The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter (novels to read for beginners txt) 📖

"And am I, too, to leave you?" said Edwin.

"Yes, my brother," replied Wallace; "I have much to do with my own thoughts this night. We separate now to meet more gladly hereafter. I must have solitude to arrange my plans. To-morrow you shall know them. Meanwhile farewell!"

As he spoke he pressed the affectionate youth to his breast, and, warmly grasping the hands of his three other friends, bade them an earnest adieu.

Bothwell lingered a moment at the tent-door, and looking back, "Let your first plan be, that to-morrow you lead us to Lord Soulis' quarters, to teach the traitor what it is to be a Scot and a man!"

"My plans shall be deserving of my brave colleagues," replied Wallace; "and whether they be executed on this or the other side of the Forth, you shall find, my long-tried Bothwell, that Scotland's peace and the honor of her best sons are the dearest considerations of your friend."

When the door closed, and Wallace was left alone, he stood for awhile in the midst of the tent, listening to the departing steps of his friends. When the last sound died on his ear, "I shall hear them no more!" cried he; and throwing himself into a seat, he remained for an hour in a trance of grievous thoughts. Melancholy remembrances and prospects dire for Scotland pressed upon his surcharged heart. "It is to God alone I must confide my country!" cried he; "His mercy will pity its madness, and forgive its deep transgressions. My duty is to remove the object of ruin far from the power of any longer exciting jealousy or awakening zeal." With these words, he took a pen in his hand to write to Bruce.

He briefly narrated the events which compelled him, if he would avoid the grief of having occasioned a civil war, to quit his country forever. The general hostility of the nobles, the unresisting acquiescence of the people in measures which menaced his life and sacrificed the freedom for which he had so long fought, convinced him, he said, that his warlike commission was now closed. He was summoned by Heaven to exchange the field for the cloister; and to the monastery at Chartres he was now hastening, to dedicate the remainder of his days to the peace of a future world. He then exhorted Bruce to confide in the Lords Ruthven and Bothwell, as his soul would commune with his spirit, for he would find them true unto death. He counseled him, as the leading measure to circumvent the treason of Scotland's enemies, to go immediately to Kilchurn Castle, where he knew resources would be; for Loch-awe, who retired thither on the last approach of De Warenne, meaning to call out his vassals for that emergency, needed it not then; for the battle of Dalkeith was fought and gained before they could leave their heights, and the victor did not want them afterward. To use those brave and simple-hearted men for his establishment on the throne of his kingdom, Wallace advised Bruce. And so, amidst the natural fortresses of the Highlands, he might recover his health, collect his friends, and openly proclaim himself. "Then," added he, "when Scotland is your oqn, let its bulwarks be its mountains and its people's arms. Dismantle and raze to the ground the castles of those base chiefs who have only embattled them to betray and enslave their country." Though intent on these political suggestions, he ceased not to remember his own brave engines of war; and he earnestly conjured his prince that he would wear the valiant Kirkpatrick as a buckler on his heart; that he would place Scrymgeour with his Lanark veterans, and the faithful Grimsby next him as his body-guard; and that he would love and cherish the brave and tender Edwin for his sake. "When my prince and friend receives this," added he, "Wallace shall have bidden an eternal farewell to Scotland; but his heart will be amidst its hills. My king, and the friends most dear to me will still be there! The earthly part of my beloved wife rests within its bosom! But I go to rejoin her soul; to meet it in the vigils of days consecrated wholly to the blessed Being in whose presence she rejoices forever. This is no sad destiny, my dear Bruce. Our Almighty Captain recalls me from dividing with you the glory of maintaining the liberty of Scotland, but he brings me closer to himself: I leave the plains of Gilgal to tread with his angel the courts of my God. Mourn not, then, my absence; for my prayers will be with you till we are again united in the only place where you can fully know me as I am—thine and Scotland's never-dying friend! Start not at the bold epithet. My body may sink into the grave, but the affections of my immortal spirit are eternal as its essence, and, in earth or in heaven, I am ever yours.

"Should the endearing Helen—my heart's sister—be near your couch when you read this, tell her that Wallace, in idea, presses her virgin cheek with a brother's farewell; and from his inmost soul he blesses her."

Messages of respectful adieus he sent to Isabella, Lady Ruthven, and the sage of Ercildown; and then kneeling down in that posture, he wrote his last invocations for the prosperity and happiness of Bruce.

This letter finished, with a more tranquil mind he addressed Lord Ruthven; detailing to him his reasons for leaving such faithful friends so clandestinely; and after mentioning his purpose of proceeding to France, he ended with those expressions of gratitude which the worthy chief so well deserved; and exhorting him to transfer his public zeal for him to the maguanimous and royal Bruce, closed the letter with begging him, for the sake of his friend, his king, and his country, to return immediately with all his followers to Huntingtower, and there to rally round their prince. His letter to Scrymgeour spoke nearly the same language. But when he began to write to Bothwell, to bid him that farewell which his heart foreboded would be forever in this world—to part from this, his steady companion in arms, his dauntless champion! he lost some of his composure; and his handwriting testified the emotion of his mind. How, then, was he shaken when he addressed the young and devoted Edwin, the brother of his soul? He dropped the pen from his hand. At that moment he felt all he was going to relinquish, and he exclaimed, "Oh, Scotland! my ungrateful country; what is it you do? Is it thus that you repay your most faithful servants? Is it not enough that the wife of my bosom, the companion of my youth, should be torn from me by your enemies; but your hand must wrest from my bereaved heart its every other solace? You snatch from me my friends; you would deprive me of my life. To preserve you from that crime, I imbitter the cup of death; I go far from the tombs of my fathers—from the grave of my Marion, where I have fondly hoped to rest!" His head sunk on his arm; his heart gave way under the pressure of accumulated regrets, and floods of tears poured from his eyes. Deep and frequent were his sighs—but none answered him. Friendship was far distant; and where was that gentle being who would have soothed his sorrow on her bosom? She it was he lamented. "Dreary, dreary solitude!" cried he, looking around him with an aghast perception of all that he had lost! "how have I been mocked for these three long years! What is renown? what the loud acclaim of admiring throngs? what the loud acclaim of admiring throngs? what the bended knees of worshiping gratefulness but breath and vapor! It seems to shelter the mountain's top; the blast comes; it rolls from its sides; and the lonely hill is left to all the storm! So stand I, my Marion, when bereft of thee. In weal or woe, thy smiles, thy warm embrace, were mine; my head reclined on that faithful breast, and still I found my home, my heaven. But now, desolate and alone, ruin is around me. Destruction waits on all who would steal one pang from the racked heart of William Wallace!—even pity is no more for me. Take me, then, O Power of Mercy!" cried he, stretching forth his hands, "take me to Thyself!"

At these words, a peal of thunder burst on his ear, and seemed to roll over his tent, till, passing 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 snatched 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 noble 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 damned traitress! Bruce will declare himself! Bruce will throw himself before his friend, and in his breast receive every arrow meant for that godlike heart! Yes," cried he, glancing on the terrified looks of Isabella, who believed that his delirium was returned. "I would snatch him in these arms, from their murderous flames, did all the fiends of hell 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