The Scottish Chiefs Part 84

Gloucester gazed on him, doubting the expression of his countenance.

It was calm, but pale even to a marble hue.

"Surely," said he, "my unconquered friend will not now be forced to self violence?"

"G.o.d forbid!" returned Wallace; "suspect me not of such base va.s.salage to this poor tabernacle of clay. Did I believe it my Father's will that I should die at every pore I would submit, for so his immaculate Son laid down his life for a rebellious world. And is a servant greater than his master, that I should say, Exempt me from this trial?

No! I await his summons, but he so strengthens my soul on his breast, that the cord of Edward shall never make my free-born Scottish neck feel its degrading touch."

His pale cheek was now luminous with a bright smile as he pressed his swelling heart.

With reawakened horror Helen listened to the words of Wallace, which referred to the last outrage to be committed on his sacred remains.

She recalled the corresponding threats of the king, and again losing self-possession, starting wildly up, exclaimed:

"And is there no humanity in that ruthless man! Oh!" cried she, tearing her eyes from the beloved form on which it had been such bliss to gaze, "let the sacrifice of my life be offered to this cruel king to save from indignity--"

She could add no more, but dropped half lifeless on the arm of Wallace.

Gloucester understood the object of such anguished solicitude, and while Wallace again seated her, he revived her by a protestation, that the clause she so fearfully deprecated, had been repealed by Edward.

But the good earl blushed as he spoke, for in this instance he said what was not the truth. Far different had been the issue of all his attempts at mitigation. The arrival of Athol from Scotland with advices from the Countess of Strathearn, that Lady Helen Mar had fled southward to raise an insurrection in favor of Wallace, and that Lord Bothwell had gone to France to move Philip to embrace the same cause, gave Edward so apt an excuse for giving full way to his hatred against the Scottish chief, that he p.r.o.nounced an order for the immediate and unrestricted execution of his sentence. Artifice to mislead the French emba.s.sadors with an idea that he was desirous to accord with their royal master's wish, had been the sole foundation of his proposals to Wallace. And his interview with Lady Helen, though so intemperately conducted, was dictated by the same subtle policy.

When Gloucester found the impossibility of obtaining any further respite from the murderous decree, he attempted to prevail for the remission of the last clause, which ordered that his friend's n.o.ble body should be dismembered, and his limbs sent, as terrors to rebellion, to the four capital fortresses of Scotland. Edward spurned at this pet.i.tion with even more acrimony than he had done the prayer for his victim's life, and Gloucester then starting from his knee, in a burst of honest indignation exclaimed, "Oh! king, remember what is done by thee this day. Refusing to give righteous judgment in favor of one who prefers virtue to a crown and life! As insincere, as secret, have been your last conditions with him, but they will be revealed when the great Judge that searcheth all men's hearts shall cause thee to answer for this matter at the dreadful day of universal doom. Thou has now given sentence on a patriot and a prince, and then shall judgment be given on thee!"

"Dangerous indeed is his rebellious spirit," cried Edward, in almost speechless wrath, "since it affects even the duty of my own house!

Gloucester, leave my presence, and on pain of your own death, dare not approach me till I send for you, to see this rebel's head on London Bridge!"

To disappoint the revengeful monarch of at least this object of his malice, Gloucester was now resolved, and imparting his wishes to the warden of the Tower, who was his trusty friend, he laid a plan accordingly.

Helen had believed his declaration to her, and bowed her head in sign that she was satisfied with his zeal. The earl, addressing Wallace, continued: "Could I have purchased thy life, thou preserver of mine, with the forfeiture of all I possess I should have rejoiced in the exchange. But as that may not be, is there aught in the world which I can do to administer to thy wishes?"

"Generous Gloucester!" exclaimed Wallace, "how unwearied has been your friendship! But I shall not tax it much further. I was writing my last wishes when this angel entered my apartment; she will now be the voice of William Wallace to his friends. But still I must make one request to you--one which I trust will not be out of your power. Let this heart, ever faithful to Scotland, be at least buried in its native country. When I cease to breathe, give it to Helen, and she will mingle it with the sacred dust of those I love. For herself, dear Gloucester! ah! guard the vestal purity and life of my best beloved!

for there are those who, when I am gone, may threaten both."

Gloucester, who knew that in this apprehension Wallace meant the Lords Soulis and De Valence, pledged himself for the performance of his first request; and for the second, he a.s.sured him he would protect Helen as a sister. But she, regardless of all other evils than that of being severed from her dearest and best friend, exclaimed in bitter sorrow:

"Wherever I am, still and forever shall all of Wallace that remains on earth be with me. He gave himself to me, and no mortal power shall divide us!"

Gloucester could not reply before the voice of the warden, calling to him that the hour of shutting the gates was arrived, compelled him to bid his friend farewell. He grasped the hand of Wallace with a strong emotion, for he knew that the next time he should meet him would be on the scaffold. During the moments of his parting, Helen, with her hands clasped on her knees, and her eyes bent downward, inwardly and earnestly invoked the Almighty to endow her with fort.i.tude to bear the horrors she was to witness, that she might not, by her agonies, add to the tortures of Wallace.

The cheering voice, that was ever music to her ears, recalled her from this devout abstraction. He laid his hand on hers, and gazing on her with a tender pity, held such sweet discourse with her on the approaching end of all his troubles, of his everlasting happiness, where "all tears are dried away!" that she listened, and wept, and even smiled.

"Yes," added he, "a little while, and my virgin bride shall give me her dear embrace in heaven; angels will partic.i.p.ate our joy, and my Marion's grateful spirit join the blest communion! She died to preserve my life; you suffered a living death to maintain my honor!

Can I then divide ye, n.o.blest of created beings, in my soul! Take, then, my heart's kiss, dear Helen, thy Wallace's last earthly kiss!"

She bent toward him, and fixed her lips to his. It was the first time they had met; his parting words still hung on them, and an icy cold ran through all her veins. She felt his heart beat heavily against hers, as he said:

"I have not many hours to be with thee, and yet a strange lethargy overpowers my senses; but I shall speak to thee again!"

He looked on her as he spoke, with such a glance of holy love, that not doubting he was now bidding her, indeed, his last farewell, that he was to pa.s.s from this sleep out of the power of man, she pressed his hand without a word, and as he dropped his head back upon his straw pillow, with an awed spirit she saw him sink to profound repose.

Chapter Lx.x.xIV.

Tower Hill.

Long and silently had she watched his rest. So gentle was his breath, that he scarcely seemed to breathe; and often, during her sad vigils, did she stoop her cheek to feel the respiration which might still bear witness that his outraged spirit was yet fettered to earth. She tremblingly placed her hand on his heart, and still its warm beats spake comfort to hers. The soul of Wallace, as well as his beloved body, was yet clasped in her arms. "The arms of a sister enfold thee,"

murmured she to herself; "they would gladly bear thee up, to lay thee on the bosom of thy martyred wife; and there, how wouldst thou smile upon and bless me! And shall we not meet so before the throne of Him whose name is Truth?"

The first rays of the dawn shone upon his peaceful face just as the door opened, and a priest appeared. He held in his hands the sacred host, and the golden dove, for performing the rites of the dying. At this sight, the harbinger of a fearful doom, the fort.i.tude of Helen forsook her; and throwing her arms frantically over the sleeping Wallace, she exclaimed, "He is dead! his sacrament is now with the Lord of Mercy!" Her voice awakened Wallace; he started from his position; and Helen seeing, with a wild sort of disappointment that he, whose gliding to death in his sleep she had even so lately deprecated, now, indeed, lived to mount the scaffold, in unutterable horror, fell back with a heavy groan.

Wallace accosted the priest with a reverential welcome; and then turning to Helen, tenderly whispered her, "My Helen! in this moment of my last on earth, O! engrave on thy heart, that--in the sacred words of the patriarch of Israel--I remember thee, in the kindness of thy youth!

in the love of thy desolate espousals to me! when thou camest after me into the wilderness, into a land thou didst not know, and comforted me!

And shalt thou not, my soul's bride, be sacred unto our Lord? the Lord of the widow and the orphan! To Him I commit thee, in steadfast faith that He will never forsake thee! Then, O, dearest part of myself, let not the completion of my fate shake your dependence on the only True and Just. Rejoice that Wallace has been deemed worthy to die for his having done his duty. And what is death, my Helen, that we should shun it, even to rebelling against the Lord of Life? Is it not the door which opens to us immortality? and in that blest moment who will regret that he pa.s.sed through it in the bloom of his years? Come, then, sister of my soul, and share with thy Wallace the last supper of his Lord; the pledge of the happy eternity to which, by His grace, I now ascend!"

Helen, conscience-struck and re-awakened to holy confidence by the heavenly composure of his manner, obeyed the impulse of his hand, and they both knelt before the minister of peace. While the sacred rite proceeded, it seemed the indissoluble union of Helen's spirit with that of Wallace: "My life will expire with his!" was her secret response to the venerable man's exhortation to the antic.i.p.ated pa.s.sing soul; and when he sealed Wallace with the holy cross, under the last unction, as one who believed herself standing on the brink of eternity, she longed to share also that mark of death. At that moment the dismal toll of a bell sounded from the top of the Tower. The heart of Helen paused.

The warden and his train entered. "I will follow him," cried she, starting from her knees, "into the grave itself!"

What was said, what was done, she knew not, till she found herself on the scaffold, upheld by the arm of Gloucester. Wallace stood before her, with his hands bound across and his n.o.ble head uncovered. His eyes were turned upward, with a martyr's confidence in the Power he served. A silence, as of some desert waste, reigned throughout the thousands who stood below. The executioner approached to throw the rope over the neck of his victim. At this sight, Helen, with a cry that was re-echoed by the compa.s.sionate spectators, rushed to his bosom.

Wallace, with a mighty strength, burst the bands asunder which confined his arms, and clasping her to him with a force that seemed to make her touch his very heart, his breast heaved as if his soul were breaking from its outraged tenement; and, while his head sunk on her neck, he exclaimed, in a low and interrupted voice:

"My prayer is heard, Helen! Life's cord is cut by G.o.d's own hand! May he preserve my country, and-- Oh! trust from my youth--"

He stopped--he fell; and with the shock, the hastily-erected scaffold shook to its foundation. The pause was dreadful.

The executioner approached the prostrate chief. Helen was still locked close in his arms. The man stooped to raise his victim, but the attempt was beyond his strength. In vain he called on him--to Helen--to separate, and cease from delaying the execution of the law; no voice replied, no motion answered his loud remonstrance.

Gloucester, with an agitation which hardly allowed him power to speak or move, remembered the words of Wallace, "that the rope of Edward would never sully his animate body!" and, bending to his friend, he spoke; but all was silent there. He raised the chieftain's head, and, looking on his face, found indeed the indisputable stamp of death.

"There," cried he, in a burst of grief, and letting it fall again upon the insensible bosom of Helen--"there broke the n.o.blest heart that ever beat in the breast of man!"

The priests, the executioners crowded round him at this declaration.

But, while giving a command in a low tone to the warden, he took the motionless Helen in his arms, and leaving the astonished group round the n.o.ble dead, carried her from the scaffold back into the Tower.**

**The last words of Wallace were from the 71st Psalm--"My trust from my youth! O Lord G.o.d, thou art my hope unto the end!"

Chapter Lx.x.xV.

The Warden's Apartments.

On the evening of the fatal day in which the sun of William Wallace had set forever on his country, the Earl of Gloucester was imparting to the Warden of the Tower his last directions respecting the sacred remains, when the door of the chamber suddenly opened, and a file of soldiers entered. A man in armor, with his visor closed, was in the midst of them. The captain of the band told the warden that the person before him had behaved in a most seditious manner. He first demanded admittance into the Tower; then, on the sentinel making answer that in consequence of the recent execution of the Scottish chief, orders had been given "to allow no strangers to approach the gates till the following morning," he, the prisoner, burst into a pa.s.sionate emotion, uttering such threats against the King of England, that the captain thought it his duty to have him seized and brought before the warden.

On the entrance of the soldiers, Gloucester had retired into the shadow of the room. He turned round on hearing these particulars. When the captain ceased speaking, the stranger fearlessly threw up his visor and exclaimed:

"Take me, not to our warden alone, but to your king; let me pierce his conscience with his infamy--would it were to stab him ere I die!"