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

when tasted in liberty and hope. My father, his friend-" she stopped, recollecting that she had almost betrayed the secrecy she meant to maintain, and looking down, remained in confused silence. The knight gazed at her, and much wished to penetrate what she concealed, but delicacy forbade him to urge her again. He spoke not; but the hermit, ignorant of her reluctance to reveal her family, resumed:

"I do not wonder, gentle lady, that you speak in terms which tell me even your tender sex feels the tyranny of Edward. Who in Scotland is exempt? The whole country groans beneath his oppressions, and the cruelty of his agents makes its rivulets run with blood. Six months ago I was Abbot of Scone. Because I refused to betray my trust, and resign the archives of the kingdom lodged there, Edward, the rebel—anointed of the Lord! the profaner of the sanctuary! sent his emissaries to sack the convent, to tear the holy pillow of Jacob from its shrine, and to wrest from my grasp the records I refused to deliver. All was done as the usurper commanded. Most of my brethren were slain. Myself and the remainder were turned out upon the waste. We retired to the Monastery of Cambuskenneth; but there oppression found us. Cressingham, having seized on other religious houses, determined to swell his hoards with the plunder of that also. In the dead of night the attack was made. My brethren fled; I knew not whither to go; but, determined to fly far from the tracts of our ravagers, I took my course over the hills, and finding the valley of stones fit for my purpose, for two months have lived alone in this wilderness."

"Unhappy Scotland!" ejaculated Helen. Her eyes had followed the chief, who, during this narrative, leaned thoughtfully against the entrance of the cave. His eyes were cast upward with an expression that made her heart utter the exclamation which had escaped her.

The knight turned and approached her. "You hear from the lips of my venerable friend," said he, "a direful story; happy then am I, gentle lady, that you and he have found a refuge, though a rough one. I must now tear myself from this tranquillity to seek scenes more befitting a younger son of the country he deplores."

Helen felt unable to answer. But the abbot spoke; "And am I not to see you again?"

"That is as Heaven wills," replied he; "but as it is unlikely on this side the grave, my best pledge of friendship is this lady. To you she may reveal what she had withheld from me; but in either case, she is secure in your goodness."

"Rely on my faith, my son; and may the Almighty's shield hang on your steps!"

The knight turned to Helen. "Farewell, sweet lady!" said he. She trembled at the words, and, hardly conscious of what she did, held out her hand to him. He took it, and drew it toward his lips, but checking himself, he only pressed it, while in a mournful voice he added, "in your prayer, sometimes remember the most desolate of men!"

A mist seemed to pass over the eyes of Lady Helen. She felt as if on the point of losing something most precious to her. "My prayers for my own preserver, and for my father's," cried she, in an agitated voice, "shall ever be mingled. And, if ever it be safe to remember me—should Heaven indeed arm the patriot's hand—then my father may be proud to know and to thank the brave deliverer of his child."

The knight paused, and looked with animation upon her. "Then your father is in arms, and against the tyrant! Tell me where, and you see before you a man who is ready to join him, and to lay down his life in the just cause!"

At this vehement declaration, Lady Helen's full heart overflowed, and she burst into tears. He drew toward her, and in a moderated voice continued: "My men, though few, are brave. They are devoted to their country, and are willing for her sake to follow me to victory or to death. As I am a knight, I am sworn to defend the cause of right; and where shall I so justly find it, as on the side of bleeding, wasted Scotland? How shall I so well pursue my career as in the defense of her injured sons? Speak, gentle lady! trust me with your noble father's name, and he shall not have cause to blame the confidence you repose in a true though wandering Scot!"

"My father," replied Helen, weeping afresh, "is not where your generous services can reach him. Two brave chiefs, one a kinsman of my own, and the other his friend, are now colleagued to free him. If they fail, my whole house falls in blood! and to add another victim to the destiny which in that case will overwhelm me—the thought is beyond my strength." Faint with agitation, and the horrible images which reawakened her direst fears, she stopped; and then added in a suppressed voice, "Farewell!"

"Not till you hear me further," replied he. "I repeat I have now a scanty number of followers; but I leave these mountains to gather more. Tell me, then, where I may join these chiefs you speak of. Give me a pledge that I come from you; and whoever may be your father, as he is a true Scot, I will compass his release, or perish in the attempt."

"Alas! generous stranger," cried she, "to what would you persuade me?
You know not the peril that you seek!"

"Nothing is perilous to me," replied he, with an heroic smile, "that is to serve my country. I have no interest, no joy but in her. Give me, then, the only happiness of which I am now capable, and send me to serve her, by freeing one of her defenders!"

Helen hesitated. The tumult of her mind dried her tears. She looked up, with all these inward agitations painted on her cheeks. His beaming eyes were full of patriotic ardor; and his fine countenance, composed into a heavenly calmness by the sublime sentiments which occupied his soul, made him appear to her not a as man, but as an angel from the armed host of heaven.

"Fear not, lady," said the hermit, "that you would plunge your deliverer into any extraordinary danger by involving him in what you might call rebellion against the usurper. He is already a proscribed man."

"Proscribed!" repeated she; "wretched indeed is my country when her noblest spirits are denied the right to live!-when every step they take to regain what has been torn from them, only involves them in deeper ruin!"

"No country is wretched, sweet lady," returned the knight, "till, by a dastardly acquiescence, it consents to its own slavery. Bonds, and death, are the utmost of our enemy's malice; the one is beyond his power to inflict, when a man is determined to die or to live free; and for the other, which of us will think that ruin, which leads to the blessed freedom of paradise?"

Helen looked on the chief as she used to look on her cousin, when expressions of virtuous enthusiasm burst from his lips; but now it was rather with the gaze of admiring awe than the exhultation of one youthful mind sympathizing with another. "You would teach confidence to Despair herself," returned she; "again I hope; for God does not create in vain! You shall know every danger with which that knowledge is surrounded. He is hemmed in by enemies. Alas, how closely are they connected with him! Not the English only, but the most powerful of his countrymen are leagues against him. They sold my father to captivity, and, perhaps, to death; and I, wretched I, was the price. To free him, the noblest of Scottish knights is now engaged; but such hosts impede him, that hope hardly dares hover over his tremendous path."

"Then," cried the stranger, "let my arm be second to his in the great achievement. My heart yearns to meet a brother in arms who feels for Scotland what I do; and with such a coadjutor, I dare promise your father liberty, and that the power of England shall be shaken."

Helen's heart beat violently at these words. "I would not defer the union of two such minds. Go, then, to the Cartlane Craigs. But, alas! how can I direct you?" cried she. "The passes are beset with English; and I know not whether at this moment the brave Wallace survives, to be again the deliverer of my father!"

Helen paused. The recollection of all that Wallace had suffered for the sake of her father, and of the mortal extremity in which Ker had left him, rose like a dreadful train of apparitions before her. A pale horror overspread her countenance; and lost in these remembrances, she did not remark the start, and rushing color of the knight, as she pronounced the name of Wallace.

"If Wallace ever had the happiness of serving any who belonged to you," returned the knight, "he has at least one source of pleasure in that remembrance. Tell me what he can further do. Only say, where is that father whom you say he once preserved, and I will hasten to yield my feeble aid to repeat the service!"

"Alas!" replied Helen, "I cannot but repeat my fears that the bravest of men no longer exists. Two days before I was betrayed into the hands of the traitor from whom you rescued me, a messenger from Cartlane Craigs informed my cousin that the gallant Wallace was surrounded; and if my father did not send forces to relieve him, he must inevitably perish. No forces could my father send; he was then made a prisoner by the English; his retainers shared the same fate, and none but my cousin escaped, to accompany the honest Scotch back to his master. My cousin set forth with a few followers to join him—a few against thousands."

"They are in arms for their country, lady," returned the knight; "and a thousand invisible angels guard them; fear not for them! But for your father; name to me the place of his confinement, and as I have not the besiegers of Cartlane Craigs to encounter. I engage, with God's help, and the arms of my men (who never yet shrunk from sword or spear), to set the brave earl free!"

"How!" exclaimed Helen, remembering that she had not yet mentioned her father's rank, and gazing at him with astonishment; "do you know his name—is the misfortune of my father already so far spread?"

"Rather say his virtue, lady," answered the knight; "no man who watches over the destiny of our devoted country can be ignorant of her friends, or of the sufferers who bear injury for her sake. I know that the Earl of Mar has made himself a generous sacrifice, but I am yet to learn the circumstances from you. Speak without reserve, that I may seek the accomplishment of my vow, and restore to Scotland its best friend!"

"Thou brother in heart to the generous Wallace!" exclaimed Lady Helen, "my voice is too feeble to thank thee." The hermit, who had listened in silent interest, now, fearing the consequence of so much emotion, presented her with a cup of water and a little fruit, to refresh herself, before she satisfied the inquiries of the knight. She put the cup to her lips, to gratify the benevolence of her host, but her anxious spirit was too much occupied in the concerns dearest to her heart, to feel any wants of the body; and turning to the knight, she briefly related what had been the design of her father with regard to Sir William Wallace; how he had been seized at Bothwell, and sent with his family a prisoner to Dumbarton Castle.

"Proceed then thither," continued she. "If Heaven have yet spared the lives of Wallace and my cousin, Andrew Murray, you will meet them before its walls. Meanwhile I shall seek the protection of my father's sister, and in her castle near the Forth abide in safety. But, noble stranger, one bond I must lay upon you; should you come up with my cousin, do not discover that you have met with me. He is precipitate in resentment;