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THROUGH all the furies of the elements seemed
let loose, to rage around the walls of the dungeon, still Wallace slept in
the loud uproar. Calm was within; and the warfare of the world could not
disturb the balmy rest into which the angel of peace had steeped his
senses. From this profound repose, he was awakened by the entrance of
Gloucester. Helen had just sunk into a slight slumber; but the first words
of the Earl aroused her, and rising, she followed her beloved Wallace to
his side.
Gloucester put a scroll
into the hand of Wallace:- "Sign that," said he, "and you
are free. I know not its contents; but the King commissioned me, as a mark
of his grace, to be the messenger of your release."
Wallace read the
conditions; and the colour deepened on his cheek, as his eye met each
article. "He was to reveal the asylum of Bruce; to forswear Scotland
for ever; and to take an oath of allegiance to Edward; the seal of which
should be the English earldom of Cleveland!" Wallace closed the
parchment. "King Edward knows well what will be my reply; I need not
speak it." "You will accept his terms ?" asked the Earl.
"Not to ensure me a
life of ages, with all earthly bliss my portion! I have spoken to these
offers before. Read them, my noble friend; and then give him, as mine, the
answer that would be yours." Gloucester obeyed; and while his eyes
were bent on the parchment, those of Helen were fixed on her almost
worshipped husband: she looked through his beaming countenance, into his
very soul; and there saw the sublime purpose that consigned his unbending
head to the scaffold. When Gloucester had finished, covered with the
burning blush of shame, he crushed the disgraceful scroll in his hand; and
exclaimed, with honourable vehemence, against the deep duplicity, and
deeper cruelty of his father-in-law, so to mock, by base subterfuges, the
embassy of France, and its noble object.
"This is the morning
in which I was to have met my fate!" replied Wallace. "Tell this
tyrant of the earth, that I am even now ready, to receive the last stroke
of his injustice. In the peaceful grave, my Helen;" added he, turning
to her, who sat pale and aghast, "I shall be beyond his power!"
Gloucester walked the room, in great disturbance of mind; while Wallace
continued, in a lowered tone, to recall some perception of his own
consolations, to the abstracted and soul-struck Helen. The Earl stopped
suddenly before them: "That the King did not expect your
acquiescence, without some hesitation, I cannot doubt; for when I informed
him the Lady Helen Mar, now your wife, was the sharer of your prison, he
started, and told me, that should you still oppose yourself to his
conditions, I must bring her to him; who might, perhaps, be the means of
persuading you to receive his mercy."
"Never!" replied
Wallace; "I reject what he calls mercy. He has no rights of judgment
over me; and his pretended mercy, is an assumption, which, as a true Scot,
I despise. He may rifle me of my life, but he shall never beguile me into
any acknowledgment of an authority that is false. No wife, nor aught of
mine, shall ever stand before him, as a suppliant, for William Wallace. I
will die, as I have lived; the equal of Edward in all things but a crown;
and his superior, in being true to the glory of prince or peasant—unblemished
honour!"
Finding the Scottish chief
not to be shaken in this determination, Gloucester, humbled to the soul by
the base tyranny of his royal father-in-law, soon after withdrew, to
acquaint that haughty monarch with the ill success of his embassy. But ere
noon had turned, he reappeared with a countenance declarative of some
distressing errand. He found Helen awakened to the full perception of all
her pending evils—that she was on the eve of losing for ever the object
dearest to her in this world and though she wept not, though she listened
to the lord of all her wishes, with smiles of holy approval, her heart
bled within; and, with a welcome, which enforced his consolatory
arguments, she hailed her own inwardly foreboding mortal pains.
"I come," said Gloucester,
"not to urge you to send Lady Helen, as a suitor to King Edward; but
to spare her the misery of being separated from you, while life is
yours." He then said, that the French ambassadors were kept in
ignorance of the conditions which were offered to the object of their
mission; and, on being informed that he had refused them, they showed
themselves so little satisfied with the sincerity of what had been done,
that Edward thought it expedient to conciliate Philip, by making some
pains to dislodge their suspicions. To this effect, he proposed to the
French lords, sending his final propositions to Sir William Wallace by
that chieftain’s wife, who he found, was then his companion in the
Tower. "On my intimating," continued the Earl, "that I
feared she would be unable to appear before him, his answer was:—‘Let
her see to that: such a refusal shall be answered by an immediate
separation from her husband.’
"Let me, in this demand," cried
she, turning with collected firmness to Wallace, "satisfy the will of
Edward. It is only to purchase my continuance with you. Trust me, noblest
of men; I should be unworthy of the name you have given me, could I sully
it, in my person, by one debasing word or action, to the author of all our
ills!"— "Ah, my Helen !" replied he, "what is it you
ask? Am I to live, to see a repetition of the horrors of Ellerslie?"—
"No, on my life," answered Gloucester: "in this instance, I
would pledge my soul for King Edward’s manhood. His ambition might lead
him to trample on all men; but still for woman, he feels as becomes a man
and a knight."
Helen renewed her supplications: and
Wallace, (aware that should he withhold her attendance, his implacable
adversary, however he might spare her personal injury, would not
forbear wounding her to the soul, by tearing her from him;) gave an
unwilling consent, to what might seem a submission on his part to an
authority, he had shed his blood to oppose. "But not in these
garments," said he. "She must be habited, as becomes her sex,
and her own delicacy."
Anticipating this
propriety, Gloucester had imparted the circumstance to his Countess; and
she had sent a casket, which the Earl himself now brought in from the
passage. Helen retired to the inner cell, and hastily arraying herself in
the first suit that presented itself, re-appeared in female apparel and
wrapped in a long veil. As Gloucester took her hand, to lead her forth,
Wallace clasped the other in his, "Remember, my Helen;" cried
he, "that on no terms, but untrammelled freedom of soul, will your
Wallace accept of life. This will not be granted by the man to whom you
go; therefore, speak, and act, in his presence, as if I were already
beyond the skies."
Had this faithful friend,
now his almost adoring wife, left his side with more sanguine hopes, how
grievously would they have been blasted!
After an absence of two
hours, she returned to the dungeon of Wallace; and, as her trembling form
was clasped in his arms, she exclaimed, in a passion of tears—"here
will I live! Here will I die! They may sever my soul from my body, but
never again part me from this dear bosom!"
"Never, never, my
Helen!" said he, reading her conference with the King, in the wild
terror of its effects. Her senses seemed fearfully disordered. While she
clung to him, and muttered sentences of an incoherency that shook him to
the soul, he cast a look of such expressive inquiry upon Gloucester, that
the Earl could only answer, by hastily putting his hand on his face to
hide his emotion. At last, the tears she shed appeared to relieve the
excess of her agonies, and she gradually sunk into an awful calm. Then
rising from her husband’s arms, she seated herself on his stony couch,
and said in a firm voice, "Earl, I can now bear to hear you repeat
the last decision of the King of England."
Though not absolutely
present at the interview between his sovereign and Lady Helen, from the
ante-room, Gloucester had heard all that passed; and he now briefly
confessed to Wallace, that he had too truly appreciated the pretended
conciliation of the King. Edward’s proposals to Helen, were as artfully
couched, as deceptive in their design. Their issue was, to make Wallace
his slave, or to hold him his victim. In his conference with her, he
addressed the vanity of an ambitious woman; then, all the affections of a
devoted heart: he enforced his arguments, with persuasions to allure, and
threat to compel obedience. In the last, he called up every image, to
appal the soul of Helen; but, steadfast in the principles of her lord,
while ready to sink under the menaced honors of his fate, she summoned all
her strength, to give utterance to her last reply.
"Mortal distinctions,
King of England!" cried she, "cannot bribe the wife of Sir
William Wallace, to betray his virtues. His life is dear to me; but his
immaculate faith to his God, and his lawful prince, are dearer. I can see
him die, and live;—for I shall join him triumphant in heaven:—but to
behold him dishonour himself! to counsel him so to do, is beyond my power—I
should expire with grief, in the shameful moment."
The indignation of the
King, at this answer, was too oppressive of the tender nature of Lady
Helen, for Gloucester to venture repeating it to her husband; and, while
she turned deadly pale at the recollection, Wallace, exulting in her
conduct, pressed her hand silently, but fervently to his lips.
The Earl resumed; but,
observing the reawakened agonies of her mind, in her too expressive
countenance, he strove to soften the blow he must inflict in the remainder
of his narrative.
"Dearest lady,"
said he, rather addressing her than Wallace, "to convince your
suffering spirit, that no earthly means have been left unessayed, to
change the unjust purpose of the King, know, that when he quitted you, I
left in his presence, the Queen, and my wife, both weeping tears of
disappointment. On the moment when I found that arguments could no longer
avail, I implored him, by every consideration of God and man, to redeem
his honour, sacrificed by the unjust decree pronounced on Sir William
Wallace. My entreaties were repulsed with anger; for the sudden entrance
of Lord Athol, with fresh fuel to his flame, so confirmed his direful
resolution, that, desperate for my friend, I threw myself on my knees. The
Queen, and then my wife, both prostrate at his feet, enforced my suit; but
all in vain: his heart seemed hardened by our earnestness; and his answer,
while it put us to silence, granted Wallace a triumph even in his dungeon:—"Cease
!" cried the King, "Wallace and I have now come to that issue,
where one must fall. I shall use my advantage, though I should walk over
the necks of half my kindred, to accomplish his fate. I can find no
security on my throne, no peace in my bed, until I know that he, my direst
enemy, is no more."
"Sorry am I, generous
Gloucester;" interrupted Wallace, "that for my life, you have
stooped your knee to one, so unworthy of your nobleness. Let, then, his
tyranny take its course. But its shaft will not reach the soul, his
unkingly spirit hopes to wound. The bitterness of death was past, when I
quitted Scotland. And for this body, he may dishonour it, mangle its
limbs; but William Wallace, may then be far beyond his reach."
Gloucester gazed on him, doubting the expression of his countenance. It
was calm, but pale even to a marble hue. "Surely," said he,
"my unconquered friend, will not now be forced to self-violence?
"—"God forbid!" returned Wallace: "suspect me not of
such base vassalage, to this poor tabernacle of clay.—Did I believe it
my Father’s will, that I should die at every pore, I would submit: for
so his immaculate Son laid down his life! for a rebellious world. And is a
servant greater than his master, that I should say, Exempt me from this
trial? No! I await his summons; but he strengthens my soul, by an
assurance I feel here," added Wallace, laying his hand on his breast,
"that the cord of Edward, shall never make my free-born Scottish neck
feel its degrading touch." His pale cheek was now luminous with a
bright smile, as he pressed his swelling heart.
With reawakened horror,
Helen listened to the words of Wallace, which referred to the last outrage
to be committed on his sacred remains? She recalled the corresponding
threats of the King, and again losing self-possession, starting wildly up,
exclaimed, "And is there no humanity in that ruthless man? O!"
cried she, teasing her eyes from the beloved form, on which it had been
such bliss to gaze, "let the sacrifice of my life, be offered to this
cruel king, to save from indignity-" She could add no more, but dropt
half lifeless on the arm of Wallace.
Gloucester understood the
object of such anguished solicitude, and while Wallace again seated her,
he revived her by a protestation, that the clause she so fearfully
deprecated, had been repealed by Edward. But the good Earl blushed as he
spoke; for, in this instance, he said what was not the truth. Far
different had been the issue of all his attempts at mitigation. The
arrival of Athol from Scotland, with advices from the Countess of
Strathearn, that Lady Helen Mar had fled southward, to raise an
insurrection in favour of Wallace; and that Lord Bothwell had gone to
France, to move Philip to embrace the same cause; gave Edward so apt an
excuse for giving full way to his hatred against the. Scottish chief, that
he pronounced an order for the immediate, and unrestricted execution of
his sentence. Artifice, to mislead the French ambassadors with an idea
that he was desirous to accord with their royal master’s wish, had been
the sole foundation of his proposals to Wallace. And his interview with
Lady Helen, though so intemperately conducted, was dictated by the same
subtle policy.
When Gloucester found the
impossibility of obtaining any further respite from the murderous decree,
he attempted to prevail for the remission of the last clause; which
ordered, that his friend’s noble body should be dismembered, and his
limbs sent, as terrors to rebellion, to the four capital fortresses of
Scotland. Edward spurned at this petition, with even more acrimony than he
had done the prayer for his victim’s life; and Gloucester then starting
from his knee, in a burst of honest indignation exclaimed, "O! King,
remember what is done by thee this day. Refusing to give righteous
judgment, in favour of one, who prefers virtue to a crown and life! As
insincere, as secret, have been your last conditions with him; but they
will be revealed, when the great Judge that searcheth all men’s hearts,
shall cause thee to answer for this matter, at the
dreadful day of universal doom. Thou hast now given sentence on a patriot
and a prince; and then shall judgment be given on thee !" [This
speech is almost verbatim from one of our old historians.—(1809)]
"Dangerous, indeed, is
his rebellious spirit," cried Edward, in almost speechless wrath,
"since it affects, even the duty of my own house! Gloucester; leave
my presence; and on pain of your own death, dare not to approach me, till
I send for you to see this rebel’s head on London Bridge!"
To disappoint the
revengeful monarch of at least this object of his malice, Gloucester was
now resolved; and imparting his wishes to the warden of the Tower, who was
his trusty friend, he laid a plan accordingly.
Helen had believed his
declaration to her; and bowed her head, in sign that she was satisfied
with his zeal. The Earl, addressing Wallace, continued, "Could I have
purchased thy life, thou preserver of mine! with the forfeiture of all I
possess, I should have rejoiced in the exchange. But, as that may not be,
is there aught in the world, which I can do, to administer to thy
wishes?"
"Generous
Gloucester!" exclaimed Wallace, "how unwearied has been your
friendship! But I shall not tax it much further. I was writing my last
wishes, when this angel entered my apartment: she will now be the voice of
William Wallace to his friends. But still I must make one request to you—one
which I trust will not be out of your power. Let this heart, ever faithful
to Scotland, be at least buried in its native country. When I cease to
breathe, give it to Helen, and she will mingle it with the sacred dust of
those I love. For herself, dear Gloucester! ah! guard the vestal purity,
and life, of my best beloved! for there are those, who, when I am gone,
may threaten both."
Gloucester, who knew that
in this apprehension, Wallace meant the Lords Soulis and de Valence,
pledged himself for the performance of his first request; and for the
second, he assured him he would protect Helen as a sister. But she,
regardless of all other evils than that of being severed from her dearest
and best friend, exclaimed in bitter sorrow, "Wherever I am, still,
and for ever, shall all of Wallace that remains on earth be with me. He
gave himself to me, and no mortal power shall divide us!"
Gloucester could not reply,
before the voice of the warden, calling to him that the hour of shutting
the gates was arrived, compelled him to bid his friend farewell. He
grasped the hand of Wallace, with a strong emotion; for he knew that the
next time he should meet him, would be on the scaffold. During the moments
of this parting, Helen, with her hands clasped on her knees, and her eyes
bent downwards, inwardly and earnestly invoked the Almighty, to endow her
with fortitude to bear the horrors she was to witness: that she might not,
by her agonies, add to the tortures of Wallace.
The cheering voice, that
was ever music to her ears, recalled her from this devout abstraction. He
laid his hand on hers, and gazing on her with tender pity, held such sweet
discourse with her, on the approaching end of all his troubles; of his
everlasting happiness, where ‘all tears are dried away!’ that she
listened, and wept, and even smiled. "Yes;" added he, "a
little while, and my virgin bride shall give me her dear embrace in
heaven; angels will participate our joy; and my Marion’s grateful
spirit, join the blest communion!—She died to preserve my life:—you
suffered a living death, to maintain my honour! Can I then divide ye,
noblest of created beings, in my soul! Take, then, my heart’s kiss, dear
Helen, thy Wallace’s last earthly kiss!" She bent towards him, and
fixed her lips to his. it was the first time they had met; his parting
words still hung on them; and an icy cold ran through all her veins. She
felt his heart beat heavily against hers, as he said,— "I have not
many hours to be with thee, and yet a strange lethargy overpowers my
senses; but, I shall speak to thee again!" He looked on her, as he
spoke, with such a glance of holy love, that not doubting he was now
bidding her indeed his last farewell; that he was to pass from this sleep,
out of the power of man; she pressed his hand without a word; and, as he
dropt his head back upon his straw pillow, with an awed spirit she saw him
sink to profound repose.
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