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LONG and silently had she
watched his rest. So gentle. was his breath, that he scarcely seemed to
breathe; and often, during her sad vigils, did she stoop her cheek to feel
the respiration, which might still bear witness that his outraged spirit
was yet fettered to earth. She tremblingly placed her hand on his heart
and still its warm beats spake comfort to hers. The soul of Wallace, as
well as his beloved body, was yet clasped in her arms. "The arms of a
sister enfold thee," murmured she to herself; "they would gladly
bear thee up, to lay thee on the bosom of thy martyred wife; and there,
how wouldst thou smile. upon, and bless me! And shall we not meet so,
before the throne of Him, whose name is Truth?"
The first rays of the dawn
shone upon his peaceful face, just as the door opened, and a priest
appeared. He held in his hands the sacred host, and the golden dove, for
performing the rites of the dying. At this sight, the harbinger of a
fearful doom, the fortitude of Helen forsook her; and throwing her arms
franticly over the sleeping Wallace, she exclaimed, "He is dead! his
sacrament is now with the Lord of Mercy!"—Her voice awakened
Wallace; he started from his position: and Helen, seeing, with a wild sort
of disappointment, that he, whose gliding to death in his sleep, she had
even so lately deprecated, now indeed lived to mount the scaffold! in
unutterable horror, fell back with a heavy groan.
Wallace accosted the priest
with a reverential welcome; and then tuning to Helen, tenderly whispered
her, "My Helen!—in this moment, of my last on earth, O! ingrave on
thy heart, that—in the sacred words of the patriarch of
lsrael,—l remember thee, in the kindness of hy youth!! in the love of
thy desolate espousals to me! when thou camest after me, into the
wilderness, into a land that thou didst not know ;—and comforted me!—And,
shalt thou not, my soul's bride, be sacred unto our Lord? the Lord, of the
widow, and the orphan!—to Him, I commit thee; in steadfast faith, that
He will never forsake thee!—Then, O! dearest part of myself! let not the
completion of my fate, shake your dependence on the only True and Just!
Rejoice, that Wallace has been deemed worthy to die for his having done
his duty. And, what is death, my Helen, that we should shun it, even to
rebelling against the Lord of life? Is it not the door which opens to us
immortality? and in that blest moment, who will regret, that he passed
through it, in the bloom of his years?— Come, then, sister of my soul,
and share with thy Wallace the last supper of his Lord; the pledge of the
happy eternity, to which, by his grace, I now ascend!"
Helen, conscience-struck,
and re-awakened to holy confidence, by the heavenly composure of his
manner, obeyed the impulse of his hand; and they both knelt before the
minister of peace. While the sacred rite proceeded it seemed the
indissoluble union of Helen’s spirit, with that of Wallace:—"My
life will expire with his!" was her secret response, to the venerable
man’s exhortation to the anticipated passing soul; and when he sealed
Wallace with the holy cross, under the last unction; as one who believed
herself standing on the brink of eternity, she longed to share also that
mark of death. At that moment, the dismal toll of a bell sounded from the
top of the tower. The heart of Helen paused. The warden, and his train,
entered. "I will follow him," cried she, starling from her
knees, "into the grave itself!"
What was said, what was
done, she knew not, till she found herself on the scaffold, upheld by the
arm of Gloucester. Wallace stood before her, with his hands bound across,
and his noble head uncovered. His eyes were turned upwards, with a martyr’s
confidence in the Power he served. A silence, as of some desert waste,
reigned throughout the thousands who stood below. The executioner
approached, to throw the rope over the neck of his victim. At this sight,
Helen, with a cry, that was reechoed by the compassionate spectators,
rushed to his bosom. Wallace, with a mighty strength, burst the bands
asunder which confined his arms, and clasping her to him with a force that
seemed to make her touch his very heart; his breast heaved, as if his soul
were breaking from its outraged tenement; and, while his head sunk on her
neck, he exclaimed in a low, and interrupted voice—"My prayer is
heard!—Helen! Life’s cord is cut by God’s own hand!— May He
preserve my country, and—O! trust from my youth!"—He stopped—he
fell—and with the shock, the hastily erected scaffold shook to its
foundation. The pause was dreadful.
The executioner approached
the prostrate chief. Helen was still locked close in his arms. The man
stooped, to raise his victim; but the attempt was beyond his strength. In
vain he called on him—to Helen—to separate, and cease from delaying
the execution of the law; no voice replied, no motion answered his loud
remonstrance. Gloucester, with an agitation which hardly allowed him power
to speak or move, remembered the words of Wallace, "that the rope of
Edward, would never sully his animate body!" and, bending to his
friend, he spoke: but all was silent there. He raised the chieftain’s
head; and, looking on his face, found indeed the indisputable stamp of
death. "There," cried he, in a burst of grief, and letting it
fall again upon the insensible bosom of Helen—"there broke the
noblest heart, that ever beat in the breast of man!"
The priests, the executioners,
crowded round him, at this declaration. But, while giving a command in a
low tone to the warden, he took the motionless Helen in his arms; and,
leaving the astonished group round the noble dead, carried her from the
scaffold, back into the Tower. [The last Words of Wallace were from the
71st Psalm—"My trust from my youth! O Lord God, thou art my hope,
unto the end!"]
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