The Scottish Chiefs Part 21

Sir Roger Kirkpatrick, at the head of his well-appointed Highlanders next advanced. His blood-red banner streamed to the air, and as it bent to Wallace he saw that the indignant knight had adopted the device of the hardy King Archaius,** but with a fiercer motto-"Touch, and I pierce!"

**Archaius, King of Scotland, took for his device the thistle and the Rewe, and for his motto, "For my defense."

"That man," thought Wallace, as he pa.s.sed along, "carried a relentless sword in his very eye!"

The men of Loch Doine, a strong, tall and well-armed body, marched on, and gave place to the advancing corps of Bothwell. The eye of Wallace felt as if turning from gloom and horror to the cheerful light of day, when it fell on the bright and indigenuous face of Murray. Kenneth with his troop followed; and the youthful Edwin, like Cupid in arms, closed the procession.

Being drawn up in line, their chief, fully satisfied, advanced toward them, and expressing his sentiments of the patriotism which brought them into the field, informed them of his intended march. He then turned to Stephen Ireland: "The sun has now set," said he, "and before dark you must conduct the families of my worthy Lanarkment to the protection of Sir John Scott. It is time that age, infancy, and female weakness should cease their wanderings with us; to-night we bid them adieu, to meet them again, by the leading of the Lord of Hosts, in freedom and prosperity!"

As Wallace ceased, and was retiring from the ground, several old men, and young women with their babes in their arms, rushed from behind the ranks, and throwing themselves at his feet, caught hold of his hands and garments. "We go," said the venerable fathers, "to pray for your welfare; and sure we are, a crown will bless our country's benefactor, here or in heaven!"

"In heaven," replied Wallace, shaking the plumes of his bonnet over his eyes, to hide the moisture which suffused them; "I can have no right to any other crown."

"Yes," cried a h.o.a.ry-headed shepherd, "you free your country from tyrants, and the people's hearts will proclaim their deliverer their sovereign!"

"May your rightful monarch, worthy patriarch," said Wallace, "whether a Bruce of a Baliol, meet with equal zeal from Scotland at large; and tyranny must then fall before courage and loyalty!"

The women wept as they clung to his hand and the daughter of Ireland, holding up her child in her arms, presented it to him. "Look on my son!" cried she, with energy; "the first word he speaks shall be Wallace; the second liberty. And every drop of milk he draws from my bosom, shall be turned into blood to nerve a conquering arm, or to flow for his country!"

At this speech all the women held up their children toward him.

"Here," cried they, "we devote them to Heaven, and to our country!

Adopt them, n.o.ble Wallace, to be thy followers in arms, when, perhaps, their fathers are laid low!"

Unable to speak, Wallace pressed their little faces separately to his lips, then returning them to their mothers, laid his hand on his heart, and answered in an agitated voice. "They are mine!-my weal shall be theirs--my woe my own." As he spoke he hurried from the weeping group, and emerging amid the cliffs, hid himself from their tears and their blessing.

He threw himself on a shelving rock, whose fern-covered bosom projected over the winding waters of Loch Lubnaig, and having stilled his own anguished recollections, he turned his full eyes on the lake beneath; and while he contemplated its serene surface, he sighed, and thought how tranquil was nature, till the rebellious pa.s.sions of man, wearying of innocent joys, disturbed all by restlessness and invasion on the peace and happiness of others.

The mists of evening hung on the gigantic tops of Ben Ledi and Ben Vorlich; then sailing forward, by degrees obscured the whole of the mountains, leaving nothing for the eye to dwell on but the long silent expanse of the waters below.

"So," said he, "did I once believe myself forever shut in from the world, by an obscurity that promised me happiness as well as seclusion!

But the hours of Ellerslie are gone! No tender wife will now twine her faithful arms around my neck. Alas, the angel that sunk my country's wrongs to a dreamy forgetfulness in her arms, she was to be immolated that I might awake! My wife, my unborn babe, they must both bleed for Scotland!-and the sacrifice shall not be yielded in vain.

No, blessed G.o.d," cried he, stretching his clasped hands toward my countrymen to liberty and happiness! "Let me counsel with thy wisdom; let me conquer with thine arm! and when all is finished, give me, O gracious Father! a quiet grave, beside my wife and child."

Tears, the first he had shed since the hour in which he last pressed his Marion to his heart, now flowed copiously from his eyes. The women, the children, had aroused all his recollections but in so softened a train, that they melted his heart till he wept. "It is thy just tribute, Marion," said he; "it was blood you shed for me, and shall I check these poor drops? Look on me, sweet saint, best-beloved of my soul; O! hover near me in the day of battle, and thousands of thine and Scotland's enemies shall fall before thy husband's arm!"

The plaintive voice of the Highland pipe at this moment broke upon his ear. It was the farewell of the patriarch Lindsay, as he and his departing company descended the winding paths of Craignacoheilg.

Wallace started on his feet. The separation had then taken place between his trusty followers and their families; and guessing the feelings of those brave men from what was pa.s.sing in his own breast, he dried away the traces of his tears, and once more resuming the warrior's cheerful look, sought that part of the rock where the Lanarkmen were quartered.

As he drew near he saw some standing on the cliff and others leaning over, to catch another glance of the departing group ere it was lost amid the shades of Glenfinla.s.s.

"Are they quite gone?" asked Dugald.

"Quite," answered a young man, who seemed to have got the most advantageous situation for a view.

"Then," cried he, "may St. Andrew keep them until we meet again!"

"May a greater than St. Andrew hear thy prayer!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Wallace.

At the sound of this response from their chief they all turned round.

"My brave companions," said he, "I come to repay this hour's pangs by telling you that, in the attack of Dumbarton, you shall have the honor of first mounting the walls. I shall be at your head, to sign each brave soldier with a patriot's seal of honor."

"To follow you, my lord," said Dugald, "is our duty."

"I grant it," replied the chief; "and as I am the leader in that duty, it is mine to dispense to every man his reward; to prove to all men that virtue alone is true n.o.bility."

"Ah, dearest sir!" exclaimed Edwin, who had been a.s.sisting the women to carry their infants down the steep, and on reascending heard the latter part of this conversation; "deprive me not of the aim of my life!

These warriors have had you long--have distinguished themselves in your eyes. Deprive me not, then, of the advantages of being near you; it will make me doubly brave. Oh, my dear commander, let me only carry to the grave the consciousness that, next to yourself, I was the first to mount the rock of Dumbarton, and you will make me n.o.ble indeed!"

Wallace looked at him with a smile of such graciousness, that the youth threw himself into his arms. "You will grant my boon?"

"I will, n.o.ble boy," said he; "act up to your sentiments, and you shall be my brother."

"Call me by that name," cried Edwin, "and I will dare anything."

"Then be the first to follow me on the rock," said he, "and I will lead you to an honor, the highest in my gift; you shall unloose the chains of the Earl of Mar! And ye," continued he, "commemorate the duty of such sons. Being the first to strike the blow for her freedom, ye shall be the first she will distinguish. I now speak as her minister; and, as a badge to times immemorial, I bid you wear the Scottish lion on your s.h.i.+elds."

A shout of proud joy issued from every heart; and Wallace, seeing that honor had dried the tears of regret, left them to repose. He sent Edwin to his rest; and himself, avoiding the other chieftains, retired to his own chamber in the tower.

Chapter XXI.

Loch Lomond.

Profound as was the rest of Wallace, yet the first clarion of the lark awakened him. The rosy dawn shone in at the window, and a fresh breeze wooed him with its inspiring breath to rise and meet it. But the impulse was in his own mind; he needed nothing outward to call him to action. Rising immediately, he put on his glittering hauberk; and issuing from the tower, raised his bugle to his lips, and blew so rousing a blast, that in an instant the whole rock was covered with soldiers.

Wallace placed his helmet on his head, and advanced toward them, just as Edwin had joined him, and Sir Roger Kirkpatrick appeared from the tower. "Blessed be this morn!" cried the old knight. "My sword springs from its scabbard to meet it; and ere its good steel be sheathed again," continued he, shaking it sternly, "what deaths may dye its point!"

Wallace shuddered at the ferocity with which his colleague contemplated this feature of war from which every humane soldier would seek to turn his thoughts, that he might encounter it with the steadiness of a man, and not the irresolution of a woman. To hail the field of blood with the fierceness of a hatred eager for the slaughter of its victim--to know any joy in combat but that each contest might render another less necessary--did not enter into the imagination of Wallace until he had heard and seen the infuriate Kirkpatrick. He talked of the coming battle with horrid rapture, and told the young Edwin he should that day see Loch Lomond red with English blood.

Offended at such savageness, but without answering him, Wallace drew toward Murray, and calling to Edwin, ordered him to march at his side.

The youth seemed glad of the summons, and Wallace was pleased to observe it, as he thought that a longer stay with one who so grossly overcharged the feelings of honest patriotism, might breed disgust in his innocent mind against a cause which had so furious and therefore unjust a defender.

"Justice and mercy ever dwell together," said he to Edwin, who now drew near him; "for universal love is the parent of justice, as well as of mercy. But implacable Revenge! whence did she spring, but from the head of Satan himself?"

Though their cause appeared the same, never were two spirits more discordant than those of Wallace and Kirkpatrick. But Kirkpatrick did not so soon discover the dissimilarity; as it is easier for purity to descry its opposite, than for foulness to apprehend that anything can be purer than itself.

The forces being marshaled according to the preconcerted order, the three commanders, with Wallace at their head, led forward.

They pa.s.sed through the forest of Glenfinla.s.s; and morning and evening still found them threading its unsuspected solitudes in unmolested security; night, too, watched their onward march.

The sun had just risen as the little band of patriots, the hope of freedom, emerged upon the eastern bank of Loch Lomond. The bases of the mountains were yet covered with the dispersing mist of the morning, and hardly distinguishable from the blue waters of the lake, which lashed the sh.o.r.e. The newly-awakened sheep bleated from the hills, and the umbrageous herbage, dropping dew, seemed glittering with a thousand fairy gems.

"Where is the man who would not fight for such a country?" exclaimed Murray, as he stepped over a bridge of interwoven trees, which crossed one of the mountain streams. "This land was not made for slaves. Look at these bulwarks of nature! Every mountain-head which forms this chain of hills is an impregnable rampart against invasion. If Baliol had possessed but half a heart, Edward might have returned even worse than Caesar--without a c.o.c.kle to decorate his helmet."

"Baliol has found the oblivion he incurred," returned Wallace; "his son, perhaps, may better deserve the scepter of such a country. Let us cut the way, and he who merits the crown will soon appear to claim it."

"Then it will not be Edward Baliol!" rejoined Scrymgeour. "During the inconsistent reign of his father, I once carried a despatch to him from Scotland. He was then banqueting in all the luxuries of the English court; and such a voluptuary I never beheld! I left the scene of folly, only praying that so effeminate a prince might never disgrace the throne of our manly race of kings."