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FOR a day or two, the
paralysed terrors of the people, and the tumults in the citadel, seemed
portentous of immediate ruin. A large detachment from the royal army had
entered Scotland, by the marine gate of Berwick; and, headed by De Warenne,
was advancing rapidly towards Edinburgh. Not a soldier belonging to the
Regent remained on the Carse; and the distant chiefs, to whom he sent for
aid, refused it; alleging, that the discovery of Wallace’s patriotism
having been a delusion, had made them suspect all men; and, now locking
themselves within their own castles, each trite Scot would there securely
view a struggle, in which they could feel no personal interest.
Seeing the danger of the
realm, and hearing from the Lords Ruthven and Bothwell, that their troops
would follow no other leader than Sir William Wallace; and hopeless of any
prompt decision from amongst the confusion of the council, Badenoch
yielded a stern assent to the only apparent means of saving his sinking
country. He turned ashy pale, while his silence granted to Lord Loch-awe
the necessity of imploring Sir William Wallace, to again stretch out his
arm in their behalf. With this embassy, the venerable chief had returned
exultingly to Ballochgeich; and the so lately branded Wallace, branded as
the intended betrayer of Scotland, was solicited, by his very accusers, to
assume the trust of their sole defence.
"Such is the triumph
of virtue !" whispered Edwin to his friend, as he vaulted on his
horse. A luminous smile from Wallace, acknowledged that he felt the
tribute: and, looking up to Heaven ere he placed his helmet on his head,
he said, "Thence comes my power! and the satisfaction it brings,
whether attended by man’s applause, or his blame, he cannot take from
me. I now, perhaps for the last time, arm this head for Scotland. May the
God in whom I trust, again crown it with victory; and for ever after bind
the brows of our rightful sovereign with peace!" While Wallace
pursued his march, the Regent was quite at a stand; confounded at the turn
which events had taken, and hardly knowing whether to make another essay
to collect forces for the support of their former leader, or to follow the
refractory counsels of his Lords, and await in inactivity the issue of the
expected battle. He knew not how to act: but a letter from Lady Strathearn
decided him.
Though partly triumphant in
her charges, yet the accusations of Bothwell had disconcerted her; and
though the restoration of Wallace to his undisputed authority in the
state, seemed to her next to impossible, still she resolved to take
another step, to confirm her influence over the discontented of her
country, and, most likely, to insure the vengeance she panted to bring
upon her victim’s head. To this end, on the very evening that she
retreated in terror from the council-hall, she set forward to the borders;
and, easily passing thence to
the English camp (then pitched at Alnwick,) was soon admitted to the
castle, where De Warenne lodged. She was too well taught in the school of
vanity, not to have remarked the admiration with which that earl had
regarded her, while he was a prisoner in Stirling; and, hoping that he
might not be able to withstand the persuasion of her charms, she opened
her mission with no less art than effect. De Warenne was made to believe,
that on the strength of a passion Wallace had conceived for her, and which
she treated with disdain, he had repented of his former refusal of the
crown of Scotland; and, misled by a hope that she would not repeat her
rejection of his hand, could it present her a sceptre, he was now
attempting to compass that dignity by the most complicated intrigues. She
then related how, at her instigation, the Regent had deposed him from his
military command; and she ended with saying, that impelled by loyalty to
Edward (whom her better reason now recognised as the lawful sovereign of
her country), she had come to exhort that monarch to renew his invasion of
the kingdom. Intoxicated with her beauty, and enraptured by a manner which
seemed to tell him that a softer sentiment than usual had made her select
him as the ambassador to the King, De Warenne greedily drank in all her
words; and ere he allowed this, to him, romantic conference to break up,
he had thrown himself at her feet, and implored her, by every impassioned
argument, to grant him the privilege of presenting her to Edward as his
intended bride. De Warenne was in the meridian of life; and being fraught
with a power at court beyond most of his peers, she determined to accept
his hand, and wield its high influence to the destruction of Wallace; even
should she be compelled, in the act, to precipitate her country in his
fall. De Warenne drew from her a half-reluctant consent; and, while he
poured forth the transports of a happy lover, he was not so much enamoured
of the fine person of Lady Strathearn, as to be altogether insensible to
the advantages which his alliance with her would give to Edward in his
Scottish pretensions. And as it would consequently increase his own
importance with that monarch, he lost no time in communicating the
circumstance to him. Edward suspected something in this sudden attachment
of the Countess, which, should it transpire, might cool the ardour of his
officer for uniting so useful an agent to his cause; therefore, having
highly approved De Warenne’s conduct in the affair, to hasten the
nuptials, he proposed being present at their solemnisation that very
evening. The solemn vows which lady Strathearn then pledged at the altar
to De Warenne, were pronounced by her with no holy awe of the marriage
contract; but rather as those alone by which she swore to complete her
revenge on Wallace, and, by depriving him of life, prevent the climax to
her misery, of seeing him (what she believed he intended to become) the
husband of Helen Mar. The day after she became De Warenne’s wife, she
accompanied him by sea to Berwick; and from that place she despatched
messengers to the Regent, and to other nobles, her kinsmen, fraught with
promises, which Edward, in the event of success, had solemnly pledged
himself to ratify. Her ambassador arrived at Stirling the day succeeding
that in which Wallace and his troops had marched from Ballochgeich. The
letters he brought were eagerly opened by Badenoch and his chieftains; and
they found their contents to this effect. She announced to them her
marriage with the Lord Warden, who was returned into Scotland, with every
power for the final subjugation of the country; and therefore she besought
the Regent, and his council, not to raise a hostile arm against him, if
they would, not merely escape the indignation of a great king, but ensure
his favour. She cast out hints to Badenoch, as if Edward meant to reward
his acquiescence with
the crown of Scotland; and with similar baits, proportioned to the views
of all her other kinsmen, she smoothed their anger against that monarch’s
former insults, persuading them to at least remain inactive during the
last struggle of their country.
Meanwhile Wallace, taking
his course along the banks of the Forth, when the night drew near encamped
his little army at the base of the craigs, east of Edinburgh Castle. His
march having been long and rapid, the men were much fatigued, and hardly
were laid upon their heather beds before they fell asleep. Wallace had
learned from his scouts, that the main body of the Southrons were
approached within a few miles of Dalkeith. Thither he hoped to go next
morning; and there, he trusted, strike the conclusive blow for Scotland,
by the destruction of a division which he understood comprised the flower
of the English army. With these expectations, he gladly saw his troops
lying in that repose which would rebrace their strength for the combat;
and, as the hours of night stole on, while his possessed mind waked for
all around, he was pleased to see his ever-watchful Edwin sink down in a
profound sleep.
It was Wallace’s custom,
once at least in the night, to go himself the rounds of his posts, to see
that all was safe. The air was serene, and he walked out on this duty. He
passed from line to line, from station to station, and all was in order.
One post alone remained to be visited; and that was a point of observation
on the craigs near Arthur’s Seat. As he proceeded along a lonely defile
between the rocks which overhang the ascent of the mountain, he was
startled by the indistinct sight of a figure amongst the. rolling vapours
of the night, seated on a towering cliff directly in the way he was to go.
The broad light of the moon, breaking from behind the clouds, shone full
upon the spot, and discovered a majestic form in grey robes, leaning on a
harp; while his face, mournfully gazing upward, was rendered venerable by
a long white beard that mingled with the floating mist. Wallace paused;
and stopping at some distance from this extraordinary apparition, looked
on it in silence. The strings of the harp seemed softly touched; but it
was only the sighing of a transitory breeze, passing over them. The
vibration ceased; but, in the next moment the hand of the master indeed
struck the chords, and with so full and melancholy a sound, that Wallace
for a few minutes was riveted to the ground; then moving forward with a
breathless caution, not to disturb the nocturnal bard, he gently
approached. He was, however, descried. The venerable figure clasped his
hands; and, in a voice of mournful solemnity, exclaimed, "Art thou
come, doomed of Heaven, to hear thy sad coronach?" Wallace started at
this salutation. The bard, with the same emotion, continued: "No
choral hymns hallow thy bleeding corse—wolves howl thy requiem—eagles
scream over thy desolate grave. Fly, chieftain, fly!"—"What
venerable father of the harp," cried Wallace, interrupting the awful
pause," thus addresses one whom he must mistake for some other
warrior?"—"Can the spirit of inspiration mistake its
object?" demanded the bard. "Can he whose eyes have been opened,
be blind to Sir William Wallace— to the blood which clogs his mounting
footsteps?"— "And what, or who, am I to understand art thou
?" replied Wallace. "Who is the saint, whose holy charity would
anticipate the obsequies of a man who yet may be destined to a long
pilgrimage?" "Who I am," resumed the bard, "will be
shown to thee when thou hast passed you starry firmament. But the galaxy
streams with blood; the bugle of death is alone heard, and thy lacerated
breast, heaves in vain against the hoofs of opposing squadrons. They
charge—Scotland falls! Look not on me, champion of thy country! Sold by
thine enemies—betrayed by thy friends! It was not the seer of St. Anton,
who gave thee these wounds—that heart’s blood, was not drawn by me: a
woman’s hand in mail, ten thousand armed warriors, strike the mortal
steel—he sinks, he falls! Red is the blood of Eske! Thy vital stream
hath dyed it. Fly, bravest of the brave, and live! Stay, and perish!"
With a shriek of horror, and throwing his aged arms extended towards the
heavens, while his grey beard mingled in the rising blast, the seer rushed
from sight. Wallace saw the misty rocks alone, and was left in awiful
solitude.
For a few minutes he stood
in profound silence. His very soul seemed deprived of power to answer so
terrible a denunciation, with even a questioning thought. He had heard the
destruction of Scotland declared; and himself sentenced to perish, if he
did not escape the general ruin, by flying from her side! This terrible
decree of fate, so disastrously corroborated by the extremity of Bruce,
and the divisions in the kingdom, had been sounded in his ear; had been
pronounced, by one of those sages of his country, on whom the spirit of
prophecy, it was believed, yet descended, with all the horrors of a
woe-denouncing trumpet. Could he then doubt its truth? He did not doubt;
he believed the midnight voice he had heard. But recovering from the first
shock of such a doom; and remembering that it still left the choice to
himself, between dishonoured life, or glorious death; he resolved to show
his respect to the oracle, by manifesting a persevering obedience to the
eternal voice, which gave those agents utterance; and while he bowed to
the warning, he vowed to be the last who should fall from the side of his
devoted country. "If devoted," cried he, "then our fates
shall be the same. My fall from thee, shall be into my grave. Scotland may
have struck the breast that shielded her; yet, Father of Mercies, forgive
her blindness; and grant me still permission, a
little longer to oppose my heart between, her and this fearful doom
!"
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