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

of the bed. Recovered to recollection by the comparative comfort of his bodily feelings, the stranger opened his eyes. He fixed them on Wallace, then looked around, and turned to Wallace again.

"Generous knight!" cried he, "I have nothing but thanks to offer for this kindness. You seem to be of the highest rank, and yet have succored one who the world abjures!"

The knight returned a courteous answer, and the invalid, in a paroxysm of emotion, added:

"Can it be possible that a prince of France has dared to act contrary to his peers?"

Wallace, not apprehending what had given rise to this question, supposed the stranger's wits were disordered, and looked with that inquiry toward the attendant. Just at that moment a step, more active than that of their aged hostess, sounded above, and an exclamation of surprise followed it, in a voice that startled Wallace. He turned hastily round, and a young man sprung from the cottage stairs into the apartment—joy danced in every feature, and the ejaculation, "Wallace!"—"Bruce!" burst at once from the hearts of the two friends as they rushed into each other's arms. All else present was lost to them in the delight of meeting after so perilous a separation—a delight not confined for its object to their individual selves, each saw in the other the hope of Scotland; and when they embraced, it was not merely with the ardor of friendship, but with that of patriotism, rejoicing in the preservation of its chief dependence.

While the chiefs spoke freely in their native tongue, before a people who could not be supposed to understand them, the aged stranger on the bed reiterated his moans. Wallace, in a few words, telling Bruce the manner of his reencounter with the sick man, and his belief that he was disordered in his mind, drew toward the bed, and offered him some of the decoction which the woman now brought. The invalid drank it, and gazed earnestly, first on Wallace and then on Bruce. "Pierre, withdraw," cried he to his personal attendant. The man obeyed. "Sit down by me, noble friends," said he to the Scottish chiefs, "and read a lesson, which I pray ye lay to your hearts!" Bruce glanced a look at Wallace that declared he was of his opinion. Wallace drew a stool, while his friend seated himself on the bed. The old woman, perceiving something extraordinary in the countenance of the bruised stranger, thought he was going to reveal some secret heavy on his mind, and also withdrew.

"You think my intellects are injured," returned he, turning to Wallace, "because I addressed you as one of the house of Philip! Those jeweled lilies round your helmet led me into the error; I never before saw them granted to other than a prince of the blood. But think not, brave man, I respect you less, since I have discovered that you are not of the race of Philip—that you are other than a prince! Look on me—at this emaciated form—and behold the reverses of all earthly grandeur! This palsied hand once held a scepter—these hollow temples were once bound with a crown! He that used to be followed as the source of honor, as the fountain of prosperity—with suppliants at his feet, and flatterers at his side—would now be left to solitude were it not for these few faithful servants, who, in spite of all changes, have preserved their allegiance to the end. Look on me, chiefs, and behold him who was the King of Scots!"

At this declaration, both Wallace and Bruce, struck with surprise and compassion at meeting their ancient enemy reduced to such abject misery, with one impulse bowed their heads to him with an air of reverence. The action penetrated the heart of Baliol. For when at the meeting and mutual exclamation of the two friends, he recognized in whose presence he lay, he fearfully remembered that, by his base submissions, turning the scale of judgment in his favor, he had defrauded the grandsire of the very Bruce now before him of a fair decision on his rights to the crown! And when he looked on Wallace, who had preserved him from the effects of his accident, and brought him to a shelter from the raging terrors of the night, his conscience doubly smote him! for, from the hour of his elevation to that of his downfall, he had ever persecuted the family of Wallace; and, at the hour which was the crisis of her fate, had denied them the right of drawing their swords in defense of Scotland. He, her king, had resigned her into the hands of an usurper; but Wallace, the injured Wallace, had arisen, like a star of light on the deep darkness of her captivity, and Scotland was once more free. In the tempest, the exiled monarch had started at the blaze of the unknown knight's jeweled panoply; at the declaration of his name he shrunk before the brightness of his glory! and, falling back on the bed, he groaned aloud. To these young men, so strangely brought before him, and both of whom he had wronged, he determined immediately to reveal himself, and see whether they were equally resentful of injuries as those he had served had proved ungrateful for benefits received. He spoke; and when, instead of seeing the pair rise in indignation on his pronouncing his name, they bowed their heads and sat in respectful silence, his desolate heart expanded at once to admit the long-estranged emotion, and he burst into tears. He caught the hand of Bruce, who sat nearest to him, and, stretching out the other to Wallace, exclaimed, "I have not deserved this goodness from either of you. Perhaps you two are the only men now living whom I ever greatly injured; and you, excepting my four poor attendants, are, perhaps, the only men living who would compassionate my misfortunes!"

"These are lessons, king," returned Wallace, with reverence, "to fit you for a better crown. And never in my eyes did the descendant of Alexander seem so worthy of his blood!"

The grateful monarch pressed his hand. Bruce continued to gaze on him with a thousand awful thoughts occupying his mind. Baliol read in his expressive countenance the reflections which chained his tongue.

"Behold, how low is laid the proud rival of your grandfather!" exclaimed he, turning to Bruce. "I compassed a throne I could not fill. I mistook the robes, the homage, for the kingly dignity. I bartered the liberties of my country for a crown I knew not how to wear, and the insidious trafficker not only reclaimed it, but repaid me with a prison. There I expiated my crime against the upright Bruce! Not one of all the Scottish lords who crowded Edward's court came to beguile a moment of sorrow from their captive monarch. Lonely I lived, for the tyrant even deprived me of the comfort of seeing my fellow-prisoner, Lord Douglas—he whom attachment to my true interests had betrayed to an English prison. I never saw him after the day of his being put into the Tower until that of his death." Wallace interrupted the afflicted Baliol with an exclamation of surprise. "Yes," added he, "I myself closed his eyes. At that awful hour he had petitioned to see me, and the boon was granted. I went to him, and then, with his dying breath, he spoke truths to me, which were indeed messengers from Heaven! They taught me what I was, and what I might be. He died. Edward was then in Flanders, and you, brave Wallace, being triumphant in Scotland, and laying such a stress in your negotiations for the return of Douglas, the Southron cabinet agreed to conceal his death, and, by making his name an instrument to excite your hopes and fears, turn your anxiety for him to their own advantage."

A deep scarlet kindled over the face of Bruce. "With what a race have I been so long connected! What mean subterfuges, what dastardly deceits, for the leaders of a great nation to adopt! Oh, king!" exclaimed he, turning to Baliol, "if you have errors to atone for, what then must be the penalty of my sin, for holding so long with an enemy as vile as he is ambitious! Scotland! Scotland! I must weep tears of blood for this!" He rose in agitation. Baliol followed him with his eyes.

"Amiable Bruce! you too severely arraign a fault that was venial in you. Your father gave himself to Edward, and his son accompanied the tribute."

Bruce vehemently answered, "If King Edward ever said that, he uttered a falsehood. My father loved him, confided in him, and the ingrate betrayed him! His fidelity was no gift of himself, in acknowledgment of inferiority; it was the pledge of a friendship exchanged on equal terms on the fields of Palestine. And well did King Edward know that he had no right over either my father or me; for in the moment he doubted our attachment, he was aware of having forfeited it. He knew he had no legal claim on us; and forgetting every law, human and divine, he made us prisoners. But my father found liberty in the grave, and I am ready to take a sure revenge in—" he would have added "Scotland," but he forbore to give the last blow to the unhappy Baliol, by showing him that his kingdom had indeed passed from him, and that the man was before him who might be destined to wield his scepter. Bruce paused, and sat down in generous confusion.

"Hesitate not," said Baliol, "to say where you will take your revenge! I know that the brave Wallace has laid open the way. Had I possessed such a leader of my troops, I should not now be a mendicant in this hovel; I should not be a creature to be pitied and despised. Wear him, Bruce—wear him in your heart's core. He gives the throne he might have filled."

"Make not that a subject of praise," cried Wallace, "which if I had left undone, would have stamped me a traitor. I have only performed my duty; and may the Holy Anointer of the hearts of kings guide Bruce to his kingdom, and keep him there in peace and honor!"

Baliol rose in his bed at these words: "Bruce," said he, "approach me near." He obeyed. The feeble monarch turned to Wallace: "You have supported what was my kingdom through its last struggles for liberty; put forth your hand and support its exiled sovereign in his last legal act." Wallace raised the king, so as to enable him to assume a kneeling posture. Dizzy with the exertion, for a moment he rested on the shoulder of the chief; and then looking up, he met the eyes of Bruce gazing on him with compassionate interest. The unhappy monarch stretched out his arms to Heaven: "May God pardon the injuries which my fatal ambition did to you and yours—the miseries I brought upon my country; and let your reign redeem my errors! May the spirit of wisdom bless you, my son!" His hands were now laid, with pious fervor, on the head of Bruce, who sunk on his knees before him. "Whatever rights I had to the crown of Scotland, by the worthlessness of my reign they are forfeited; and I resign all unto you, even to the participation of the mere title of king. It has been as the ghost of my former self, as an accusing spirit to me, but, I trust, an angel of light to you, it will conduct your people into all happiness!" Exhausted by his feelings, he sunk back into the arms of Wallace. Bruce, rising from his knees, poured a little of the herb-balsam into the king's mouth, and he revived. As Wallace laid him back on his pillows, he gazed wistfully at him, and grasping his hand, said in a low voice: "How did I throw a blessing from me! But in those days, when I rejected your services at Dunbar, I knew not the Almighty arm which brought the boy of Ellerslie to save his country! I scorned the patriot flame that spoke your mission, and the mercy of Heaven departed from me!"**

**This renunciation of Baliol's in favor of Bruce is an historical fact, and it was made in France.

Memory was now busy with the thoughts of Bruce.