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The Scottish Chiefs

M >> Miss Jane Porter >> The Scottish Chiefs




"I have fought in Palestine," returned he, "and a soldier of the cross
betrays none who trust him. Saint Mary preserve your master and
conduct you safely to him. We must both hasten hence. Heselrigge will
surely send in pursuit of me. He is too vile to forgive the truth I
have spoken to him; and should I fall into his power, death is the best
I could expect at his hands. Let me assist you to put this poor lady's
remains into some decent place; and then, my honest Scot, we must
separate."

Halbert, at these words, threw himself upon the bosom of his mistress,
and wept with loud lamentations over her. In vain he attempted to
raise her in his feeble arms. "I have carried thee scores of times in
thy blooming infancy," cried he; "and now must I bear thee to thy
grave? I had hoped that my eyes would have been closed by this dear
hand." As he spoke, he pressed her cold hand to his lips with such
convulsive sobs that the soldier, fearing he would expire in the agony
of his sorrow, took him almost motionless from the dead body, and
exhorted him to suppress such self-destroying grief for the sake of his
master. Halbert gradually revived; and listening to him, cast a
wistful look on the lifeless Marion.

"There sleeps the pride and hope of Ellerslie, the mother with her
child! O my master, my widowed master," cried he, "what will comfort
thee!"

Fearing the ill consequence of further delay, the soldier again
interrupted his lamentations with arguments for flight; and Halbert
recollecting the oratory in which Wallace had ordered the body of Lord
Mar to be deposited, named it for that of his dear lady. Grimsby,
immediately wrapping the beauteous corpse in the white garments which
hung about it, raised it in his arms, and was conducted by Halbert to a
little chapel in the heart of a neighboring cliff.

The still weeping old man removed the altar; and Grimsby, laying the
shrouded Marion upon its rocky platform, covered her with the pall,
which he drew from the holy table, and laid the crucifix upon her
bosom. Halbert, when his beloved mistress was thus hidden from his
sight, threw himself on his knees beside her, and in the vehement
language of grief offered up a prayer for her departed soul.

"Hear me, righteous Judge of heaven and earth!" cried he; "as thou
didst avenge the blood of innocence shed in Bethlehem, so let the gray
hairs of Heselrigge be brought down in blood to the grave for the
murder of this innocent lady!" Halbert kissed the cross, and rising
from his knees, went weeping out of the chapel, followed by the soldier.

Having closed the door, and carefully locked it, absorbed in meditation
on what would be the agonized transports of his master, when he should
tell him these grievous tidings, Halbert proceeded in silence, till he
and his companion in passing the well were startled by a groan.

"Here is some one in extremity!" cried the soldier.

"Is it possible he lives!" exclaimed Halbert, bending down to the edge
of the well with the same inquiry.

"Yes," feebly answered the earl, "I still exist, but am very faint. If
all be safe above, I pray remove me into the upward air!" Halbert
replied that it was indeed necessary he should ascend immediately; and
lowering the rope, told him to tie the iron box to it and then himself.
This done, with some difficulty, and the assistance of the wondering
soldier (who now expected to see the husband of the unfortunate Lady
Wallace emerge to the knowledge of his loss), he at last effected the
earl's release. For a few seconds the fainting nobleman supported
himself on his countryman's shoulder, while the fresh morning breeze
gradually revived his exhausted frame. The soldier looked at his gray
locks and furrowed brow, and marveled how such proofs of age could
belong to the man whose resistless valor had discomfited the fierce
determination of Arthus Heselrigge and his myrmidons. However, his
doubts of the veteran before him being other than the brave Wallace,
were soon satisfied by the earl himself, who asked for a draught of the
water which trickled down the opposite hill; and while Halbert went to
bring it, Lord Mar raised his eyes to inquire for Sir William and Lady
Marion. He started when he saw English armor on the man he would have
accosted, and rising suddenly from the stone on which he sat, demanded,
in a stern voice, "Who art thou?"

"An Englishman," answered the soldier; "one who does not, like the
monster Heselrigge, disgrace the name. I would assist you, noble
Wallace, to fly this spot. After that, I shall seek refuge abroad; and
there, on the fields of Guienne, demonstrate my fidelity to my king."

Mar looked at him steadily. "You mistake; I am not Sir William
Wallace."

At that moment Halbert came up with the water. The earl drank it,
though now, from the impulse surprise had given to his blood, he did
not require its efficacy; and turning to the venerable bearer, he asked
of him whether his master were safe.

"I trust he is," replied the old man; "but you, my lord, must hasten
hence. A foul murder has been committed here, since you left it."

"But where is Lady Wallace?" asked the earl; "if there be such danger
we must not leave her to meet it."

"She will never meet danger more!" cried the old man, clasping his
hand; "she is in the bosom of the Virgin; and no second assassin's
steel can reach her there."

"What!" exclaimed the earl, hardly articulate with horror; "is Lady
Wallace murdered?" Halbert answered only by his tears.

"Yes," said the soldier; "and detestation of so unmanly an outrage
provoked me to desert his standard. But no time must now be lost in
unavailing lamentation. Heselrigge will return; and if we also would
not be sacrificed to his rage, we must hence immediately."

The earl, struck dumb at this recital, gave the soldier time to recount
the particulars. When he had finished, Lord Mar saw the necessity for
instant flight, and ordered horses to be brought from the stables.
Though he had fainted in the well, the present shock gave such tension
to his nerves, that he found, in spite of his wound, he could now ride
without difficulty.

Halbert went as commanded, and returned with two horses. Having
amongst rocks and glens to go, he did not bring one for himself; and
begging the good soldier might attend the earl to Bothwell, he added,
"He will guard you and this box, which Sir William Wallace holds as his
life. What it contains I know not: and none, he says, may dare to
search into. But you will take care of it for his sake, till more
peaceful times allow him to reclaim his own!"

"Fatal box!" cried the soldier, regarding it with an abhorrent eye,
"that was the leading cause which brought Heselrigge to Ellerslie."

"How?" inquired the earl. Grimsby then briefly related, that
immediately after the return to Lanark of the detachment sent to
Ellerslie, under the English garrison in Douglas, and told the governor
that Sir William Wallace had that evening taken a quantity of treasure
from the castle. His report was, that the English soldiers who stood
near the Scottish knight when he mounted at the castle gate, saw a long
iron coffer under his arm, but not suspecting its having belonged to
Douglas, they thought not of it, till they overheard Sir John Monteith,
as he passed through one of the galleries, muttering something about
gold and a box. To intercept the robber amongst his native glens, the
soldiers deemed impracticable, and therefore their captain came
immediately to lay the information before the Governor of Lanark. As
the scabbard found in the affray with young Arthur had betrayed the
victor to have been Sir William Wallace, this intimation of his having
been also the instrument of wrestling from the grasp of Heselrigge
perhaps the most valuable spoil in Douglas exasperated him to the most
vindictive excess. Inflamed with the double furies of revenge and
avarice, he ordered out a new troop, and placing himself at its head,
took the way to Ellerslie. One of the servants, whom some of
Hambledon's men had seized for the sake of information, on being
threatened with the torture, confessed to Heselrigge, that not only Sir
William Wallace was in the house when it was attacked, but that the
person whom he had rescued in the streets of Lanark, and who proved to
be a wealthy nobleman, was there also. This whetted the eagerness of
the governor to reach Ellerslie; and expecting to get a rich booty,
without the most distant idea of the horrors he was going to
perpetrate, a large detachment of men followed him.

"To extort money from you, my lord," continued the soldier, "and to
obtain that fatal coffer, were his main objects; but disappointed in
his darling passion of avarice, he forgot he was a man, and the blood
of innocence glutted his barbarous vengeance."

"Hateful gold!" cried Lord Mar, spurning the box with his foot; "it
cannot be for itself the noble Wallace so greatly prizes it; it must be
a trust."

"I believe it is," returned Halbert, "for he enjoined my lady to
preserve it for the sake of his honor. Take care of it, then, my lord,
for the same sacred reason."

The Englishman made no objection to accompany the earl; and by a
suggestion of his own, Halbert brought him a Scottish bonnet and cloak
from the house. While he put them on, the earl observed that the
harper held a drawn and blood-stained sword in his hand, on which he
steadfastly gazed. "Whence came that forried weapon?" cried Lord Mar.

"It is my lady's blood," replied Halbert, still looking on it. "I
found it where she lay, in the hall, and I will carry it to my master.
Was not every drop of her blood dear to him? and here are many." As
the old man spoke he bent his head on the sword, and groaned heavily.

"England shall hear more of this!" cried Mar, as he threw himself
across the horse. "Give me that fatal box; I will buckle it to my
saddle-bow. Inadequate will be my utmost care of it, to repay the vast
sorrow its preservation and mine have brought upon the head of my
deliverer."

The Englishman in silence mounted his horse, and Halbert opened a
back-gate that led to the hills which lay between Ellerslie and
Bothwell Castle. Lord Mar took a golden-trophied bugle from his
breast: "Give this to your master, and tell him that by whatever hands
he sends it, the sight of it shall always command the services of
Donald Mar. I go to Bothwell, in expectation that he will join me
there. In making it his home he will render me happy, for my
friendship is now bound to him by bonds which only death can sever."

Halbert took the horn, and promising faithfully to repeat the earl's
message, prayed God to bless him and the honest soldier. A rocky
promontory soon excluded them from his sight, and in a few minutes more
even the sound of their horses' hoofs was lost on the soft herbage of
the winding dell.

"Now I am alone in this once happy spot. Not a voice, not a sound.
Oh, Wallace!" cried he, throwing up his venerable arms, "thy house is
left unto thee desolate, and I am to be the fatal messenger." With the
last words he struck into a deep ravine which led to the remotest
solitudes of the glen, and pursued his way in dreadful silence. No
human face of Scot or English cheered or scared him as he passed along.
The tumult had so alarmed the poor cottagers, that with one accord
they fled to their kindred on the hills, amid those fastnesses of
nature, to await tidings from the valley, of when all should be still,
and they might return in peace. Halbert looked to the right and to the
left; no smoke, curling its gray mist from behind the intersecting
rocks, reminded him of the gladsome morning hour, or invited him to
take a moment's rest from his grievous journey. All was lonely and
comfortless; and sighing bitterly over the wide devastation, he
concealed the fatal sword and the horn under his cloak, and with a
staff which he broke from a withered tree, took his way down the
winding craigs. Many a pointed flint pierced his aged feet, while
exploring the almost trackless paths, which by their direction he hoped
would lead him at length to the deep caves of Corie Lynn.



Chapter IV.

Corie Lynn.



After having traversed many a weary rood of, to him, before untrodden
ground, the venerable minstrel of the house of Wallace, exhausted by
fatigue, sat down on the declivity of a steep craig. The burning beams
of the midday sun now beat upon the rocks, but the overshadowing
foliage afforded him shelter, and a few berries from the brambles,
which knit themselves over the path he had yet to explore, with a
draught of water from a friendly burn, offered themselves to revive his
enfeebled limbs. Insufficient as they appeared, he took them, blessing
Heaven for sending even these, and strengthened by half an hour's rest,
again he grasped his staff to pursue his way.

After breaking a passage, through the entangled shrubs that grew across
the only possible footing in this solitary wilderness, he went along
the side of the expanding stream, which at every turning of the rocks
increased in depth and violence. The rills from above, and other
mountain brooks, pouring from abrupt falls down the craigs, covered him
with spray, and intercepted his passage. Finding it impracticable to
proceed through the rushing torrent of a cataract, whose distant
roarings might have intimidated even a younger adventurer, he turned
from its tumbling waters which burst upon his sight, and crept on his
hands and knees up the opposite acclivity, catching by the fern and
other weeds to stay him from falling back into the flood below.
Prodigious craggy heights towered above his head as he ascended; while
the rolling clouds which canopied their summits seemed descending to
wrap him in their "fleecy skirts;" or the projecting rocks bending over
the waters of the glen, left him only a narrow shelf in the cliff,
along which he crept till it brought him to the mouth of a cavern.

He must either enter it or return the way he came, or attempt the
descent of overhanging precipices, which nothing could surmount but the
pinions of their native birds. Above him was the mountain. Retread
his footsteps until he had seen his beloved master, he was resolved not
to do-to perish in these glens would be more tolerable to him; for
while he moved forward, hope, even in the arms of death, would cheer
him with the whisper that he was in the path of duty. He therefore
entered the cavity, and passing on, soon perceived an aperture, through
which emerging on the other side, he found himself again on the margin
of the river. Having attained a wider bed, it left him a still
narrower causeway to perform the remainder of his journey.

Huge masses of rock, canopied with a thick umbrage of firs, beech, and
weeping-birch, closed over the glen and almost excluded the light of
day. But more anxious, as he calculated by the increased rapidity of
the stream he must now be approaching the great fall near his master's
concealment, Halbert redoubled his speed. But an unlooked-for obstacle
baffled his progress. A growing gloom he had not observed in the sky
excluded valley, having entirely overspread the heavens, at this moment
suddenly discharged itself, amidst peals of thunder, in heavy floods of
rain upon his head.

Fearful of being overwhelmed by the streams, which now on all sides
crossed his path, he kept upon the edge of the river, to be as far as
possible from the influence of their violence. And thus he proceeded,
slowly and with trepidation, through numerous defiles, and under the
plunge of many a mountain-torrent, till the augmented storm of a world
of waters, dashing from side to side, and boiling up with the noise and
fury of the contending elements above, told him he was indeed not far
from the fall of Corie Lynn.

The spray was spread in so thick a mist over the glen, he knew not how
to advance. A step further might be on the firm earth, but more
probably illusive, and dash him into the roaring Lynn, where he would
be ingulfed at once in its furious whirlpool. He paused and looked
around. The rain had ceased, but the thunder still rolled at a
distance and echoed tremendously from the surrounding rocks. Halbert
shook his gray locks, streaming with wet, and looked toward the sun,
now gliding with its last rays the vast sheets of falling water.

"This is thine hour, my master!" exclaimed the old man; "and surely I
am too near the Lynn to be far from thee!"

With these words he raised the pipe that hung at his breast, and blew
three strains of the appointed air. In former days it used to call
from her bower that "fair star of evening," the beauteous Marion, now
departed for ever into her native heaven. The notes trembled as his
agitated breath breathed them into the instrument; but feeble as they
were, and though the roar of the cataract might have prevented their
reaching a less attentive era than that of Wallace, yet he sprung from
the innermost recess under the fall, and dashing through its rushing
waters, the next instant was at the side of Halbert.

"Faithful creature!" cried he, catching him in his arms, which all the
joy of that moment which ends the anxious wish to learn tidings of what
is dearest in the world, "how fares my Marion?"

"I am weary," cried the heart-stricken old man; "take me within your
sanctuary, and I will tell you all."

Wallace perceived that his time-worn servant was indeed exhausted; and
knowing the toils and hazards of the perilous track he must have passed
over in his way to his fearful solitude, also remembering how, as he
sat in his shelter, he had himself dreaded the effects of the storm
upon so aged a traveler, he no longer wondered at the dispirited tone
of his greeting, and readily accounted for the pale countenance and
tremulous step which at first had excited his alarm.

Giving the old man his hand, he led him with caution to the brink of
the Lynn; and then, folding him in his arms, dashed with him through
the tumbling water into the cavern he had chosen for his asylum.
Halbert sunk against the rocky side, and putting forth his hand to
catch some of the water as it fell, drew a few drops to his parched
lips, and swallowed them. After this light refreshment, he breathed a
little and turned his eyes upon his anxious master.

"Are you sufficiently recovered, Halbert, to tell me how you left my
dearest Marion."

Halbert dreaded to see the animated light which now cheered him from
the eyes of his master, overclouded with the Cimmerian horrors his
story must unfold; he evaded a direct reply; "I saw your guest in
safety; I saw him and the iron box on their way to Bothwell?"

"What!" inquired Wallace, "were we mistaken? was not the earl dead when
we looked into the well?" Halbert replied in the negative, and was
proceeding with a circumstantial account of his recovery and his
departure when Wallace interrupted him.

"But what of my wife, Halbert? why tell me of others before of her?
She whose safety and remembrance are now my sole comfort!"

"Oh, my dear lord!" cried Halbert, throwing himself on his knees in a
paroxysm of mental agony, "she remembers you where best her prayers can
be heard. She kneels for her beloved Wallace, before the throne of
God!"

"Halbert!" cried Sir William, in a low and fearful voice, "what would
you say? My Marion-speak! tell me in one word, she lives!"

"In heaven!"

At this confirmation of a sudden terror, imbibed from the ambiguous
words of Halbert, and which his fond heart would not allow him to
acknowledge to himself. Wallace covered his face with his hands and
fell with a deep groan against the side of the cavern. The horrid idea
of premature maternal pains, occasioned by anguish for him; of her
consequent death, involving perhaps that of her infant, struck him to
the soul; a mist seemed passing over his eyes; life was receding; and
gladly did he believe he felt his spirit on the eve of joining hers.

In having declared that the idol of his master's heart no longer
existed for him in this world, Halbert thought he had revealed the
worst, and he went on. "Her latest breath was sent in prayer for you.
'My Wallace' were the last words her angel spirit uttered as it issued
from her bleeding wounds."

The cry that burst from the heart of Wallace, as he started on his feet
at this horrible disclosure, seemed to pierce through all the recessed
of the glen; and with an instantaneous and dismal return was re-echoed
from rock to rock. Halbert threw his arms round his master's knees.
The frantic blaze of his eyes struck him with affright. "Hear me, my
lord; for the sake of your wife, now an angel hovering near you, hear
what I have to say."

Wallace looked around with a wild countenance. "My Marion near me!
Blessed spirit! Oh, my murdered wife! my unborn babe! Who made those
wounds? cried he, catching Halbert's arm with a tremendous though
unconscious grasp; "tell me who had the heart to aim a blow at that
angel's life?"

"The Governor of Lanark," replied Halbert.

"How? for what?" demanded Wallace, with the terrific glare of madness
shooting from his eyes. "My wife! my wife! what had she done?"

"He came at the head of a band of ruffians, and seizing my lady,
commanded her on the peril of her life, to declare where you and the
Earl of Mar and the box of treasure were concealed. My lady persisted
in refusing him information, and in a deadly rage he plunged his sword
into her breast." Wallace clinched his hands over his face, and
Halbert went on. "Before he aimed a second blow, I had broken from the
men who held me, and thrown myself on her bosom; but all could not save
her; the villain's sword had penetrated her heart!"

"Great God!" exclaimed Wallace, "dost thou hear this murder?" His hands
were stretched toward heaven; then falling on his knees, with his eyes
fixed. "Give me power, Almighty Judge!" cried he, "to assert thy
justice! Let me avenge this angel's blood, and then take me to thy
mercy!"

"My gracious master," cried Halbert, seeing him rise with a stern
composure, "here is the fatal sword; the blood on it is sacred, and I
brought it to you."

Wallace took it in his hand. He gazed at it, touched it, and kissed it
frantically. The blade was scarcely yet dry, and the ensanguined hue
came off upon the pressure. "Marion! Marion!" cried he, "is it thine?
Does not thy blood stain my lip?" He paused for a moment, leaning his
burning forehead against the fatal blade; then looking up with a
terrific smile. "Beloved of my soul! never shall this sword leave my
hand till it has drunk the life-blood of thy murderer."

"What is it you intend, my lord?" cried Halbert, viewing with increased
alarm the resolute ferocity which now, blazing from every part of his
countenance, seemed to dilate his figure with more than mortal daring.
"What can you do? Your single arm-"

"I am not single-God is with me. I am his avenger. Now tremble,
tyranny! I come to hurl thee down!" At the word he sprung from the
cavern's mouth, and had already reached the topmost cliff when the
piteous cries of Halbert penetrated his ear; they recalled him to
recollection, and returning to his servant, he tried to soothe his
fear, and spoke in a composed though determined tone. "I will lead you
from this solitude to the mountains, where the shepherds of Ellerslie
are tending their flocks. With them you will find a refuge, till you
have strength to reach Bothwell Castle. Lord Mar will protect you for
my sake."

Halbert now remembered the bugle, and putting it into the master's
hand, with its accompanying message, asked for some testimony in
return, that the earl might know that he had delivered it safely.
"Even a lock of your precious hair, my beloved master, will be
sufficient."

"Thou shalt have it, severed from my head by this accurse steel,"
answered Wallace, taking off his bonnet, and letting his amber locks
fall in tresses on his shoulders. Halbert burst into a fresh flood of
tears, for he remembered how often it had been the delight of Marion to
comb these bright tresses and to twist them round he ivory fingers.
Wallace looked up as the old man's sobs became audible, and read his
thoughts: "It will never be again, Halbert," cried he, and with a firm
grasp of the sword he cut off a large handful of his hair.

"Marion, thy blood hath marked it!" exclaimed he; "and every hair on my
head shall be dyed of the same hue, before this sword is sheathed upon
thy murderers. Here, Halbert," continued he, knotting it together,
"take this to the Earl of Mar; it is all, most likely, he will ever see
again of William Wallace. Should I fall, tell him to look on that, and
in my wrongs read the future miseries of Scotland, and remember that
God armoreth the patriot's hand. Let him set on that conviction and
Scotland may yet be free."

Halbert placed the lock in his bosom, but again repeated his
entreaties, that his master would accompany him to Bothwell Castle. He
urged the consolation he would meet from the good earl's friendship.

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