The Scottish Chiefs Part 65

The men directed him through the darkness by their voices, for the lantern threw its beams but a very little way, and, arriving at their side, by his a.s.sistance the bruised traveler was brought to the cottage. It was a poor hovel; but the good woman had spread a clean wooden coverlet over her own bed, in the inner chamber, and thither Wallace carried the invalid. He seemed in great pain, but his kind conductor answered their hostess' inquiries respecting him, with a belief that no bones were broken.

"But yet," cried she, "sad may be the effects of internal bruises on so emaciated a frame. I will venture to disturb my other guest, who sleeps in the loft, and bring down a decoction that I keep there. It is made from simple herbs, and I am sure will be of service."

The old woman having shown to the attendants where they might put their horses under shelter of a shed which projected from the cottage, ascended a few steps to the chamber above. Meanwhile, the Scottish chief, a.s.sisted by one of the men, disengaged the sufferer from his wet garments, and covered him with the blankets of the bed. Recovered to recollection by the comparative comfort of his bodily feelings, the stranger opened his eyes. He fixed them on Wallace, then looked around, and turned to Wallace again.

"Generous knight!" cried he, "I have nothing but thanks to offer for this kindness. You seem to be of the highest rank, and yet have succored one who the world abjures!"

The knight returned a courteous answer, and the invalid, in a paroxysm of emotion, added:

"Can it be possible that a prince of France has dared to act contrary to his peers?"

Wallace, not apprehending what had given rise to this question, supposed the stranger's wits were disordered, and looked with that inquiry toward the attendant. Just at that moment a step, more active than that of their aged hostess, sounded above, and an exclamation of surprise followed it, in a voice that startled Wallace. He turned hastily round, and a young man sprung from the cottage stairs into the apartment--joy danced in every feature, and the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "Wallace!"--"Bruce!" burst at once from the hearts of the two friends as they rushed into each other's arms. All else present was lost to them in the delight of meeting after so perilous a separation--a delight not confined for its object to their individual selves, each saw in the other the hope of Scotland; and when they embraced, it was not merely with the ardor of friends.h.i.+p, but with that of patriotism, rejoicing in the preservation of its chief dependence.

While the chiefs spoke freely in their native tongue, before a people who could not be supposed to understand them, the aged stranger on the bed reiterated his moans. Wallace, in a few words, telling Bruce the manner of his reencounter with the sick man, and his belief that he was disordered in his mind, drew toward the bed, and offered him some of the decoction which the woman now brought. The invalid drank it, and gazed earnestly, first on Wallace and then on Bruce. "Pierre, withdraw," cried he to his personal attendant. The man obeyed. "Sit down by me, n.o.ble friends," said he to the Scottish chiefs, "and read a lesson, which I pray ye lay to your hearts!" Bruce glanced a look at Wallace that declared he was of his opinion. Wallace drew a stool, while his friend seated himself on the bed. The old woman, perceiving something extraordinary in the countenance of the bruised stranger, thought he was going to reveal some secret heavy on his mind, and also withdrew.

"You think my intellects are injured," returned he, turning to Wallace, "because I addressed you as one of the house of Philip! Those jeweled lilies round your helmet led me into the error; I never before saw them granted to other than a prince of the blood. But think not, brave man, I respect you less, since I have discovered that you are not of the race of Philip--that you are other than a prince! Look on me--at this emaciated form--and behold the reverses of all earthly grandeur! This palsied hand once held a scepter--these hollow temples were once bound with a crown! He that used to be followed as the source of honor, as the fountain of prosperity--with suppliants at his feet, and flatterers at his side--would now be left to solitude were it not for these few faithful servants, who, in spite of all changes, have preserved their allegiance to the end. Look on me, chiefs, and behold him who was the King of Scots!"

At this declaration, both Wallace and Bruce, struck with surprise and compa.s.sion at meeting their ancient enemy reduced to such abject misery, with one impulse bowed their heads to him with an air of reverence. The action penetrated the heart of Baliol. For when at the meeting and mutual exclamation of the two friends, he recognized in whose presence he lay, he fearfully remembered that, by his base submissions, turning the scale of judgment in his favor, he had defrauded the grandsire of the very Bruce now before him of a fair decision on his rights to the crown! And when he looked on Wallace, who had preserved him from the effects of his accident, and brought him to a shelter from the raging terrors of the night, his conscience doubly smote him! for, from the hour of his elevation to that of his downfall, he had ever persecuted the family of Wallace; and, at the hour which was the crisis of her fate, had denied them the right of drawing their swords in defense of Scotland. He, her king, had resigned her into the hands of an usurper; but Wallace, the injured Wallace, had arisen, like a star of light on the deep darkness of her captivity, and Scotland was once more free. In the tempest, the exiled monarch had started at the blaze of the unknown knight's jeweled panoply; at the declaration of his name he shrunk before the brightness of his glory! and, falling back on the bed, he groaned aloud. To these young men, so strangely brought before him, and both of whom he had wronged, he determined immediately to reveal himself, and see whether they were equally resentful of injuries as those he had served had proved ungrateful for benefits received. He spoke; and when, instead of seeing the pair rise in indignation on his p.r.o.nouncing his name, they bowed their heads and sat in respectful silence, his desolate heart expanded at once to admit the long-estranged emotion, and he burst into tears. He caught the hand of Bruce, who sat nearest to him, and, stretching out the other to Wallace, exclaimed, "I have not deserved this goodness from either of you. Perhaps you two are the only men now living whom I ever greatly injured; and you, excepting my four poor attendants, are, perhaps, the only men living who would compa.s.sionate my misfortunes!"

"These are lessons, king," returned Wallace, with reverence, "to fit you for a better crown. And never in my eyes did the descendant of Alexander seem so worthy of his blood!"

The grateful monarch pressed his hand. Bruce continued to gaze on him with a thousand awful thoughts occupying his mind. Baliol read in his expressive countenance the reflections which chained his tongue.

"Behold, how low is laid the proud rival of your grandfather!"

exclaimed he, turning to Bruce. "I compa.s.sed a throne I could not fill. I mistook the robes, the homage, for the kingly dignity. I bartered the liberties of my country for a crown I knew not how to wear, and the insidious trafficker not only reclaimed it, but repaid me with a prison. There I expiated my crime against the upright Bruce!

Not one of all the Scottish lords who crowded Edward's court came to beguile a moment of sorrow from their captive monarch. Lonely I lived, for the tyrant even deprived me of the comfort of seeing my fellow-prisoner, Lord Douglas--he whom attachment to my true interests had betrayed to an English prison. I never saw him after the day of his being put into the Tower until that of his death." Wallace interrupted the afflicted Baliol with an exclamation of surprise.

"Yes," added he, "I myself closed his eyes. At that awful hour he had pet.i.tioned to see me, and the boon was granted. I went to him, and then, with his dying breath, he spoke truths to me, which were indeed messengers from Heaven! They taught me what I was, and what I might be. He died. Edward was then in Flanders, and you, brave Wallace, being triumphant in Scotland, and laying such a stress in your negotiations for the return of Douglas, the Southron cabinet agreed to conceal his death, and, by making his name an instrument to excite your hopes and fears, turn your anxiety for him to their own advantage."

A deep scarlet kindled over the face of Bruce. "With what a race have I been so long connected! What mean subterfuges, what dastardly deceits, for the leaders of a great nation to adopt! Oh, king!"

exclaimed he, turning to Baliol, "if you have errors to atone for, what then must be the penalty of my sin, for holding so long with an enemy as vile as he is ambitious! Scotland! Scotland! I must weep tears of blood for this!" He rose in agitation. Baliol followed him with his eyes.

"Amiable Bruce! you too severely arraign a fault that was venial in you. Your father gave himself to Edward, and his son accompanied the tribute."

Bruce vehemently answered, "If King Edward ever said that, he uttered a falsehood. My father loved him, confided in him, and the ingrate betrayed him! His fidelity was no gift of himself, in acknowledgment of inferiority; it was the pledge of a friends.h.i.+p exchanged on equal terms on the fields of Palestine. And well did King Edward know that he had no right over either my father or me; for in the moment he doubted our attachment, he was aware of having forfeited it. He knew he had no legal claim on us; and forgetting every law, human and divine, he made us prisoners. But my father found liberty in the grave, and I am ready to take a sure revenge in--" he would have added "Scotland," but he forbore to give the last blow to the unhappy Baliol, by showing him that his kingdom had indeed pa.s.sed from him, and that the man was before him who might be destined to wield his scepter.

Bruce paused, and sat down in generous confusion.

"Hesitate not," said Baliol, "to say where you will take your revenge!

I know that the brave Wallace has laid open the way. Had I possessed such a leader of my troops, I should not now be a mendicant in this hovel; I should not be a creature to be pitied and despised. Wear him, Bruce--wear him in your heart's core. He gives the throne he might have filled."

"Make not that a subject of praise," cried Wallace, "which if I had left undone, would have stamped me a traitor. I have only performed my duty; and may the Holy Anointer of the hearts of kings guide Bruce to his kingdom, and keep him there in peace and honor!"

Baliol rose in his bed at these words: "Bruce," said he, "approach me near." He obeyed. The feeble monarch turned to Wallace: "You have supported what was my kingdom through its last struggles for liberty; put forth your hand and support its exiled sovereign in his last legal act." Wallace raised the king, so as to enable him to a.s.sume a kneeling posture. Dizzy with the exertion, for a moment he rested on the shoulder of the chief; and then looking up, he met the eyes of Bruce gazing on him with compa.s.sionate interest. The unhappy monarch stretched out his arms to Heaven: "May G.o.d pardon the injuries which my fatal ambition did to you and yours--the miseries I brought upon my country; and let your reign redeem my errors! May the spirit of wisdom bless you, my son!" His hands were now laid, with pious fervor, on the head of Bruce, who sunk on his knees before him. "Whatever rights I had to the crown of Scotland, by the worthlessness of my reign they are forfeited; and I resign all unto you, even to the partic.i.p.ation of the mere t.i.tle of king. It has been as the ghost of my former self, as an accusing spirit to me, but, I trust, an angel of light to you, it will conduct your people into all happiness!" Exhausted by his feelings, he sunk back into the arms of Wallace. Bruce, rising from his knees, poured a little of the herb-balsam into the king's mouth, and he revived. As Wallace laid him back on his pillows, he gazed wistfully at him, and grasping his hand, said in a low voice: "How did I throw a blessing from me! But in those days, when I rejected your services at Dunbar, I knew not the Almighty arm which brought the boy of Ellerslie to save his country! I scorned the patriot flame that spoke your mission, and the mercy of Heaven departed from me!"**

**This renunciation of Baliol's in favor of Bruce is an historical fact, and it was made in France.

Memory was now busy with the thoughts of Bruce. He remembered his father's weak, if not criminal devotion at that time to the interests of Edward; he remembered his heart-wrung death; and looking at the desolate old age of another of Edward's victims, his brave soul melted to pity and regret, and he retired into a distant part of the room, to shed, un.o.bserved, the tears he could not restrain. Wallace soon after saw the eyes of the exhausted king close in sleep; and cautious of awakening him, he did not stir; but leaning against the thick oaken frame of the bed, was soon lost in as deep a repose.

After some time of complete stillness (for the old dame and the attendants were at rest in the outer chamber), Bruce, whose low sighs were echoed by the wind alone, which swept in gusts by the little cas.e.m.e.nt, looked toward the abdicated monarch's couch. He slept profoundly, yet frequently started, as if disturbed by troubled dreams.

Wallace moved not on his hard pillow; and the serenity of perfect peace rested upon all his features.

"How tranquil is the sleep of the virtuous!" thought Bruce, as he contemplated the difference between his state and that of Baliol; "there lies an accusing conscience; here rests one of the most faultless of created beings. It is, it is the sleep of innocence!

Come, ye slanderers," continued he, mentally calling on those he had left at Edward's court, "and tell me if an adulterer could look thus when he sleeps! Is there one trace of irregular pa.s.sion about that placid mouth? Does one of those heavenly-composed features bear testimony to emotions which leave marks even when subdued? No, virtue has set up her throne in that breast, and well may kings come to bow to it!"

Chapter LXII.

The Widow's Cell.

The entrance of the old woman, about an hour after sunrise, awakened Wallace; but Baliol continued to sleep. On the chief's opening his eyes, Bruce with a smile, stretched out his hand to him. Wallace rose; and whispering the widow to abide by her guest till they should return, the twain went forth to enjoy the mutual confidence of friends.h.i.+p. A wood opened its umbrageous arms at a little distance; and thither, over the dew-bespangled gra.s.s, they bent their way. The birds sung from tree to tree; and Wallace, seating himself under an overhanging beech, which canopied a narrow winding of the River Seine, listened with mingled pain and satisfaction, to the communications which Bruce had to impart relative to the recent scenes at Durham.

"So rapid had been the events," observed the Scottish prince, when he concluded his narrative, "that all appears to me a troubled vision; and blessed, indeed, was the awaking of last night, when your voice, sounding from the room below that in which I slept, called me to embrace my best friend, as became the son of my ancestors--free, and ready to renew the brightness of their name!"

The discourse next turned to their future plans. Wallace, narrating his adventure with the Red Reaver, proposed that the favor he should ask in return (the King of France being earnest to bestow on him some especial mark of grat.i.tude), should be his interference with Edward to grant the Scots a peaceable retention of their rights.

"In that case, my prince," said he, "you will take possession of your kingdom with the olive-branch in your hand."

Bruce smiled, but shook his head.

"And what then will Robert Bruce be? A king to be sure!--but a king without a name! Who won me my kingdom? Who accomplished this peace?

Was it not William Wallace? Can I then consent to mount the throne of my ancestors--so poor, so inconsiderable a creature? I am not jealous of your fame, Wallace; I glory in it; for you are more to me than the light to my eyes; but I would prove my right to the crown by deeds worthy of a sovereign. Till I have shown myself in the field against Scotland's enemies, I cannot consent to be restored to my inheritance, even by you."

"And is it in war alone," returned Wallace, "that you can show deeds worthy of a sovereign? Think a moment, my honored prince, and then scorn your objection. Look on the annals of history, nay, on the daily occurrences of the world, and see how many are brave and complete generals; how few wise legislators; how few such efficient rulers as to procure obedience to the laws, and so give happiness to their people.

This is the commission of a king--to be the representative on earth of the Father who is in heaven. Here is exercise for courage, for enterprise, for fort.i.tude, for every virtue which elevates the character of a man, this is the G.o.dlike jurisdiction of a sovereign.

TO go to the field, to lead his people to scenes of carnage, is often a duty in kings; but it is one of those necessities, which, more than the trifling circ.u.mstances of sustaining nature by sleep and food, reminds the conqueror of the degraded state of mortality.** The one shows the weakness of the body, the other, the corruption of the soul. For, how far must man have fallen beneath his former heavenly nature before he can delight in the destruction of his fellow-men! Lament not, then, brave and virtuous prince, that I have kept your hands from the stains of blood. Show yourself beyond the vulgar apprehension of what is fame; and, conscious of the powers with which the Creator has endowed you, a.s.sume your throne with the dignity that is their due. Whether it be to the cabinet or to the field that He calls you to act, obey; and rely on it, a name greater than that of the hero of Macedon will await Robert, King of Scots!"

**Alexander the Great one day said to his friend Hephaestion, that "the business of eating and drinking compelled him to remember, and with a sense of abas.e.m.e.nt, his mortal nature, although he was the son of Ammon."

"You almost persuade me," returned Bruce; "but let us see Philip, and then I will decide."

As morning was now advanced, the friends turned toward the cottage, intending to see Baliol safe, and then proceed together to Guienne to the rescue of Lady Helen. That accomplished, they would visit Paris and hear its monarch's determination.

On entering the humble mansion they found Baliol awake, and anxiously inquiring of the widow what was become of the two knights. At sight of them he stretched out his hands to both, and said he should be able to travel in a few hours. Wallace proposed sending to Rouen for a litter to carry him the more easily thither. "No," cried Baliol with a frown; "Rouen shall never see me again within its walls. It was coming from thence that I lost my way last night; and though my poor servants would gladly have returned with me sooner than see me perish in the storm; yet rather would I have been found dead on the road, a reproach to the kings who have betrayed me, than have taken an hour's shelter in that inhospitable city."

While the friends took the simple breakfast prepared for them by the widow, Baliol related, that in consequence of the interference of Philip le Bel with Edward, he had been released from the Tower of London and sent to France, but under an oath never to leave that country. Philip gave the exiled king the castle of Galliard for a residence; where for some time he enjoyed the shadow of royalty, having still a sort of court composed of his own n.o.ble followers, some of whom were now with him, and the barons of the neighborhood. Philip allowed him guards and a splendid table. But on the peace being signed between France and England, in order that Edward might give up his ally the Earl of Flanders to his offended liege lord, the French monarch consented to relinquish the cause of Baliol, and though he should continue to grant him a shelter in his dominions, he removed from him all the appendages of a king.

"Accordingly," continued Baliol, "the guard was taken from my gates, my establishment reduced to that of a private n.o.bleman, and no longer having it in my power to gratify the avidity or to flatter the ambition of those who came about me, I was soon left nearly alone. All but the poor old lieges whom you see, and who had been faithful to me through every change of my life, instantly deserted the forlorn Baliol. In vain I remonstrated with Philip. Either my letters never reached him, or he disdained to answer the man whose claims he had abandoned.

Things were in this state when, the other day, and English lord found it convenient to bring his suit to my castle. I received him with hospitality, but soon found that what I gave in courtesy he seized as a right. In the true spirit of his master Edward he treated me more like the keeper of an hostel than a generous host. And on my attempting to plead with him for a Scottish lady whom his turbulent pa.s.sions have forced from her country and reduced to a pitiable state of illness, he derided my arguments, sarcastically telling me that had I taken care of my kingdom, the door would not have been left open for him to steal its fairest prize--"

Wallace interrupted him: "Heaven grant you may be speaking of Lord de Valence and Lady Helen Mar."

"I am," replied Baliol. "They are now at Galliard, and as her illness seems a lingering one, De Valence declared to me his intentions of continuing there. He seized upon the best apartments, and carried himself with so much haughtiness that, provoked beyond endurance, I ordered my horse and, accompanied by my honest courtiers, rode to Rouen to obtain redress from the governor. But the unworthy Frenchman advised me to go back, and by flattering De Valence try to regain the favor of Edward. I retired in indignation, determined to a.s.sert my own rights in my own castle, but the storm overtook me, and being forsaken by false friends, I am saved by generous enemies."

Wallace explained his errand respecting Lady Helen, and anxiously inquired of Baliol whether he meant to return to Galliard?

"Immediately," replied he; "go with me, and if the lady consents (which I do not doubt, for she scorns his prayers for her hand, and pa.s.ses night and day in tears), I engage to a.s.sist in her escape."