XLIX. Stanmore…

XLIX. Stanmore

The gathering word was dispatched from chief to chief, to call the clans of the Highlands to meet their regent by a certain day in Clydesdale. Wallace himself set forward to summon the strength of the Lowlands; but at Kinclavin Castle, on the coast of Fife, he was surprised with another embassy from Edward--a herald, accompanied by that Sir Hugh le de Spencer who had conducted himself so insolently on his first embrassage.

On his entering the chamber where the regent sat with the chiefs who had accompanied him from Perthsire, the two English men walked forward; but before the herald could pay the customary respects, Le de Spencer advanced to Wallace; and to the price of a little mind, elated at being empowered to insult with impunity, he broke forth: "Sir William Wallace, the contumely with which the embassadors of Prince Edward were treated, is so resented by the King of England, that he invests his own majesty in my person to tell you, that your treasons have filled up their measure! that now, in the plenitude of his continental victories, he descends upon Scotland, to annihilate this rebellious nation; and-"

"Stop, Sir Hugh le de Spencer," cried the herald, touching him with his scepter; "whatever may be the denunciations with which our sovereign has intrusted you, you must allow me to perform my duty before you declare them. And thus I utter the gracious message with which his Majesty has honored my mouth."

He then addressed Wallace; and in the king's name, accusing him of rebellion, and of unfair and cruel devastations made in Scotland and in England, promised him pardon for all if he would immediately disband his followers and acknowledge his offense.

Wallace motioned with his hand for his friends to keep silence (for he perceived that two or three of the most violent were ready to break forth in fierce defiance of King Edward), and being obeyed, he calmly replied to the herald: "When we were desolate, your king came to us as a comforter, and he put us in chains! While he was absent, I invaded his country as an open enemy. I rifled your barns, but it was to feed a people whom his robberies had left to perish! I marched through your lands, I made your soldiers fly before me; but what spot in all your shores have I made black with the smoke of ruin? I leave the people of Northumberland to judge between me and your monarch. And that he never shall be mine or Scotland's, with God's blessing on the right, our deeds shall further prove!"

"Vain and ruinous determination!" exclaimed Le de Spencer; "King Edward comes against you, with an army that will reach from sea to sea. Wherever the hoofs of his war-horse strike, there grass never grows again. The sword and the fire shall make a desert of this devoted land; and your arrogant head, proud Scot, shall bleed upon the scaffold!"

"He shall first see my fires, and meet my sword in his own fields," returned Wallace; "and if God continues my life, I will keep my Easter in England, in despite of King Edward, and of all who bear armor in his country!"

As he spoke he rose from his chair, and bowing his head to the herald, the Scottish marshals conducted the embassadors from his presence. Le de Spencer twice attempted to speak, but the marshals would not allow him. They said that the business of the embassy was now over; and should he presume further to insult their regent, the privilege of his official character should not protect him from the wrath of the Scots. Intimidated by the frowning brows and nervous arms of all around, he held his peace, and the doors were shut on him.

Wallace foresaw the heavy tempest to Scotland threatened by these repeated embassies. He perceived that Edward, by sending overtures which he knew could not be accepted--by making a show of pacific intentions, meant to throw the blame of the continuation of hostilities upon the Scots, and so overcome the reluctance of his more equitable nobility, to further persecute a people whom he had made suffer so unjustly. The same insidious policy was likewise meant to change the aspect of the Scottish cause in the eyes of Philip of France, who had lately sent congratulations to the regent, on the victory of Cambus-Kenneth; and by that means deprive him of a powerful ally and zealous negotiator for an honorable peace.

To prevent this last injury, Wallace dispatched a quick-sailing vessel with Sir Alexander Ramsay, to inform King Philip of the particulars of Edward's proposals, and of the consequent continued warfare.

On the twenty-eighth of February, Sir William Wallace joined Lord Andrew Murray, on Bothwell Moor, where he had the happiness of seeing his brave friend again lord of the domains he had so lately lost in the Scottish cause. Wallace did not visit the castle. At such a crisis, he forbore to unnerve his mind, by awakening the griefs which lay slumbering at the bottom of his heart. Halbert came from his convent once more to look upon the face of his beloved master. The meeting cost Wallace many agonizing pangs, but he smiled on his faithful servant. He pressed the venerable form in his manly arms, and promised him news of his life and safety. "May I die," cried the old man, "ere I hear it is otherwise! But youth is no warrant for life; the vigor of those arms cannot always assure themselves of victory; and should you fall, where would be our country?"

"With a better than I," returned the chief, "in the arms of God. He will fight for Scotland when Wallace is laid low." Halbert wept. But the trumpet sounded for the field. He blessed his lord, and they parted forever.

A strong force from the Highlands joined the troops from Stirling; and Wallace had the satisfaction of seeing before him thirty thousand well-appointed men eager for the fight. With all Scotland pressing on his heart, his eye lingered for a moment on the distant towers of Bothwell; but not delaying a moment, he placed himself at the head of his legions, and set forth through a country now budding with all the charms of the cultivation he had spread over it. In the midst of a fine glen of renovated corn fields, he was met by a courier from Sir Roger Kirkpatrick, with information that the Northumbrians, being apprised of King Edward's approach, were assembling in immense bodies; and having crossed the debatable land in the night, had driven Sir Eustace Maxwell, with great loss, into Carlaveroch; and though harassed by Kirkpatrick himself, were ravaging the country as far as Dumfries. The letter of the brave knight added, "These Southron thieves blow the name of Edward before them, and with its sound have spell-bound the courage of every soul I meet. Come then, valiant Wallace, and conjure it down again, else I shall not be surprised if the men of Annandale bind me hand and foot, and deliver me up to Algernon Percy (the leader of this inroad), to purchase mercy to their cowardice."

Wallace made no reply to this message, and proclaiming to his men that the enemy were in Dumfriesshire, every foot was put to the speed; and in a short time they arrived on the ridgy summits of the eastern mountains of Clydesdale. His troops halted for rest near the village of Biggar; and it being night, he ascended to the top of the highest craig, and lighted a fire, whose far-streaming light he hoped would send the news of his approach to Annandale. The air being calm and clear, the signal rose in such a long pyramid of flame, that distant shouts of rejoicing were heard breaking the deep silence of the hour. A moment after a hundred answering beacons burned along the horizon. Torthorald saw the propitious blaze; he showed it to his terrified followers. "Behold that hill of fire!" cried he, "and cease to despair." "Wallace comes!" was their response; "and we will do or die!"**

**The mountain from which this beacon sent its rays has from that hour been called Tinto or Tintoc (which signifies the Hill of Fire), and is yet regarded by the country people with a devotion almost idolatrous. Its height is about 2,260 feet from the sea.

Day broke upon Wallace as he crossed the heights of Drumlaurig, and pouring his thousands over the almost deserted valleys of Annandale, like a torrent he swept the invaders back upon their steps. He took young Percy prisoner, and leaving him shut up in Lochmaben, drove his flying vassals far beyond the borders.

Annandale again free, he went into its various quarters, and summoning the people (who now crept from their caves and woods, to shelter under his shield), he reproved them for their cowardice; and showed them, that unless every man possesses a courage equal to his general, he must expect to fall under the yoke of the enemy. "Faith in a leader is good," said he; "but not such a faith as leaves him to act, without yourselves rendering that assistance to your own preservation, which Heaven itself commands. When absent from you in person, I left my spirit with you in the brave Knights of Carlaveroch and Torthorald, and yet you fled. Had I been here, and you done the same, the like must have been the consequence. What think you is in my arm, that I should alone stem your enemies? The expectation is extravagant and false. I am but the head of the battle, you are the aims; if you shrink, I fall, and the cause is ruined. You follow my call to the field, you fight valiantly, and I win the day! Respect then yourselves; and believe that you are the sinews, the nerves, the strength of Sir William Wallace!"

Some looked manfully up at this exhortation; but most hung their heads in remembered shame, while he continued: "Dishonor not your fathers and your trust in God by relying on any one human arm, or doubting that from heaven. Be confident that while the standard of true liberty is before you, you fight under God's banner. See how I in that faith drove these conquering Northumbrians before me like frighted roes. You might, and must do the same, or the sword of Wallace is drawn in vain. Partake my spirit, brethren of Annandale; fight as stoutly over my grave as by my side, or before the year expires you will again be the slaves of Edward."

Such language, while it covered the fugitives with confusion of face, awoke emulation in all to efface with honorable deeds the memory of their disgrace. With augmented forces he therefore marched into Cumberland; and having drawn up his array between a river and a high ground, which he covered with archers, he stood prepared to meet the approach of King Edward.

But Edward did not appear till late in the next day; and then the Scots descried his legions advancing from the horizon to pitch their vanguard on the plain of Stanmore. Wallace knew that for the first time he was now going to pit his soldiership against that of the greatest general in Christendom. But he did not shrink from measuring him arm to arm and mind to mind, for the assurance of his cause was in both.

His present aim was to draw the English toward the Scottish lines, where, at certain distances, he had dug deep pits; and having covered them lightly with twigs and loose grass, left them as traps for the Southron cavalry; for in cavalry, he was told by his spies, would consist the chief strength of Edward's army. The waste in which Wallace had laid the adjoining counties, rendered the provisioning of so large a host difficult; and besides, as it was composed of a mixed multitude from every land on which the King of England had set his invading foot, harmony could not be expected to continue amongst its leaders. Delay was therefore an advantage to the Scottish regent; and observing that his enemy held back, as if he wished to draw him from his position, he determined not to stir, although he might seem to be struck with awe of so great an adversary.

To this end he offered him peace, hoping either to obtain what he asked (which he did not deem probable), or, by filling Edward with an idea of his fear, urge him to precipitate himself forward, to avoid the danger of a prolonged sojourn in so barren a country, and to take Wallace, as he might think, in his panic. Instructing his heralds what to say, he sent them on to Roycross, near which the tent of the King of England was pitched. Supposing that his enemy was now at his feet, and ready to beg the terms he had before objected, Edward admitted the embassadors, and bade them deliver their message. Without further parley the herald spoke.

"Thus saith Sir William Wallace. Were it not that the kings and nobles of the realm of Scotland have ever asked redress of injuries before they sought revenge, you King of England, and invader of our country, should not now behold orators in your camp, persuading concord, but an army in battle array, advancing to the onset. Our lord regent being of the ancient opinion of his renowned predecessors, that the greatest victories are never of such advantage to a conqueror as an honorable and bloodless peace, sends to offer this peace to you at the price of restitution. The lives you have rifled from us you cannot restore, but the noble Lord Douglas, whom you now unjustly detain a prisoner, we demand; and that you retract those claims on our monarchy, which never had existence till ambition begot them on the basest treachery. Grant these just requisitions, and we lay down our arms; but continue to deny them, and our nations is ready to rise to a man, and with heart and hand avenge the injuries we have sustained. You have wasted our lands, burned our towns, and imprisoned our nobility. Without consideration of age or condition, women, children, and feeble old men have unresisting fallen by your sword. And why was all this? Did our confidence in your honor offend you, that you put our chieftains in durance, and deprived our yeomanry of their lives? Did the benedictions with which our prelates hailed you as the arbitrator between our princes, raise your ire, that you burned their churches, and slew them on the altars? These, O king, were thy deeds, and for these William Wallace is in arms. But yield us the peace we ask--withdraw from our quarters--relinquish your unjust pretensions, and we shall once more consider Edward of England as the kinsman of Alexander the Third, and his subjects the friends and allies of our realm."

Not in the least moved by this address, Edward contemptuously answered, "Intoxicated by a transitory success, your leader is vain enough to suppose that he can discomfort the King of England, as he has done his unworthy officers, by fierce and insolent words; but we are not so weak as to be overthrown by a breath, nor so base as to bear argument from a rebel. I come to claim my own, to assert my supremacy over Scotland; and it shall acknowledge its liege lord, or be left a desert, without a living creature to say, 'This was a kingdom.' Depart, this is my answer to you; your leader shall receive his at the point of my lance."

Wallace, who did not expect a more favorable reply, ere his embassadors returned had marshaled his lines for the onset. Lord Bothwell, with Murray, his valiant son, took the lead on the left wing; Sir Eustace Maxwell and Kirkpatrick commanded on the right. Graham (in whose quick observation and promptitude to bring it to effect, Wallace placed the first confidence) held the reserve behind the woods; and the regent himself, with Edwin and his brave standard-bearer, occupied the center. Having heard the report of his messengers, he repeated to his troops the lines, he exhorted them to remember that on that day the eyes of all Scotland would be upon them. They were the first of their country who had gone forth to meet the tyrant in a pitched battle; and in proportion to the danger they confronted, would be their meed of glory. "But it is not for renown merely that you are called upon to fight this day," said he; "your rights, your homes are at stake. You have no hope of security for your lives but in an unswerving determination to keep the field, and let the world see how much more might lies in the arms of a few contending for their country and herediatry liberties, than in hosts which seek for blood and spoil. Slavery and freedom lie before you! Shrink but one backward step, and yourselves are in bondage, your wives become the prey of violence. Be firm--trust Him who blesses the righteous cause, and victory will crown your arms!"

Though affecting to despise his young opponent, Edward was too good a general really to condemn an enemy who had so often proved himself worthy of respect; and therefore, by declaring his determination to put all the Scottish chieftains to death, and to transfer their estates to his conquering officers, he stimulated their avarice, as well as love of fame, and with every passion in arms, they pushed to the combat.

Wallace stood unmoved. Not a bow was drawn till the impetuous squadrons, in full charge toward the flanks of the Scots, fell into the pits; then it was that the Highland archers on the hill launched their arrows; the plunging horses were instantly overwhelmed by others who could not be checked in their career. New showers of darts rained upon them, and, sticking into their flesh, made them rear and roll upon their riders; while others, who were wounded, but had escaped the pits, flew back in rage of pain upon the advancing infantry. A confusion ensued, so perilous, that the king thought it necessary to precipitate himself forward, and in person attack the main body of his adversary, which yet stood inactive. Giving the spur to his charger, he ordered his troops to press on over the struggling heaps before them; and being obeyed, with much difficulty and great loss, he passed the first range of pits; but a second and wider awaited him; and there, seeing his men sink into them by squadrons, he beheld the whole army of Wallace close in upon them. Terrific was now the havoc. The very numbers of the Southrons, and the mixed discipline of their army, proved its bane. In the tumult they hardly understood the orders which were given; and some mistaking them, acted so contrary to the intended movements, that Edward, galloping from one end of the field to the other, appeared like a frantic man, regardless of every personal danger, so that he could but fix others to front the same tempest of death with himself. His officers trembled at every step he took, for fear that some of the secret pits should ingulf him.

However, the unshrinking courage of their monarch rallied a part of the distracted army, which, with all the force of desperation, he drove against the center of the Scots. But at this juncture, the reserve under Graham, having turned the royal position, charged him in the rear; and the archers redoubling their discharge of artillery, the Flanderkins, who were in the van of Edward, suddenly giving way with cries of terror, the amazed king found himself obliged to retreat, or run the risk of being taken. He gave a signal--the first of the kind he had ever sounded in his life-and drawing his English troops around him, after much hard fighting, fell back in tolerable order beyond the confines of his camp.

The Scots were eager to pursue him, but Wallace checked the motion. "Let us not hunt the lion till he stand at bay!" cried he. "He will retire far enough from the Scottish borders, without our leaving this vantage ground to drive him."

What Wallace said came to pass. Soon no vestige of a Southron soldier, but the dead which strewed the road, was to be seen from side to side of the wide horizon. The royal camp was immediately seized by the triumphant Scots; and the tent of King Edward, with its costly furniture, was sent to Stirling as a trophy of the victory.

L. Stirling

Many chieftains from the north had come to Stirling, to be near intelligence from the borders. They were aware that this meeting between Wallace and Edward must be the crisis of their fate. The few who remained in the citadel, of those who had borne the brunt of the opening of this glorious revolution for their country, were full of sanguine expectations. They had seen the prowess of their leader, they had shared the glory of his destiny, and they feared not that Edward would deprive him of one ray. But they who, at their utmost wilds of Highlands, had only heard his fame; though they had afterward seen him amongst themselves, transforming the mountain-savage into a civilized man and disciplined soldier; though they had felt the effects of his military successes; yet they doubted how his fortunes might stand the shock of Edward's happy star. The lords whom he had released from the Southron prisons were all of the same apprehensive opinion; for they knew what numbers Edward could bring against the Scottish power, and how hitherto unrivaled was his skill in the field. "Now," thought Lord Badenoch, "will this brave Scot find the difference between fighting with the officers of a king and a king himself, contending for what he determines shall be a part of his dominions!" Full of this idea, and resolving never to fall into the hands of Edward again (for the conduct of Wallace had made the earl ashamed of his long submission to the usurpation of rights to which he had a claim), he kept a vessel in readiness at the mouth of the Forth, to take him, as soon as the news of the regent's defeat should arrive, far from the sad consequences, to a quiet asylum in France.

The meditations of Athol, Buchan, and March, were of a different tendency. It was their design, on the earliest intimation of such intelligence, to set forth, and be the first to throw themselves at the feet of Edward, and acknowledge him their sovereign. Thus, with various projects in their heads (which none but the three last breathed to each other), were several hundred expecting chiefs assembled round the Earl of Mar; when Edwin Ruthven, glowing with all the effulgence of his general's glory, and his own, rushed into the hall; and throwing the royal standard of England on the ground, exclaimed, "There lies the supremacy of King Edward!"

Every man started to his feet. "You do not mean," cried Athol, "that King Edward has been beaten?"

"He has been beaten, and driven off the field!" returned Edwin. "These dispatches," added he, laying them on the table before his uncle, "will relate every particular. A hard battle our regent fought, for our enemies were numberless; but a thousand good angels were his allies, and Edward himself fled. I saw the king, after he had thrice rallied his troops and brought them to the charge, at last turn and fly. It was at that moment I wounded his standard-bearer, and seized this dragon."

"Thou art worthy of thy general, brave Ruthven!" cried Badenoch to Edwin. "James," added he, addressing his eldest son, who had just arrived from France, "what is left to us to show ourselves also of Scottish blood? Heaven has given him all!"

Lord Mar, who had stood in speechless gratitude, opened the dispatches; and finding a circumstantial narrative of the battle, with accounts of the previous embassies, he read them aloud. Their contents excited a variety of emotions. When the nobles heard that Edward had offered Wallace the crown; when they found that by vanquishing that powerful monarch, he had subdued even the soul of the man who had hitherto held them all in awe; though in the same breath, they read that their regent had refused royalty; and was now, as a servant of the people, preparing to strengthen their borders; yet the most extravagant suspicions awoke in almost every breast. The eagle flight of his glory, seemed to have raised him so far above their heads, so beyond their power to restrain or to elevate him, that an envy, dark as Erebus--a jealousy which at once annihilated every grateful sentiment, every personal regard--passed like electricity from heart to heart. The eye, turning from one to the other, explained what no lip dared utter. A dead silence reigned, while the demon of hatred was taking possession of almost every beast; and none but the Lords Mar, Badenoch, and Loch-awe, escaped the black contagion.

When the meeting broke up, Lord Mar placed himself at the head of the officers of the garrison, and with a herald holding the banner of Edward beneath the colors of Scotland, rode forth to proclaim to the country the decisive victory of its regent. Badenoch and Loch-awe left the hall, to hasten with the tidings to Snawdoun. The rest of the chiefs dispersed. But as if actuated by one spirit, they were seen wandering about the outskirts of the town, where they soon drew together in groups, and whispered among themselves these and similar statements: "He refused the crown offered to him in the field by the people; he rejected it from Edward, because he would reign uncontrolled. He will now seize it as a conqueror, and we shall have an upstart's foot upon our necks. If we are to be slaves, let us have a tyrant of our own choosing."

As the trumpets before Lord Mar blew the loud acclaim of triumph, Athol said to Buchan, "Cousin, that is but the forerunner of what we shall hear to announce the usurpation of this Wallace. And shall we sit tamely by, and have our birthright wrested from us by a man of yesterday? No; if the race of Alexander be not to occupy the throne, let us not hesitate between the monarch of a mighty nation and a low-born tyrant, between him who will at least gild our chains with chivalric honors, and an upstart, whose domination must be as stern as debasing!"

Murmurings such as these, passing from chief to chief, descended to the minor chieftains, who held lands in fee of those more sovereign lords. Petty interests extinguished gratitude for general benefits; and by secret meetings, at the heads of which were Athol, Buchan, and March, a conspiracy was formed to overset the power of Wallace. They were to invite Edward once more to take possession of the kingdom; and meanwhile, to accomplish this with certainty, each chief was to assume a pre-eminent zeal for the regent. March was to persuade Wallace to send him to Dunbar as governor of the Lothiaus, to hold the refractory Soulis in check; and to divide the public cares of Lord Dundaff; who, indeed, found Berwick a sufficient charge for his age and comparative inactivity. "Then," cried the false Cospatrick,** "when I am fixed at Dunbar, Edward may come round from Newcastle to that port; and, by your management, he must march unmolested to Stirling, and seize the usurper on his throne."

**The name by which Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, was familiarly called.

Such suggestions met with full approval from these dark incendiaries; and as their meetings were usually held at night, they walked forth in the day with cheerful countenances, and joined the general rejoicing.

They feared to hint even a word of their intentions to Lord Badenoch; for, on Buchan having expressed some discontent to him, at the homage that was paid to a man so much their inferior, his answer was, "Had we acted worthy of our birth, Sir William Wallace never could have had the opportunity to rise upon our disgrace. But as it is, we must submit, or bow to treachery instead of virtue." This reply determined them to keep their proceedings secret from him, and also from Lady Mar; for both Lord Buchan and Lord Athol had, at different times, listened to the fond dreams of her love and ambition. They had flattered her with entering into her designs. Athol gloomily affected acquiescence, that he might render himself master of all that was in her mind, and, perhaps, in that of her lover; for he did not doubt that Wallace was as guilty as her wishes would have made him. And Buchan, ever ready to yield to the persuasions of woman, was not likely to refuse, when his fair cousin promised to reward him with all the pleasures of the gayest court in Europe. For, indeed, both lords had conceived, from the evident failing state of her veteran husband, in consequence of the unhealing condition of one of his wounds, that it might not be long before this visionary game would be thrown into her hands.

Thus were they situated, when the news of Wallace's decisive victory, distancing all their means to raise him who was now at the pinnacle of power, determined the dubious to become at once his mortal enemies. Lord Badenoch had listened with a different temper to the first breathings of Lady Mar on her favorite subject. He told her, if the nation chose to make their benefactor king, he should not oppose it; because he thought that none of the blood royal deserved to wear the crown which they had all consented to hold in fee of Edward; yet he would never promote by intrigue an election which must rob his own posterity of their inheritance. But when she gave hints of her becoming one day the wife of Wallace, he turned on her with a frown. "Cousin," said he, "beware how you allow so guilty an idea to take possession of your heart! It is the parent of dishonor and death. And did I think that Sir William Wallace were capable of sharing your wishes, I would be the first to abandon his standard. But I believe him too virtuous to look on a married woman with the eyes of passion; and that he holds the houses of Mar and Cummin in too high a respect to breathe an illicit sigh in the ear of my kinswoman."

Despairing of making the impression she desired on the mind of this severe relative, Lady Mar spoke to him no more on the subject. And Lord Badenoch, ignorant that she had imparted her criminal project to his brother and cousin, believed that his reproof had performed her cure. Thus flattering himself, he made no hesitations to be the first who should go to Snawdoun, to communicate to her the brilliant dispatches of the regent, and to declare the freedom of Scotland to be now almost secured. He and Lord Loch-awe set forth; but they had been some time preceded by Edwin.

The moment the countess heard the name of her nephew announced, she made a sign for her ladies to withdraw, and starting forward at his entrance, "Speak!" cried she; "tell me, Edwin, is the regent still a conqueror?"

"Where are my mother and Helen," replied he, "to share my tidings?"

"Then they are good!" exclaimed lady mar, with one of her bewitching smiles. "Ah! you sly one, like your chief, you know your power!"

"And like him I exercise it," replied he, gayly; "therefore, to keep your ladyship no longer in suspense, here is a letter from the regent himself." He presented it as he spoke, and she, catching it from him, turned round, and pressing it rapturously to her lips (it being the first she had ever received from him), eagerly ran over its brief contents. While reperusing it--for she could not tear her eyes from the beloved characters--Lady Ruthven and Helen entered the room. The former hastened forward, the latter trembled as she moved, for she did not yet know the information which her cousin brought. But the first glance of his face told her all was safe, and as he broke from his mother's embrace, to clasp Helen in his arms, she fell upon his neck, and, with a shower of tears, whispered, "Wallace lives? Is well?"

"As you would wish him," rewhispered he, "and with Edward at his feet."

"Thank God, thank God!"

While she spoke, Lady Ruthven exclaimed: "But how is our regent? Speak, Edwin! How is the delight of all hearts?"

"Still the Lord of Scotland," answered he; "the invincible dictator of her enemies! The puissant Edward has acknowledged the power of Sir William Wallace, and after being beaten on the plain of Stanmore, is now making the best of his way toward his own capital."

Lady Mar again and again pressed the cold letter of Wallace to her burning bosom. "The regent does not mention these matters in his letter to me," said she, casting an exulting glance over the glowing face of Helen. But Helen did not notice it; she was listening to Edwin, who, with joyous animation, related every particular that had befallen Wallace from the time of his rejoining him to that very moment. The countess heard all with complacency, till he mentioned the issue of the conference with Edward's first embassadors. "Fool!" exclaimed she to herself, "to throw away the golden opportunity, that may never return!" Not observing her disturbance, Edwin went on with his narrative; every word of which spread the eloquent countenance of Helen with admiration and joy.

Since her heroic heart had wrung from it all selfish wishes with regard to Wallace, she allowed herself to openly rejoice in his success, and to look up unabashed when the resplendent glories of his character were brought before her. None but Edwin made her feel her exclusion from her soul's only home, by dwelling on his gentle virtues; by portraying the exquisite tenderness of his nature, which seemed to enfold the objects of his love in his heart of hearts. When Helen thought on these discourses she would sigh, but it was a sigh of resignation, and she loved to meditate on the words which Edwin had carelessly spoken--that "she made herself a nun for Wallace!" "And so I will," said she to herself; "and that resolution stills every wild emotion. All is innocence in heaven, Wallace! You will there read my soul, and love me as a sister."

In such a frame of mind did she listen to the relation of Edwin; did her animated eye welcome the entrance of Badenoch and Loch-awe, and their enthusiastic encomiums on the lord of her heart. Then sounded the trumpet; and the herald's voice in the streets proclaimed the victory of the regent. Lady mar rushed to the window, as if there she would see himself. Lady Ruthven followed, and as the acclamations of the people echoed through the air, Helen pressed the precious cross of Wallace to her bosom and hastily left the room to enjoy the rapture of her thoughts in the blessed retirement of her own oratory.

In the course of a few days, after the promulgation of all this happy intelligence, it was announced that the regent was on his return to Stirling. Lady Mar was not so inebriated with her vain hopes as to forget that Helen might traverse the dearest of them, should she again present herself to its object. She therefore hastened to her when the time of his expected arrival drew near; and putting on all the matron, affected to give her the counsel of a mother.

As all the noble families around Stirling would assemble to hail the victor's return, the countess said, she came to advise her, in consideration of what had passed in the chapel before the regent's departure, not to submit herself to the observation of so many eyes. Not suspecting the occult devices which worked in her stepmother's heart, Helen meekly acquiesced, with the reply, "I shall obey." But she inwardly thought, "I, who know the heroism of his soul, need not pageants nor acclamations of the multitude to tell me what he is. He is already too bring for my senses to support, and with his image pressing on my heart, it is mercy to let me shrink from his glorious presence."

The "obey" was sufficient for Lady Mar; she had gained her point. For though she did not seriously think (what she had affected to believe) that anything more had passed between Wallace and Helen than what they had openly declared, yet she could not but discern the harmony of their minds, and she feared that frequent intercourse might draw such sympathy to something dearer. She had understanding to perceive his virtues, but they found no answering qualities in her breast. The matchless beauty of his person, the penetrating tenderness of his manner, the splendor of his fame, the magnitude of his power, all united to set her impassioned and ambitious soul in a blaze. Each opposing duty seemed only a vapor through which she could easily pass to the goal of her desire. Hence art of every kind appeared to her to be no more than a means of acquiring the object most valuable to her in life. Education had not given her any principle by which she might have checked the headlong impulse of her now aroused passions. Brought up as a worshiped object, in the little court of her parents, at Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, her father the Earl of Strathern, in Scotland, and her mother being a princess of Norway, whose dowry brought him the sovereignty of those isles, their daughter never knew any law but her own will, from her doting mother. And on the fearful loss of that mother, in a marine excursion of pleasure, by an accident oversetting the boat she was in, the bereaved daughter fell into such a despair, on her first pang of grief of any kind, that her similarly distracted father (whose little dominions happened then to be menaced by a descent of the Danes) sought a safe and cheering home for his only child, at the interesting age of seventeen, by sending her over sea, to the protecting care of his long-affianced friend, the Earl of Mar, and to his lovely countess, then an only three years' wife with one infant daughter.

Though fond of admiration, the young Joanna of Orkney had held herself at too high a price, to bestow a thought on the crowd of rough sons of the surge (chiefs of the surrounding isles, who owned her father as lord), who daily adulated her charms with all the costliest trophies from their ocean-spoils. She trod past them, and by all the female beauties in her isle, with the step of an undisputed right to receive, and to despise. But when she crossed to the mainland, and found herself by the side of a woman almost as young as herself, and equally beautiful, though of a different mold, soft and retreating, while hers commanded and compelled; and that the husband of that woman, whose tender adoration hovered over her with a perpetual eye; that he, though of comparative veteran years, was handsomer than any man she had ever seen, and fraught with every noble grace to delight the female heart; she felt what she had never done before, that she had met a rival and an object worthy to subdue.

What Joanna began in mere excited vanity, jealous pride, and ambition of conquest, ended in a fatal attachment to the husband of her innocent and too confiding protectress. And he, alas! betrayed, first by her insidious wiles, and then by her overpowering and apparently restrainless demonstrations of devoted love, was so far won "from the propriety" of his noble heart, as to regard with a grateful admiration, as well as a manly pity, the beautiful victim of a passion he had so unwittingly raised. In the midst of these scenes, too often acted for his peace (though not for his honor and fidelity to his marriage vow), his beloved Isabella, the wife of his bosom, and till then the joy of his life, died in the pangs of a premature confinement, breathing her last sigh in the birth of a daughter. Scarcely was the countess consigned to her bed of earth, and even in the hour after the last duties were paid to her, whose closed tomb seemed to have left unto him "his house desolate!" when the heart-desperate Joanna rushed into the weeping husband's presence, fearful of being now restrainingly reclaimed by her father, who had, only a short while before, intimated his intention to relieve his friends of a guardianship they had so partially fulfilled, and to send a vessel for his daughter, to bring her back to Kirkwall, there to be united in marriage to the brave native chieftain, whose singular prowess had preserved the island from a Danish yoke. Dreading this event, even while her siren tears mingled with those of the widowed Mar, she wrought on him, by lavish protestations of a devoted love for his two infant orphans (Helen, then a child of hardly two years, and the poor babe whose existence had just cost its mother her life)--also of a never-dying dedication of herself to that mother's memory, and to the tenderest consolations of his own mourning spirit, she wrought upon him to rescue her from her now-threatened abhorrent fate, even to give her his vow--to wed her himself! In the weakness of an almost prostrated mind, under the load of conflicting anguish which then lay upon him--for now feeling his own culpable infirmity, in having suffered this dangerously flattering preference of him to have ever showed itself to him, without his having down his positive duty, by sending her home at once to her proper protector--in a sudden self-immolating agony of self-blame, he assented to her heart-wringing supplication, that as soon as propriety would permit, she should become his wife.

The Earl of Strathern arrived himself within the week, to condole with his friend, and to take back his daughter. But the scene he met, changed his ultimate purpose. Joanna declared, that were she to be carried away to marry any man save that friend, whose protection, during the last six months, had been to her as that of all relatives in one, she should expire on the threshold of Castle Braemer, for she never would cross it alive! And as the melancholy widower, but grateful lover, verified his vow to her, by repeating it to her father--within four months from that day, the Earl of Mar rejoined the Lady Joanna at Kirkwall, and brought her away as his bride. But to avoid exciting any invidious remarks, by immediately appearing in Scotland after such prompt nuptials, the new countess, wary in her triumph, easily persuaded her husband to take her for awhile to France; where, assuming a cold and majestic demeanor, which she thought becoming her royal descent, she resided several years. Thus changed, she returned to Scotland. She found the suspicion of any former indiscretion faded from all minds, and passing her time in the stately hospitalities of her lord's castles, conducted herself with a matronly dignity, that made him the envy of all the married chieftains in his neighborhood. Soon after her arrival at Kildrumy on the River Dee, her then most favorite residence, she took the Lady Helen, the supplanted Isabella's first-born daughter, from her grandfather at Thirlestance, where both children had been left on the departure of their father and his bride for France. Though hardly past the period of absolute childhood, the Lord Soulis at this time offered the young heiress of Mar his hand. The countess had then no interest in wishing the union; having not yet any children of her own, to make her jealous for their father's love, she permitted her daughter-in-law to decide as she pleased. A second time he presented himself, and Lady Mar, still indifferent, allowed Helen a second time to refuse him. Years flew over the heads of the ill-joined pair; but while they whitened the raven locks of the earl, and withered his manly brow, the beauty of his countess blew into fuller luxuriance.

Yet it was her mirror aloe that told her she was fairer than all the ladies around, for none durst invade the serene decorum of her manners, with so light a whisper. Such was her state, when she first heard of the rise of Sir William Wallace, and when she thought that her husband might not only lose his life, but risk the forfeiture of his family honors, by joining him, for her own sake and for her children's (having recently become the mother of twins), she had then determined, if it were necessary, to make the outlawed chief a sacrifice. To this end, she became willing to bribe Soulis' participation, by the hand of Helen. She knew that her daughter-in-law abhorred his character, but love, indifference, or hatred, she now thought of little consequence in a marriage which brought sufficient antidotes in rank and wealth. She had never felt what real love was, and her personal vanity being no longer agitated by the raptures of a frantic rivalry, she now lived tranquilly with Lord Mar. What then was her astonishment, what the wild distraction of her heart, when she first beheld Sir William Wallace, and found in her breast for him, all which, in the moment of the most unreflecting intoxication, she had ever felt for her lord, with the addition of feelings and sentiments, the existence of which she had never believed, but now knew in all their force! Love for the first time penetrated through every nerve of her body, and possessed her whole mind. Taught a theory of virtue by her husband, she was startled at wishes which militated against his honor, but no principles being grounded in her mind, they soon disappeared before the furious charge of his passions, and after a short struggle she surrendered herself to the lawless power of a guilty and ambitious love. Wishes, hopes, and designs, which two years before, she would have shuddered at, as not only sinful but derogatory to female delicacy, she now embraced with ardor, and naught seemed dreadful to her but disappointment. The prolonged life of Lord Mar cost her many tears, for the master-passions of her nature, which she had laid asleep on her marriage with the earl, broke out with redoubled violence at the sight of Wallace. His was the most perfect of manly forms--and she loved; he was great--and her ambition blazed into an unextinguishable flame. These two strong passions, meeting in a breast weakened by the besetting sin of her youth, their rule was absolute, and neither virtue, honor, nor humanity could stand before them. Her husband was abhorred, her infant son forgotten, and nothing but Wallace and a crown could find a place in her thoughts.

LI. Stirling and Snawdoun

The few chieftains who had remained on their estates during the suspense before the battle, from a belief that if the issue proved unfavorable they should be safest amongst their native glens, now came with numerous trains to greet the return of their victorious regent. The ladies brought forth their most splendid apparel; and the houses of Stirling were hung with tapestry to hail with due respect the benefactor of the land.

At last the hour arrived when a messenger, whom Lord Mar had sent out for the purpose, returned on full speed with information that the regent was passing the Carron. At these tidings the animated old earl called out his retinue, mounted his coal-black steed, and ordered a sumptuous charger to be caparisoned with housings wrought in gold by the hands of Lady Mar and her ladies. The horse was intended to meet Wallace and to bring him into the city. Edwin led it forward. In the rear of the Earls Mar and Badenoch came all the chieftains of the country, in gallant array. Their ladies, on splendid palfreys, followed the superb car of the Countess of Mar; and, preceding the multitudes of Stirling, left the town a desert. Not a living being seemed now within its walls except the Southron prisoners, who had assembled on the top of the citadel to view the return of their conqueror.

Helen remained in Snawdoun, believing that she was the only soul left in that vast palace. She sat musing on the extraordinary fate of Wallace, a few months ago a despised outlaw, at this moment the idol of the nation! And then turned to herself--the wooed of many a gallant heart, and now devoted to one, whom, like the sun, she must ever contemplate with admiration, while he should pass on above her sphere, unconscious of the devotion which filled her soul.

The distant murmur of the populace thronging out of the streets toward the Carse, gradually subsided; and at last she was left in profound silence. "He must be near," thought she, "he whose smile is more precious to me than the adulation of all the world besides, now smiles upon every one! All look upon him, all hear him, but I--and I--ah, Wallace, did Marion love thee dearer?" As her devoted heart demanded this question, her tender and delicate soul shrunk within herself, and deeply blushing, she hid her face in her hands. A pause of a few minutes--and a sound as if the skies were rent, tore the air; a noise, like the distant roar of the sea, succeeded; and soon after, the shouts of an approaching multitude shook the palace to its foundations. Helen started on her feet; the tumult of voices augmented; the sound of coming squadrons thundered over the ground. At this instant every bell in the city began its peals, and the door of Helen's room suddenly opened--Lady Ruthven hurried in. "Helen," cried she, "I would not disturb you before; but as you were to be absent, I would not make one in Lady Mar's train; and I come to enjoy with you the return of our beloved regent!"

Helen did not speak, but her eloquent countenance amply told her aunt what were the emotions of her heart; and Lady Ruthven taking her hand, attempted to draw her toward an oriel window which opened to a view of the High Street; but Helen, shrinking from the movement, begged to be excused. "I hear enough," said she, "my dear aunt; sights like these overcome me; let me remain where I am."

Lady Ruthven was going to remonstrate, when the loud huzzas of the people and soldiers, accompanied by acclamations of "Long live victorious Wallace, our prince and king!" struck Helen back into her seat, and Lady Ruthven darting toward the window, cried aloud, "He comes, Helen, he comes! His bonnet off his noble brow. Oh! how princely does he look!--and now he bows. Ah, they shower flowers upon him from the houses on each side of the street; how sweetly he smiles and bows to the ladies as they lean from their windows! Come, Helen, come, if you would see the perfection of majesty and modesty united in one!"

Helen did not move; but Lady Ruthven stretching out her arm, in a moment had drawn her within view of Wallace. She saw him attended as a conqueror and a king; but with the eyes of a benefactor and a brother he looked on all around. The very memory of war seemed to vanish before his presence, for all there was love and gentleness. Helen drew a quick sigh, and closing her eyes, dropped against the arras. She now heard the buzz of many voices, the rolling peal of acclamations, but she distinguished nothing; her senses were in tumults; and had not Lady Ruthven seen her disorder, she would have fallen motionless to the floor. The good matron was not so forgetful of the feelings of a virtuous youthful heart, not to have discovered something of what was passing in that of her niece. From the moment in which she had suspected that Wallace had made a serious impression there, she dropped all trifling with his name. And now that she saw the distressing effects of that impression, with revulsed feelings she took the fainting Helen in her arms, and laying her on a couch, by the aid of volatiles restored her to recollection. Seeing she recovered, she made no observation on this emotion, and Helen leaned her head and wept upon the bosom of her aunt. Lady Ruthven's tears silently mingled with hers; but she said within herself, "Wallace cannot be always insensible to so much excellence!"

As the acclaiming populace passed the palace on their way to the citadel, whither they were escorting their regent, Helen remained quiet in her leaning position; but when the noise died away into hoarse murmurs, she raised her head, and glancing on the tear-bathed face of her affectionate aunt, said, with a forced smile, "My more than mother, fear me not! I am grateful to Sir William Wallace; I venerate him as the Southrons do their St. George, but I need not your tender pity." As she spoke, her beautiful lip quivered, but her voice was steady.

"My sweetest Helen," replied Lady Ruthven, "how can I pity her for whom I hope everything."

"Hope nothing for me," returned Helen, understanding by her looks what her tongue had left unsaid, "but to see me a vestal here, and a saint in heaven."

"What can my Helen mean?" replied Lady Ruthven; "who would talk of being a vestal with such a heart in view as that of the Regent of Scotland? and that it will be yours, does not his eloquent gratitude declare?"

"No, my aunt," answered Helen, casting down her eyes; "gratitude is eloquent where love would be silent. I am not so sacrilegious as to wish that Sir William Wallace should transfer that heart to me, which the blood of Marion forever purchased. No; should these people compel him to be their king, I will retire to some monastery, and forever devote myself to God and to prayers for my country."

The holy composure which spread over the countenance and figure of Helen, as she uttered this, seemed to extend itself to the before eager mind of Lady Ruthven; she pressed her tenderly in her arms, and kissing her: "Gentlest of human beings!" cried she, "whatever be thy lot, it must be happy."

"Whatever it be," answered Helen, "I know that there is an Almighty reason for it; I shall understand it in the world to come, and I cheerfully acquiesce in this."

"Oh! that the ears of Wallace could hear thee!" cried Lady Ruthven.

"They will, some time, my gracious aunt," answered she, with an angelic smile.

"When? where, dearest?" asked Lady Ruthven, hoping that she began to have fairer anticipations for herself. Helen answered not; but pointing to the sky, rose from her seat with an air as if she were really going to ascend to those regions which seemed best fitted to receive her pure spirit. Lady Ruthven gazed on her in speechless admiration; and without a word, or an impeding motion, felt Helen softly kiss her hand, and with another seraphic smile, glide gently from her into her closet, and close the door.

Far different were the emotions which agitated the bosoms of every person present at the entry of Sir William Wallace. All but himself regarded it as the triumph of the King of Scotland. And while some of the nobles exulted in their future monarch, the major part felt the demon of envy so possess their souls, that they who, before his arrival, were ready to worship his name, now looked on the empire to which he seemed borne on the hearts of the people, with a rancorous jealousy, which from that moment vowed his humiliation, or the fall of Scotland. The very tongues which in general acclaim, called loudest, "Long live our king!" belonged to those who, in the secret recesses of their souls, swore to work his ruin, and to make these full-blown honors the means of his destruction. He had in vain tried to check what his moderate desires deemed the extravagant gratitude of the people; but finding his efforts only excited still louder demonstrations of their love, and knowing himself immovable in his resolution to remain a subject of the crown, he rode on composedly toward the citadel.

Those ladies who had not retired from the cavalcade to hail their regent a second time from their windows, preceded him in Lady Mar's train to the hall, where she had caused a sumptuous feast to be spread to greet his arrival. Two seats were placed under a canopy of cloth of gold, at the head of the board. The countess stood there in all the splendor of her ideal rank, and would have seated Wallace in the royal chair on her right hand, but he drew back.

"I am only a guest in this citadel," returned he; "and it would ill become me to take the place of the master of the banquet."

As he spoke, he looked on Lord Mar, who, understanding the language of his eyes, which never said the thing he would not, without a word took the kingly seat, and so disappointed the countess. By this refusal she still found herself as no more than the Governor of Stirling's wife, when she had hoped a compliance with her cunning arrangement would have hinted to all that she was to be the future queen of their acknowledged sovereign. They knew Wallace, saw his unshaken resolution in this apparently slight action; but others who read his design in their own ambition, translated it differently, and deemed it only an artful rejection of the appendages of royalty, to excite the impatience of the people to crown him in reality.

As the ladies took their seats at the board, Edwin, who stood by the chair of his beloved lord, whispered:

"Our Helen is not here."

Lady Mar overheard the name of Helen, but she could not distinguish Wallace's reply; and fearing that some second assignation of more happy termination than that of the chapel might be designed, she determined that if Edwin were to be the bearer of a secret correspondence between the man she loved and the daughter she hated, to deprive them speedily of so ready an assistant.

LII. Banks of the Forth

In the collected council of the following day, the Earl of March made his treacherous request; and Wallace, trusting his vehement oaths of fidelity (because he thought the versatile earl had now discovered his true interest), granted him charge of the Lothians. The Lords Athol and Buchan were not backward in offering their services to the regent; and the rest of the discontented nobles, following the base example, with equal deceit bade him command their lives and fortunes. While asseverations of loyalty filled the walls of the council-hall, and the lauding rejoicings of the people still sounded from without, all spoke of security and confidence to Wallace; and never, perhaps, did he think himself so absolute in the heart of Scotland as at the very moment when three-fourths of its nobility were plotting his destruction.

Lord Loch-awe knew his own influence in the minds of the bravest chieftains. From the extent of his territories and his tried valor, he might well have assumed the title of his great ancestor, and been called King of Woody Morven, but he was content with a patriarch's sway over so many valiant clans; and previous to the regent's appearance in the council-hall he opened his intentions to the assembled lords. Some assented with real satisfaction; the rest readily acquiesced in what they had laid so sure a plan to circumvent.

Wallace soon after entered. Loch-awe rising, stood forth before him; and, in a long and persuasive speech, once more declared the wishes of the nation that he would strike the decisive blow on the pretensions of Edward, by himself accepting the crown. The Bishop of Dunkeld, with al the eloquence of learning and the most animated devotion to the interest of Scotland, seconded the petition. Mar and Bothwell enforced it. The disaffected lords thought proper to throw in their conjurations also; and every voice but that of Badenoch poured forth fervent entreaties that he, their liberator, would grant the supplication of the nation.

Wallace rose, and every tongue was mute. "My gratitude to Scotland increases with my life; but my answer must still be the same--I cannot be its king."

At these words the venerable Loch-awe threw himself on his knees before him. "In my person," cried he, "see Scotland at your feet! still bleeding with the effects of former struggles for empire, she would throw off all claims but those of virtue, and receive as her anointed sovereign, her father and deliverer! She has no more arguments to utter--these are her prayers, and thus I offer them."

"Kneel not to me, brave Loch-awe!" cried Wallace; "nor believe the might of these victories lies so thoroughly on this arm that I dare outrage its Maker. Were I to comply with your wishes, I should disobey him who has hitherto made me his happy agent; and how could I guard my kingdom from his vengeance? Your rightful king yet lives; he is an alien from his country, but Heaven may return him to your prayers. Meanwhile, as his representative, as your soldier and protector, I shall be blessed in wearing out my life. My ancestors were ever faithful to the blood of Alexander, and in the same fidelity I will die."

The firmness with which he spoke, and the determined expression of his noble countenance, convinced Loch-awe that he was not to be shaken; and rising from his knee, he bowed in silence. March whispered to Buchan, "Behold the hypocrite! But we shall unmask him. He thinks to blind us to his towering ambition, by this affected moderation. He will not be called a king; because, with our own crown certain limitations are laid on the prerogative; but he will be our regent, that he may be our dictator, and every day demand gratitude for voluntary services, which, performed as a king, could only be considered as his duty!"

When the council broke up, these sentiments were actively disseminated among the disaffected throng; and each gloomy recess in the woods murmured with seditious meetings. But every lip in the country at large breathed the name of Wallace, as they would have done a god's; while the land that he had blessed, bloomed on every hill and valley like a garden.

Stirling now exhibited a constant carnival; peace was in every heart, and joy its companion. As Wallace had commanded in the field, he decided in the judgment-hall; and while all his behests were obeyed with a promptitude which kept the machine of state constantly moving in the most beautiful order, his bitterest enemies could not but secretly acknowledge the perfection they were determined to destroy.

His munificent hand stretched itself far and near, that all who had shared the sufferings of Scotland might drink largely of her prosperity. The good Abbot of Scone was invited from his hermitage; and when he heard from the embassadors sent to him, that the brave young warrior whom he had entertained was the resistless Wallace, he no longer thought of the distant and supine Bruce, but centered every wish for his country in the authority of her deliverer. A few days brought him to Stirling; and wishing to remain near the most constant residence of his noble friend, he requested that, instead of being restored to Scone, he might be installed in the vacant monastery of Cambus-Kenneth. Wallace gladly acquiesced; and the venerable abbot being told that his late charge, the Lady Helen, was in the palace, went to visit her; and as he communicated his exultation and happiness, she rejoiced in the benedictions which his grateful spirit invoked on the head of her almost worshiped sovereign. Her heart gave him his title; which she believed the not-to-be-repressed affection of the people would at last force him to accept.

The wives and families of the Lanark veterans were brought from Loch Doine, and again planted in their native valleys; thus, naught in the kingdom appeared different from its most prosperous days, but the widowed heart of the dispenser of all this good. And yet, so fully did he engage himself in the creation of these benefits, that no time seemed left to him for regrets; but they haunted him like persecuting spirits, invisible to all but himself.

During the performance of these things, the Countess of Mar, though apparently lost to all other pursuits than the peaceable enjoyment of her reflected dignities, was absorbed in the one great object of her passion. Eager to be rid of so dangerous a spy and adversary as she deemed Edwin to be, she was laboring day and night to effect by clandestine schemes his banishment, when an unforeseen circumstance carried him far away. Lord Ruthven, while on an embassy to the Hebrides, fell ill. As his disorder was attended with extreme danger, he sent for his wife; and Edwin, impelled by love for his father, and anxiety to soothe the terrified suspense of his mother, readily left the side of his friend, to accompany her to the isles. Lady Mar had now no scrutinizing eye to fear; her nephew Murray was still on duty in Clydesdale; the earl, her husband, trusted her too implicitly even to turn on her a suspicious look; and Helen, she contrived, should be as little in her presence as possible.

Busy, then, as this lady was, the enemies of the regent were not less active in the prosecution of their plans. The Earl of March had arrived at Dunbar; and having dispatched his treasonable proposals to Edward, had received letters from that monarch by sea, accepting his services, and promising every reward that could satisfy his ambition, and the cupidity of those whom he could draw over to his cause. The wary king then told the earl, that if he would send his wife and family to London, as hostages for his faith, he was ready to bring a mighty army to Dunbar; and, by that gate, once more enter Scotland. These negotiations backward and forward from London to Dunbar, and from Dunbar to the treacherous lords at Stirling, occupied much time; and the more, as great precaution was necessary to escape the vigilant eyes of Wallace, which seemed to be present in every part of the kingdom at once. So careful was he, in overlooking, by his well-chosen officers, civil and military, every transaction, that the slightest dereliction from the straight order of things was immediately seen and examined into. Many of these trusty magistrates having been placed in the Lothians, before March took the government, he could not now remove them without exciting suspicion; and therefore, as they remained, great circumspection was used to elude their watchfulness.

From the time that Edward had again entered into terms with the Scottish chiefs, Lord March sent regular tidings to Lord Soulis of the progress of their negotiations. He knew that nobleman would gladly welcome the recall of the King of England; for ever since the revolution in favor of Scotland, he had remained obstinately shut up within his castle of Hermitage. Chagrin at having lost Helen was not the least of his mortifications; and the wounds he had received from the invisible hand which had released her, having been given with all the might of the valiant arm which directed the blow, were not even now healed; his passions kept them still inflamed; and their smart made his vengeance burn the fiercer against Wallace, who he now learned was the mysterious agent of her rescue.

While treason secretly prepared to spring its mine beneath the feet of the regent, he, unsuspicious that any could be discontented where all were free and prosperous, thought of no enemy to the tranquil fulfillment of his duties but the minor persecutions of Lady Mar. No day escaped without bringing him letters, either to invite him to Snawdoun or to lead her to the citadel, where he resided. In every one of these epistles she declared that it was no longer the wildness of passion which impelled her to seek his society, but the moderated regard of a friend. And though perfectly aware of all that was behind these asseverations (for she had deceived him once into a belief of this please, and had made him feel its falseness), he found himself forced at times, out of the civility due to her sex, to comply with her invitations. Indeed, her conduct never gave him reason to hold her in any higher respect, for whenever they happened to be left alone, she made pretensions. The frequency of these scenes at last made him never go to Snawdoun unaccompanied (for she rarely allowed him to have even a glimpse of Helen), and by this precaution he avoided much of her solicitations. But, strange to say, even at the time that this conduct, by driving her to despair, might have excited her to some desperate act, her wayward heart threw the blame of his coldness upon her trammels with Lord Mar, and flattering herself that were he dead, all would happen as she wished, she panted for that hour with an impatience which often tempted her to precipitate the event.

Things were in this situation when Wallace, one night, received a hasty summons from his pillow by a page of Lord Mar's, requesting him to immediately repair to his chamber. Concluding that something alarming must have happened, he threw on his brigandine and plaid, and entered the apartments of the governor. Mar met him with a countenance, the herald of a dreadful matter.

"What has happened?" inquired Wallace.

"Treason," answered Mar; "but from what point I cannot guess. My daughter has braved a dark and lonely walk from Snawdoun, to bring the proofs."

While speaking he lead the chief into the room where Helen sat, like some fairy specter of the night; her long hair, disordered by the winds of a nocturnal storm, mingling with the gray folds of the mantle which enveloped her. Wallace hastened forward--she now no longer flitted away, scared from his approach by the frowning glances of her step-mother. He had once attempted to express his grateful regrets for what she had suffered in her lovely person for his sake, but the countess had then interrupted him, and Helen disappeared. Now he beheld her in a presence, where he could declare all his gratitude without subjecting its gentle object to one harsh word in consequence, and almost forgetting his errand to the governor, and the tidings he had just heard, he remembered only the manner in which she had shielded his life with her arms, and he bent his knee respectfully before her as she rose to his approach. Blushing and silent, she extended her hand to him to rise. He pressed it warmly. "Sweet excellence!" said he, "I am happy in this opportunity, however gained, to again pour out my acknowledgments to you; and though I have been denied that pleasure until now, yet the memory of your generous interest in the friend of your father, is one of the most cherished sentiments of my heart!"

"It is my happiness, as well as my duty, Sit William Wallace," replied she, "to regard you and my country as one; and that, I hope, will excuse the, perhaps, rash action of this night." As she spoke, he rose and looked at Lord Mar for explanation.

The earl held a roll of vellum toward him. "This writing," said he, "was found this evening by my daughter. She was enjoying with my wife and other ladies a moonlight walk on the shores of the Forth behind the palace, when, having strayed at some distance from her friends, she saw this packet lying in the path before her, as if it had just been dropped. It bore no direction; she therefore opened it, and part of the contents soon told her she must conceal the whole, till she could reveal them to me. Not even to my wife did she intrust the dangerous secret, nor would she run any risk by sending it by a messenger. As soon as the family were gone to rest, she wrapped herself in her plaid and finding a passage through one of the low embrasures of Snawdoun, with a fleet step made her way to the citadel and to me. She gave me the packet. Read it, my friend, and judge if we do not owe ourselves to Heaven for so critical a discovery!"

Wallace took the scroll, and read as follows:

"Our trusty fellows will bring you this, and deliver copies of the same to the rest. We shall be with you in four-and-twenty hours after it arrives. The army of our liege lord is now in the Lothians, passing through them under the appellation of succors for the regent from the Hebrides! Keep all safe, and neither himself nor any of his adherents shall have a head on their shoulders by this day week."

Neither superscription, name, nor date, was to this letter; but Wallace immediately knew the handwriting to be that of Lord March. "Then we must have traitors, even within these walls," exclaimed Mar; "none but the most powerful chiefs would the proud Cospatrick admit into his conspiracies. And what are we to do? for by to-morrow evening the army this traitor has let into the heart of this country will be at our gates!"

"No," cried Wallace. "Thanks to God and this guardian angel!" fervently clasping Helen's hand as he spoke, "we must not be intimidated by treachery! Let us be faithful to ourselves, my veteran friend, and all will go well. It matters not who the other traitors are; they must soon discover themselves, and shall find us prepared to counteract their machinations. Sound your bugles, my lord, to summon the heads of our council."

At this command, Helen arose, but replaced herself in her chair on Wallace exclaiming, "Stay, Lady Helen, let the sight of such virgin delicacy, braving the terrors of the night to warn betrayed Scotland, nerve every heart with redoubled courage to breast this insidious foe!" Helen did indeed feel her soul awake to all its ancient patriotic enthusiasm; and thus, with a countenance pale, but resplendent with the light of her thoughts, she sat the angel of her heroic inspiration. Wallace often turned to look on her, while her eyes, unconscious of the adoring admiration which spoke in their beams, followed his godlike figure as it moved through the room with a step that declared the undisturbed determination of his soul.

The Lords Bothwell, Loch-awe, and Badenoch were the first that obeyed the call. They started at sight of Helen, but Wallace in a few words related the cause of her appearance, and the portentous letter was laid before them. All were acquainted with the handwriting of Lord March, and all agreed in attributing to its real motive his late solicitude to obtain the command of the Lothians. "What!" cried Bothwell, "but to open his castle gates to the enemy!"

"And to repel him before he reaches ours, my brave chiefs," replied Wallace, "I have summoned you! Edward will not make this attempt without tremendous powers. He knows what he risks; his men, his life, and his honor. We must therefore expect a resolution in him adequate to such an enterprise. Lose not then a moment; even to-night, this instant, and go out and bring in your followers! I will call up mine from the banks of the Clyde, and be ready to meet him ere he crosses the Carrou."

While he gave these orders, other nobles thronged in, and Helen, being severally thanked by them all, became so agitated, that stretching out her hand to Wallace, who was nearest to her, she softly whispered, "Take me hence." He read in her blushing face, the oppression her modesty sustained in such a scene, and with her faltering steps she leaned upon his arm as he conducted her to an interior chamber. Overcome by her former fears and the emotions of the last hour, she sunk into a chair and burst into tears. Wallace stood near her, and as he looked on her, he thought, "If aught on earth ever resembled the beloved of my soul, it is Helen Mar!" And all the tenderness which memory gave to his almost adored wife, and all the grateful complacency with which he regarded Helen, beamed at once from his eyes. She raised her head--she felt that look--it thrilled to her soul. For a moment every former thought seemed lost in the one perception, that he then gazed on her as he had never looked on any woman since his Marion. Was she then beloved?

The impression was evanescent: "No, no!" said she to herself; and waving her hand gently to him with her head bent down; "Leave me, Sir William Wallace. Forgive me--but I am exhausted; my frame is weaker than my mind." She spoke this at intervals, and Wallace respectfully touching the hand she extended, pressed it to his breast.

"I obey you, dear Lady Helen, and when next we meet, it will, I hope, be to dispel every fear in that gentle bosom." She bowed her head without looking up, and Wallace left the room.

LIII. Falkirk

Before the sun rose, every brave Scot within a few hours' march of Stirling, was on the Carse; and Lord Andrew Murray and his veteran Clydesdale men were already resting on their arms in view of the city walls. The messengers of Wallace had hastened with the speed of the winds, east and west; and the noon of the day saw him at the head of thirty thousand men determined to fight or to die for their country.

The surrounding landscape shone in the brightness of midsummer; for it was the eve of St. Magdalen; and sky and earth bore witness to the luxuriant month of July. The heavens were clear, the waters of the Forth danced in the sunbeams, and the flower-enameled green of the extended plain stretched its beautiful borders to the deepening woods. All nature smiled; all seemed in harmony and peace but the breast of man. He who was made lord of this paradise awoke to disturb its repose, to disfigure its loveliness! As the thronging legions poured upon the plain, the sheep which had been feeding there, fled scared to the hills; the plover and heath-fowl which nestled in the brakes, rose affrighted from their infant broods, and flew in screaming multitudes far over the receding valleys. The peace of Scotland was again broken, and its flocks and herds were to share its misery.

When the conspiring lords appeared on the Carse, and Mar communicated to them the lately discovered treason, they so well affected surprise at the contents of the scroll, that Wallace might not have suspected their connection with it, had not Lord Athol declared it altogether a forgery of some wanton persons, and then added with bitterness, "to gather an army on such authority is ridiculous." While he spoke, Wallace regarded him with a look which pierced him to the center; and the blood rushing into his guilty heart, for once in his life he trembled before the eye of man. "Whoever be the degenerate Scot, to whom this writing is addressed," said Wallace, "his baseness cannot betray us further. The troops of Scotland are ready to meet the enemy; and woe to the man who that day deserts his country!" "Amen!" cried Lord Mar. "Amen!" sounded from every lip; for when the conscience embraces treason against its earthly rulers, allegiance to its heavenly King is abandoned with ease; and the words and oaths of the traitor are equally unstable.

Badenoch's eye followed that of Wallace, and his suspicions fixed where the regent's fell. For the honor of his blood, he forbore to accuse the earl; but for the same reason he determined to watch his proceedings. However, the hypocrisy of Athol baffled even the penetration of his brother, and on his retiring from the ground to call forth his men for the expedition, in an affected chafe he complained to Badenoch of the stigma cast upon their house by the regent's implied charge.

"But," said he, "he shall see the honor of the Cummin, emblazoned in blood on the sands of the Forth! His towering pride heeds not where it strikes; and this comes of raising men of low estate to rule over princes!"

"His birth is noble if not royal," replied Badenoch; "and before this, the posterity of kings have not disdained to recover their rights by the sword of a brave subject."

"True," answered Athol; "but is it customary for princes to allow that subject to sit on their throne? It is nonsense to talk of Wallace having refused a coronation. He laughs at the name; but see you not that he openly affects supreme power; that he rules the nobles of the land like a despot? His word, his nod is sufficient!--Go here! go there!--as if he were absolute, and there was no voice in Scotland but his own! Look at the brave Mack Callan--more, the lord of the west of Scotland from sea to sea; he stands unbonneted before this mighty Wallace with a more abject homage than ever he paid to the house of Alexander! Can you behold this, Lord Badenoch, and not find the royal blood of your descent boil in your veins? Does not every look of your wife, the sister of a king, and your own right stamped upon your soul, reproach you? He is greater by your strength. Humble him, my brother; be faithful to Scotland, but humble its proud dictator!"

Lord Badenoch replied to this rough exhortation with the tranquillity belonging to his nature--"I see not the least foundations for any of your charges against Sir William Wallace. He has delivered Scotland, and the people are grateful. The nation with one voice made him their regent; and he fulfills the duties of his office--but with a modesty, Lord Athol, which, I must affirm, I never saw equaled. I dissent from you in all that you have said--and I confess I did fear the blandishing arguments of the faithless Cospatrick had persuaded you to embrace his pernicious treason. You deny it--that is well. Prove your innocence at this juncture in the field against Scotland's enemies; and John of Badenoch will then see no impending cloud to darken the honor of the name of Cummin!"

The brothers immediately separated; and Athol calling his cousin Buchan arranged a new device to counteract the vigilance of the regent. One of their means was to baffle his measures by stimulating the less treasonable but yet discontented chiefs to thwart him in every motion. At the head of this last class was John Stewart, Earl of Bute. During the whole of the preceding year he had been in Norway, and the first object he met on his return to Scotland was the triumphal entry of Wallace into Stirling. Aware of the consequence Stewart's name would attach to any cause, Athol had gained his ear before he was introduced to the regent; and then so poisoned his mind against Wallace that all that was well in him he deemed ill, and ever spoke of his bravery with coldness, and of his patriotism with disgust. He believed him a hypocrite, and as such despised and abhorred him.

While Athol marshaled his rebellious ranks, some to follow his broad treason in the face of day, and others to lurk behind, and delude the intrusted council left in Stirling; Wallace led forth his loyal chiefs to take their stations at the heads of their different clans. Sir Alexander Scrymgeour, with the proudest expectations for Scotland, unfurled his golden standard to the sun. The Lords Loch-awe and Bothwell, with others, rode on the right of the regent. Lord Andrew Murray, with the brave Sir John Graham, and a bevy of young knights, kept the ground on his left. Wallace looked around; Edwin was far away, and he felt but half appointed when wanting his youthful swordbearer. That faithful friend did not even know of the threatened hostility; for to have intimated to Lord Ruthven a danger he could not assist to repel, would have inflamed his disorder by anxiety, and perhaps hurried him to dissolution.

As the regent moved forward with these private affections checkering his public cares, his heralds blew the trumpets of his approach, and a hundred embattled clans appeared in the midst of the plain, awaiting their valiant leaders. Each chief advanced to the head of his line, and stood to hear the charge of Wallace.

"Brave Scots!" cried he, "treachery has admitted the enemy whom resolute patriotism had driven from our borders. Be steady in your fidelity to Scotland, and He who hath hitherto protected the just cause, will nerve your arms to lay invasion and its base coadjutors again in the dust."

The cheers of anticipated victory burst from the soldiers, mingled with the clangor of their striking shields at the inspiring voice of their leader. Wallace waved his truncheon (round which the plan of his array was wrapped) to the chiefs to fall back toward their legions; and while some appeared to linger, Athol, armed cap-a-pie, and spurring his roan into the area before the regent, demanded, in a haughty tone, "Which of the chiefs now in the field is to lead the vanguard?"

"The Regent of Scotland," replied Wallace, for once asserting the majesty of his station, "and you, Lord Athol, with the Lord Buchan, are to defend your country under the command of the brave head of your house, the princely Badenoch."

"I stir not from this spot," returned Athol, fiercely striking his lance into its rest, "till I see the honor of my country established in the eye of the world by a leader worthy of her rank being placed in her vanguard."

"What he says," cried Buchan, "I second." "And in the same spirit, chieftain of Ellerslie," exclaimed Lord Bute, "do I offer to Scotland myself and my people. Another must lead the van, or I retire from her standard."

"Speak on!" cried Wallace, more surprised than confounded by this extraordinary attack.

"What these illustrious chiefs have uttered, is the voice of us all!" was the general exclamation from a band of warriors who now thronged around the incendiary nobles.

"Your reign is over, proud chieftain," rejoined Athol; "the Scottish ranks are no longer to be cajoled by your affected moderation. We see the tyrant in your insidious smile, we feel him in the despotism of your decrees. To be thus ridden by a man of vulgar blood; to present him as the head of our nation to the King of England, is beneath the dignity of our country, is an insult to our nobles; and therefore, in the power of her consequence, I speak, and again demand of you to yield the vanguard to one more worthy of the station. Before God and St. Magdalen I swear," added he, holding up his sword to the heavens, "I will not stir an inch this day toward the enemy unless a Cummin or a Stewart lead our army."

"And is this your resolution also, Lord Bute?" said Wallace, looking on Stewart. "It is," was the reply; "a foe like Edward ought to be met as becomes a great and independent kingdom. We go in the array of an unanimous nation to repel him; not as a band of insurgents, headed by a general who, however brave, was yet drawn from the common ranks of the people. I therefore demand to follow a more illustrious leader to the field."

"The eagles have long enough followed their owl in peacock's feathers," cried Buchan; "and being tired of the game, I, like the rest, soar upward again!"

"Resign that baton!" cried Athol; "give peace to a more honorable leader!" repeated he, supposed that he had intimidated Wallace; but Wallace, raising the visor of his helmet, which he had closed on his last commands to his generals, looked on Athol with all the majesty of his truly royal soul in his eyes: "Earl," said he, "the voices of the three estates of Scotland declared me their regent, and God ratified the election by the victories with which he crowned me. If in aught I have betrayed my trust, led the powers which raised me be my accusers. Four pitched battles have I fought and gained for this country. Twice I beat the representatives of King Edward on the plains of Scotland; and a few months ago I made him fly before me over the fields of Northumberland! What then has befallen me, that my arm is to be too short to meet this man? Has the oil of the Lord, with which the saint of Dunkeld anointed my brows, lost its virtue, that I should shrink before any king in Christendom? I neither tremble at the name of Edward, nor will I so disgrace my own (which never man who bore it ever degraded by swearing fealty to a foreign prince), as to abandon at such a crisis the power with which Scotland has invested me. Whoever chooses to leave the cause of their country, let them go; and so manifest themselves of noble blood! I remain, and I lead the vanguard! Scotsmen, to your duty."

As he spoke with a voice of unanswerable command, several chiefs fell back into their ranks. But some made a retrograde motion toward the town. Lord Bute hardly knew what to think, so was he startled by the appeal of the accused regent, and the noble frankness with which he maintained his rights. He stood frowning as Wallace turned to him, and said, "Do you, my lord, adhere to these violent men? or am I to consider a chief who, though hostile to me, was generous in his ire, still faithful to Scotland, in spite of his prejudice against her leader? Will you fight her battles?"

"I shall never desert them," replied Stewart; "'tis truth I seek; therefore be it to you. Wallace, this day according to your conscience!" Wallace bowed his head, and presented him the truncheon around which his line of battle was wrapped. On opening it he found that he was appointed to command the third division; Badenoch and Bothwell to the first and second; and Wallace himself to the vanguard.

When the scouts arrived, they informed the regent that the English army had advanced near to the boundary of Linlithgow, and from the rapidity of their march, must be on the Carron the same evening. On this intelligence, Wallace put his troops to their speed and before the sun had declined far toward the west, he was within view of Falkirk. But just as he had crossed the Carron, and the Southron banners appeared in sight, Lord Athol, at the head of his rebellious colleagues, rode up to him. Stewart kept his appointed station and Badenoch, doing the same, ashamed of his brother's disorder, called after him to keep his line. Regardless of all check, the obstinate chief galloped on, and extending his bold accomplices across the path of the regent, demanded of him, on the penalty of his life, "that moment to relinquish his pretensions to the vanguard."

"I am not come here," replied Wallace indignantly, "to betray my country! I know you, Lord Athol: and your conduct and mine will this day prove who is most worthy the confidence of Scotland."

"This day," cried Athol, "shall see you lay down the power you have usurped."

"It shall see me maintain it, to your confusion," replied Wallace, "and were you not surrounded by Scots of too tried a worth for me to suspect their being influenced by your rebellious example, I would this moment make you feel the arm of justice. But the foe is in sight; do your duty now, sir earl, and for the sake of the house to which you belong, even this intemperate conduct shall be forgotten."

At this instant, Sir John Graham, hastening forward, exclaimed:

"The Southrons are bearing down upon us!"

Athol glanced at their distant host and turning on Wallace with a sarcastic smile, "My actions," cried he, "shall indeed decide the day!" and striking his spurs furiously into his horse, he rejoined Lord Badenoch's legion.

Edward did indeed advance in a most terrible array. Above a hundred thousand men swelled his numerous ranks; and with these were united all from the Lothians and Teviotdale, whom the influence of the faithless March and the vindictive Soulis could bring into the field. With this augmented host, and a determination to conquer or to die, the Southrons marched rapidly forward.

Wallace had drawn himself up on the ascent of the hill of Falkirk, and advantageously planted his archers on a covering eminence flanked by the legions of Badenoch. Lord Athol, who knew the integrity of his brother, and who cared not in so great a cause (for such his ambition termed it) how he removed an adversary from Edward, and a censor from himself, gave a ridding order to one of his emissaries. Accordingly, in the moment when the trumpet of Wallace sounded the charge, and the arrows from the hill darkened the air, the virtuous Badenoch was stabbed through the back to the very heart. Athol had placed himself near, to watch his purpose; but in the instant the deed was done, he threw himself on the perpetrator, and wounding him in the same vital part, exclaimed, holding up his dagger, "Behold the weapon that has slain the assassin, hired by Sir William Wallace! Thus it is, that his ambition would rob Scotland of her native princes. Let us fly from his steel to the shield of a king and a hero."

The men had seen their leader fall; they doubted not the words of his brother; and with a shout exclaiming, "Whither you lead we follow!" all at once turned toward him. "Seize the traitor's artillery!" At this command they mounted the hill and the archers, little expecting an assault from their countrymen, were either instantly cut down, or hurried away prisoners by Athol and Buchan; who now, at the head of the whole division of the Cummins, galloped toward the Southrons; and with loud cries of "Long live King Edward!" threw themselves en masse into their arms. The squadrons which followed Stewart not knowing but they might be hurried into similar desertion, hesitated in the charge he had commanded them to make; and, while thus undecisive, some obeyed in broken ranks; and others lingered. The enemy advanced briskly up, surrounded the division, and on their first onset slew its leader. His faithful Brandanes,** seeing their beloved commander trampled to the earth by an overwhelming foe, fell into confusion, and communicating their dismay to their comrades, the whole division sunk under the shock of the Southrons, as if touched by a spell.

**Brandanes was the distinguished appellation of the military followers of the chiefs of Bute.

Meanwhile Bothwell and his legions were fiercely engaged with the Earl of Lincoln amid the swamps of a deep morass; but being involved by reciprocal impetuousity, equal peril engulfed them both. The firm battalion of the vanguard; alone remaining unbroken, stood before the pressing and now victorious thousands of Edward without receding a step. The archers being lost by the treachery of the Cummins, all hope lay on the strength of the spear and sword; and Wallace, standing immovable as the rock of Stirling, saw rank after rank of his dauntless infantry mowed down by the Southron arrows; while, fast as they fell, their comrades closed over them, and still presented the same impenetrable front of steady valor against the heavy charges of the enemy's horse. The King of England, indignant at this pause in his conquering onset, accompanied by his natural brother, the valiant Frere de Briagny, and a squadron of resolute knights, in fury threw themselves toward the Scottish pikesmen. Wallace descried the jeweled crest of Edward amidst the cloud of battle there, and rushing forward, hand to hand engaged the king. Edward knew his adversary, not so much by his snow white plume as by the prowess of his arm. Twice did the heavy claymore of Wallace strike fire from the steely helmet of the monarch; but at the third stroke the glittering diadem fell in shivers to the ground; and the royal blood of Edward followed the blow. He reeled; and another stroke would have settled the freedom of Scotland forever, had not the strong arm of Frere de Briagny passed between Wallace and the king. The combat thickened; blow followed blow; blood gushed at each fall of the sword; and the hacked armor showed in every aperture a grisly wound. A hundred weapons seemed directed against the breast of the Regent of Scotland, when, raising his sword with a determined stroke, it cleft the visor and vest of De Briagny, who fell lifeless to the ground. The cry that issued from the Southron troops at this sight again nerved the vengeful Edward, and ordering the signal for his reserve to advance, he renewed the attack; and assaulting Wallace, with all the fury of his heart in his eyes and arms, he tore the earth with the trampling of disappointed vengeance, when he found the invincible phalanx still stood firm.

"I will reach him yet!" cried he; and turning to De Valence, he commanded that the new artillery should be called into action.

On this order, a blast of trumpets in the Southron army blew; and the answering war-wolves it had summoned sent forth showers of red-hot stones into the midst of the Scottish battalions. At the same moment the English reserve, charging round the hill, attacked them in the flank, and accomplished what the fiery torrent had begun. The field was heaped with dead; the brooks which flowed down the heights ran with blood; but no confusion was there--no, not even in the mind of Wallace; though, with amazement and horror, he beheld the saltire of Annandale, the banner of Bruce, leading onward the last exterminating division! Scot now contended with Scot, brother with brother. Those valiant spirits, who had left their country twenty years before to accompany their chief to the Holy Land, now re-entered Scotland to wound her in her vital part; to wrest from her her liberties; to make her mourn in ashes, that she had been the mother of such matricides. A horrid mingling of tartans with tartans, in the direful grasp of reciprocal death; a tremendous rushing of the flaming artillery, which swept the Scottish ranks like blasting lightning, for a moment seemed to make the reason of their leader stagger. Arrows, winged with fire, flashed through the air; and sticking in men and beasts, drove them against each other in maddening pain. Twice was the horse of Wallace shot under him; and on every side were his closest friends wounded and dispersed. But his terrific horror at the scene passed away the moment of its perception; and though the Southron and the Bruce pressed on him in overwhelming numbers, his few remaining ranks obeyed his call; and with a presence of mind and military skill that was exhaustless, he maintained the fight till darkness parted the combatants. When Edward gave command for his troops to rest till morning, Wallace, with the remnant of his faithful band slowly recrossed the Carron, that they also might repose till dawn should renew the conflict.

Lonely was the sound of his bugle, as sitting on a fragment of the druidical ruins of Dunipacis, he blew its melancholy blast to summon his chiefs around him. Its penetrating voice pierced the hills, but no answering note came upon his ear. A direful conviction seized upon his heart. But they might have fled far distant! he blushed as the thought crossed him, and hopeless again, dropped the horn, which he had raised to blow a second summons. At this instant he saw a shadow darken the moonlight ruins, and Scrymgeour, who had gladly heard his commander's bugle, hastened forward.

"What has been the fate of this dismal day?" asked Wallace, looking onward, as if he expected others to come up. "Where are my friends?--Where Graham, Badenoch and Bothwell?--Where all, brave Scrymgeour, that I do not know see?" He rose from his seat at sight of an advancing group. It approached near and laid the dead body of a warrior down before him. "Thus," cried one of the supporters, in stifled sounds, "has my father proved his love for Scotland!" It was Murray who spoke; it was the Earl of Bothwell that lay a breathless corpse at his feet!

"Grievous has been the havoc of Scot on Scot!" cried the intrepid Graham, who had seconded the arm of Murray in the contest for his father's body. "Your steadiness, Sir William Wallace, would have retrieved the day but for the murderer of his country; that Bruce, for whom you refused to be our king, thus destroys her bravest sons. Their blood be on his head!" continued the young chief, extending his martial arms toward heaven. "Power of Justice, hear! and let his days be troubled, and his death covered with dishonor!"

"My brave friend!" replied Wallace, "his deeds will avenge themselves, he needs not further malediction. Let us rather bless the remains of him who is gone before us thus in glory to his heavenly rest! Ah! better is it thus to be laid in the bed of honor, than, by surviving, witness the calamities which the double treason of this day will bring upon our martyred country! Murray, my friend!" cried he to Lord Andrew, "we must not let the brave dead perish in vain! Their monument shall yet be Scotland's liberties. Fear not that we are forsaken because of these traitors; but remember our time is in the hand of the God of justice and mercy!"

Tears were coursing each other in mute woe down the cheeks of the affectionate son. He could not for some time answer Wallace, but he grasped his hand, and at last rapidly articulated, "Others may have fallen, but not mortally like him. Life may yet be preserved in some of our brave companions. Leave me, then, to mourn my dead alone! and seek ye them."

Wallace saw that filial tenderness yearned for the moment when it might unburden its grief unchecked by observation. He arose, and making a sign to his friends, withdrew toward his men. Having sent a detachment to guard the sacred inclosure of Dunipacis, he dispatched Graham on the dangerous duty of gathering a reinforcement for the morning. Then sending Scrymgeour, with a resolute band, across the Carron, to bring in the wounded (for Edward had encamped his army about a mile south of the field of action), he took his lonely course along the northern bank toward a shallow ford near which he supposed the squadrons of Lord Loch-awe must have fought, and where he hoped to gain accounts of him from some straggling survivor of his clan. When he arrived at a point where the river is narrowest, and winds its dark stream beneath impending heights, he blew the Campbell pibroch; the notes reverberated from rock to rock, but, unanswered, died away in distant echoes. Still he could not relinquish hope, and pursuing the path, emerged upon an open glade. The unobstructed rays of the moon illumined every object. Across the river, at some distance from the bank, a division of the Southron tents whitened the deep shadows of the bordering woods; and before them, on the blood-stained plain, he thought he descried a solitary warrior. Wallace stopped. The man approached the margin of the stream, and looked toward the Scottish chief. The visor of Wallace being up, discovered his heroic countenance bright in the moonbeams; and the majesty of his mien seemed to declare him to the Southron knight to be no other than the Regent of Scotland.

"Who art thou?" cried the warrior, with a voice of command, that better became his lips than it was adapted to the man whom he addressed.

"The enemy of England!" cried the chief.

"Thou art Wallace!" was the immediate reply; "none else dare answer the Lord of Carrick and of Annandale with such haughty boldness."

"Every Scot in this land," returned Wallace, inflamed with an indignation he did not attempt to repress, "would thus answer Bruce, not only in reference to England, but to himself! to that Bruce, who, not satisfied with having abandoned his people to their enemies, has stolen a base fratricide to slay his brethren in their home! To have met them on the plain of Stanmore, would have been a deed his posterity might have bewailed; but what horror, what shame will be theirs, when they know that he came to ruin his own rights, to stab his people, in the very bosom of his country! I come from gazing on the murdered body of the virtuous Earl of Bothwell! The Lords Bute and Fyfe, and perhaps Loch-awe, have fallen beneath the Southron sword, and your unnatural arm; and yet do you demand what Scot would dare to tell you, that he holds the Earl of Carrick and his coadjutors as his most mortal foes?"

"Ambitious man! Dost thou flatter thyself with belief that I am to be deceived by thy pompous declamation? I know the motive of all this pretended patriotism, I am well informed of the aim of all this vaunted prowess; and I came, not to fight the battles of King Edward, but to punish the proud usurper of the rights of Bruce. I have gained my point. My brave followers slew the Lord of Bothwell; my brave followers made the hitherto invincible Sir William Wallace retreat! I came in the power of my birthright; and, as your lawful king, I command you, this hour, to lay your rebel sword at my feet. Obey, proud knight, or to-morrow puts you into Edward's hand, and, without appeal, you die the death of a traitor."

"Unhappy prince," cried Wallace, now suspecting that Bruce had been deceived; "is it over the necks of your most loyal subjects that you would mount your throne? How have you been mistaken! How have you strengthened the hands of your enemy, and weakened your own by this day's action! The cause is now probably lost forever; and from whom are we to date its ruin but from him to whom the nation looked as to its appointed deliverer? From him, whose once honored name will now be regarded with exaggeration?"

"Burden not my name, rash young man," replied Bruce, "with the charges belonging to your own mad ambition. Who disturbed the peace in which Scotland reposed after the battle of Dunbar, but William Wallace? Who raised the country in arms, but William Wallace? Who stole from me my birthright, and fastened the people's love on himself, but William Wallace? Who affected to repel a crown that he might the more certainly fix it on his head, but William Wallace? And who dares now taunt me with his errors and mishaps, but the same traitor to his lawful sovereign?"

"Shall I answer thee, Lord of Carrick," replied Wallace, "with a similar appeal? Who, when the Southron tyrant preferred a false claim to the supremacy of this realm, subscribed to the falsehood; and by that action did all in his power to make a free people slaves? Who, when the brand of cruelty swept this kingdom from shore to shore, lay indolent in the usurper's court, and heard of these oppressions without a sigh? Who, horror on horror! brought an army into his own inheritance, to slay his brethren and to lay it desolate before his mortal foe? Thy heart will tell thee, Bruce, who is this man; and if honor yet remain in that iron region, thou wilt not disbelieve the asseverations of an honest Scot, who proclaims that it was to save them whom thou didst abandon, that he appeared in the armies of Scotland. It was to supply the place of thy desertion that he assumed the rule, with which a grateful people, rescued from bondage, invested him."

"Bold chieftain!" exclaimed Bruce, "is it thus you continue to brave your offended prince? But in pity to your youth, in admiration of a prowess which would have been godlike had it been exerted for your sovereign, and not used as a bait to satisfy an ambition wild as it is towering, I would expostulate with you; I would even deign to tell you that, in granting the supremacy of Edward, the royal Bruce submits not to the mere wish of a despot, but to the necessity of the times. This is not an area of so great loyalty that any sovereign may venture to contend against such an imperial arm as Edward's. And would you--a boy in years, a novice in politics, and though brave, and till this day successful--would you pretend to prolong a war with the dictator of kingdoms? Can rational discrimination be united with the valor you possess and you not perceive the unequal contest between a weak state, deprived of its head and agitated by intestine commotions, and a mighty nation conducted by the ablest and most martial monarch of his age--a man who is not only determined to maintain his pretensions to Scotland, but is master of every resourse, either for protracting war or pushing it with vigor? If the love of your country be indeed your motive for perseverance, your obstinacy tends only to lengthen her misery. But if--as I believe is the case--you carry your views to private aggrandizement, reflect on their probable issue. Should Edward, by a miracle, withdraw his armies, and an intoxicated people elevate their minion to the throne, the lords of Scotland would reject the bold invasion and, with the noble vengeance of insulted greatness, hurl from his height the proud usurper of their rights and mine."

"To usurp any man's rights, and least of all, my king's" replied Wallace, "never came within the range of my thoughts. Though lowly born, Lord Carrick, I am not so base as to require assumption to give me dignity. I saw my country made a garrison of Edward's, I beheld its people outraged in every relation that is dear to man. Who heard their cry? Where was Bruce? Where the nobles of Scotland, that none arose to extinguish her burning villages, to shelter the mother and the child, to rescue purity from violation, to defend the bleeding father and his son? The shrieks of despair resounded through the land and none appeared! The hand of violence fell on my own house! the wife of my bosom was stabbed to the heart by a magistrate of the usurper! I then drew the sword!--I took pity on those who suffered as I had suffered! I espoused their cause, and never will I forsake it till life forsakes me. Therefore, that I became champion of Scotland, Lord of Carrick, blame not my ambition, but rather the supineness of the nobility, and chiefly yourself--you who, uniting personal merit to dignity of descent, had deserted to occupy! Had the Scots, from the time of Baliol's abdication, possessed such a leader as yourself (for what is the necessity of the times but the pusillanimity of those who ought to contend with Edward?) by your valor and their union you must have surmounted every difficulty under which we struggle, and have closed the contest with success and honor. If you now start from your guilty delusion, it may not be too late to rescue Scotland from the perils which surround her. Listen then to my voice, prince of the blood of Alexander! forswear the tyrant who has cajoled you to this abandonment of your country, and resolve to be her deliverer. The bravest of the Scots are ready to acknowledge you their lord, to reign as your forefathers did, untrammeled by any foreign yoke. Exchange, then a base vassalage, for freedom and a throne! Awake to yourself, noble Bruce, and behold what it is I propose! Heaven itself cannot set a more glorious prize before the eyes of virtue or ambition, than to join in one object, the acquisition of royalty with the maintenance of national independence! Such is my last appeal to you. For myself, as I am well convinced that the real welfare of my country can never subsist with the sacrifice of her liberties, I am determined, as far as in me lies, to prolong, not her miseries, but her integrity, by preserving her from the contamination of slavery. But, should mysterious fate decree her fall, may that power which knows the vice and horrors which accompany a tyrant's reign, terminate the existence of a people who can no longer preserve their lives but by receiving laws from usurpation!"

The truth and gallantry of these sentiments struck the awakened mind of Bruce with the force of conviction. Another auditor was nigh, who also lost not a syllable; "and the flame was conveyed from the breast of one hero to that of the other."

Lord Carrick secretly repented of all that he had done; but being too proud to acknowledge so much, he briefly answered: "Wallace, your words have made an impression on me, that may one day still more brighten the glory of your fame. Be silent respecting this conference; be faithful to the principles you have declared, and ere long you shall hear royally of Bruce." As he spoke, he turned away and was lost among the trees.

Wallace stood for some minutes musing on what had passed, when, hearing a footstep behind him, he turned round, and beheld approaching him a young and graceful form, habited in a white hacqueton wrought in gold, with golden spurs on his feet, and a helmet of the same costly metal on his head, crested with white feathers. Had the scene been in Palestine, he might have mistaken him for the host's guardian angel in arms. But the moment the eyes of Wallace fell on him, the stranger hastened forward, and threw himself on one knee before him, with so noble a grace that the chief was lost in wonder what this beautiful apparition could mean. The youth, after an agitated pause, bowing his head, exclaimed:

"Pardon this intrusion, bravest of men! I come to offer you my heart, my life! To wash out, by your side, in the blood of the enemies of Scotland, the stigma which now dishonors the name of Bruce!"

"And who are you, noble youth?" cried Wallace, raising him from the ground. "Surely my prayers are at last answered; and I hear these sentiments from one of Alexander's race!"

"I am indeed of his blood," replied he; "and it must now be my study to prove my descent by deeds worthy of my ancestor. I am Robert Bruce, the eldest son of the Earl of Carrick and Annandale. Grieving over the slaughter that his valor had made of his own people (although, till you taught him otherwise, he believed they fought to maintain the usurpation of an ambitious subject), he walked out in melancholy. I followed at a distance; and I heard, unseen, all that has passed between you and him. He has retired to his tent; and, unknown to him, I hastened across the Carron, to avow my loyalty to virtue, to declare my determination to live for Scotland, or to die for her; and to follow the arms of Sir William Wallace, till he plants my father in the throne of his ancestors."

"I take you at your word, brave prince!" replied the regent; "and this night shall give you an opportunity to redeem to Scotland, what your father's sword has this day wrested from her. What I mean to do must be effected in the course of a few hours. That done, it will be prudent for you to return to the Carrick camp; and there take the most effectual means to persuade your father to throw himself at once into the arms of Scotland. The whole nation will then rally round their king; and as his weapon of war, I shall rejoice to fulfill the commission with which God has intrusted me!" He then briefly unfolded to the eagerly listening Bruce (whose aspiring spirit, inflamed by the fervor of youth, and winged by natural courage, saw the glory alone of the enterprise), an attack which he meant to make on the camp of Edward, while his victorious troops slept in fancied security.

He had sent Sir John Graham to Stirling, to call out its garrison; Ker he had dispatched on a similar errand; and expecting that by this time some of the troops would be arrived on the southern extremity of the carse, he threw his plaid over the prince's splendid garb to conceal him from notice; then returning to the few who lay on the northern bank of the river, he asked one of the young Gordons to lend him his armor, saying he had use for it, and to seek another suit in the heap that had been collected from the buried dead. The brave Scot cheerfully acquiesced; and, Wallace retiring amongst the trees with his royal companion, Bruce soon covered his gay hacqueton with this rough mail; and placing the Scottish bonnet on his head, put a large stone into the golden helmet, and sunk it in the waters of the Carron. Being thus completely armed like one of the youthful clansmen in the ranks (and such disguise was necessary), Wallace put the trusty claymore of his country into its prince's hand; and clasping him with a hero's warmth to his heart--

"Now it is," cried he, "that William Wallace lives anew since he has seen this hour!"

On re-emerging from the wood, they met Sir John Graham, who had just arrived with five hundred fugitives from Lord Bute's slaughtered division, whom he had rallied on the carse. He informed his friend that the Earl of Mar was within half a mile of the Carron, with three thousand more; and, that he would soon be joined by other re-enforcements to a similar amount. While Graham yet spoke, a squadron of armed men approached from the Forth side. Wallace, advancing toward them, beheld the Bishop of Dunkeld, in his sacerdotal robes, at their head, but with a corselet on his breast, and instead of his crosier he carried a drawn sword. "We come to you, champion of Scotland," cried the prelate, "with the prayers and the arms of the church. The sword of the Levites of old smote the enemies of Israel; and in the same faith, that the God of Justice will go before us this night, we come to fight for Scotland's liberties."

His followers were the younger brethren of the monastery of Cambus-Kenneth, and others from the neighboring convents, altogether making a stout and well-appointed legion.

"With this handful," cried Wallace, "Heaven may find a David, who shall yet strike yon Goliath on the forehead!"

Lord Mar and Lord Lennox now came up; and Wallace, marshaling his train, found that he had nearly ten thousand men. He gave to each leader his plan of attack; and having placed Bruce with Graham in the van, before he took his station at its head, he retired to the ruins near Dunipacis, to visit the mourning solitude of Murray. He found the pious son sitting silent and motionless by the side of his dead parent. Without rousing the violence of grief by any reference to the sight before him, Wallace briefly communicated his project. Lord Andrew started to his feet. "I will share all the peril with you! I shall again grapple with the foe that has thus bereaved me! This dark mantle," cried he, turning toward the breathless corpse, and throwing his plaid over it, "will shroud thy hallowed remains till I return. I go where thou wouldst direct me. Oh, my father!" exclaimed he, in a burst of grief, "the trumpet shall sound, and thou wilt not hear! But I go to take vengeance for thy blood!" So saying, he sprung from the place, and accompanying Wallace to the plain, took his station in the silent but swiftly moving army.

LIV. Carron Banks

The troops of King Edward lay overpowered with wine. Elated with victory, they had drunk largely, the royal pavilion setting them the example; for though Edward was temperate, yet, to flatter his recovered friends, the inordinate Buchan and Soulis, he had allowed a greater excess that night than he was accustomed to sanction. The banquet over, every knight retired to his tent; every soldier to his pallet; and a deep sleep lay upon every man. The king himself, whose many thoughts had long kept him waking, now fell into a slumber.

Guards had been placed around the camp more from military ceremony than an idea of their necessity. The strength of Wallace they believed broken; and that they should have nothing to do next morning but to chase him into Stirling, and take him there. But the spirit of the regent was not so easily subdued. He ever thought it shameful to despair while it was possible to make a stand. And now, leading his determined followers through the lower grounds of Cumbernaul, he detached half his force under Mar, to take the Southron camp in the rear, while he should attack the front, and pierce his way to the royal pavilion.

With soundless caution, the battalion of Mar wound round the banks of the Forth to reach the point of its destination; and Wallace, proceeding with as noiseless a step, gained the hill which overlooked his sleeping enemies. His front ranks, shrouded by branches they had torn from the trees in Tor Wood, now stood still. Without this precaution, had any eye looked from the Southron line they must have been perceived; but now should a hundred gaze on them, their figures were so blended with the adjoining thickets, they might easily be mistaken for a part of them. As the moon sunk in the horizon they moved gently down the hill; and scarcely drawing breath, were within a few paces of the first outpost, when one of the sentinels starting from his reclining position, suddenly exclaimed, "What sound is that?"

"Only the wind amongst the trees," returned his comrade; "I see their branches waving. Let me sleep; for Wallace yet lives, and we may have hot work to-morrow." Wallace did live, and the man slept--to wake no more; for the next instant a Scottish brand was through every Southron heart on the outpost. That done, Wallace threw away his bough, leaped the narrow dike which lay in front of the camp; and with Bruce and Graham at the head of a chosen band of brave men, cautiously proceeded onward to reach the pavilion. At the moment he should blow his bugle, the divisions he had left with Lennox and Murray, and the Lord Mar, were to press forward to the same point.

Still all lay in profound repose, and guided by the lamps which burned around the royal quarters, the dauntless Scots reached the tent. Wallace had already laid his hand upon the curtain that was its entrance, when an armed man with a presented pike, demanded, "Who comes here?" the regent's answer laid the interrogator's head at his feet; but the voice had awakened the ever watchful king. Perceiving his own danger in the fall of the sentinel, he snatched his sword, and calling aloud on his sleeping train, sprung from his couch. He was immediately surrounded by half a score of knights, who started on their feet before Wallace could reach the spot. Short, however, would have been their protection; they fell before his arm and that of Graham, and left a vacant place, for Edward had disappeared. Foreseeing from the first prowess of these midnight invaders, the fate of his guards, he had made a timely escape, by cutting a passage for himself through the canvas of his tent. Wallace perceived that his prize had eluded his grasp, but hoping to at least drive him from the field, he blew the appointed signal to Mar and Lennox; caught one of the lamps from the monarch's table and setting fire to the adjoining drapery, rushed from its blazing volumes to meet his brave colleagues amongst the disordered lines. Graham and his followers with firebrands in their hands, threw conflagration into all parts of the camp, and with the fearful war-cries of their country, seemed to assail the terrified enemy from every direction. Men half-dressed and unarmed, rushed from their tents upon the pikes of their enemies; hundreds fell without striking a blow, and they who were stationed nearest the outposts, betook themselves to flight, scattering themselves in scared throngs over the amazed plains of Linlithgow.

The king in vain sought to rally his men--to remind them of their late victory. His English alone hearkened to his call; superstition had laid her petrifying hand on all the rest. The Irish saw a terrible judgment in this scene; believing it had fallen upon them for having taken arms against their sister people; the Welsh, as they descried the warlike Bishop of Dunkeld issuing from the mists of the river, and charging his foaming steed through their flying defiles, could not persuade themselves that Merlin had not arisen to chastise their obedience to the ravager of their country. Every superstition, every panic created by fear took possession of the half-intoxicated, stupid wretches; and falling in bloody and unresisting heaps all around, it was rather a slaughter than a battle. Opposition seemed everywhere abandoned, excepting on the spot still maintained by the King of England and his brave countrymen. The faithless Scots who had followed the Cummins to the field also stood there and fought with desperation. Wallace opposed the despair and valor of his adversaries with the steadiness of his men; and Graham having seized some of the war-engines, discharged a shower of blazing arrows upon the Southron phalanx.

The camp was now on fire in every direction; and putting all to the hazard of one decisive blow, Edward ordered his men to make at once to the point, where, by the light of the flaming tents, he could perceive the waving plumes of Wallace. With his ponderous mace held terribly in the air, the king himself bore down to the shock; and breaking through the intervening combatants assaulted the chief. The might of ten thousand souls was then in the arm of the Regent of Scotland. The puissant Edward wondered at himself as he shrunk from before his strokes; as he shuddered at the heroic fierceness of a countenance which seemed more than mortal. Was it indeed the Scottish chieftain? or some armed delegate from heaven, descended to flight the battles of the oppressed? Edward trembled; his mace was struck from his hand; but immediately a glittering falchon supplied its place, and with recovering presence of mind he renewed the combat.

Meanwhile the young Bruce (who, in his humble armor, might have been passed by as an enemy for meaner swords), checking the onward speed of March, pierced him at once through the heart: "Die, thou disgrace to the name of Scot," cried he, "and with thy blood expunge my stains!" His sword now laid all opposition at his feet; and while the tempest of death blew around, the groans of the dying, the shrieks of the wounded, and the outcries of those who were perishing in the flames, drove the king's ranks to distraction, and raised so great a fear in the minds of the Cummin clan, that, breaking from the royal line with yells of dismay, they fled in all directions after their already fugitive allies.

Edward saw the Earl of March fall, and finding himself wounded in many places, with a backward step he received the blows of Wallace; but that determined chief, following his advantage, made a stroke at the king which threw him astounded into the arms of his followers. At that moment Lincoln raised his arm to strike his dagger into the back of Wallace; but Graham arrested the blow, and sent the young lord's motionless body to the earth. The Southron ranks closed immediately before their insensible monarch; and a contest more desperate than any which had preceded it, took place. Hosts seemed to fall on both sides; at last the Southrons (having stood their ground till Edward was carried from further danger) suddenly wheeled about and fled precipitately toward the east. Wallace pursued them on full charge; driving them across the lowlands of Linlithgow, where he learned from some prisoners he took, that the Earl of Carrick was in the Lothians; having retreated hither on the first tidings that the Scots had attacked the English camp.

"Now is your time," said Wallace to Bruce, "to rejoin your father. Bring him to Scotland, where a free crown awaits him. Your actions of this night must be a pledge to your country of the virtues which will support his throne!"

The young warrior, throwing off his rugged hauberk in a retired glen, appeared again as a prince, and embracing the regent:

"A messenger from myself or from my father," said he, "shall meet you at Stirling; meanwhile, farewell!--and give my thanks to the young Gordon whose sword armed me for Scotland!"

Bruce mounted the horse Wallace had prepared, and spurring along the banks of the Almond, was soon lost amidst its luxuriant shades.

Wallace still led the pursuit of Edward, and meeting those auxiliaries from the adjoining counties, which his provident orders had prepared to turn out on the first appearance of this martial chase; he poured his troops through Ettrick Forest, and drove the flying host of England far into Northumberland. There checking his triumphant squadrons, he recalled his stragglers, and returned with abated speed into his own country. Halting on the north bank of the Twee, he sent to their quarters those hands which belonged to the border castles, and then marched leisurely forward, that his brave soldiers, who had sustained the weight of the battle, might recover their exhausted strength.

At Peebles he was agreeably surprised by the sight of Edwin. Though ignorant of the recommenced hostilities of Edward, Lord Ruthven became so impatient to resume his duties, that as soon as he was able to move, he had set off on his return to Perth. On arriving at Huntingtower he was told of the treachery of March, also of his fate, and that the regent had beaten the enemy on the banks of the Carron, and was pursuing him into his own dominions. Ruthven was inadequate to the exertion of following the successful troops, but Edwin, rejoicing at this new victory, would not be detained, and crossing the Forth into Mid-Lothian, had sped his eager way until the happy moment that brought him again to the side of his first and dearest friend.

As they continued their route together, Edwin inquired the events of the past time, and heard them related with wonder, horror, and gratitude. Grateful for the preservation of Wallace, grateful for the rescue of his country from the menaced destruction, for some time he could only clasp his friend's hand with strong emotion to his heart. The death of his uncle Bothwell made that heart tremble within him at the thought of how much severer might have been his deprivation; at last, extricating his powers of speech from the spell of contradictory feelings which enchained them, he said, "But if my uncle Mar and our brave Graham were in the last conflict, where are they, that I do not see them share your victory?"

"I hope," returned Wallace, "that we shall rejoin them in safety at Stirling. Our troops parted in the pursuit, and after having sent back the Lowland chieftains, you see I have none with me now but my own particular followers."

The regent's expectations that he should soon fall in with some of the chasing squadrons, were the next morning gratified. Crossing the Bathgate Hills, he met the returning battalions of Lennox, with Lord Mar's, and also Sir John Graham's. Lord Lennox was thanked by Wallace for his good services, and immediately dispatched to reoccupy his station in Dumbarton. But the captains of Mar and of Graham, could give no other account of their leaders, than that they saw them last fighting valiantly in the Southron camp, and had since supposed that during the pursuit they must have joined the regent's squadron. A cold dew fell over the limbs of Wallace at these tidings; he looked on Murray and on Edwin. The expression of the former's face told him what were his fears; but Edwin, ever sanguine, strove to encourage the hope that all might yet be well: "They may not have yet returned from the pursuit; or they may be gone on to Stirling."

But these comfortings were soon dispelled by the appearance of Lord Ruthven, who (having been apprised of the regent's approach) came forth to meet him. The pleasure of seeing the earl so far recovered as to have been able to leave Huntingtower, was checked by the first glance of his face, on which was deeply characterized some tale of grief. Edwin thought it was the recent disasters of Scotland he mourned; and with a cheering voice he exclaimed, "Courage, my father! our regent comes again a conqueror! Edward has once more recrossed the plains of Northumberland!"

"Thanks be to God for that!" replied Ruthven! "but what have not these last conflicts cost the country! Lord Mar is wounded unto death, and lies in a chamber next to the yet unburied corpses of Lord Bute and the dauntless Graham." Wallace turned deadly pale; a mist passed over his eyes, and staggering, he breathlessly supported himself on the arm of Edwin. Murray looked on him; but all was still in his heart: his own beloved father had fallen; and in that stroke Fate seemed to have emptied all her quiver.

"Lead me to their chambers!" cried Wallace; "show me where my friends lie; let me hear the last prayer for Scotland from the lips of the bravest of her veterans!"

Ruthven turned the head of his horse; and, as he rode along, he informed the regent that Edwin had not left Huntingtower for the Forth half an hour when an express arrived from Falkirk. By it he learned that, as soon as the inhabitants of Stirling saw the fire of the Southron camp, they had hastened thither to enjoy the spectacle. Some, bolder than the rest, entered its deserted confines (for the retreating squadrons were then flying over the plain); and amidst the slaughtered, near the royal tent, one of these visitors thought he distinguished groans. Whether friend or foe, he stooped to render assistance to the sufferer, and soon found it to be Lord Mar. The earl begged to be carried to some shelter that he might see his wife and daughter before he died. The people drew him out from under his horse and many a mangled corpse; and, wrapping him in their plaids, conveyed him to Falkirk, where they lodged him in the convent.

"A messenger was instantly dispatched to me," continued Ruthven; "and, indifferent to all personal considerations, I set out immediately. I saw my dying brother-in-law. At his request, that others might not suffer what he had endured under the pressure of the slain, the field had been sought for the wounded. Many were conveyed into the neighboring houses, while the dead were consigned to the earth. Deep have been dug the graves of mingled Scot and English on the banks of the Carron! Many of our fallen nobles, amongst whom was the princely Badenoch, have been conveyed to the cemetery of their ancestors; others are entombed in the church of Falkirk; but the bodies of Sir John Graham and my brother Bothwell," said he, in a lower tone, "I have retained till your return."

"You have done right," replied the till then, silent Wallace; and spurring forward, he saw not the ground he trod, till, ascending the hill of Falkirk, the venerable walls of its monastery presented themselves to his view. He threw himself off his horse and entered, preceded by Lord Ruthven.

He stopped before the cell which contained the dying chief, and desired the abbot to apprise the earl of his arrival. The sound of that voice, whose heart-consoling tones could be matched by none on earth, penetrated to the ear of his almost insensible friend. Mar started from his pillow, and Wallace through the half-open door heard him say: "Let him come in, Joanna! All my mortal hopes now hang on him."

Wallace instantly stepped forward, and beheld the veteran stretched on a couch, the image of that death to which he was so rapidly approaching. He hastened toward him; and the dying man, stretching forth his arms exclaimed: "Come to me, Wallace, my son, the only hope of Scotland, the only human trust of this anxious paternal heart!"

Wallace threw himself on his knees beside him, and taking his hand, pressed it in speechless anguish to his lips; every present grief was then weighing on his soul, and denied him the power of utterance. Lady Mar sat by the pillow of her husband, but she bore no marks of the sorrow which convulsed the frame of Wallace. She looked serious, but her cheek wore its freshest bloom. She spoke not, and the veteran allowed the tears of enfeebled nature to fall on the bent head of his friend. "Mourn not for me," cried he, "nor think that these are regretful drops. I die as I have wished, in the field for Scotland. Time must have soon laid my gray hair ignobly in the grave; and to enter it thus covered with honorable wounds, in glory, has long been my prayer. But, dearest, most unwearied of friends, still the tears of mortality will flow; for I leave my children fatherless in this faithless world. And my Helen! Oh, Wallace, the angel who exposed her precious self through the dangers of that midnight walk to save Scotland, her father, and his friends, is--lost to us! Joanna, tell the rest," said he, gasping, "for I cannot."

Wallace turned to Lady Mar with an inquiring look of such wild horror that she found her tongue cleave to the roof of her mouth, and her complexion faded into the pallidness of his.

"Surely," exclaimed he, "there is not to be a wreck of all that is estimable on earth. The Lady Helen is not dead?"

"No," rejoined the earl; "but-"

He could proceed no further, and Lady Mar forced herself to speak.

"She has fallen into the hands of the enemy. On my lord's being brought to this place, he sent for myself and Lady Helen; but in passing by Dunipacis, an armed squadron issued from behind the mound, and putting our attendants to flight, carried her off. I escaped hither. The reason for this attack was explained afterward by one of the Southrons, who, having been wounded by our escort, was taken, and brought to Falkirk. He said that Lord Aymer de Valence, having been sent by his beset monarch to call Lord Carrick to his assistance, found the Bruce's camp deserted; but by accident learning that Lady Helen Mar was to be brought to Falkirk, he stationed himself behind Dunipacis; and springing out as soon as our cavalcade was in view, seized her. She obtained, the rest were allowed to escape, but as the Lord de Valence loves Helen, I cannot doubt he will have sufficient honor not to insult the fame of her family, and so will make her his wife."

"God forbid!" ejaculated Mar, holding up his trembling hands; "God forbid that my blood should ever mingle with that of any one of the people who have wrought such woe to Scotland! Swear to me, valiant Wallace, by the virtues of her virgin heart, by your own immaculate honor, that you will move heaven and earth to rescue my Helen from the power of his Southron lord!"

"So help me Heaven!" answered Wallace, looking steadfastly upward. A groan burst from the lips of Lady Mar, and her head sunk on the side of the couch.

"What? Who is that?" exclaimed Mar, raising his head in alarm from his pillow.

"Believe it your country, Donald!" replied she; "to what do you bind its only defender? Are you not throwing him into the very center of his enemies, by making him swear to rescue Helen? Think you that De Valence will not foresee a pursuit, and take her into the heart of England? And thither must our regent follow him! Release Sir William Wallace from a vow that must destroy him!"

"Wallace," cried the now soul-struck earl, "what have I done? Has a father's anxiety asked amiss? If so, pardon me! But if my daughter also must perish for Scotland, take her, O God, uncontaminated, and let us meet in heaven! Wallace, I dare not accept your vow."

"But I will fulfill it," cried he. "Let thy paternal heart rest in peace; and by Jesus' help, Lady Helen shall again be in her own country, as free from Southron taint as she is from all mortal sin! De Valence dare not approach her heavenly innocence with violence; and her Scottish heart will never consent to give him a lawful claim to her precious self. Edward's legions are far beyond the borders! but wherever this earl may be, yet I will reach him. For there is a guiding hand above, and the demands of the morning at Falkirk are now to be answered in the halls of Stirling."

Lord Ruthven, followed by Edwin and Murray, entered the room. And the two nephews were holding each a hand of their dying uncle in theirs, when Lady Ruthven (who, exhausted with fatigue and anxiety, had retired an hour before), reappeared at the door of the apartment. She had been informed of the arrival of the regent and her son, and now hastened to give them a sorrowful welcome.

"Ah, my lord," cried she, as Wallace pressed her matron cheek to his; "this is not as your triumphs are wont to be greeted! You are still a conqueror, and yet death, dreadful death, lies all around us! And our Helen, too--"

"Shall be restored to you, by the blessed aid of Heaven!" returned he, "What is yet left for me to do, must be done; and then-" He paused, and added, "The time is not far distant, then--" He paused, and added "The time is not far distant, Lady Ruthven, when we shall meet in the realms to which so many of our bravest and dearest have just hastened."

With swimming eyes Edwin drew toward his master. "My uncle would sleep," said he; "he is exhausted, and will recall us when he wakes from rest." The eyes of the veteran were at that moment closed with heavy slumber. Lady Ruthven remained with the countess to watch by him; and Wallace, gently withdrawing, was followed by Ruthven and the two young men out of the apartment.

Lord Lochawe, with the Bishop of Dunkeld, and other chiefs, lay in different chambers, pierced with many wounds; but none so grievous as those of Lord Mar. Wallace visited them all, and having gone through the numerous places in the neighborhood, then made quarters for his wounded men. At the gloom of evening he returned to Falkirk. He sent Edwin forward to inquire after the repose of his uncle; but on himself re-entering the monastery, he requested the abbot to conduct him to the apartment in which the remains of Sir John Graham were deposited. The father obeyed; leading him along a dark passage, he opened a door, and discovered the slain hero lying on a bier. Two monks sat at its head, with tapers in their hands. Wallace waved them to withdraw; they set down the lights and departed. He was then alone.

For some time he stood with clasped hands, looking intently on the body as it lay extended before him. "Graham! Graham!" cried he, at last, in a voice of unutterable grief; "dost thou not rise at thy general's voice? Oh! is this to be the tidings I am to send to the brave father who intrusted to me his son? Lost in the prime of youth, in the opening of thy renown, is it thus that all which is good is to be martyrized by the enemies of Scotland?" He sunk gradually on his knees beside him. "And shall I not look once more on that face," said he, "which ever turned toward mine with looks of faith and love?" The shroud was drawn down by his hand. He started on his feet at the sight. The changing touch of death had altered every feature--had deepened the paleness of the bloodless corpse into an ashy hue. "Where is the countenance of my friend?" cried he. "Where the spirit which once moved in beauty and animating light over this face! Gone; and all I see before me is a mass of molded clay! Graham! Graham!" cried he, looking upward, "thou art not here. No more can I recognize my friend in this deserted habitation of thy soul. Thine own proper self, thine immortal spirit, is ascended up above; and there my fond remembrance shall ever seek thee!" Again he knelt, but it was in devotion--a devotion which drew the sting from death, and opened to his view the victory of the Lord of Life over the King of Terrors.

Edward having learned from his father that Lord Mar still slept, and being told by the abbot where the regent was, followed him to the consecrated chamber. On entering, he perceived him kneeling by the body of his friend. The youth drew near. He loved the brave Graham, and he almost adored Wallace; the scene, therefore, smote upon his heart. He dropped down by the side of the regent, and, throwing his arms around his neck, in a convulsive voice exclaimed: "Our friend is gone; but I yet live, and only in your smiles, my friend and brother!"

Wallace strained him to his breast. He was silent for some minutes, and then said: "To every dispensation of God I am resigned, my Edwin. While I bow to this stroke, I acknowledge the blessing I still hold in you and Murray. But did we not feel these visitations from our Maker, they would not be decreed to us. To behold the dead is the penalty of man for sin; for it is more pain to witness and to occasion death, than for ourselves to die. It is also a lesson which God teaches his sons; and in the moment that he shows us death he convinces us of immortality. Look upon that face, Edwin!" continued he, turning his eyes on the breathless clay. His youthful auditor, awestruck, and his tears checked by the solemnity of this address, looked as he directed him. "Doth not that inanimate mold of earth testify that nothing less than an immortal spirit could have lighted up its marble substance with the life and god-like actions we have seen it perform?" Edwin shuddered; and Wallace, letting the shroud fall over the face, added: "Never more will I look at it, for it no longer wears the characters of my friend--they are pictured on my soul; and himself, my Edwin, still effulgent in beauty and glowing with imperishable life, looks down on us from heaven!" He rose as he spoke, and opening the door, the monks re-entered, and placing themselves at the head of the bier, chanted the vesper requiem. When it was ended, Wallace kissed the crucifix they laid on his friend's breast, and left the cell.

LV. Church of Falkirk

No eye closed that night in the monastery of Falkirk. The Earl of Mar awaked about the twelfth hour, and sent to call Lord Ruthven, Sir William Wallace, and his nephews, to attend him. As they approached, the priests, who had just anointed his dying head with the sacred unction, drew back. The countess and Lady Ruthven supported his pillow. He smiled as he heard the advancing steps of those so dear to him. "I send for you," said he, "to give you the blessing of a true Scot and a Christian! May all who are here in thy blessed presence, Redeemer of mankind!" cried he, looking up with a supernatural brightness in his eye, "die as I do, rather than survive to see Scotland enslaved! But oh! may they rather long live under that liberty, perpetuated, which Wallace has again given to his country; peaceful will then be their last moments on earth, and full of joy their entrance into heaven!" His eyes closed as the concluding word died upon his tongue. Lady Ruthven looked intently on him; she bent her face to his, but he breathed no more; and, with a feeble cry, she fell back in a swoon.

The soul of the veteran earl was indeed fled. The countess was taken, shrieking, out of the apartment; but Wallace, Edwin, and Murray remained, kneeling over the body, and when they concluded, the priests throwing over it a cloud of incense, the mourners withdrew, and separated to their chambers.

By daybreak, Wallace met Murray by appointment in the cloisters. The remains of his beloved father had been brought from Dunipacis to the convent, and Murray now prepare to take them to Bothwell Castle, there to be interred in the cemetery of his ancestors. Wallace, who had approved his design, entered with him into the solitary court-yard, where the war-carriage stood which was to convey the deceased earl to Clydesdale. Four soldiers of his clan brought the corpse of their Lord from a cell, and laid him on his martial bier. His bed was the sweet heather of Falkirk, spread by the hands of his son. As Wallace laid the venerable chief's sword and helmet on his bier, he covered the whole with the flag he had torn from the standard of England in the last victory. "None other shroud is worthy of thy virtues!" cried he. "Dying for Scotland, thus let the memorial of her glory be the witness of thine!"

"Oh! my friend," answered Murray, looking on his chief with a smile, which beamed the fairer shining through sorrow, "thy gracious spirit can divest even death of its gloom. My father yet lives in his fame!"

"And in a better existence, too!" gently replied Wallace; "else the earth's fame were an empty shroud--it could not comfort."

The solemn procession, with Murray at its head, departed toward the valleys of Clydesdale, and Wallace returned to his chamber. Two hours before noon he was summoned by the tolling of the chapel bell. The Earl of Bute and his dearer friend were to be laid in their last bed. With a spirit that did not murmur, he saw the earth closed over both graves; but at Graham's he lingered; and when the funeral stone shut even the sod that covered him from his eyes, with his sword's point he drew on the surface these memorable words:

"Mente manuque potens, et Walli fidus Achates. Conditus hic Gramus, bello interfectus ab Anglis."**

**These lines may be translated thus:

Here lies The powerful in mind and body, the friend of Wallace; Graham, faithful unto death! slain in battle by the English.

While he yet leaned on the stone, which gently gave way to the registering pen of friendship, to be more deeply engraved afterward, a monk approached him, attended by a shepherd boy. At the sound of steps, Wallace looked up.

"This young man," said the father, "brings dispatches to the lord regent."

Wallace rose, and the youth presented his packet. Withdrawing to a little distance, he broke the seal, and read to this effect:

"My father and myself are in the Castle of Durham, and both under an arrest. We are to remain so till our arrival in London renders its sovereign, in his own opinion, more secure: when there, you shall hear from me again. Meanwhile, be on your guard: the gold of Edward has found its way into your councils. Beware of them who, with patriotism in their mouths, are purchased to betray you and their country into the hands of the enemy! Truest, noblest, best of Scots, farewell!--I must not write more explicitly.

"P.S.--The messenger who takes this is a simple border shepherd: he knows not whence comes the packet, hence he cannot bring an answer."

Wallace closed the letter; and putting gold into the shepherd's hand, left the chapel. In passing through the cloisters he met Ruthven, just returned from Stirling, whither he had gone to inform the chiefs of the council of the regent's arrival. "When I summoned them to the council-hall," continued Lord Ruthven, "and told them you had not only defeated Edward on the Carron, but in so doing had gained a double victory, over a foreign usurper and domestic traitors!-instead of the usual open-hearted gratulations on such a communication, a low whisper murmured through the hall; and the young Badenoch, unworthy of his patriotic father, rising from his seat, gave utterance to so many invectives against you, our country's soul, and arm! I should deem it treason even to repeat them. Suffice it to say, that out of five hundred chiefs and chieftains who were present, not one of those parasites who used to fawn on you a week ago, and make the love of honest men seem doubtful, now breathes one word for Sir William Wallace. But this ingratitude, vile as it is, I bore with patience till Badenoch, growing in insolency, declared that late last night dispatches had arrived from the King of France to the regent, and that he (in right of his birth, assuming to himself that dignity) had put their bearer, Sir Alexander Ramsay, under confinement, for having persisted to dispute his authority to withhold them from you."

Wallace, who had listened in silence, drew a deep sigh as Ruthven concluded; and, in that profound breath, exclaimed--"God must be our fortress still; must save Scotland from this gangrene in her heart! Ramsay shall be released; but I must first meet these violent men. And it must be alone, my lord," continued he; "you, and our coadjutors, may wait my return at the city gates; but the sword of Edward, if need be, shall defend me against his gold." As he spoke, he laid his hand on the jeweled weapon which hung at his side, and which he had wrested from that monarch in the last conflict.

Aware that this treason, aimed at him, would strike his country, unless timely warded off, he took his resolution; and requesting Ruthven not to communicate to any one what had passed, he mounted his horse, and struck into the road to Stirling. He took the plume from his crest, and closing his visor, enveloped himself in his plaid, that the people might not know him as he went along. But casting away his cloak, and unclasping his helmet at the door of the keep, he entered the council-hall, openly and abruptly. By an instantaneous impulse of respect, which even the base pay to virtue, almost every man arose at his appearance. He bowed to the assembly, and walked, with a composed yet severe air, up to his station at the head of the room. Young Badenoch stood there; and as Wallace approached he fiercely grasped his sword. "Proud upstart!" cried he, "betrayer of my father! set a foot further toward this chair, and the chastisement of every arm in this council shall fall on you for your presumption!"

"It is not in the arms of thousands to put me from my right," replied Wallace, calmly putting forth his hand and drawing the regent's chair toward him.

"Will ye bear this?" cried Badenoch, stamping with his foot, and plucking forth his sword; "is the man to exist who thus braves the assembled lords of Scotland?" While speaking, he made a desperate lunge at the regent's breast; Wallace caught the blade in his hand, and wrenching it from his intemperate adversary, broke it into shivers, and cast the pieces at his feet; then, turning resolutely toward the chiefs, who stood appalled, and looking on each other, he said, "I, your duly elected regent, left you only a few days ago, to repel the enemy whom the treason of Lord March would have introduced into these very walls. Many brave chiefs followed me to that field! and more, whom I see now, loaded me as I passed with benedictions. Portentous was the day of Falkirk to Scotland. Then did the mighty fall, and the heads of counsel perish. But treason was the parricide! The late Lord Badenoch stood his ground like a true Scot; but Athol and Buchan deserted to Edward." While speaking, he turned toward the furious son of Badenoch, who, gnashing his teeth in impotent rage, stood listening to the inflaming whispers of Macdougal of Lorn. "Young chief," cried he, "from their treachery date the fate of your brave father, and the whole of our grievous loss of that day; but the wide destruction has been avenged! more than chief for chief have perished in the Southron ranks, and thousands of the lowlier sort now swell the banks of Carron. Edward himself fell, wounded by my arm, and was born by his flying squadrons over the wastes of Northumberland. Thus have I returned to you with my duties achieved in a manner worthy of your regent! What, then, means the arrest of my embassador? what this silence when the representative of your power is insulted to your face?

"They mean," cried Badenoch, "that my words are the utterance of their sentiments." "They mean," cried Lorn, "that the prowess of the haughty boaster, whom their intoxicated gratitude raised from the dust, shall not avail him against the indignation of a nation over which he dares to arrogate a right."

"Mean they what they will," returned Wallace, "they cannot dispossess me of the rights with which assembled Scotland invested me on the plains of Stirling. And again I demand, by what authority do you and they presume to imprison my officer, and withhold from me the papers sent by the King of France to the Regent of Scotland?"

"By the authority that we will maintain," replied Badenoch; "by the right of my royal blood, and by the sword of every brave Scot, who spurns at the name of Wallace!"

"And as a proof that we speak not more than we act," cried Lorn, making assign to the chiefs, "you are our prisoner!"

Many weapons were instantly unsheathed; and their bearers, hurrying to the side of Badenoch and Lorn, attempted to lay hands on Wallace; but he, drawing the sword of Edward, with a sweep of his valiant arm that made the glittering blade seem a brand of fire, set his back against the wall, and exclaimed:

"He that first makes a stroke at me shall find his death on this Southron steel! This sword I made the puissant arm of the usurper yield to me; and this sword shall defend the Regent of Scotland against his ungrateful countrymen!"

The chieftains who pressed on him recoiled at these words, but their leaders, Badenoch and Lorn, waved them forward, with vehement exhortations.

"Desist, young men!" continued he, "provoke me not beyond my bearing. With a single blast of my bugle I could surround this building with a band of warriors, who at sight of their chief being thus assaulted, would lay this tumult in blood. Let me pass, or abide the consequence!"

"Through my breast, then," exclaimed Badenoch; "for, with my consent, you pass not here but on your bier. What is in the arm of a single man," cried he to the lords, "that ye cannot fall on him at once, and cut him down?"

"I would not hurt a son of the virtuous Badenoch," returned Wallace; "but his life be on your hands," said he, turning to the chiefs, "if one of you point a sword to impede my passage."

"And wilt thou dare it, usurper of my powers and honors?" cried Badenoch. "Lorn, stand by your friend--all here who are true to the Cummin and Macdougal, hem in the tyrant."

Many a traitor hand now drew forth its dagger, and the intemperate Badenoch, drunk with choler and mad ambition, snatching a sword from one of his accomplices, made another violent plunge at Wallace, but its metal flew in splinters on the guard-stroke of the regent, and left Badenoch at his mercy. "Defend me, chieftains, or I am slain!" cried he. But Wallace did not let his hand follow its advantage; with the dignity of conscious desert, he turned from the vanquished, and casting the enraged Lorn from him, who had thrown himself in his way, he exclaimed: "Scots, that arm will wither which dares to point its steel on me." The pressing crowd, struck in astonishment, parted before him as they could have done in the path of a thunderbolt, and unimpeded, he passed to the door.

That their regent had entered the keep was soon rumored through the city; and when he appeared from the gate he was hailed by the acclamations of the people. He found his empire again in the hearts of the lowly, they whom he had restored to their cottages, knelt to him in the streets, and called for blessings on his name; while they--oh! blasting touch of envy!-whom he had restored to castles, and elevated from a state of vassalage to the power of princes, they raised against him that very power to lay him in the dust.

Now it was, that when surrounded by the grateful citizens of Stirling (whom it would have been as easy for him to have inflamed to the massacre of Badenoch and his council, as to have lifted his bugle to his lips), that he blew the summons for his captains. Every man in the keep flew to arms, expecting that Wallace was returning upon them with the host he had threatened. In a few minutes the Lord Ruthven, with his brave followers, entered the inner ballium gate. Wallace smiled proudly as they drew near. "My lords," said he, "you come to witness the last act of my delegated power! Sir Alexander Scrymgeour, enter into that hall, which was once the seat of council, and tell the violent men who fill it, that for the peace of Scotland, which I value more than my life, I allow them to stand unpunished of their offense against me. But the outrage they have committed on the freedom of one of her bravest sons I will not pardon, unless he be immediately set at liberty; let them deliver to you Sir Alexander Ramsay, and then I permit them to hear my final decision. IF they refuse obedience, they are all my prisoners, and, but for my pity on their blindness, should perish by the laws."

Eager to open the prison door for his friend Ramsay, and little suspecting to what he was calling the insurgents, Scrymgeour hastened to obey. Lorn and Badenoch gave him a very rough reception, uttering such rebellious defiance of the regent that the brave standard-bearer lost all patience, and denounced the immediate deaths of the whole refractory assembly. "The courtyard," cried he, "is armed with thousands of the regent's followers, his foot is on your necks, obey, or this will be a more grievous day for Scotland than even that of Falkirk; for the Castle of Stirling will run with Scottish blood!" At this menace Badenoch became more enraged, and Scrymgeour, seeing no chance of prevailing by argument, sent a messenger to privately tell Wallace the result. The regent immediately placed himself at the head of twenty men, and, re-entering the keep, went directly to the warder, whom he ordered, on his allegiance to the laws, to deliver Sir Alexander Ramsay into his hands. He was obeyed, and returned with his recovered chieftain to the platform. When Scrymgeour was apprised of the knight's release, he turned to Badenoch, with whom he was still contending in furious debate, and demanded:

"Will you or will you not attend me to the regent? He of you all," added he, addressing the chieftains, "who in this simple duty disobeys, shall receive from him the severer doom."

Badenoch and Lorn, affecting to deride this menace, replied, they would not for an empire do the usurper the homage of a moment's voluntary attention; but if any of their followers chose to view the mockery, they were at liberty. A very few, and those of the least turbulent spirits went forth. They began to fear having embarked in a desperate cause; and, by their present acquiescence, were willing to deprecate the wrath of Wallace, while thus assured of not exciting the resentment of Badenoch.

When Wallace looked around him and saw the space before the keep filled with armed men and citizens, he ascended an elevated piece of ground, which rose a little to the left, and waving his hand in token that he intended to speak, a profound silence took place of the buzz of admiration, gratitude, and discontent. He then addressed the people:

"Brother soldiers! friends! And--am I so to distinguish Scots?-enemies!"

At this word, a loud cry of "Perish all who are the enemies of our glorious regent!" penetrated to the inmost chambers of the citadel.

Believing that the few of his partisans who had ventured out, were falling under the vengeance of Wallace, Badenoch, with a brandished weapon, and followed by the rest, sallied toward the door, but there he stopped, for he saw his friends standing unmolested.

Wallace proceeded; and, with calm dignity, announced the hatred that was now poured upon him by a large part of that nobility who had been so eager to invest him with the high office he then held.

"Though they have broken their oaths," cried he, "I have fulfilled mine! They vowed to me all lawful obedience; I swore to free Scotland or to die. Every castle in this realm is restored to its ancient lord; every fortress is filled with a native garrison; the sea is covered with our ships, and the kingdom, one in itself, sits secure behind her well-defended bulwarks. Such have I, through the strength of the Almighty arm, made Scotland! Beloved by a grateful people, I could wield half her power to the destruction of the rest; but I would not pluck one stone out of the building I have raised. To-day I deliver up my commission, since its design is accomplished. I resign the regency."

As he spoke, he took off his helmet, and stood uncovered before the people.

"No, no!" seemed the voice from every lip; "we will acknowledge no other power, we will obey no other leader!"

Wallace expressed his sense of their attachment, but repeating to them that he had fulfilled the end of his office, by setting them free, he explained that his retaining it was no longer necessary. "Should I remain your regent," continued he, "the country would be involved in ruinous dissensions. The majority of your nobles now find a vice in the virtue they once extolled; and seeing its power, no longer needful, seek to destroy my upholders with myself. I therefore remove the cause of contention. I quit the regency; and I bequeath your liberty to the care of your chiefs. But should it be again in danger, remember, that while life breathes in this heart, the spirit of William Wallace will be with you still!"

With these words he descended the mound, and mounted his horse, amidst the cries and tears of the populace. They clung to his garments as he rode along; and the women, with their children, throwing themselves on their knees in his path, implored him not to leave them to the inroads of a ravager; not to abandon them to the tyranny of their own lords; who, unrestrained by a king, or a regent like himself, would soon subvert his good laws, and reign despots over every district in the country. Wallace answered their entreaties with the language of encouragement; adding, that he was not their prince, to lawfully maintain a disputed power over the legitimate chiefs of the land. "But," he said, "a rightful sovereign may yet be yielded to your prayers; and to procure that blessing, daughters of Scotland, night and day invoke the Giver of every good gift."

When Wallace and his weeping train separated, at the foot of Falkirk Hill, he was met by his veterans of Lanark; who, having heard of what had passed in the citadel, advanced to him with one voice, to declare that they never would fight under any other commander. "Wherever you are, my faithful friends," returned he, "you shall still obey my word." When he entered the monastery, the opposition that was made to his resignation of the regency, by the Bishop of Dunkeld, Lord Loch-awe, and others, was so vehement, so persuasive, that had not Wallace been steadily principled not to involve his country in domestic war, he must have yielded to the affectionate eloquence of their pleading. But showing to them the public danger attendant on his provoking the wild ambition of the Cummins, and their multitudinous adherents, his arguments, which the sober judgment of his friends saw conclusive, at last ended the debate. He then rose, saying, "I have yet to perform my vow to our lamented Mar. I shall seek his daughter; and then, my brave companions, you shall hear of me, and, I trust, see me again!"

LVI. The Monastery

It being Lady Ruthven's wish that the remains of her brother should be entombed with his ancestors, preparations were made for the mournful cavalcade to set forth toward Braemar Castle. The countess, hoping that Wallace might be induced to accompany them, did not long object to this proposal, which Lady Ruthven had enforced with tears. Had any one seen the tow, and been called upon to judge, by their deportment, of the relationship in which each lady stood to the deceased, he must have decided that the sister was the widow. At the moment of her husband's death, Lady Mar had felt a shock; she had long looked for this event, as to the seal of her happiness; it was the sight of mortality that appalled her. The man she doted on, nay, even herself, must one day lie as the object now before her--dead!-insensible to all earthly joys, or pains! but awake, perhaps, fearfully awake, to the judgments of another world! This conviction caused her shrieks, when she saw Lord Mar expire. Every obstacle between her and Wallace she now believed removed. Her husband was dead; Helen was carried away by a man devotedly enamored of her; and most probably was at that time his wife. The specters of conscience passed from her eyes; she no longer thought of death and judgment; and, under a pretense that her feelings could not bear the sight of her husband's bier, she determined to seclude herself in her own chamber, till the freshness of Wallace's grief for his friend should have passed away. But when she heard, from the indignant Edwin, of the rebellious conduct of the young Lord Badenoch, and that the regent had abdicated, her consternation superseded all caution. "I will soon humble that proud boy," exclaimed she; "and let him know, that in opposing the elevation of Sir William Wallace, he treads down his own interest. You are beloved by the regent, Edwin!" cried she, interrupting herself, and clasping his hand with earnestness; "teach his enthusiastic heart the true interests of his country! I am the first woman of the house of Cummin; and is not that family the most powerful** in the kingdom? By the adherence of one branch to Edward, the battle of Falkirk was lost; by the rebellion of another, the regent of Scotland is obliged to relinquish that dignity? It is in my power to move the whole race at my will; and if Wallace would mingle his blood with theirs, would espouse me (an overture which the love I bear my country impels me to make), every nerve would then be strained to promote the elevation of their nearest kinswoman. Wallace would reign in Scotland, and the whole land lie at peace."

**The family of Cummin was so powerful and numerous, that an incredible number of chieftains of that name attended the first parliament which Robert I. Held at Dunstaffnage Castle. The relationship between the heiress of Stratheaarn and that family was very near, her paternal grandmother having been the daughter of a Lord Badenoch.--(1809.)

Edwin eyed her with astonishment while she spoke. All her late conduct to his cousin Helen, to his uncle, and to Wallace, was now explained; and he saw in her flushed cheek, that it was not the patriot who desired this match, but the enamored woman.

"You do not answer," said she; "have you any apprehension that Sir William Wallace would reject the hand which would give him a crown? which would dispense happiness to many thousand people?"

"No," replied he; "I believe that, much as he is devoted to the memory of her, whom alone he can ever love, could he purchase true happiness to Scotland by the sacrifice, he would espouse any virtuous woman who could bring him so blessed a dowry. But in your case, my honored aunt, I can see no probability of such a consequence. In the first place, I know, that now the virtuous Earl of Badenoch is no more, he neither respects nor fears the Cummins; and that he would scorn to purchase a crown or even the people's happiness, by baseness in himself. To rise by their means, who, you have seen, will at any time immolate all that is sacred to man to their own caprice, or fancied interests, would be unworthy of him; therefore, I am sure, if you wish to marry Sir William Wallace, you must not urge the use he may make of the Cummins as an argument. He need not stoop to cajole the men he may command. Did he not drive the one-half of their clan, with the English host to boot, to seek any shelter from his vengeance? And for them in the citadel, had he chosen to give the word, they would now be all numbered with the dust! Aunt! he has a Divine Master, whose example he follows, though in deep humility! He lays down his power; it is not taken from him. Earthly crowns are dross to him who looks for a heavenly one. Therefore, honored lady, believe it no longer necessary to wound your delicacy, by offering him a hand, which cannot produce the good you meditate!"

The complexion of the countess varied a thousand times during this answer. Her reason assented to many parts of it; but the passion she could not acknowledge to her nephew, urged her to persist. "You may be right, Edwin," she replied; "but still, as there is nothing very repugnant in me, the project is surely worth trying! At any rate, even setting the Cummins aside, a marriage with the daughter of Strathearn, by allying your noble friend to every illustrious house in the kingdom, would make his interest theirs, and all must unit in retaining to him the regency. Scotland will be wrecked should he leave the helm; and, sweet Edwin, though your young heart is yet unacquainted with the strange inconsistencies of the tenderest passion, I must whisper you that your friend will never be happy till he again live in the bosom of domestic affection."

"Ah! but where is he to find it?" cried Edwin, "what will ever restore his Marion to his arms?"

"I," cried she-"I will be more than ever Marion was to him! She knew not--O! she could not--the boundless love that fills my heart for him!" Edwin's blushes at this wild declaration told her how far she had betrayed herself. She attempted to palliate what she could no longer conceal, and, covering her face with her hand, exclaimed, "You, who love Sir William Wallace, cannot be surprised that all who adore human excellence should participate in that sentiment. How could I see him, the benefactor of my family, the blessing to all Scotland, and not love him?"

"True," replied Edwin; "but not as a wife would love her husband! You were married. And was it possible you could feel thus when my uncle lived? So strong a passion cannot have grown in your breast since he died; for surely, love should not enter a widow's heart at the side of an unburied husband!"

"Edwin!" replied she, "you, who never felt the throbs of this tyrant, judge with a severity you will one day regret. When you love, and struggle with a passion that drinks your very life, you will pity Joanna of Mar, and forgive her!"

"I pity you now, aunt," replied he; "but you bewilder me. I cannot understand the possibility of a virtuous married woman suffering any passion of this kind to get such domination over her as to cause her one guilty sigh; for guilty must every wish be that militates against the duty of her marriage vow. Surely, love comes not in a whirlwind, to seize the soul at once; but grows by degrees, according to the development of the virtues of the object, and the freedom we give ourselves in their contemplation--and, if it be virtue that you love in Sir William Wallace, had you not virtue in your noble husband?"

The countess perceived by the remarks of Edwin than he was deeper read in the human heart than she had suspected; that he was neither ignorant of the feelings of the passion, nor of what ought to be its source; and therefore, with a deep blush, she replied:

"Think for a moment before you condemn me. I acknowledge every good quality that your uncle possessed--but oh! Edwin, he had frailties that you know not of--frailties that reduced me to be, what the world never saw, the most unhappy of women."

Edwin turned pale at this charge against his uncle; and, while he forbore to draw aside the veil which covered the sacred dead, little did he think that the artful woman meant a frailty to which she had equally shared, and the consequences of which dangerous vanity had constrained her to become his wife. She proceeded:

"I married your uncle when I was a girl, and knew not that I had a heart. I saw Wallace; his virtues stole me from myself, and I found-- In short, Edwin, your uncle became of too advanced an age to sympathize with my younger heart. How could I, then, defend myself against the more congenial soul of your friend? He was reserved during Mar's life! but he did not repulse me with unkindness. I therefore hope; and do you, my Edwin, gently influence him in my favor, and I will forever bless you."

"Aunt," answered he, looking at her attentively, "can you, without displeasure, hear me speak a few, perhaps ungrateful, truths?"

"Say what you will," said she, trembling; "only be my advocate with the noblest of human beings, and I can take naught amiss."

"Lady Mar," resumed he, "I answer you with unqualified sincerity, because I love you, and venerate the memory of my uncle, whose frailties, whatever they might be, were visible to you alone. I answer you with sincerity, because I would spare you much future pain, and Sir William Wallace a task that would pierce him to the soul. You confess that he already knows you love him--that he has received such demonstrations with coldness. Recollect what it is you love him for, and then judge if he could do otherwise. Could he approve affections which a wife transferred to him from her husband, and that husband his friend?"

"Ah! but he is now dead!" interrupted she; "that obstacle is removed."

"But the other, which you raised yourself!" replied Edwin; "while a wife, you showed to Sir William Wallace that you could not only indulge yourself in wishes hostile to your nuptial faith, but divulge them to him. Ah! my aunt, what could you look for as the consequence of this? My uncle yet lived when you did this! And that act, were you youthful as Hebe, and more tender than ever was fabled the queen of love, I am sure, the virtue of Wallace would never pardon. He never could pledge his faith to one whose passions had so far silenced her sense of duty; and did he even love you, he would not, for the empire of the world, repose his honor in such keeping."

"Edwin!" cired she, at last summoning power to speak, for during the latter part of this address she had sat gasping from unutterable disappointment and rage; "are you not afraid to breathe all this to me? I have given you my confidence and do you abuse it? Do you stab me, when I ask you to heal?"

"No, my dear aunt," replied he; "I speak the truth to you, ungrateful as it is, to prevent you hearing it in perhaps a more painful form from Wallace himself."

"Oh, no!" cried she, with contemptuous haughtiness; "he is a man, and he knows how to pardon the excesses of love! Look around you, foolish boy, and see how many of our proudest lords have united their fates with women who not only loved them while their husbands lived, but left their homes and children to join their lovers! And what is there in me, a princess of the crowns of Scotland and of Norway--a woman who has had the nobles of both kingdoms at her feet, and frowned upon them all-that I should now be contemned? Is the ingrate for whom alone I ever felt a wish of love--is he to despise me for my passion? You mistake, Edwin; you know not the heart of man."

"Not of the common race of men, perhaps," replied he; "but certainly that of Sir William Wallace. Purity and he are too sincerely one for personal vanity to blind his eyes to the deformity of the passion you describe. And mean as I am when compared with him, I must aver that, were a married woman to love me, and seek to excuse her frailty, I should see alone her contempt of the principles which are the only impregnable bulwarks of innocence, and shrink from her as I would from pollution."

"Then you declare yourself my enemy, Edwin?"

"No," replied he; "I speak to you as a son; but if you are determined to avow to Sir William Wallace what you have revealed to me, I shall not even observe on what has passed, but leave you, unhappy lady, to the pangs I would have spared you."

He rose. Lady Mar wrung her hands in a paroxysm of conviction that what he said was true.

"Then, Edwin, I must despair?"

He looked at her with pity.

"Could you abhor the dereliction that your soul has thus made from duty, and leave him, whom your unwidowed wishes now pursue, to seek you; then I should say that you might be happy; for penitence appeases God, and shall it not find grace with man?"

"Blessed Edwin," cried she, falling on his neck, and kissing him; "whisper but my penitence to Wallace; teach him to think I hate myself. Oh, make me that in his eyes which you would wish, and I will adore you on my knees?"

The door opened at this moment, and Lord Ruthven entered. The tears she was profusely shedding on the bosom of his son, he attributed to some conversation she might be holding respecting her deceased lord, and taking her hand, he told her he came to propose her immediate removal from the scene of so many horrors.

"My dear sister," said he, "I will attend you as far as Perth. After that, Edwin shall be your guard to Braemar, and my Janet will stay with you there till time has softened your griefs."

Lady Mar looked at him.

"And where will be Sir William Wallace?"

"Here," answered Ruthven. "Some considerations, consequent to his receiving the French dispatches, will hold him some time longer south of the Forth."

Lady Mar shook her head doubtfully, and reminded him that the chiefs in the citadel had withheld the dispatches.

Lord Ruthven then informed her that, unknown to Wallace, Lord Loch-awe had summoned the most powerful of his friends then near Stirling, and attended by them, was carried on a littler into the citadel. It entered the council-hall, and from that bed of honorable wounds, he threatened the assembly with instant vengeance from his troops without, unless they would immediately swear fealty to Wallace, and compel Badenoch to give up the French dispatches. Violent tumults were the consequence; but Loch-awe's litter being guarded by a double rank of armed chieftains, and the keep being hemmed round by his men prepared to put to the sword every Scot hostile to the proposition of their lord, the insurgents at last complied, and forced Badenoch to relinquish the royal packet. This effected, Loch-awe and his train returned to the monastery. Wallace refused to resume the dignity he had resigned, the reinvestment of which had been extorted from the lords in the citadel.

"No," said he to Loch-awe; "it is indeed time that I should sink into shades where I cannot be found, since I am become a word of contention amongst my countrymen."

"He was not to be shaken," continued Ruthven; "but seeing matter in the French dispatches that ought to be answered without delay, he yet remains a few days at Falkirk."

"Then we will await him here," cried the countess.

"That cannot be," answered Ruthven, "it would be against ecclesiastical law to detain the sacred dead so long from the grave. Wallace will doubtless visit Braemar, therefore I advise that to-morrow you leave Falkirk."

Edwin seconded this counsel; and fearing to make further opposition, she silently acquiesced. But her spirit was not so quiescent. At night when she went to her cell, her ever wakeful fancy aroused a thousand images of alarm. She remembered the vow that Wallace had made to seek Helen. He had already given up the regency--an office which might have detained him from such a pursuit; and might not a passion softer than indignation against the ungrateful chieftains have dictated this act? "Should he love Helen, what is there not to fear?" cried she; "and should he meet her, I am undone?" Racked by jealousy, and goaded by contradicting expectations, she rose from her bed and paced the room in wild disorder. One moment she strained her mind to recollect every gracious look or word from him, and then her imagination glowed with anticipated delight. Again she thought of his address to Helen, of his vow in her favor, and she was driven to despair. All Edwin's kind admonitions were forgotten; passion alone was awake; and forgetful of her rank and sex, and of her situation, she determined to see Wallace, and appeal to his heart for the last time. She knew that he slept in an apartment at the other end of the monastery; and that she might pass thither unobserved, she glided into an opposite cell belonging to a sick monk, and stealing away his cloak, threw it over her, and hurried along the cloisters.

The chapel doors were open. In passing, she saw the bier of her lord awaiting the hour of its removal, surrounded by priests, singing anthems for the repose of his soul. No tender recollections, no remorse, knocked at the heart of Lady mar as she sped along. Abandoned all to thoughts of Wallace, she felt not that she had a soul; she acknowledged not that she had a hope, but what centered in the smiles of the man she was hastening to seek.

His door was fastened with a latch; she gently opened it, and found herself in his chamber. She trembled--she scarcely breathed; she looked around; she approached his bed--but he was not there. Disappointment palsied her heart, and she sunk upon a chair. "Am I betrayed?" said she to herself: "Has that youthful hypocrite warned him hence?" And then again she thought, "But how should Edwin guess that I should venture here? Oh, no, my cruel stars alone are against me!"

She now determined to await his return, and nearly three hours she had passed there, enduring all the torments of guilt and misery; but he appeared not. At last, hearing the matinbell, she started up, fearful that her maids might discover her absence. Compelled by some regard to reputation, with an unwilling mind she left the shrine of her idolatry, and once more crossed the cloisters. While again drawing toward the chapel, she saw Wallace himself issue from the door, supporting on his bosom the fainting head of Lady Ruthven. Edwin followed them. Lady Mar pulled the monk's cowl over her face and withdrew behind a pillar. "Ah!" thought she, "absenting myself from my duty, I fled from thee!" She listened with breathless attention to what might be said.

Lord Ruthven met them at that instant. "This night's watching by the bier of her brother," said Wallace, "has worn out your gentle lady; we strove to support her through these sad vigils, but at last she sunk." What Ruthven said in reply, when he took his wife in his arms, the countess could not hear; but Wallace answered, "I have not seen her."

"I left her late in the evening drowned in tears," replied Ruthven, in a more elevated tone, "I therefore suppose that in secret she offers those prayers for her deceased husband, which my tender Janet pours over his grave."

"Such tears," replied Wallace, "are Heaven's own balm; I know they purify the heart whence they flow. Yes; and the prayers we breathe for those we love, unite our souls the closer to theirs. Look up, dear Lady Ruthven," said he, as she began to revive, "look up and hear how you may, while still on earth, retain the society of your beloved brother! Seek his spirit at the footstool of God. 'Tis thus I live, sister of my most venerated friend! My soul is ever on the wing of heaven, whether in the solitary hour, in joy, or in sorrow, for theeere my treasure lives!"

"Wallace! Wallace," cried Lady Ruthven, looking on his animated countenance with wondering rapture; "and art thou a man of earth and of the sword? Oh! rather say, an angel; lent us here a little while to teach us to live and to die!"

A glowing blush passed over the pale but benign cheek of Wallace.

"I am a soldier of Him who was, indeed, brought into the world to show us, by his life and death, how to be virtuous and happy. Know me, by my life, to be his follower; and David himself wore not a more glorious title!"

Lady mar, while she contemplated the matchless form before her, exclaimed to herself, "Why is it animated by as faultless a soul? Oh, Wallace! wert thou less excellent, I might hope; but hell is in my heart, and heaven in thine!"

She tore her eyes from a view which blasted while it charmed her, and rushed from the cloisters.

LVII. Durham

The sun rose as the funeral procession of the Earl of Mar moved from before the gates of the monastery at Falkirk. Lord Ruthven and Edwin mounted their horses. The maids of the two ladies led them forth toward the litters which were to convey them so long a journey. Lady Ruthven came first, and Wallace placed her tenderly in her carriage. The countess next appeared, clad in the deep weeds of widowhood. Her child followed in the arms of its nurse. At the sight of the innocent babe, whom he had so often seen pressed to the fond bosom of the father it was now following to his grace, tears rushed into the eyes of Wallace. Lady Mar hid the tumult of her feelings on the shoulder of her maid. He advanced to her respectfully, and handing her to her vehicle, urged her to cherish life for the sake of her child. She threw herself with increased agitation on her pillow, and Wallace, deeming the presence of her babe the surest comforter, laid it tenderly by her side. At that moment, before he had relinquished it, she bent her face upon his hands, and bathing them with tears, faintly murmured, "Oh! Wallace, remember me!" Lord Ruthven rode up to bid adieu to his friend, and the litters moved on. Wallace promised that both he and Edwin should hear of him in the course of a few days; and affectionately grasping the hand of the latter, bade him farewell.

Hear of him they should, but not see him; for it was his determination to set off that night for Durham, where, he was informed, Edward now lay, and, joined by his young queen, meant to sojourn till his wounds were healed. Believing that his presence in Scotland could no longer be serviceable, and would engender continual intestine divisions, Wallace did not hesitate in fixing his course. His first object was to fulfill his vow to Lord Mar. He thought it probable, that Helen might have been carried to the English court; and that in seeking her, he might also attempt an interview with young Bruce; hoping to learn how far he had succeeded in persuading his father to leave the vassalage of Edward, and once more dare resuming the specter of his ancestors.

To effect his plan without hinderance, on the disappearance of the funeral cavalcade, Wallace retired to his apartment to address a letter to Lord Ruthven. In this epistle he told the chief that he was going on an expedition which he hoped would prove beneficial to his country; but it was an enterprise of rashness, he would not make any one his companion; he therefore begged Lord Ruthven to teach his friends to consider with candor a flight they might otherwise deem unkind.

All the brother was in his letter to Edwin, conjuring him to prove his affection for his friend by quietly abiding at home till they should meet again in Scotland.

He wrote to Andrew Murray (now Lord Bothwell), addressing him as the first of his compatriots who had struck a blow for Scotland; and, as his dear friend and brother soldier, he confided to his care the valiant troop which had followed him from Lanark. "Tell them," said he, "that in obeying you they still serve with me, they perform their duty to Scotland at home--I abroad; our aim is the same; and we shall meet again at the consummation of our labors."

These letters he inclosed in one to Scrymgeour, with orders to dispatch two of them according to their directions; but that to Murray, Scrymgeour was himself to deliver at the head of the Lanark veterans.

At the approach of twilight Wallace quitted the monastery, leaving his packet with the porter, to present to Scrymgeour when he should arrive at his usual hour. As the chief meant to assume a border-minstrel's garb, that he might travel the country unrecognized as its once adored regent, he took his way toward a large hollow oak in Tor Wood, where he had deposited his means of disguise. When arrive there he disarmed himself of all but his sword, dirk, and breastplate; he covered his tartan gambeson with a minstrel's cassock, and staining his bright complexion with the juice of a nut, concealed his brighter locks beneath a close bonnet. Being thus equipped, he threw his harp over his shoulder; and having first, in that solitude, where no eye beheld, no ear heard but that of God, invoked a blessing on his enterprise, with a buoyant spirit--rejoicing in the power in whose light he moved--he went forth, and under the sweet serenity of a summer night pursued his way along the broom-clad hills of Muiravenside.

All lay in profound rest--not a human creature crossed his path till the carol of the lark summoned the husbandman to his toil, and spread the thymy hills and daisied pastures with herds and flocks. As the lowing of cattle descending to the water, and the bleating of sheep, hailing the morning beam, came on the breeze, mingled with the joyous voices of their herdsmen, calling to each other from afar--as all met the ear of Wallace--his conscious heart could not but whisper: "I have been the happy instrument to effect this! I have restored every man to his paternal fields! I have filled all these honest breasts with gladness!"

He stopped at a little moss-covered cabin on the burn-side, beneath Craig Castle in Mid-Lothian, and was hospitably entertained by its simple inhabitants. Wallace repaid their kindness with a few ballads, which he sung accompanied by his harp. As he gave the last notes of "King Arthur's Death in Glory," the worthy cotter raised his head from the spade on which he leaned, and asked whether he could not sing the glory of Scotland.

"Our renowned Wallace," said he, "is worth King Arthur and all the stranger knights of his round table, for he not only conquers for us in war, but establishes us in happy peace. Who like him, of all our great captains, ever took such care of the poor as to give them, not only the bread which sustains temporal, but that which supports eternal life? Sing us then his praises, minstrel, and tarry with us days instead of hours."

The wife, and the children who clung around their melodious visitant, joined in this request. Wallace rose with a saddened smile, and replied:

"I cannot do what you require; but I can yield you an opportunity to oblige Sir William Wallace. Will you take a letter from him, of which I am the bearer, to Lord Dundaf at Berwick? I have been seeking, what I have now found, a faithful Scot, with whom I could confide this trust. It is to reveal to a father's heart the death of a son, for whom Scotland must mourn to her latest generations."

The honest shepherd respectfully accepted this mission; and his wife, loading her guest's scrip with her choicest fruits and cakes, accompanied him, followed by the children, to the bottom of the hill.

In this manner, sitting at the board of the lowly, and sleeping beneath the thatched roof, did Wallace pursue his way through Tweedale and Ettrick Forest, till he reached the Cheviots. From every lip he heard his own praises, heard them with redoubled satisfaction, for he could have no suspicion of their sincerity, as they were uttered without expectation of their ever reaching the regent's ear.

It was the Sabbath day when he mounted the Cheviots. He stood on one of their summits, and leaning on his harp, contemplated the fertile dales he left behind. The gay villagers, in their best attires, were thronging to their churches; while the aged, too infirm for the walk, were sitting in the sun at their cottage doors, adoring the Almighty Benefactor in his sublimer temple of the universe. All spoke of security and happiness. "Thus I leave thee, beloved Scotland! And on revisiting these hills, may I still behold thy sons and daughters rejoicing in the heaven-bestowed peace of their land!"

Having descended into Northumberland, his well-replenished script was his provider; and when it was exhausted, he purchased food from the peasantry; he would not accept the hospitality of a country he had so lately trodden as an enemy. Here he heard his name mentioned with terror as well as admiration. While many related circumstances of misery to which the ravaging of their lands had reduced them, all concurred in praising the moderation with which the Scottish leader treated his conquests.

Late in the evening, he arrived on the banks of the river that surrounds the episcopal city of Durham. He crossed Framlinggate Bridge. His mistrel garb prevented his being stopped by the guard at the gate; but as he entered its porch, a horse that was going through started at his abrupt appearance. Its rider suddenly exclaimed, "Fool, thou dost not see Sir William Wallace!" Then turning to the disguised knight, "Harper," cried he, "you frighten my steed; draw back till I pass." Not displeased to find the terror him so great amongst the enemies of Scotland, that they even addressed their animals as sharers in the dread, Wallace stood out of the way, and saw the speaker to be a young Southron knight, who with difficulty kept his seat on the restive horse. Rearing and plunging, it would have thrown its rider, had not Wallace put forth his hand and seized the bridle. By his assistance, the animal was soothed; and the young lord thanking him for his service, told him that, as a reward, he would introduce him to play before the queen, who that day held a feast at the bishop's palace. Wallace thought it probable he might see or hear of Lady Helen in this assembly, or find access to Bruce, and he gladly accepted the offer. The knight, who was Sir Piers Gaveston, ordering him to follow, turned his horse toward the city, and conducted Wallace through the gates of the citadel, to the palace within its walls.

On entering the banqueting-hall, he was placed by the knight in the musicians' gallery, there to await his summons to her majesty. This entertainment being spread, and the room full of guests, the queen was led in by the haughty bishop of the see, the king being too ill of his wounds to allow his joining so large a company. The beauty of the lovely sister of Philip le Bel seemed to fill the gaze and hearts of all bystanders, and none appeared to remember that Edward was absent. Wallace hardly glanced on her youthful charms; his eyes roamed from side to side in quest of a fairer, a dearer object--the captive daughter of his dead friend! She was not there; neither was De Valence; but Buchan, Athol, and Soulis, were near the royal Margaret; in all the pomp of feudal grandeur. In vain waived the trophied banners over their heads; they sat sullen and revengeful, for the defeat on the Carron had obscured the treacherous victory of Falkirk; and instead of having presented Edward to his young queen as the conqueror of Scotland; she had found him, and them fugitives in the castle of Durham!

Immediately on the royal band ceasing to play, Gaveston pressed toward the queen, and told her he had presumed to introduce a traveling minstrel into the gallery; hoping that she would order him to perform for her amusement, as he could sing legends from the descent of the Romans to the victories of her royal Edward. With all her age's eagerness in quest of novelties, she commanded him to be brought to her.

Gaveston having presented him, Wallace bowed with the respect due to her sex and dignity, and to the esteem in which he held the character of her royal brother. Margaret desired him to place his harp before her, and begin to sing. As he knelt on one knee, and struck its sounding chords, she stopped him by the inquiry, of whence he came?

"From the north country," was his reply.

"Were you ever in Scotland?" asked she.

"Many times."

The young lords crowded round to hear this dialogue between majesty and lowliness. She smiled, and turned toward them.

"Do not accuse me of disloyalty, but I have a curiosity to ask another question."

"Nothing your majesty wishes to know," said Bishop Beck, "can be amiss."

"Then tell me," cried she--"for you wandering minstrels see all great people, good or bad, else how could you make songs about them!--did you ever see Sir William Wallace in your travels?"

"Often, madam."

"Pray tell me what he is like! you probably will be unprejudiced, and that is what I can hardly expect in this case from any of these brave lords."

Wishing to avoid further questioning on this subject, Wallace replied:

"I have never seen him so distinctly as to be enabled to prove any right to your majesty's opinion of my judgment."

"Cannot you sing me some ballad about him?" inquired she, laughing; "and if you are a little poetical in your praise, I can excuse you; for my royal brother thinks this bold Scot would have shone brightly in a fairer cause."

"My songs are dedicated to glory set in the grave," returned Wallace, "therefore Sir William Wallace's faults or virtues will not be sung by me."

"Then he is a very young man, I suppose? for you are not old, and yet you speak of not surviving him. I was in hopes," cried she, addressing Beck, "that my lord the king would have brought this Wallace to have supped with me here; but for once rebellion overcame its master."

Beck made some reply which Wallace did not hear, and the queen again turning to him resumed:

"Minstrel, we French ladies are very fond of a good mien; and I shall be a little reconciled to your northern realms if you tell me that Sir William Wallace is anything like as handsome as some of the gay knights by whom you see me surrounded."

Wallace smiled, and replied:

"The comeliness of Sir William Wallace lies in a strong arm and a feeling heart; and if these be charms in the eyes of female goodness, he may hope to be not quite an object of abhorrence to the sister of Philip le Bel!"

The minstrel bowed as he spoke, and the young queen laughing again, said:

"I wish not to come within the influence of either. But sing me some Scottish legend, and I will promise wherever I see the knight to treat him with all courtesy due to valor."

Wallace again struck the chords of his harp; and with a voice whose full and melodious tones rolled round the vast dome of the hall, he sung the triumphs of Beuther.** The queen fixed her eyes upon him; and when he ended, she turned and whispered Gavestton:

"If the voice of this man had been Wallace's trumpet, I should not now wonder at the discomfiture of England. He almost tempted me from my allegiance, as the warlike animation of his notes seemed to charge the flying Southrons."

**In commemoration of the victory which this ancient Scottish prince obtained over the Britons before the Christian era, the field of conquest has ever since been called Rutherglen.

Speaking, she rose, and presenting a jeweled ring to the mistrel, left the apartment.

The lords crowded out after her, and the musicians coming down from the gallery, seated themselves with much rude jollity to regale on the remnants of the feast. Wallace, who had discovered the senachie of Brue by the escutcheon of Annandale suspended at his neck, gladly saw him approach. He came to invite the stranger minstrel to partake of their fare. Wallace did not appear to decline it, and as the court bard seemed rather devoted to the pleasures of wine, he found it not difficult to draw from him what he wanted to know. He learned that young Bruce was still in the castle under arrest, "and," added the senachie, "I shall feel no little mortification in being obliged, in the course of half an hour, to relinquish these festivities for the gloomy duties of his apartment."

This was precisely the point to which Wallace had wished to lead him; and pleading disrelish of wine, he offered to supply his place in the earl's chamber. The half-intoxicated bard accepted the proposition with eagerness; and as the shades of nigh had long closed in, he conducted his illustrious substitute to the large round tower of the castle, informing him as they went along, that he must continue playing in a recess adjoining Bruce's room till the last vesper bell from the abbey in the neighborhood should give the signal for his laying aside the harp. At that time the earl would be fallen asleep, and he might then lie down on a pallet he would find in the recess.

All this Wallace promised punctually to obey; and being conducted by the senachie up a spiral staircase, was left in the little anteroom. The chief drew the cowl of his minstrel cloak over his face and set his harp before him in order to play. He could see through its strings that a group of knights were in earnest conversation at the further end of the apartment; but they spoke so low he could not distinguish what was said. One of the party turned round, and the light of a suspended lamp discovered him to be the brave Earl Gloucester, whom Wallace had taken, and released at Berwick. The same ray showed another to be Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Wallace found the strangeness of his situation. He, the conqueror of Edward, to have been singing as a mendicant in his halls; and having given laws to the two great men before him, he now sat in their view unobserved and unfeared! Their figures concealed that of Bruce, but at last when all rose together, he heard Gloucester say, in rather an elevated voice, "Keep up your spirits. This envy of your base countrymen must recoil upon themselves. It cannot be long before King Edward discovers the motives of their accusations, and his noble nature will acquit you accordingly."

"My acquittal," replied Bruce, in a firm tone, "cannot restore what Edward's injustice has rifled from me. I abide by the test of my own actions, and by it will open the door of my freedom. Your king may depend on it," added he, with a sarcastic smile, "that I am not a man to be influenced against the right. Where I owe duty I will pay it to the uttermost farthing."

Not apprehending the true meaning of this speech, Percy immediately answered, "I believe you, and so must all that world; for did you not give brave proofs of it that fearful night on the Carron, in bearing arms against the triumphant Wallace?"

"I did indeed give proofs of it," returned Bruce, "which I hope the world will one day know, by bearing arms against the usurper of my country's rights! and in defiance of injustice and of treason, before men and angels I swear," cried he, "to perform my duty to the end--to retrieve, to honor the insulted, the degraded name of Bruce!"

The two earls fell back before the vehement action which accompanied this burst from the soul of Bruce; and Wallace caught a glimpse of his youthful form, which stood pre-eminent in patriotic virtue between the Southron lords: his fine countenance glowed, and his brave spirit seemed to emanate in light from every part of his body. "My prince and brother!" exclaimed Wallace to himself, ready to rush forward and throw himself at his feet, or into his arms.

Gloucester, as little as Northumberland, comprehending Bruce's ambiguous declaration, replied, "Let not your heart, my brave friend, burn too hotly against the king for this arrest. He will be the more urgent to obliterate by kindness this injustice when he understands the aims of the Cummins. I have myself felt his misplaced wrath; and who now is more favored by Edward than Ralph de Monthermer? My case will be yours. Good night, Bruce. May propitious dreams repeat the augury of your true friends!" Percy shook hands with the young earl, and the two English lords left the room.

Wallace could now take a more leisurely survey of Bruce. He no longer wore gay embroidered hacqueton; his tunic was black velvet, and all the rest of his garments accorded with the same mourning hue. Soon after the lords had quitted him, the buoyant elasticity of his figure, which before seemed ready to rise from the earth, so was his soul elevated by his sublime resolves, gave way to melancholy retrospections, and he threw himself into a chair with his hands clasped upon his knee and his eyes fixed in musing gaze upon the floor. It was now that Wallace touched the strings of his harp. "The Death of Cathullin" wailed from the sounding notes; but Bruce heard as though he heard them not; they sooth his mood without his perceiving what it was that calmed, yet deepened, the saddening thoughts which possessed him. His posture remained the same; and sigh after sigh gave the only response to the strains of the bard.

Wallace grew impatient for the chimes of that vesper bell which, by assuring Bruce's attendants that he was going to rest, would secure from interruption the conference he meditated. Two servants entered. Bruce, scarcely looking up, bade them withdraw; he should not need their attendance; he did not know when he should go to bed; and he desired to be no further disturbed. The men obeyed; and Wallace, changing the melancholy strain of his harp, struck the chords to the proud triumph he had played in the hall. Not one note of either ballad had he yet sung to Bruce; but when he came to the passage in the latter appropriated to these lines--

"Arise, glory of Albin, from thy cloud, And shine upon thy own!"

he could not forbear giving the words voice. Bruce started from his seat. He looked toward the minstrel--he walked the room in great disorder. The pealing sounds of the harp, and his own mental confusion, prevented his distinguishing that it was not the voice of his senachie. The words alone he heard; and they seemed a call which his heart panted to obey. The hand of Wallace paused upon the instrument. He looked around to see that observation was indeed at a distance. Not that he dreaded harm to himself, for his magnanimous mind, courageous from infancy, by a natural instinct had never known personal fear; but anxious not to precipitate Bruce into useless danger, he first satisfied himself that all was safe, and then, as the young earl sat in a paroxysm of racking reflections (for they brought self-blame, or rather a blame on his father, which pierced him to the heart), Wallace slowly advanced from the recess. The agitated Bruce, accidentally raising his head, beheld a man in a minstrel's garb, much to tall to be his senachie, approaching him with a caution which he thought portended treachery. He sprung to his feet, and caught his sword from the table; but, in that moment, Wallace threw off his cowl. Bruce stood gazing on him, stiffened with astonishment. Wallace, in a low voice, exclaimed, "My prince! do you not know me?" Bruce, without speaking, threw his arms about his neck. He was silent, as he hung on him, but his tears flowed; he had much to say, but excess of emotion rendered it unutterable. As Wallace returned the fond embrace of friendship, he gently said, "How is it that I not only see you a close prisoner, but in these weeds?" Bruce at last forced himself to articulate: "I have known misery, in all its forms, since we parted; but I have not power to name even my grief of griefs, while trembling at the peril to which you have exposed yourself by seeking me! The vanquisher of Edward, the man who snatched Scotland from his grasp, were he known to be within these walls, would be a prize for which the boiling revenge of the tyrant would give half his kingdom! Think, then, my friend, how I shudder at this daring. I am surrounded by spies, and should you be discovered, Robert Bruce will then have the curses of his country added to the judgments which already have fallen on his head." As he spoke, they sat down together, and he continued: "Before I answer your questions, tell me what immediate cause could bring you to seek the alien Bruce in prison, and by what stratagem you came in this disguise into my apartment? Tell me the last, that I may judge, by the means, of your present safety!"

Wallace briefly related the events which had sent him from Scotland, his reencounter with Piers Gaveston, and his arrangement with the senachie. To the first part of the narrative, Bruce listened with indignation. "I knew," exclaimed he, "from the boastings of Athol and Buchan, that they had left in Scotland some dregs of heir own refractory spirits; but I could not have guessed that envy had so obliterated gratitude in the hearts of my countrymen. The wolves have now driven the shepherd from the fold," cried he, "and the flock will soon be devoured! Fatal was the hour for Scotland, and your friend, when you yielded to the voice of faction, and relinquished the power which would have finally given peace to the nation!"

Wallace recapitulated his reasons for having refrained from forcing the obedience of the young Lord Badenoch and his adherents; for abdicating a dignity he could no longer maintain without shedding the blood of the misguided men who opposed him. Bruce acknowledged the wisdom of this conduct, but could not restrain his animadversions on the characters of the Cummins. He told Wallace that he had met the two sons of the late Lord Badenoch in Guienne; that James, who now pretended such resentment of his father's death, had ever been a rebellious son. John, who yet remained in France, appeared of a less violent temper; "but," added the prince, "I have been taught by one who will never counsel me more, that all the Cummins, male and female, would be ready at any time to sacrifice earth and heaven to their ambition. It is to Buchan and Athol that I owe my prolonged confinement, and to them I may date the premature death of my father."

The start of Wallace declared his shock at this information. "How?" exclaimed he, "The Earl of Carrick dead? Fell, fell assassins of their country!" The swelling emotions of his soul would not allow him to proceed, and Bruce resumed: "It is for him I wear these sable garments--poor emblems of the mournings of my soul, mournings, not so much for his loss (and that is grievous as ever son bore), but because he lived not to let the world know what he really was; he lived not to bring into light his long-obscured honor! There, there, Wallace, is the bitterness of this cup to me!"

"But can you not sweeten it, my dear prince," cried Wallace, "by retrieving all that he was cut off from redeeming? To open the way to you I come."

"And I will enter where you point," returned Bruce; "but heavy is my woe that, knowing the same spirit was in my father's bosom, he should be torn from the opportunity to make it manifest. Oh, Wallace! that he should be made to lie down in a dishonored grave! Had he lived, my friend, he would have brightened that name which rumor has sullied, and I should have doubly gloried in wearing the name he had rendered so worthy of being coupled with the kingly title. Noble was he in soul; but he fell amidst a race of men whose art was equal to their venality, and he became their dupe. Betrayed by friendship, he sunk into the snare; for he had no dishonor in his own breast to warn him of what might be the villainy of others. He believed the cajoling speeches of Edward, who, on the first offense of Baliol, had promised to place my father on the throne. Month after month passed away, and the engagement was unperformed. The disturbance on the Continent seemed to his confiding nature a sufficient excuse for these various delays; and he waited in quiet expectation till your name, my friend, rose glorious in Scotland. My father and myself were then in Guienne; Edward persuaded him that you affected the crown; and he returned with that deceiver to draw his sword against his people and their ambitious idol--for so he believed you to be; and grievous has been the expiation of that fatal hour! Your conference with him on the banks of the Carron opened his eyes; he saw what his credulity had made Scotland suffer; what a wreck he had made of his own fame; and from that moment he resolved to follow another course. But the habit of trusting the affection of Edward inclined him rather to remonstrate on his rights than immediately to take up arms against him; yet, resolved not to strike a second blow on his people, when you assailed the Southron camp he withdrew his few remaining followers, who had survived the hard-fought day of Falkirk, into a remote defile. On quitting you, I came up with him in Mid=Lothian; and never having missed me from the camp, he concluded that I had appeared thus late from having kept in the rear of the division."

Bruce now proceeded to narrate to Wallace the particulars of his father's meeting with the king at Durham. Instead of that monarch receiving the Earl of Carrick with his wonted familiar welcome, he turned coldly from him when he approached, and suffered him to take his usual seat at the royal table without deigning him the slightest notice. Young Bruce was absent from the banquet, having determined never to mingle again in social communion with the man whom he now regarded as the usurper of his father's rights. The absence of the filial eye which had once looked the insolent Buchan into his inherent insignificance, now emboldened the audacity of this enemy of the house of Carrick; and, supported by Athol on the one side, and Soulis on the other, the base voluptuary seized a pause in the conversation (that he might draw the attention of all present to the disgrace of the chief), and said, with affected carelessness, "My Lord of Carrick, to-day you dine with clean hands; the last time, I saw you at meat, they were garnished with your own blood!" The earl turned on him a look which asked him to explain. Lord Buchan laughed, and continued, "When we last met at table, was it not in his majesty's tent after the victory at Falkirk? You were then red from the slaughter of those bastardized people to whom I understand you now give the fond appellation of sons. Having recognized the relationship, it was not probable we should again see your hands in their former brave livery; and their present pallid hue convinces more than myself, of the truth of our information."

"And me," cried Edward, rising on the couch to which his wounds confined him, "that I have discovered a traitor! You fled, Lord Carrick, at the first attack which the Scots made on my camp, and you drew thousands after you. I know you too well to believe that cowardice impelled the motion. It was treachery, accursed treachery to your friend and king; and you shall feel the weight of his resentment!"

"To this hour, Kind Edward," replied the earl, starting from his chair, "I have been more faithful to you than to my country or my God! I heard, saw, and believed, only what you determined; and I became your slave, your vile, oppressed slave! the victim of your artifice! How often have you pledged yourself that you fought in Scotland only for my advantage! I gave my faith and my power to you; and how often have you promised, after the next successful battle, to restore me to the crown of my ancestors! I still believed you, and I still engaged all who yet acknowledged the influence of Bruce, to support your name in Scotland. Was not such the reiterated promise by which you allured me to the field of Falkirk? And when I had covered myself, as Lord Buchan too truly says, with the blood of my children; when I asked my friend for the crown I had served for, what was his answer? 'Have I naught to do but to win kingdoms to make gifts of?' Thus, then, did a king, a friend, break his often-repreated word! What wonder, then, that I should feel the indignation of a prince and a friend; and leave the false, alas! the perjured, to defenders whom he seemed more highly to approve? But of treachery, what have I shown? Rather confidence, King Edward; and the confidence that was awakened in the fields of Palestine brought me hither to-day to remonstrate with you on my rights; when by throwing myself into the arms of my people, I might have demanded them at the head of a victorious army."

Edward, who had prepared by the Cummins to discredit all that Carrick might say in his defense, turned with a look of contempt toward him, and said, "You have persuaded to act like a madman, and as maniacs both yourself and your son shall be guarded till I have leisure to consider any rational evidence you may in future offer in your vindication."

"And is this the manner, King Edward, that you treat your friend, once your preserver?"

"The vassal," replied Edward, "who presumes upon the condescension of his prince, and acts as if he were really his equal, ought to meet the punishment due to such arrogance. You saved my life on the walls of Acre; but you owed that duty to the son of your liege lord. In the fervor of youth I inconsiderately rewarded you with my friendship, and the return is treason." As he concluded he turned from Lord Carrick; and the marshals immediately seizing the earl, took him to the keep of the castle.**

**These speeches are historically true; as is also Edward's after-treatment of the Earl of Carrick.

His son, who had been sought in the Carrick quarters, and laid under an arrest, met his father in the guard-chamber. Carrick could not speak; but motioning to be conducted to the place appointed for his prison, the men with equal silence led him through a range of apartments which occupied the middle story, and stopping in the furthest, left him there with his son. Bruce was not surprised at his own arrest; but at that of his father, he stood in speechless astonishment until the guards withdrew; then, seeing Lord Carrick with a changing countenance throw himself on the bed (for it was in his sleeping room they had left him), he exclaimed, "What is the meaning of this, my father? Has any charge against me brought suspicion on you?"

"No, Robert, no," replied the earl; "it is I who have brought you into this prison, and into disgrace; disgrace with all the world, for having tacitly surrendered my inheritance to the invader of my country. Honest men abhor, villains treat me with contumely; and he for whom I incurred all this, because I would not, when my eyes were open to my sin, again imbrue my hands in the blood of my country, now thrusts me from him! You are implicated in my crime; and for not joining the Southrons to repel the Scots from the royal camp, we are both prisoners!"

"Then," replied Bruce, "he shall feel that you have a son who has virtue to be what he suspects; and from this hour I proclaim eternal enmity to the betrayer of my father; to the ingrate who embraced you to destroy!"

The indignation of the youthful prince wrought him to so vehement a declaration of resolute and immediate hostility, that Lord Carrick was obliged to give his transports way; but when he saw that his denunciations were exhausted, though not the determined purpose of his soul (for he trod the room with a step which seemed to shake its foundations, with the power of his mighty mind), Carrick gazed on him with pride, yet grief, and sighing heavily called him to approach him. "Come to me, my Robert!" said he, "hear and abide by the last injunctions of your father, for from this bed I may never rise more. A too late sense of the injuries my sanction has doubled on the people I was born to protect, and the ingratitude of him for whom I have offended my God and wronged my country, have broken my heart. I shall die, Robert, but you will avenge me!"

"May God so prosper me!" cried Bruce, raising his arms to heaven. Carrick resumed:

"Attend to me, my dear and brave son, and do not mistake the nature of my last wish. Do not allow the perhaps too forcible word I have used, to hurry you into any personal revenge on Edward. Let him live to feel and to regret the outrages he has committed on the peace and honor of his too faithful friend. Pierce him on the side of his ambition, there he is vulnerable, and there you will heal while you wound. This would be my revenge, dear Robert, that you should one day have his life in your power, and in memory of what I now say, spare it. When I am gone, think not of private resentment. Let your aim be the recovery of the kingdom, which Edward rifled from your fathers. Join the virtuous and triumphant Wallace. Tell him of my remorse, of my fate, and be guided wholly by his counsels. To insure the success of this enterprise, my son--a success to which I look as to the only means of redeeming the name I have lost, and of inspiring my separated spirit with courage to meet the freeborn souls of my ancestors--urge not your own destruction by any premature disclosure of your resolutions. For my sake and for your country's, suppress your resentment, threaten not the King of England, provoke not the unworthy Scottish lords who have gained his ear; but bury all in your own bosom till you can join Wallace. Then, by his arm, and your own, seat yourself firmly on the throne of your fathers. That moment will sufficiently avenge me on Edward!--and in that moment, Robert! or at least as soon as circumstances can allow, let the English ground which will then hold my body, give up its dead! Remove me to a Scottish grave, and, standing over my ashes, proclaim to them who might have been my people, that for every evil I suffered to fall on Scotland, I have since felt answering pangs, and that dying, I beg their forgiveness, and bequeath them my best blessing--my virtuous son, to reign in my stead!"

These injunctions to assert his own honor and that of his father, were readily sworn to by Bruce; but he could not so easily be made to quell the imperious indignation which was precipitating him to an immediate and loud revenge. The dying earl trembled before the overwhelming passion of his son's wrath and grief. Treated with outrage and contumely, he saw his father stricken to the earth before him, and he could not bear to hear any temporizing with his murderers. But all this tempest of the soul the wisdom-inspired arguments of the earl at last becalmed, but could not subdue. He convinced his son's reason by showing him that caution would insure the blow, and that his aim could only be effected by remaining silent till he could publish his father's honor, evidenced by his own heroism. "Do this," added Carrick, "and I shall live fair in the memories of men. But be violent, threaten Edward from these walls, menace the wretches who have trodden on the gray hairs of their prince, and your voice will be heard no more; this ground will drink your blood, and blindly judging infamy will forever after point to our obscure graves!"

Such persuasives at last prevailed with Bruce, and next day, writing the hasty lines which Wallace received at Falkirk, he intrusted them to his senachie, who conveyed them to Scotland by means of the shepherd youth.

Shortly after the dispatch of this letter, the presage of Lord Carrick was verified; he was seized in the night with spasms, and died in the arms of his son.

When Bruce related these particulars, his grief and indignation became so violent, that Wallace was obliged to enforce the dying injunctions of the father he thus vehemently deplored, to moderate the delirium of his soul. "Ah!" exclaimed the young earl, "I have indeed needed some friend to save me from myself, some one to reconcile me to the Robert Bruce who had so long slept in the fatal delusions which poisoned his father and laid him low! Oh! Wallace! at times I am mad. I know not whether this forbearance be not cowardice. I doubt whether my father meant what he spoke, that he did not yet seek to preserve the life of his son at the expense of his honor, and I have been ready to precipitate myself on the steel of Edward, so that he should but meet the point of mine!"

Bruce then added, that in his more rational meditations, he had resolved to attempt an escape in the course of a few days. He understood that a deputation of English barons, seeking a ratification of their charter, were soon to arrive in Durham; the bustle attendant on their business would, he hoped, draw attention from him, and afford him the opportunity he sought. "In that case," continued he, "I should have made directly to Stirling, and had not Providence conducted you to me, I might have unconsciously thrown myself into the midst of enemies. James Cummin is too ambitious to have allowed my life to pass unattempted."

Whilst he was yet speaking, the door of the chamber burst open, and Bruce's two attendants rushed into the room with looks aghast. Bruce and Wallace started on their feet and laid their hands on their swords. But instead of anything hostile appearing behind the servants, the inebriated figure of the senachie staggered forward. The men, hardly awake, stood staring and trembling, and looking from the senachie to Wallace; at last one, extricating his terror-struck tongue, and falling on his knees, exclaimed: "Blessed St. Andrew! here is the senachie and his wraith." Bruce perceived the mistake of his servants, and explaining to them that a traveling minstrel had obliged the senachie by performing his duty, he bade them retire to rest, and think no more of their alarm. The intoxicated bard threw himself without ceremony on his pallet in the recess, and the servants, though convinced, still shaking with superstitious fright, entreated permission to bring their heather beds into their lord's chamber. To deny them was impossible, and all further converse with Wallace that night being put an end to, a couch was laid for him in an interior apartment, and with a grateful pressure of the hands, in which their hearts silently embraced, the chiefs separated to repose.