, "I do not abandon Scotland; she drives me from her. Would she have allowed me, I would have borne her in my arms until my latest gasp; but it must not be so. I resign her into the Almighty hands, to which I commit myself; they will also preserve the Lady Helen from violence. I cannot forego my trust, for the Bruce also! If he live, he will protect her for my sake; and should he died, Bothwell and Ruthven will cherish her for their own."

"But you will return with us to Huntingtower," cried Grimsby.

"Disguised in these peasant's garments, which we have brought for the purpose, you may pa.s.s through the legions of the regent with perfect security."

"Let me implore you, if not for your own sake, for ours! Pity our desolation, and save yourself for them who can know no safety when you are gone!"

Walter clung to his arm while uttering this supplication. Wallace looked tenderly upon him.

"I would save myself; and I will, please G.o.d," said he; "but by no means unworthy of myself. I go, but not under any disguise. Openly have I defended Scotland, and openly will I pa.s.s through her lands.

The chalice of Heaven consecrated me the champion of my country, and no Scot dare lift a hostile hand against this anointed head."

The soul of Wallace swelled high, but devoutly, while uttering this.

"Whither you go," cried Grimsby, "let me follow you, in joy or in sorrow!"

"And me, too, my benefactor!" rejoined Walter, "and when you look on us, think not that Scotland is altogether ungrateful!"

"My faithful friend," returned he, "whither I go, I must go alone. And as a proof of your love, grant me your obedience this once. Rest amongst these thickets till morning. At sunrise, repair to our camp; there you will know my destination. But till Bruce proclaims himself at the head of the country's armies, for my sake never reveal to mortal man, that he who lies debilitated by sickness at Huntingtower, is other than Sir Thomas de Longueville."

"Rest we cannot," replied Grimsby; "but still we will obey our master.

You command me to adhere to Bruce; to serve him till the hour of his death! I will--but should he die, then I may seek you, and be again your faithful servant?"

"You will find me before the cross of Christ," returned Wallace, "with saints my fellow-soldiers, and G.o.d my only King! Till then, Grimsby, farewell. Walter, carry my fidelity to your mistress. She will share my thoughts, with the Blessed Virgin of Heaven, for in all my prayers shall her name be remembered."

Grimsby and Walter, struck by the holy solemnity of his manner, fell on their knees before him. Wallace raised his hands:

"Bless, O Father of Light!" cried he, "bless this unhappy land, when Wallace is no more; let his memory be lost in the virtues and prosperity of Robert Bruce!"

Grimsby sunk on the earth, and gave way to a burst of manly sorrow.

Walter hid his weeping face in the folds of his master's mantle, which had fallen from his shoulders to the ground. Lost in grief, no thought seemed to exist in the young man's heart but the resolution to live only for his persecuted benefactor; and to express this vow with all the energy of determined devotedness, he looked up to seek the face of Wallace--but Wallace had disappeared; and all that remained, to the breaking hearts of his faithful servants, was the tartan plaid which they had clasped in their arms.

Chapter LXXIX.

Lumloch.

Wallace, having turned abruptly away from his lamenting servants, struck into the deep defiles of the Pentland Hills. They pointed to different tracks. Aware that the determined affection of some of his friends might urge them to dare the perils attendant on his fellowship, he hesitated a moment which path to take. Certainly not toward Huntingtower, to bring immediate destruction on its royal inhabitant.

Nor to any chieftain of the Highlands, to give rise to a spirit of civil warfare. Neither would he pursue the eastern track; for in that direction, as pointing to France, his friends would most likely seek him. He therefore turned his steps toward the ports of Ayr. The road was circuitous; but it would soon enough take him from the land of his fathers--from the country he must never see again!

As morning dispelled the shades of night, it discovered still more dreary glooms. A heavy mist hung over the hills, and rolled before him along the valley. Still he pursued his way, although, the day advanced, the vapors collected into thicker blackness, and, floating down the heights, at last burst into a deluge of rain. All around was darkened by the descending water; and the acc.u.mulating floods, dashing from the projecting craigs above, swelled the burn in his path to a roaring river. Wallace stood in the torrent, with its wild waves breaking against his sides. The rain fell on his uncovered head, and the chilling blast sighed in his streaming hair. Looking around him, he paused amidst this tumult of nature. "Must there be strife, even amongst the elements, to show that this is no longer a land for me?

Spirits of these hills," cried he, "pour not thus your rage on a banished man! A man without a friend, without a home." He started and smiled at his own adjuration. "The spirits of Heaven launch not this tempest on a defenseless head; 'tis chance!--but affliction shapes all things to its own likeness. Thou, oh, my Father! would not suffer any demon of the air to bend thy broken reed! Therefore rain on, ye torrents; ye are welcome to William Wallace. He can well breast the mountain's storm, who has stemmed the ingrat.i.tude of his country."

Hills, rivers, and vales were measured by his solitary steps, till entering on the heights of Clydesdale, the broad river of his native glen spread its endeared waters before him. Not a wave pa.s.sed along that had not kissed the feet of some scene consecrated to his memory.

Over the western hills lay the lands of his forefathers. There he had first drawn his breath; there he imbibed from the lips of his revered grandfather, now no more, those lessons of virtue by which he had lived, and for which he was now ready to die. Far to the left stretched the wide domains of Lammington: there his youthful heart first knew the pulse of love: there all nature smiled upon him, for Marion was near, and hope hailed him, from every sunlit mountain's brow. Onward in the depths of the cliffs, lay Ellerslie, the home of his heart, where he had tasted the joys of Paradise; but all there, like that once blessed place, now lay in one wide ruin.

"Shall I visit thee again?" said he, as he hurried along the beetling craigs; "Ellerslie! Ellerslie," cried he; "'tis no hero, no triumphant warrior, that approaches! Receive--shelter thy deserted, widowed master! I come, my Marion, to mourn thee in thine own domains!"

He flew forward; he ascended the cliffs; he rushed down the hazel-crowned pathway--but it was no longer smooth; thistles, and thickly-interwoven underwood, obstructed his steps. Breaking through them all, he turned the angle of the rock--the last screen between him and the view of his once beloved home. On this spot he used to stand on moonlight evenings, watching the graceful form of his Marion, as she pa.s.sed to and fro within her chamber. His eyes now turned instinctively to the point, but it gazed on vacancy. His home had disappeared: one solitary tower alone remained, standing like "a hermit, the last of his race," to mourn over the desolation of all by which it had once been surrounded. Not a human being now moved on the spot which, three years before, was thronged with his grateful va.s.sals.

Not a voice was now heard, where then sounded the harp of Halbert--where breathed the soul-entrancing song of his beloved Marion!

"Death!" cried he, striking his breast, "how many ways hast thou to bereave poor mortality! All, all gone! My Marion sleeps in Bothwell: the faithful Halbert at her feet. And my peasantry of Lanark, how many of you have found untimely graves in the bosom of your vainly rescued country!"

A few steps forward, and he stood on a mound of moldering fragments, heaped over the pavement of what had been the hall.

"My wife's blood marks the stones beneath!" cried he.

He flung himself on the ruins, and a groan burst from his heart. It echoed mournfully from the opposite rock. He started and gazed around.

"Solitude!" cried he, with a faint smile; "naught is here, but Wallace and his sorrow. Marion! I call, and even thou dost not answer me; thou, who didst ever fly at the sound of my voice! Look on me, love!"

exclaimed he, stretching his arms toward the sky; "look on me, and for once, till ever, cheer thy lonely, heart-stricken Wallace!"

Tears choked his further utterance; and once more laying his head upon the stones, he wept in silence, till exhausted natured found repose in sleep.

The sun was gilding the gray summits of the ruined tower under whose shadow he lay, when Wallace slowly opened his eyes; looking around him, he smote his breast, and with a heavy groan sunk back upon the stones.

In the silence which succeeded this burst of memory, he thought he heard a rustling near him, and a half-suppressed sigh. He listened breathless. The sigh was repeated. He gently raised himself on his hand, and with an expectation he dared hardly whisper to himself, turned toward the spot whence the sound proceeded. The branches of a rose-tree that had been planted by his Marion, shook and scattered the leaves of its ungathered flowers upon the brambles which grew beneath.

Wallace rose in agitation. The skirts of a human figure appeared, retreating behind the ruins. He advanced toward it, and beheld Edwin Ruthven. The moment their eyes met, Edwin precipitated himself at his feet, and clinging to him, exclaimed:

"Pardon me this pursuit! But we meet to part no more."

Wallace raised him, and strained him to his breast in silence. Edwin, in hardly articulate accents, continued:

"Some kind power checked your hand when writing to your Edwin. You could not command him not to follow you! you left the letter unfinished, and thus I come to bless you for not condemning me to die of a broken heart!"

"I did not write farewell to thee," cried Wallace, looking mournfully on him, "but I meant it, for I must part from all I love in Scotland.

It is my doom. The country needs me not, and I have need of Heaven. I go into its outcourts at Chartres. Follow me there, dear boy, when thou hast accomplished thy n.o.ble career on earth, and then our gray hairs shall mingle together over the altar of the G.o.d of Peace; but now receive the farewell of thy friend. Return to Bruce, and be to him the dearest representative of William Wallace."

"Never!" cried Edwin; "thou alone art my prince, my friend, my brother, my all in this world! My parents, dear as they are, would have buried my youth in a cloister, but your name called me to honor, and to you, in life or in death, I dedicate my being."

"Then," returned Wallace, "that honor summons you to the side of the dying Bruce. He is now in the midst of his foes."