Ruthven joined in
determined opinion with Bothwell, that if ever a civil war could be
sanctified, this was the time; and in spite of all that Wallace could urge
against the madness of contending for his supremacy over a nation which
would not yield him obedience, still they remained firm in their
resolution. Bruce, they hardly dared hope could recover; and to relinquish
the guiding hand of their best approved leader, at this crisis, was a
sacrifice, they said, no earthly power should compel them to make.
"So far from it," cried Lord Bothwell dropping on his knees, and
grasping the cross hilt of his sword in both hands, "I swear by the
blood of the crucified Lord of this ungrateful world, that should Bruce
die, I will obey no other King of Scotland than William Wallace!"
Wallace turned ashy pale; as he listened to this vow. At that moment
Scrymgeour entered, followed by the Lanark veterans; and all kneeling
down, repeated the oath of Bothwell; then starting up, called on the
outraged chief, by the unburied corse of his murdered Ker, to lead them
forth, and avenge them of his enemies.
When the agitation of his soul would
allow him to speak to this faithful group, Wallace stretched his hands
over them, and with such tears, as a father would shed, who looks on the
children he is to behold no more; he said, in a subdued and faltering
voice, "God will avenge our murdered friend; my sword is sheathed for
ever. May that holy Being, who is the true and best King of the virtuous,
always be present with you! I feel your love, and I appreciate it. But,
Bothwell, Ruthven, Lockhart, Scrymgeour; my faithful l,anark followers;
leave me awhile, to compose my scattered thoughts. Let me pass this night
alone; and tomorrow you shall know the resolution of your grateful
Wallace!"
The shades of evening were
closing in, and the men of Lanark, first obtaining his permission to keep
guard before the wood which skirted the tent, respectively kissing his
hand, withdrew. Ruthven called Edwin from the recess, whither he had
retired to unburden his grief; but as soon as he heard that it was the
resolution of his friends to preserve the authority of Wallace, or to
perish in the contest; the gloom passed from his fair brow, a smile of
triumph parted his lips, and he exclaimed, "All will be well again!
We shall force this deluded nation to recognise her safety, and her honour!"
While the determined chiefs
held discourse so congenial with the wishes of the youthful knight,
Wallace sat almost silent. He seemed revolving some momentous idea: he
frequently turned his eyes on the speakers, with a fixed regard, which
appeared rather full of a grave sorrow, than demonstrative of any sympathy
in the subjects of their discussion. On Edwin, he at times looked with
penetrating tenderness; and when the bell from the neighbouring convent
sounded the hour of rest, he stretched out his hand to him with a smile,
which he wished should speak of comfort as well as of affection; but the
soul, spoke more eloquently than he had intended: his smile was mournful;
and the attempt to render it otherwise, like a transient light over a dark
sepulchre, only the more distinctly showed the gloom and melancholy
within. "And am I too to leave you?" said Edwin.—"Yes, my
brother;" replied Wallace; "I have much to do with my own
thoughts, this night. We separate now, to meet more gladly hereafter. I
must have solitude, to arrange my plans. To-morrow you shall know them.
Meanwhile farewell!"—As he spoke, he pressed the affectionate youth
to his breast, and warmly grasping the hands of his three other friends,
bade them an earnest adieu.
Bothwell lingered a moment
at the tent door, and looking back; "Let your first plan be, that
to-morrow, you lead us to Lord Soulis’s quarters, to teach the traitor
what it is to be a Scot and a man!"—"My plans shall be the
serving of my brave colleagues," replied Wallace; and whether they be
executed on this, or the other side of the Forth, you shall find, my
long-tried Bothwell, that Scotland’s peace, and the honour of her best
sons, are the dearest considerations of your friend."
When the door closed, and
Wallace was left alone, he stood for awhile in the midst of the tent,
listening to the departing steps of his friends. When the last sound, died
on his ear; "I shall hear them no more!" cried he; and throwing
himself into a seat, he remained for an hour in a trance of grievous
thoughts. Melancholy remembrances, and prospects dire for Scotland,
pressed upon his surcharged heart. "It is to God alone, I must
confide my country!" cried he; "his mercy will pity its madness,
and forgive its deep transgressions. My duty is, to remove the object of
ruin, far from the power of any longer exciting jealousy or awakening
zeal." With these words, he took a pen in his hand to write to Bruce.
He briefly narrated the
events which compelled him, if he would avoid the grief of having
occasioned a civil war, to quit his country for ever. The general
hostility of the nobles; the unresisting acquiescence of the people, in
measures which menaced his life, and sacrificed the freedom for which he
had so long fought, convinced him, he said, that his warlike commission
was now closed. He was summoned by Heaven, to exchange the field for the
cloister: and to the monastery at Chartres, he was now hastening to
dedicate the remainder of his days to the peace of a future world. He then
exhorted Bruce, to confide in the Lords Ruthven and Bothwell, as his soul
would commune with his spirit, for that he would find them true unto
death. He counselled him, as the leading measure to circumvent the treason
of Scotland’s enemies, to go immediately to Kilchum Castle, where he
knew resources would be; for Loch-awe, who retired thither on the last
approach of De Warenne, meaning to call out his vassals for that
emergency, needed it not then; for the battle of Dalkeith was fought and
gained, before they could leave their heights; and the victor did not want
them afterwards. To use those brave and simple-hearted men, for his
establishment on the throne of his kingdom, Wallace advised Bruce. And so,
amidst the natural fortresses of the Highlands, he might recover his
health, collect his friends, and openly proclaim himself.
"Then," added he, "when Scotland is your own, let its
bulwarks, be its mountains, and its people’s arms. Dismantle, and raze
to the ground the castles of those base chiefs, who have only embattled
them, to betray and enslave their country." Though, intent on these
political suggestions, he ceased not to remember his own brave engines of
war; and he earnestly conjured his Prince, that he would wear the valiant
Kirkpatrick as a buckler on his heart; that he would place Scrymgeour,
with his Lanark veterans, and the faithful Grimsby, next him as his body
guard; and that he would love, and cherish the brave and tender Edwin, for
his sake. "When my Prince and friend receives this:" added he,
"Wallace shall have bidden an eternal farewell to Scotland: but his
heart will be amidst its hills. My King, and the friends most dear to me,
will still be there! The earthly part of my beloved wife rests within its
bosom! But I go to rejoin her soul: to meet it in the vigils of days
consecrated wholly to the blessed Being, in whose presence she rejoices
for ever. This is no sad destiny, my dear Bruce. Our Almighty Captain
recalls me, from dividing with you the glory of maintaining the liberty of
Scotland; but he brings me closer to himself: I leave the plains of Gilgal,
to tread with his angel, the courts of my God. Mourn not, then, my
absence; for my prayers will be with you, till we are again united in the
only place where you can fully know me as I am—thine, and Scotland’s
never-dying friend! Start not at the bold epithet. My body may sink into
the grave; but the affections of my immortal spirit, are eternal as its
essence; and, in earth, or in heaven, I am ever yours.
"Should the endearing Helen—my heart’s
sister—be near your couch, when you read this, tell her, that Wallace,
in idea, presses her virgin cheek with a brother’s farewell; and from
his inmost soul he blesses her."
Messages of respectful adieus, he sent to
Isabella, Lady Ruthven, and the sage of Ercildown: and then kneeling down,
in that posture, he wrote his last invocations, for the prosperity and
happiness of Bruce.
This letter finished, with a more tranquil
mind, he addressed Lord Ruthven; detailing to him his reasons for leaving
such faithful friends so clandestinely: and after mentioning his purpose
of proceeding to France, he ended with those expressions of gratitude,
which the worthy chief so well deserved; and exhorting him to transfer his
public zeal for him, to the magnanimous and royal Brace; closed the
letter, with begging him, for the sake of his friend, his King, and his
country, to return immediately with all his followers to Hunting-tower,
and there to rally round their prince. His letter to Scrymgeour, spoke
nearly the same language. But when he began to write to Bothwell; to bid
him that farewell, which his heart foreboded would be for ever in this
world; to part from this, his steady companion in arms, his dauntless
champion! he lost some of his composure; and his hand-writing testified
the emotion of his mind. How then was he shaken, when he addressed the
young and devoted Edwin, the brother of his soul! He dropped the pen from
his hand. At that moment, he felt all he was going to relinquish, and he
exclaimed, "Oh! Scotland! my ungrateful country; what is it you do?
Is it thus that you repay your most faithful servants? Is it not enough
that the wife of my bosom, the companion of my youth, should be torn from
me by your enemies; but your hand must wrest from my bereaved heart, its
every other solace? You snatch from me my friends; you would deprive me of
my life. To preserve you from that crime I embitter the cup of death; I go
far from the tombs of my fathers; from the grave of my Marion, where I had
fondly hoped to rest!" His head sunk on his arm; his heart gave way
under the pressure of accumulated regrets, and floods of tears poured from
his eyes. Deep and frequent were his sighs,—but none answered him.
Friendship was far distant; and where was that gentle being who would have
soothed his sorrow on her bosom? She it was he lamented. "Dreary,
dreary solitude!" cried he, looking around him, with an aghast
perception of all that he had lost: "how have I been mocked, for
these three long years! What is renown? what the loud acclaim of admiring
throngs? what the bended knees of worshipping gratefulness, but breath and
vapour! It seems to shelter the mountain’s top; the blast comes; it
rolls from its sides; and the lonely hill is left to all the storm! So
stand I, my Marion, when bereft of thee. In weal or woe, thy smiles, thy
warm embrace, were mine; my head reclined on that faithful breast, and
still I found my home, my heaven. But now, desolate and alone, ruin is
around me. Destruction waits on all who would steal one pang from the
racked heart of William Wallace! even pity is no more for me. Take me,
then, O! Power of Mercy !" cried he, stretching forth his hands,
"take me to thyself!"
At these words, a peal of
thunder burst on his ear, and seemed to roll over his tent, till passing
off towards the west, it died away in long and solemn reverberation.
Wallace rose from his knee, on which he had sunk at this awful response to
his Heaven-directed adjuration: "Thou callest me, my Father!"
cried he, with a holy confidence dilating his soul: "I go from the
world, to thee!—I come, and before thy altars, shall know no human
weakness."
In
a paroxysm of sacred enthusiasm, he rushed from the tent: and reckless
whither he went, struck into the depths of Roslyn woods. With the steps of
the wind, he pierced their remotest thickets. He reached their boundary;
it was traversed by a rapid stream; but that did not stop his course; he
sprang over it; and, ascending its moon-lit bank, was startled by the
sound of his name. Grimsby, attended by a youth, stood before him. The
veteran expressed amazement at meeting his master alone at this hour,
unhelmeted, and unarmed, and in so dangerous a direction. "The
road:" said he, "between this and Stirling, is beset with your
enemies." instead of noticing this information, Wallace inquired what
news he brought from Hunting-tower. "The worst," said he.
"By this time the royal Bruce is no more!" Wallace gasped
convulsively, and fell against a tree. Grimsby paused. in a few minutes
the heart-struck chief was able to speak: "Listen not to my groans
for unhappy Scotland!" cried he; "show me all that is in this
last phial of wrath."
Grimsby informed him, that
Bruce being so far recovered as to have left his sick chamber for the
family apartment, while he was sitting with the ladies a letter was
brought to Lady Helen. She opened it, read a few lines, and fell senseless
into the arms of her sister. Brace snatched up the packet; but not a word
did he speak, till he had perused it to the end. It was from the Countess
Strathearn, written in the triumph of revenge, cruelly exulting in, what
she termed, the demonstration of Wallace’s guilt: congratulating herself
on having been the primary means of discovering it, and boasting that his
once adoring Scotland now held him in such detestation as to have doomed
him to die. It was this denunciation which had struck to the soul of
Helen; and while the anxious Lady Ruthven removed her inanimate form into
another room, Bruce read the barbarous triumphs of this disappointed
woman. "No power on earth can save him now," continued she;
"your doating heart must yield him, Helen, to another rest than your
bridal chamber. His iron breast has met with others as adamantine as his
own. A hypocrite! he feels not pity, he knows no beat of human sympathies;
and, like a rock he falls, unpitied, undeplored, undeplored by all but
you, lost, self-deluded girl! My noble lord, the princely De Warenne,
informs me, that William Wallace would be burnt as a double traitor, in
England! and a price is now set upon his head in Scotland! hence, there is
safety for him no more. Those his base-born heart, has outraged, shall be
avenged:—and his cries for mercy! who will answer? No voice on earth!
None will dare support the man, whom friends, and enemies, abandon to
destruction!"
"Yes:" cried
Bruce, starting from his seat, "I will support him, thou damned
traitress! Bruce will declare himself!—Bruce will throw himself before
his friend, and in his breast receive every arrow meant for that godlike
heart! Yes," cried he, glancing on the terrified looks of Isabella,
who believed that his delirium was returned, "I would snatch him in
these arms, from their murderous flames, did all the fiends of hell guard
their infernal fire!" Not a word more did he utter, but darting from
the apartment, was soon seen before the barbican-gate, armed from head to
foot. Grimsby stood there, to whom he called to bring him a horse,
"For that the Light of Scotland was in danger." Grimsby, who
understood by that term, his beloved master was in peril, instantly
obeyed; and Bruce, as instantly mounting, struck his rowels into the
horse, and was out of sight, ere Grimsby could reach his stirrup to
follow.
But that faithful soldier
speeded after him like the wind, and came in view of Bruce just as he was
leaping a chasm in the mountain path. The horse struck his heel against a
loose stone, and, it giving way, he fell headlong into the deep ravine. At
the moment of his disappearance, Grimsby rushed towards the spot, and saw
the animal struggling in the agonies of death at the bottom. Bruce lay
insensible, amongst some bushes which grew nearer the top. With difficulty
the honest Englishman got him dragged to the surface of the hill; and
finding all attempts to recover him, ineffectual, he laid him on his own
beast, and so carried him slowly back to the castle. The assiduities of
the sage of Ercildown, restored him to life, but not to recollection.
"The fever returned on him, with a delirium, so hopeless of
recovery," continued Grimsby, "that the Lady Helen, who again
seems like an inspired angel amongst us, has sent me, with this youth, to
implore you to come to Hunting-tower; and there embattle yourself against
your own, and your Prince’s enemies."
"Send me," cried
Walter Hay, grasping Wallace’s hand, "send me back to Lady Helen,
and let me tell her, that our benefactor, the best guardian of our
country, will not abandon us! Should you depart, Scotland’s genius will
go with you! again she must sink, again she will be in ruins. De Valence
will regain possession of my dear Lady, and you will not be near to save
her."
"Grimsby, Walter, my
friends!" cried Wallace in an agitated voice; "I do not abandon
Scotland: she drives me from her. Would she have allowed me, I would have
borne her in my arms, until my latest gasp; but it must not be so. I
resign her into the Almighty hands, to which I commit myself: they will
also preserve the Lady Helen from violence. I cannot forego my trust, for
the Bruce also! If he live, he will protect her for my sake; and should he
die, Bothwell and Ruthven, will cherish her for their own."—"But
you will return with us to Hunting-tower," cried Grimsby.
"Disguised in these peasant’s garments, which we have brought for
the purpose, you may pass through the legions of the Regent, with perfect
security."—"Let me implore you, if not for your own sake, for
ours!—Pity our desolation, and save yourself for them who can know no
safety when you are gone!" Walter clung to his arm, while uttering
this supplication. Wallace looked tenderly upon him :—"I would save
myself; and I will, please God," said he; "but by no means
unworthy of myself. I go, but not under any disguise. Openly have I
defended Scotland, and openly will I pass through her lands. The chalice
of Heaven, consecrated me the champion of my country, and no Scot dare
lift a hostile hand against this anointed head." The soul of Wallace
swelled high, but devoutly, while uttering this.
"Whither you go," cried
Grimsby, "let me follow you, in joy or in sorrow!"—"And
me too, my benefactor!" rejoined Walter; "and when you look on
us, think not that Scotland is altogether ungrateful!"
"My faithful
friends;" returned he, "whither I go, I must go alone. And as a
proof of your love, grant me your obedience this once.—Rest amongst
these thickets, till morning. At sunrise, repair to our camp: there you
will know my destination. But till Bruce proclaims himself at the head of
his country’s armies, for my sake never reveal to mortal man, that he
who lies debilitated by sickness at Hunting-tower, is other than Sir
Thomas de Longueville."—. "Rest we cannot," replied
Grimsby; "but still we will obey our master. You command me to adhere
to Bruce; to serve him till the hour of his death! I will—but should he
die, then I may seek you; and be again your faithful servant? "—"You
will find me before the cross of Christ;" returned Wallace,
"with saints my fellow-soldiers, and God my only King! Till then,
Grimsby, farewell. Walter, carry my fidelity to your mistress. She will
share my thoughts, with the Blessed Virgin of Heaven; for in all my
prayers shall her name be remembered."
Grimsby and Walter, struck
by the holy solemnity of his manner, fell on their knees before him.
Wallace raised his hands: "Bless, Oh, Father of Light!" cried
he; "bless this unhappy land, when Wallace is no more; and let his
memory be lost in the virtues and prosperity of Robert Bruce!"
Grimsby sank on the earth,
and gave way to a burst of manly sorrow. Walter hid his weeping face in
the folds of his master’s mantle, which had fallen from his shoulders to
the ground. Lost in grief, no thought seemed to exist in the young man’s
heart, but the resolution to live only for his persecuted benefactor; and
to express this vow with all the energy of determined devotedness, he
looked up to seek the face of Wallace—but Wallace had disappeared— and
all that remained to the breaking hearts of his faithful servants, was the
tartan plaid which they had clasped in their arms. [The
parallel scene to this in the interesting Lay of Blind Harrie, is one of
the finest in the poem. Here, he may indeed be called the Homer of
Scotland; but his hero was nobler than either Greek or Trojan—a truly
Christian hero !—(1809.)]