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The Scottish Chiefs

M >> Miss Jane Porter >> The Scottish Chiefs




receive accounts of their success, he forbore to forward the letter
which Wallace had left for Bruce, or to increase the solicitude of the
already anxious inhabitants of Huntingtower with any intimation of what
had happened. But on the fourth day, Scrymgeour and his party returned
with the horrible narrative of Lumloch.

After the murder of his youthful friend, Wallace had been loaded with
irons, and conveyed, so unresistingly that he seemed in a stupor, on
board a vessel, to be carried without loss of time to the Tower of
London. Sir John Monteith, though he never ventured into his sight,
attended as the accuser, who, to put a visor on cruelty, was to swear
away his victim's life. The horror and grief of Ruthven at these
tidings were unutterable; and Scrymgeour, to turn the tide of the
bereaved father's thoughts to the inspiring recollection of the early
glory of his son, proceeded to narrate, that he found the beauteous
remains in the hovel, but bedecked with flowers by the village girls.
They were weeping over it, and lamenting the pitiless heart which could
slay such youth and loveliness. To bury him in so obscure a spot,
Scrymgeour would not allow, and he had sent Stephen Ireland with the
sacred corpse to Dumbarton, with orders to see him entombed in the
chapel of that fortress.

"It is done," continued the worthy knight, "and those towers he so
bravely scaled with stand forever the monument of Edwin Ruthven."

"Scrymgeour," said the stricken father, "the shafts fall thick upon us,
but we must fulfill our duty."

Cautious of inflicting too heavy a blow on the fortitude of his wife
and of Helen, he commanded Grimsby and Hay to withhold from everybody
at Huntingtower the tidings of its young lord's fate; but he believed
it his duty not to delay the letter of Wallace to Bruce, and the
dreadful information to him of Monteith's treachery. Ruthven ended his
short epistle to his wife by saying he should soon follow his
messenger; but that at present he could not bring himself to entirely
abandon the Lowlands to even a temporary empire of the seditious chiefs.

Ruthven ended his short epistle to his wife by saying he should soon
follow his messenger; but that at present he could not bring himself to
entirely abandon the Lowlands to even a temporary empire of the
seditious chiefs.

On Grimsby's arrival at Huntingtower he was conducted immediately to
Bruce. Some cheering symptoms having appeared that morning, he had
just exchanged his bed for a couch when Grimsby entered the room. The
countenance of the honest Southron was the harbinger of his news. Lady
Helen started from her seat, and Bruce, stretching out his arms,
eagerly caught the packets the soldier presented. Isabella inquired if
all were well with Sir William Wallace; but ere he could make an
answer, Lady Ruthven ran breathless into the room, holding out the open
letter brought by Hay to her. Bruce had just read the first line of
his, which announced the captivity of Wallace; and, with a groan that
pierced through the souls of every one present, he made an attempt to
spring from the couch; but in the act he reeled, and fell back in a
fearful but mute mental agony. The apprehensive heart of Helen guessed
some direful explanation; she looked with speechless inquiry upon her
aunt and Grimsby. Isabella and Ercildown hastened to Bruce; and Lady
Ruthven being too much appalled in her own feelings to think for a
moment on the aghast Helen, hurriedly read to her from Lord Ruthven's
letter the brief but decisive account of Wallace's dangerous
situation--his seizure and conveyance to the Tower of England. Helen
listened without a word; her heart seemed locked within her; her brain
was on fire; and gazing fixedly on the floor while she listened, all
else that was transacted around her passed unnoticed.

The pangs of a convulsion fit did not long shackle the determined
Bruce. The energy of his spirit struggling to gain the side of Wallace
in this his extreme need (for he well knew Edward's implacable soul),
roused him from his worse than swoon. With his extended arms dashing
away the restoratives with which both Isabella and Ercildown hung over
him, he would have leaped on the floor had not the latter held him down.

"Withhold me not!" cried he; "this is not the time for sickness and
indulgence. My friend is in the fangs of the tyrant, and shall I lie
here? No, not for all the empires in the globe will I be detained
another hour."

Isabella, affrighted at the furies which raged in his eyes, but yet
more terrified at the perils attendant on his desperate resolution,
threw herself at his feet, and implored him to stay for her sake.

"No," cried Bruce, "not for thy life, Isabella, which is dearer to me
than my own! not to save this ungrateful country from the doom it
merits would I linger one moment from the side of him who has fought,
bled, and suffered for me and mine, who is now treated with ignominy,
and sentenced to die, for my delinquency! Had I consented to proclaim
myself on my landing, secure with Bruce the king envy would have feared
to strike; but I must first win a fame like his! And while I lay here,
they tore him from the vain and impotent Bruce! But, Almighty pardoner
of my sins!" cried he, with vehemence, "grant me strength to wrest him
from their grip, and I will go barefoot to Palestine, to utter all my
gratitude!"

Isabella sunk weeping into the arms of her aunt. And the venerable
Ercildown, wishing to curb an impetuosity which could only involve its
generous agent in a ruin deeper than that it sought to revenge, with
more zeal than judgment, urged to the prince the danger into which such
boundless resentment would precipitate his own person. At this
intimation the impassioned Bruce, stung to the soul that such an
argument could be expected to have weight with him, solemnly bent his
knees, and clasping his sword, vowed before Heaven "either to release
Wallace or--" to share his fate! he would have added; but Isabella,
watchful of his words, suddenly interrupted him, by throwing herself
wildly on his neck, and exclaiming:

"Oh, say not so! Rather swear to pluck the tyrant from his throne;
that the scepter of my Bruce may bless England, as it will yet do this
unhappy land!"

"She says right!" ejaculated Ercildown, in a prophetic transport; "and
the scepter of Bruce, in the hands of his offspring, shall bless the
united countries to the latest generations! The walls of separation
shall then be thrown down, and England and Scotland be one people."

Bruce looked steadfastly on the sage: "Then if thy voice utter holy
verity, it will not again deny my call to wield the power that Heaven
bestows! I follow my fate! To-morrow's dawn sees me in the path to
snatch my best treasure, my counselor, my guide, from the judgment of
his enemies--or woe to England, woe to all Scotland born who have
breathed one hostile word against his sacred life! Helen dost thou
hear me?" cried he: "Wilt thou not assist me to persuade thy too timid
sister that her Bruce's honor, his happiness, lives in the preservation
of his friend? Speak to her, counsel her, sweet Helen, and, and,
please the Almighty arm of Heaven, I will reward thy tenderness with
the return of Wallace!"

Helen gazed intently on him while he spoke. She smiled when he ended,
but she did not answer, and there was a wild vacancy in the smile that
seemed to say she knew not what had been spoken, and that her thoughts
were far away. Without further regarding him or any present, she arose
and left the room. At this moment of fearful abstraction, her whole
soul was bent with an intensity that touched on madness, on the
execution of a project which had rushed into her mind in the moment she
heard of Wallace's deathful captivity and destination.

Helen gazed intently on him while he spoke. She smiled when he ended,
but she did not answer, and there was a wild vacancy in the smile that
seemed to say she knew not what had been spoken, and that her thoughts
were far away. Without further regarding him or any present, she arose
and left the room. At this moment of fearful abstraction, her whole
soul was bent with an intensity that touched on madness, on the
execution of a project which had rushed into her mind in the moment she
heard of Wallace's deathful captivity and destination.

The approach of night favored her design. Hurrying to her chamber, she
dismissed her maids with the prompt excuse that she was ill, and
desired not to be disturbed until morning, then bolting the door, she
quickly habited herself as the dear memorial of her happy days in
France, and dropping from her window into the pleasance beneath, ran
swiftly through its woody precincts toward Dundee.

Before she arrived at the suburbs of Ferth, her tender feet became so
blistered, she found the necessity of stopping at the first cottage.
But her perturbed spirits rendered it impossible for her to take rest,
and she answered the hospitable offer of its humble owner, with a
request that he would go into the town and immediately purchase a
horse, to carry her that night to Dundee. She put her purse into the
man's hand, who without further discussion obeyed. When the animal was
brought and the honest Scot returned her the purse with its remaining
contents, she divided them with him, and turning from his thanks,
mounted the horse, and rode away.

About an hour before dawn, she arrived within view of the ships lying
in the harbor at Dundee. At this sight she threw herself off the
panting animal, and leaving it to rest and liberty, hastened to the
beach. A gentle breeze blew freshly from the northwest, and several
vessels were heaving their anchors to get under weigh.

"Are any," demanded she, "bound for the Tower of London?"

"None," were the replies. Despair was now in her heart and gesture.
But suddenly recollecting that in dressing herself for flight she had
not taken off the jewels she usually wore, she exclaimed with renovated
hope, "Will not gold tempt some one to carry me thither?" A rough
Norwegian sailor jumped from the side of the nearest vessel, and
readily answered in the affirmative. "My life," rejoined she, "or a
necklace of pearls shall be yours, in the moment you land me at the
Tower of London." The man seeing the youth and agitation of the
seeming boy, doubted his power to perform so magnificent a promise, and
was half inclined to retract his assent; but Helen pointing to a jewel
on her finger as a proof that she did not speak of things beyond her
read, he no longer hesitated; and pledging his word that wind and tide
in his favor, he would land her at the Tower Stairs, she, as if all
happiness must meet her at that point, sprung into his vessel. The
sails were unfurled, the voices of the men chanted forth their cheering
responses on clearing the harbor, and Helen throwing herself along the
floor of her little cabin, in that prostration of body and soul,
silently breathed her thanks to God for being indeed launched on the
ocean, whose waves she trusted would soon convey her to Wallace; to
sooth, to serve--to die, or to compass the release of him who had
sacrificed more than his life for her father's preservation--for him
who had saved herself from worse than death.


Chapter LXXXI.

The Thames.



On the evening of the fourteenth day from the one in which Helen had
embarked, the little ship of Dundee entered on the bright bosom of the
Nore. While she sat on the deck watching the progress of the vessel
with an eager spirit, which would gladly have taken wings to have flown
to the object of her voyage, she first saw the majestic waters of the
Thames. But it was a tyrannous flood to her, and she marked not the
diverging shores crowned with palaces; her eyes looked over every
stately dome to seek the black summits of the Tower. At a certain
point the captain of the vessel spoke through his trumpet to summon a
pilot from the land. In a few minutes he was obeyed. The Englishman
took the helm. Helen was reclined on a coil of ropes near him. He
entered into conversation with the Norwegian, and she listened in
speechless attention to a recital which bound up her every sense in
that hearing. The captain had made some unprincipled jest on the
present troubles of Scotland, now his adopted country from his
commercial interests, and he added with a laugh, "that he though any
ruler the right one who gave him a free course in traffic." In answer
to this remark, and with an observation not very flattering to the
Norwegian's estimation of right and wrong, the Englishman mentioned the
capture of the once renowned champion of Scotland. Even the enemy who
recounted the particulars, showed a truth in the recital which shamed
the man who had benefited by the patriotism he affected to despise, and
for which Sir William Wallace was now likely to shed his blood.

"I was present," continued the pilot, "when the brave Scot was put on
the raft, which carried him through the Traitor's Gate into the Tower.
His hands and feet were bound with iron; but his head, owing to
faintness from the wounds he had received at Lumloch, was so bent down
on his breast as he reclined on the float, that I could not then see
his face. There was a great pause, for none of us, when he did appear
in sight, could shout over the downfall of so merciful a conqueror.
Many were spectators of this scene whose lives he had spared on the
fields of Scotland; and my brother was amongst them. However, that I
might have a distinct view of the man who has so long held our warlike
monarch in dread, I went to Westminster Hall on the day appointed for
his trial. The great judges of the land, and almost all the lords
besides were there, and a very grand spectacle they made. But when the
hall-door was opened, and the dauntless prisoner appeared, then it was
that I saw true majesty. King Edward on his throne never looked with
such a royal air. His very chains seemed given to be graced by him as
he moved through the parting crowd with the step of one who had been
used to have all his accusers at his feet. Though pale with loss of
blood, and his countenance bore traces of the suffering occasioned by
the state of his yet unhealed wounds, his head was now erect, and he
looked with undisturbed dignity on all around. The Earl of Gloucester,
whose life and liberty he had granted at Berwick, sat on the right of
the lord chancellor. Bishop Beck, the Lords de Valence and Soulis,
with one Monteith (who it seems was the man that betrayed him into our
hands), charged him with high treason against the life of King Edward
and the peace of his majesty's realms of England and Scotland.
Grievous were the accusations brought against him, and bitter the
revilings with which he was denounced as a traitor too mischievous to
deserve any show of mercy. The Earl of Gloucester at last rose
indignantly, and in energetic and respectful terms, called on Sir
William Wallace, by the reverence in which he held the tribunal of
future ages, to answer for himself!

"'On this adjuration, brave earl!' replied he, 'I will speak!' O! men
of Scotland, what a voice was that! In it was all honesty and
nobleness! and a murmur arose from some who feared its power, which
Gloucester was obliged to check by exclaiming aloud with a stern voice;
'Silence, while Sir William Wallace answers. He who disobeys,
sergeant-at-arms, take into custody!' A pause succeeded, and the
chieftain, with god-like majesty of truth, denied the possibility of
being a traitor where he never had owed allegiance. But with a
matchless fearlessness, he avowed the facts alleged against him, which
told the havoc he had made of the English on the Scottish plains, and
the devastations he had afterward wrought in the lands of England. 'It
was a son,' cried he, 'defending the orphans of his father from the
steel and rapine of a treacherous friend! It was the sword of
restitution gathering on that false friend's fields the harvests he had
ravaged from theirs!' He spoke more and nobly--too nobly for them who
heard him. They rose to a man to silence what they could not confute;
and the sentence of death was pronounced on him--the cruel death of a
traitor! The Earl of Gloucester turned pale on his seat, but the
countenance of Wallace was unmoved. As he was led forth, I followed,
and of Wallace was unmoved. As he was led forth, I followed, and saw
the young Le de Spencer, with several other reprobate gallants of our
court, ready to receive him. With shameful mockery they flew laurels
on his head, and with torrents of derision, told him, it was meet they
should so salute the champion of Scotland! Wallace glanced on them a
look which spoke pity rather than contempt, and, with a serene
countenance, he followed the warden toward the Tower. The hirelings of
his accusers loaded him with invectives as he passed along; but the
populace who beheld his noble mien, with those individuals who had
heard of--while many had felt--his generous virtues, deplored and wept
his sentence. To-morrow at sunrise he dies."

Helen's face being overshadowed by the low brim of her hat, the agony
of her mind could not have been read in her countenance had the good
Southron been sufficiently uninterested in his story to regard the
sympathy of others; but as soon as he had uttered the last dreadful
words, "To-morrow at sunrise he dies!" she started from her seat; her
horror-struck senses apprehended nothing further, and turning to the
Norwegian, "Captain," cried she, "I must reach the Tower this night!"

"Impossible!" was the reply: "the tide will not take us up till
to-morrow at noon."


"Then the waves shall!" cried she, and frantically rushing toward the
ship's side, she would have thrown herself into the water, had not the
pilot caught her arm.

"Boy!" said he, "are you mad? your action, your looks--"

"No," interrupted she, wringing her hands; "but in the Tower I must be
this night, or-- Oh! God of mercy, end my misery!"

The unutterable anguish of her voice, countenance, and gesture excited
a suspicion in the Englishman, that this youth was connected with the
Scottish chief; and not choosing to hint his surmise to the unfeeling
Norwegian, in a different tone he exhorted Helen to composure, and
offered her his own boat, which was then towed at the side of the
vessel, to take her to the Tower. Helen grasped the pilot's rough
hand, and in a paroxysm of gratitude pressed it to her lips; then
forgetful of her engagements with the insensible man who stood unmoved
by his side, sprung into the boat. The Norwegian followed her, and in
a threatening tone demanded his hire. She now recollected it, and
putting her hand into her vest, gave him the string of pearls which had
been her necklace. He was satisfied, and the boat pushed off.

The cross, the cherished memorial of her hallowed meeting with Wallace
in the chapel of Snawdoun, and which always hung suspended on her
bosom, was now in her hand and pressed close to her heart. The rowers
plied their oars, and her eyes, with a gaze as if they would pierce the
horizon, looked intently onward, while the men labored through the
tide. Even to see the walls which contained Wallace, seemed to promise
her a degree of comfort she dared hardly hope herself to enjoy. At
last the awful battlements of England's state prison rose before her.
She could not mistake them. "That is the Tower," said one of the
rowers. A shriek escaped her, and instantly covering her face with her
hands, she tried to shut from her sight those very walls she had so
long sought amongst the clouds. They imprisoned Wallace! He groaned
within their confines! and their presence paralyzed her heart.

"Shall I die before I reach thee, Wallace?" was the question her almost
flitting soul uttered, as she, trembling, yet with swift steps,
ascended the stone stairs which led from the water's edge to the
entrance to the Tower. She flew through the different courts to the
one in which stood the prison of Wallace. One of the boatmen, being
bargeman to the Governor of the Tower, as a privileged person,
conducted her unmolested through every ward till she reached the place
of her destination. There she dismissed him with a ring from her
finger as his reward; and passing a body of soldiers, who kept guard
before a large porch that led to the dungeons, she entered, and found
herself in an immense paved room. A single sentinel stood at the end
near to an iron grating, or small portcullis; there, then, was Wallace!
Forgetting her disguise and situation, in the frantic eagerness of her
pursuit, she hastily advanced to the man:

"Let me pass to Sir William Wallace," cried she, "and treasures shall
be your reward."

"Whose treasures, my pretty page?" demanded the soldier; "I dare not,
were it at the suit of the Countess of Gloucester herself."

"Oh!" cried Helen, "for the sake of a greater than any countess in the
land, take this jeweled bracelet, and let me pass!"

The man, misapprehending the words of this adjuration, at sight of the
diamonds, supposing the page must come from the good queen, no longer
demurred. Putting the bracelet into his bosom, he whispered Helen,
that as he granted this permission at the risk of his life, she must
conceal herself in the interior chamber of the prisoner's dungeon
should any person from the warden visit him during their interview.
She readily promised this; and he informed her that, when through this
door, she must cross two other apartments, the bolts to the entrances
of which she must undraw; and then, at the extremity of a long passage,
a door, fastened by a latch, would admit her to Sir William Wallace.
With these words, the soldier removed the massy bars, and Helen entered.


Chapter LXXXII.

The Tower of London.



Helen's fleet steps carried her in a few minutes through the
intervening dungeons to the door which would restore to her eyes the
being with whose life her existence seemed blended. The bolts had
yielded to her hands. The iron latch now gave way; and the ponderous
oak, grating dismally on its hinges, she looked forward, and beheld the
object of all her solicitude leaning along a couch; a stone table was
before him, at which he seemed writing. He raised his head at the
sound. The peace of virtue was in his eyes, and a smile on his lips,
as if he had expected some angel visitant.

The first glance at his pale, but heavenly countenance struck to the
heart of Helen; veneration, anguish, shame, all rushed on her at once.
She was in his presence! but how might he turn from consolations he had
not sought! The intemperate passion of her step-mother now glared
before her; his contempt of the countess' unsolicited advances appeared
ready to be extended to her rash daughter-in-law; and with an
irrepressible cry, which seemed to breathe out her life, Helen would
have fled, but her failing limbs bent under her, and she fell senseless
into the dungeon. Wallace started from his reclining position. He
thought his senses must deceive him--and yet the shriek was Lady
Helen's. He had heard the same cry on the Pentland Hills; in the
chamber of Chateau Galliard! He rose agitated; he approached the
prostrate youth, and bending to the inanimate form, took off the Norman
hat; he parted the heavy locks which fell over her brow, and recognized
the features of her who alone had ever shared his meditations with his
Marion. He sprinkled water on her face and hands; he touched her
cheek; it was ashy cold, and the chill struck to his heart. "Helen!"
exclaimed he; "Helen, awake! Speak to thy friend!"

Still she was motionless. "Dead!" cried he, with increased emotion.
His eye and his heart in a moment discerned and understood the rapid
emaciation of those lovely features--now fearing the worst; "Gone so
soon!" repeated he, "gone to tell my Marion that her Wallace comes.
Blessed angel!" cried he, clasping her to his breast, with an energy of
which he was not aware, "take me, take me with thee!" The pressure,
the voice, roused the dormant life of Helen. With a torturing sigh she
unsealed her eyes from the death-like load that oppressed them, and
found herself in the arms of Wallace.

All her wandering senses, which from the first promulgation of his
danger had been kept in a bewildered state, now rallied; and, in
recovered sanity, smote her to the soul. Though still overwhelmed with
grief at the fate which threatened to tear him from her and life, she
now wondered how she could ever have so trampled on the retreating
modesty of her nature, as to have brought herself thus into his
presence; and in a voice of horror, of despair, believing that she had
forever destroyed herself in his opinion, she exclaimed: "O! Wallace!
how came I here? I am lost--and innocently; but God--the pure God--can
read the soul!"

She lay in hopeless misery on his breast, with her eyes again closed,
almost unconscious of the support on which she leaned.

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