The Scottish Chiefs Part 81

Chapter Lx.x.x.

Huntingtower.

Lord Ruthven was yet musing, in fearful anxiety, on Wallace's solemn adieu, and the confirmation which the recitals of Grimsby and Hay had brought of his determined exile, when he was struck with a new consternation by the flight of his son. A billet, which Edwin had left with Scrymgeour, who guessed not its contents, told his father that he was gone to seek their friend, and to unite himself forever to his fortunes.

Bothwell not less eager to preserve Wallace to the world, with an intent to persuade him to at least abandon his monastic project, set off direct for France, hoping to arrive before his friend, and engage the French monarch to a.s.sist in preventing so grievous a sacrifice.

Ruthven, meanwhile, fearful that the unarmed Wallace and the self-regardless Edwin might fall into the hands of the venal wretches now widely dispersed to seize the chief and his adherents, sent out the veterans, in divers disguises, to pursue the roads it was probable he might take, and finding him, guard him safely to the coast. Till Ruthven should receive accounts of their success, he forbore to forward the letter which Wallace had left for Bruce, or to increase the solicitude of the already anxious inhabitants of Huntingtower with any intimation of what had happened. But on the fourth day, Scrymgeour and his party returned with the horrible narrative of Lumloch.

After the murder of his youthful friend, Wallace had been loaded with irons, and conveyed, so unresistingly that he seemed in a stupor, on board a vessel, to be carried without loss of time to the Tower of London. Sir John Monteith, though he never ventured into his sight, attended as the accuser, who, to put a visor on cruelty, was to swear away his victim's life. The horror and grief of Ruthven at these tidings were unutterable; and Scrymgeour, to turn the tide of the bereaved father's thoughts to the inspiring recollection of the early glory of his son, proceeded to narrate, that he found the beauteous remains in the hovel, but bedecked with flowers by the village girls.

They were weeping over it, and lamenting the pitiless heart which could slay such youth and loveliness. To bury him in so obscure a spot, Scrymgeour would not allow, and he had sent Stephen Ireland with the sacred corpse to Dumbarton, with orders to see him entombed in the chapel of that fortress.

"It is done," continued the worthy knight, "and those towers he so bravely scaled with stand forever the monument of Edwin Ruthven."

"Scrymgeour," said the stricken father, "the shafts fall thick upon us, but we must fulfill our duty."

Cautious of inflicting too heavy a blow on the fort.i.tude of his wife and of Helen, he commanded Grimsby and Hay to withhold from everybody at Huntingtower the tidings of its young lord's fate; but he believed it his duty not to delay the letter of Wallace to Bruce, and the dreadful information to him of Monteith's treachery. Ruthven ended his short epistle to his wife by saying he should soon follow his messenger; but that at present he could not bring himself to entirely abandon the Lowlands to even a temporary empire of the seditious chiefs.

Ruthven ended his short epistle to his wife by saying he should soon follow his messenger; but that at present he could not bring himself to entirely abandon the Lowlands to even a temporary empire of the seditious chiefs.

On Grimsby's arrival at Huntingtower he was conducted immediately to Bruce. Some cheering symptoms having appeared that morning, he had just exchanged his bed for a couch when Grimsby entered the room. The countenance of the honest Southron was the harbinger of his news. Lady Helen started from her seat, and Bruce, stretching out his arms, eagerly caught the packets the soldier presented. Isabella inquired if all were well with Sir William Wallace; but ere he could make an answer, Lady Ruthven ran breathless into the room, holding out the open letter brought by Hay to her. Bruce had just read the first line of his, which announced the captivity of Wallace; and, with a groan that pierced through the souls of every one present, he made an attempt to spring from the couch; but in the act he reeled, and fell back in a fearful but mute mental agony. The apprehensive heart of Helen guessed some direful explanation; she looked with speechless inquiry upon her aunt and Grimsby. Isabella and Ercildown hastened to Bruce; and Lady Ruthven being too much appalled in her own feelings to think for a moment on the aghast Helen, hurriedly read to her from Lord Ruthven's letter the brief but decisive account of Wallace's dangerous situation--his seizure and conveyance to the Tower of England. Helen listened without a word; her heart seemed locked within her; her brain was on fire; and gazing fixedly on the floor while she listened, all else that was transacted around her pa.s.sed unnoticed.

The pangs of a convulsion fit did not long shackle the determined Bruce. The energy of his spirit struggling to gain the side of Wallace in this his extreme need (for he well knew Edward's implacable soul), roused him from his worse than swoon. With his extended arms dashing away the restoratives with which both Isabella and Ercildown hung over him, he would have leaped on the floor had not the latter held him down.

"Withhold me not!" cried he; "this is not the time for sickness and indulgence. My friend is in the fangs of the tyrant, and shall I lie here? No, not for all the empires in the globe will I be detained another hour."

Isabella, affrighted at the furies which raged in his eyes, but yet more terrified at the perils attendant on his desperate resolution, threw herself at his feet, and implored him to stay for her sake.

"No," cried Bruce, "not for thy life, Isabella, which is dearer to me than my own! not to save this ungrateful country from the doom it merits would I linger one moment from the side of him who has fought, bled, and suffered for me and mine, who is now treated with ignominy, and sentenced to die, for my delinquency! Had I consented to proclaim myself on my landing, secure with Bruce the king envy would have feared to strike; but I must first win a fame like his! And while I lay here, they tore him from the vain and impotent Bruce! But, Almighty pardoner of my sins!" cried he, with vehemence, "grant me strength to wrest him from their grip, and I will go barefoot to Palestine, to utter all my grat.i.tude!"

Isabella sunk weeping into the arms of her aunt. And the venerable Ercildown, wishing to curb an impetuosity which could only involve its generous agent in a ruin deeper than that it sought to revenge, with more zeal than judgment, urged to the prince the danger into which such boundless resentment would precipitate his own person. At this intimation the impa.s.sioned Bruce, stung to the soul that such an argument could be expected to have weight with him, solemnly bent his knees, and clasping his sword, vowed before Heaven "either to release Wallace or--" to share his fate! he would have added; but Isabella, watchful of his words, suddenly interrupted him, by throwing herself wildly on his neck, and exclaiming:

"Oh, say not so! Rather swear to pluck the tyrant from his throne; that the scepter of my Bruce may bless England, as it will yet do this unhappy land!"

"She says right!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ercildown, in a prophetic transport; "and the scepter of Bruce, in the hands of his offspring, shall bless the united countries to the latest generations! The walls of separation shall then be thrown down, and England and Scotland be one people."

Bruce looked steadfastly on the sage: "Then if thy voice utter holy verity, it will not again deny my call to wield the power that Heaven bestows! I follow my fate! To-morrow's dawn sees me in the path to s.n.a.t.c.h my best treasure, my counselor, my guide, from the judgment of his enemies--or woe to England, woe to all Scotland born who have breathed one hostile word against his sacred life! Helen dost thou hear me?" cried he: "Wilt thou not a.s.sist me to persuade thy too timid sister that her Bruce's honor, his happiness, lives in the preservation of his friend? Speak to her, counsel her, sweet Helen, and, and, please the Almighty arm of Heaven, I will reward thy tenderness with the return of Wallace!"

Helen gazed intently on him while he spoke. She smiled when he ended, but she did not answer, and there was a wild vacancy in the smile that seemed to say she knew not what had been spoken, and that her thoughts were far away. Without further regarding him or any present, she arose and left the room. At this moment of fearful abstraction, her whole soul was bent with an intensity that touched on madness, on the execution of a project which had rushed into her mind in the moment she heard of Wallace's deathful captivity and destination.

Helen gazed intently on him while he spoke. She smiled when he ended, but she did not answer, and there was a wild vacancy in the smile that seemed to say she knew not what had been spoken, and that her thoughts were far away. Without further regarding him or any present, she arose and left the room. At this moment of fearful abstraction, her whole soul was bent with an intensity that touched on madness, on the execution of a project which had rushed into her mind in the moment she heard of Wallace's deathful captivity and destination.

The approach of night favored her design. Hurrying to her chamber, she dismissed her maids with the prompt excuse that she was ill, and desired not to be disturbed until morning, then bolting the door, she quickly habited herself as the dear memorial of her happy days in France, and dropping from her window into the pleasance beneath, ran swiftly through its woody precincts toward Dundee.

Before she arrived at the suburbs of Ferth, her tender feet became so blistered, she found the necessity of stopping at the first cottage.

But her perturbed spirits rendered it impossible for her to take rest, and she answered the hospitable offer of its humble owner, with a request that he would go into the town and immediately purchase a horse, to carry her that night to Dundee. She put her purse into the man's hand, who without further discussion obeyed. When the animal was brought and the honest Scot returned her the purse with its remaining contents, she divided them with him, and turning from his thanks, mounted the horse, and rode away.

About an hour before dawn, she arrived within view of the ships lying in the harbor at Dundee. At this sight she threw herself off the panting animal, and leaving it to rest and liberty, hastened to the beach. A gentle breeze blew freshly from the northwest, and several vessels were heaving their anchors to get under weigh.

"Are any," demanded she, "bound for the Tower of London?"

"None," were the replies. Despair was now in her heart and gesture.

But suddenly recollecting that in dressing herself for flight she had not taken off the jewels she usually wore, she exclaimed with renovated hope, "Will not gold tempt some one to carry me thither?" A rough Norwegian sailor jumped from the side of the nearest vessel, and readily answered in the affirmative. "My life," rejoined she, "or a necklace of pearls shall be yours, in the moment you land me at the Tower of London." The man seeing the youth and agitation of the seeming boy, doubted his power to perform so magnificent a promise, and was half inclined to retract his a.s.sent; but Helen pointing to a jewel on her finger as a proof that she did not speak of things beyond her read, he no longer hesitated; and pledging his word that wind and tide in his favor, he would land her at the Tower Stairs, she, as if all happiness must meet her at that point, sprung into his vessel. The sails were unfurled, the voices of the men chanted forth their cheering responses on clearing the harbor, and Helen throwing herself along the floor of her little cabin, in that prostration of body and soul, silently breathed her thanks to G.o.d for being indeed launched on the ocean, whose waves she trusted would soon convey her to Wallace; to sooth, to serve--to die, or to compa.s.s the release of him who had sacrificed more than his life for her father's preservation--for him who had saved herself from worse than death.

Chapter Lx.x.xI.

The Thames.

On the evening of the fourteenth day from the one in which Helen had embarked, the little ship of Dundee entered on the bright bosom of the Nore. While she sat on the deck watching the progress of the vessel with an eager spirit, which would gladly have taken wings to have flown to the object of her voyage, she first saw the majestic waters of the Thames. But it was a tyrannous flood to her, and she marked not the diverging sh.o.r.es crowned with palaces; her eyes looked over every stately dome to seek the black summits of the Tower. At a certain point the captain of the vessel spoke through his trumpet to summon a pilot from the land. In a few minutes he was obeyed. The Englishman took the helm. Helen was reclined on a coil of ropes near him. He entered into conversation with the Norwegian, and she listened in speechless attention to a recital which bound up her every sense in that hearing. The captain had made some unprincipled jest on the present troubles of Scotland, now his adopted country from his commercial interests, and he added with a laugh, "that he though any ruler the right one who gave him a free course in traffic." In answer to this remark, and with an observation not very flattering to the Norwegian's estimation of right and wrong, the Englishman mentioned the capture of the once renowned champion of Scotland. Even the enemy who recounted the particulars, showed a truth in the recital which shamed the man who had benefited by the patriotism he affected to despise, and for which Sir William Wallace was now likely to shed his blood.

"I was present," continued the pilot, "when the brave Scot was put on the raft, which carried him through the Traitor's Gate into the Tower.

His hands and feet were bound with iron; but his head, owing to faintness from the wounds he had received at Lumloch, was so bent down on his breast as he reclined on the float, that I could not then see his face. There was a great pause, for none of us, when he did appear in sight, could shout over the downfall of so merciful a conqueror.

Many were spectators of this scene whose lives he had spared on the fields of Scotland; and my brother was amongst them. However, that I might have a distinct view of the man who has so long held our warlike monarch in dread, I went to Westminster Hall on the day appointed for his trial. The great judges of the land, and almost all the lords besides were there, and a very grand spectacle they made. But when the hall-door was opened, and the dauntless prisoner appeared, then it was that I saw true majesty. King Edward on his throne never looked with such a royal air. His very chains seemed given to be graced by him as he moved through the parting crowd with the step of one who had been used to have all his accusers at his feet. Though pale with loss of blood, and his countenance bore traces of the suffering occasioned by the state of his yet unhealed wounds, his head was now erect, and he looked with undisturbed dignity on all around. The Earl of Gloucester, whose life and liberty he had granted at Berwick, sat on the right of the lord chancellor. Bishop Beck, the Lords de Valence and Soulis, with one Monteith (who it seems was the man that betrayed him into our hands), charged him with high treason against the life of King Edward and the peace of his majesty's realms of England and Scotland.

Grievous were the accusations brought against him, and bitter the revilings with which he was denounced as a traitor too mischievous to deserve any show of mercy. The Earl of Gloucester at last rose indignantly, and in energetic and respectful terms, called on Sir William Wallace, by the reverence in which he held the tribunal of future ages, to answer for himself!

"'On this adjuration, brave earl!' replied he, 'I will speak!' O! men of Scotland, what a voice was that! In it was all honesty and n.o.bleness! and a murmur arose from some who feared its power, which Gloucester was obliged to check by exclaiming aloud with a stern voice; 'Silence, while Sir William Wallace answers. He who disobeys, sergeant-at-arms, take into custody!' A pause succeeded, and the chieftain, with G.o.d-like majesty of truth, denied the possibility of being a traitor where he never had owed allegiance. But with a matchless fearlessness, he avowed the facts alleged against him, which told the havoc he had made of the English on the Scottish plains, and the devastations he had afterward wrought in the lands of England. 'It was a son,' cried he, 'defending the orphans of his father from the steel and rapine of a treacherous friend! It was the sword of rest.i.tution gathering on that false friend's fields the harvests he had ravaged from theirs!' He spoke more and n.o.bly--too n.o.bly for them who heard him. They rose to a man to silence what they could not confute; and the sentence of death was p.r.o.nounced on him--the cruel death of a traitor! The Earl of Gloucester turned pale on his seat, but the countenance of Wallace was unmoved. As he was led forth, I followed, and of Wallace was unmoved. As he was led forth, I followed, and saw the young Le de Spencer, with several other reprobate gallants of our court, ready to receive him. With shameful mockery they flew laurels on his head, and with torrents of derision, told him, it was meet they should so salute the champion of Scotland! Wallace glanced on them a look which spoke pity rather than contempt, and, with a serene countenance, he followed the warden toward the Tower. The hirelings of his accusers loaded him with invectives as he pa.s.sed along; but the populace who beheld his n.o.ble mien, with those individuals who had heard of--while many had felt--his generous virtues, deplored and wept his sentence. To-morrow at sunrise he dies."

Helen's face being overshadowed by the low brim of her hat, the agony of her mind could not have been read in her countenance had the good Southron been sufficiently uninterested in his story to regard the sympathy of others; but as soon as he had uttered the last dreadful words, "To-morrow at sunrise he dies!" she started from her seat; her horror-struck senses apprehended nothing further, and turning to the Norwegian, "Captain," cried she, "I must reach the Tower this night!"

"Impossible!" was the reply: "the tide will not take us up till to-morrow at noon."

"Then the waves shall!" cried she, and frantically rushing toward the ship's side, she would have thrown herself into the water, had not the pilot caught her arm.

"Boy!" said he, "are you mad? your action, your looks--"

"No," interrupted she, wringing her hands; "but in the Tower I must be this night, or-- Oh! G.o.d of mercy, end my misery!"

The unutterable anguish of her voice, countenance, and gesture excited a suspicion in the Englishman, that this youth was connected with the Scottish chief; and not choosing to hint his surmise to the unfeeling Norwegian, in a different tone he exhorted Helen to composure, and offered her his own boat, which was then towed at the side of the vessel, to take her to the Tower. Helen grasped the pilot's rough hand, and in a paroxysm of grat.i.tude pressed it to her lips; then forgetful of her engagements with the insensible man who stood unmoved by his side, sprung into the boat. The Norwegian followed her, and in a threatening tone demanded his hire. She now recollected it, and putting her hand into her vest, gave him the string of pearls which had been her necklace. He was satisfied, and the boat pushed off.

The cross, the cherished memorial of her hallowed meeting with Wallace in the chapel of Snawdoun, and which always hung suspended on her bosom, was now in her hand and pressed close to her heart. The rowers plied their oars, and her eyes, with a gaze as if they would pierce the horizon, looked intently onward, while the men labored through the tide. Even to see the walls which contained Wallace, seemed to promise her a degree of comfort she dared hardly hope herself to enjoy. At last the awful battlements of England's state prison rose before her.

She could not mistake them. "That is the Tower," said one of the rowers. A shriek escaped her, and instantly covering her face with her hands, she tried to shut from her sight those very walls she had so long sought amongst the clouds. They imprisoned Wallace! He groaned within their confines! and their presence paralyzed her heart.

"Shall I die before I reach thee, Wallace?" was the question her almost flitting soul uttered, as she, trembling, yet with swift steps, ascended the stone stairs which led from the water's edge to the entrance to the Tower. She flew through the different courts to the one in which stood the prison of Wallace. One of the boatmen, being bargeman to the Governor of the Tower, as a privileged person, conducted her unmolested through every ward till she reached the place of her destination. There she dismissed him with a ring from her finger as his reward; and pa.s.sing a body of soldiers, who kept guard before a large porch that led to the dungeons, she entered, and found herself in an immense paved room. A single sentinel stood at the end near to an iron grating, or small portcullis; there, then, was Wallace!

Forgetting her disguise and situation, in the frantic eagerness of her pursuit, she hastily advanced to the man:

"Let me pa.s.s to Sir William Wallace," cried she, "and treasures shall be your reward."

"Whose treasures, my pretty page?" demanded the soldier; "I dare not, were it at the suit of the Countess of Gloucester herself."

"Oh!" cried Helen, "for the sake of a greater than any countess in the land, take this jeweled bracelet, and let me pa.s.s!"

The man, misapprehending the words of this adjuration, at sight of the diamonds, supposing the page must come from the good queen, no longer demurred. Putting the bracelet into his bosom, he whispered Helen, that as he granted this permission at the risk of his life, she must conceal herself in the interior chamber of the prisoner's dungeon should any person from the warden visit him during their interview.