Fay Inchfawn - "The Verse Book Of A Homely Woman"

A. K. H. Boyd - "The Recreations of A Country Parson"

A. Arthur Reade - "Study and Stimulants"

Unkown - "The Universal Copyright Convention [1972]"

The Scottish Chiefs

M >> Miss Jane Porter >> The Scottish Chiefs




This dream seemed prophetic. "Yes," cried she, "though thousands of
Edward's soldiers surrounded my father and his friend, I should not
despair. Thy life, O noble Wallace, was not give to be extinguished in
an hour! Thy morn has hardly risen, the perfect day must come that is
to develop thy greatness-that is to prove thee (and oh! gracious God,
grant my prayer!) the glory of Scotland!"

Owing to the fervor of her apostrophe, she did not observe the door of
the cell open, till the prior stood before her. After expressing his
pleasure at the renovation in her countenance, he informed her of the
departure of the English soldier, and of the alarm which he and Murray
had sustained for his safety, by the adventure which had thrown a
stranger from the craigs into their protection. At the mention of that
now momentous spot, she blushed; the golden-haired warrior of her dream
seemed ready to rise before her; and with a beating heart she prepared
to hear some true but miraculous account of her father's rescue.

Unconscious of what was passing in her young and eager mind, the prior
calmly proceeded to relate all that Ker had told of the dangerous
extremity to which Wallace was reduced; and then closed his
intelligence, by mentioning the attempt which meditated to save him.
The heightened color gradually faded from the face of Helen, and low
sighs were her only responses to the observations the good priest made
on the difficulty of the enterprise. But when his pity for the brave
man engaged in the cause, betrayed him into expressing his fears that
the patriotic zeal of Wallace would only make him and them a sacrifice,
Helen looked up; there was inspiration on her lips and in her eyes.
"Father," said she, "hast thou not taught me that God shieldeth the
patriot as well as armeth him!"

"True!" returned he, with an answering smile; "steadily believe this,
and where will be the sighs you have just been breathing!"

"Nature will shrink," replied she; "but the Christian's hope checks her
ere she falls. Pardon me then, holy father, that I sometimes weep; but
they are often tears of trust and consolation."

"Daughter of heaven," replied the good prior, "you might teach devotion
to age, and cause youth to be enamored of the graces of religion! Be
ever thus, and you may look with indifference on the wreck of worlds."

Helen having meekly replied to this burst from the heart of the holy
man, begged to see her cousin before he set off on his expedition. The
prior withdrew, and within an hour after, Murray entered the apartment.
Their conversation was long, and their parting full of an interest
that dissolved them both into tears. "When I see you again, my brave
cousin, tell me that my father is free, and his preserver safe. Your
own life, dear Andrew," added she, as he pressed his cheek to hers,
"must always be precious to me."

Murray hastily withdrew, and Helen was again alone.

The young chieftain and Ker covered their armor with shepherd's plaids;
and having received a thousand blessings from the prior and Halbert,
proceeded under shelter of the night, through the obscurest paths of
the wood which divided Bothwell from Drumshargard.

Sir John Murray was gone to rest when his nephew arrived, but Lord
Andrew's voice being well known by the porter, he was admitted into the
house; and leaving his companion in the dining-hall, went to the
apartment of his uncle. The old knight was soon aroused, and welcomed
his nephew with open arms; for he had feared, from the accounts brought
by the fugitive tenants of Bothwell, that he also had been carried away
prisoner.

Murray now unfolded his errand-first to obtain a band of Sir John's
trustiest people to assist in rescuing the preserver of the earl's life
from immediate destruction; and secondly, if a commission for Lord
Mar's release did not arrive from King Edward, to aid him to free his
uncle and the countess from Dumbarton Castle.

Sir John listened with growing anxiety to his nephew's details. When
he heard of Lady Helen's continuing in the convent, he highly approved
it. "That is well," said he; "so bring her to any private protection
would only spread calamity. She might be traced, and her protector put
in danger; none but the church, with safety to itself, can grant asylum
to the daughter of a state prisoner."

"Then I doubly rejoice she is there," replied Murray, "and there she
will remain, till your generous assistance empowers me to rescue her
father."

"Lord Mar has been very rash, nephew," returned Drumshargard. "What
occasion was there for him to volunteer sending men to support Sir
William Wallace? and how durst he bring ruin on Bothwell Castle, by
collecting unauthorized by my brother, its vassals for so dangerous an
experiment?"

Murray started at these unexpected observations. He knew his uncle was
timid, but he had never suspected him of meanness; however, in
consideration of the respect he owed to him as his father's brother, he
smothered his disgust, and gave him a mild answer. But the old man
could not approve of a nobleman of his rank running himself, his
fortune, and his friends into peril, to pay any debt of gratitude; and,
as to patriotic sentiments being a stimulus, he treated the idea with
contempt. "Trust me, Andrew," said he, "nobody profits by these
notions but thieves and desperate fellows ready to become thieves!"

"I do not understand you, sir!"

"Not understand me?" replied the knight, rather impatiently. "Who
suffers in these contests for liberty, as you choose to call them, but
such men as Lord Mar and your father? Betrayed by artful declamation,
they rush into conspiracies against the existing government, are
detected, ruined, and perhaps finally lose their lives! Who gains by
rebellion, but a few penniless wretches, that embrace these vaunted
principles from the urgency of their necessities? They acquire
plunder, under the mask of extraordinary disinterestedness; and
hazarding nothing of themselves but their worthless lives, they would
make tools of the first men in the realm; and throw the whole country
into flames, that they may catch a few brands from the fire!"

Young Murray felt his anger rise with this speech. "You do not speak
to my point, sir! I do not come here to dispute the general evil of
revolt, but to ask your assistance to snatch two of the bravest men in
Scotland from the fangs of the tyrant who has made you a slave!"

"Nephew!" cried the knight, starting from his couch; and darting a
fierce look at him, "if any man but one of my own blood had uttered
that word, this hour should have been his last."

"Every man, sir," continued Murray, "who acts upon your principles,
must know himself to be a slave;-and to resent being called so, is to
affront his conscience. A name is nothing, the fact ought to knock
upon your heart, and there arouse the indignation of a Scot and a
Murray. See you not the villages of your country burning around you?
the castles of your chieftains razed to the ground? Did not the
plains of Dunbar reek with the blood of your kinsmen; and even now, do
you not see them led away in chains to the strongholds of the tyrant?
Are not your stoutest vassals pressed from your service, and sent into
foreign wars? And yet you exclaim, 'I see no injury-I spurn at the
name of slave!'"

Murray rose from his seat as he ended, and walking the room in
agitation, did not perceive the confusion of his uncle, who, at once
overcome with conviction and fear, again ventured to speak: "It is too
sure you speak truth, Andrew; but what am I, or any other private
individual, that we should make ourselves a forlorn hope for the whole
nation? Will Baliol, who was the first to bow to the usurper, will he
thank us for losing our heads in resentment of his indignity? Bruce
himself, the rightful heir of the crown, leaves us to our fates, and
has become a courtier in England! For whom, then, should I adventure
my gray hairs, and the quiet of my home, to seek an uncertain liberty,
and to meet an almost certain death?"

"For Scotland, uncle," replied he; "just laws are her right. You are
her son; and if you do not make one in the grand attempt to rescue her
from the bloodhounds which tear her vitals, the guilt of parricide will
be on your soul! Think not, sir, to preserve your home, or even your
gray hairs, by hugging the chains by which you are bound. You are a
Scot, and that is sufficient to arm the enemy against your property and
life. Remember the fate of Lord Monteith! At the very time he was
beset by the parasites of Edward, and persuaded by their flatteries to
be altogether as an Englishman, in that very hour, when he had taken a
niece of Cressingham's to his arms, by her hands the vengeance of
Edward reached him-he fell!"

Murray saw that his uncle was struck, and that he trembled.

"But I am too insignificant, Andrew!"

"You are the brother of Lord Bothwell!" answered Murray, with all the
dignity of his father rising in his countenance. "His large
possessions made him a traitor in the eyes of the tyrant's
representatives. Cressingham, as treasurer for the crew, has already
sent his lieutenant to lord it in our paternal castle; and do not
deceive yourself in believing that some one of his officers will not
require the fertile fields of Drumshargard as a reward for his
services! No!-cheat not yourself with the idea that the brother of
Lord Bothwell will be too insignificant to share in the honor of
bearing a part in the confiscations of his country! Trust me, my
uncle, the forbearance of tyrants is not that of mercy, but of
convenience. When they need your wealth, or your lands, your
submission is forgotten, and a prison, or the ax, ready to give them
quiet possession."

Sir John Murray, though a timid and narrow-sighted man, now fully
comprehended his nephew's reasoning; and his fears taking a different
turn, he hastily declared his determination to set off immediately for
the Highlands. "In the morning, by daybreak," said he, "I will
commence my journey, and join my brother at Loch-awe; for I cannot
believe myself safe a moment, while so near the garrisons of the enemy."

Murray approved this plan; and after obtaining his hard-wrung leave to
take thirty men from his vassals, he returned to Ker, to inform him of
the success of his mission. It was not necessary, neither would it
have been agreeable to his pride, to relate the arguments which had
been required to obtain this small assistance; and in the course of an
hour he brought together the appointed number of the bravest men on the
estate. When equipped he led them into the hall, to receive the last
command from their feudal lord.

On seeing them armed, with every man his drawn dirk in his hand, Sir
John turned pale. Murray, with the unfolded banner of Mar in his
grasp, and Ker by his side, stood at their head.

"Young men," said the old knight, striving to speak in a firm tone, "in
this expedition you are to consider yourselves the followers of my
nephew; he is brave and honourable, therefore I commit you to his
command. But as you go on his earnest petition, I am not answerable to
any man for the enterprises to which he may lead you."

"Be they all on my own head!" cried Murray, blushing at his uncle's
pusillanimity, and drawing out his sword with an impatience that made
the old knight start. "We now have your permission to depart, sir?"

Sir John gave a ready assent; he was anxious to get so hotheaded a
youth out of his house, and to collect his gold and servants, that he
might commence his own flight by break of day.

It was still dark as midnight when Murray and his little company passed
the heights above Drumshargard, and took their rapid though silent
march toward the cliffs, which would conduct them to the more dangerous
passes of the Cartlane Craigs.


Chapter XIII.

Banks of the Clyde.



Two days passed drearily away to Helen. She could no expect tidings
from her cousin in so short a time. No more happy dreams cheered her
lonely hours; and anxiety to learn what might be the condition of the
earl and countess so possessed her that visions of affright now
disturbed both her waking and sleeping senses. Fancy showed them in
irons and in a dungeon, and sometimes she started in horror, thinking
that perhaps at that moment the assassin's steel was raised against the
life of her father.

On the morning of the third day, when she was chiding herself for such
rebellious despondence, her female attendant entered to say, that a
friar was come to conduct her where she would see messengers from Lady
mar. Helen lingered not a moment, but giving her hand to the good
father, was led by him into the library, where the prior was standing
between two men in military habits. One wore English armor, with his
visor closed; the other, a knight, was in tartans. The Scot presented
her with a signet, set in gold. Helen looked on it, and immediately
recognized the same that her stepmother always used.

The Scottish knight was preparing to address her, when the prior
interrupted him, and taking Lady Helen's hand, made her seat herself.
"Compose yourself for a few minutes," said he; "this transitory life
hourly brings forward events to teach us to be calm, and to resign our
wishes and our wills to the Lord of all things."

Helen looked fearfully in his face. "Some evil tidings are to be told
me." The blood left her lips; it seemed leaving her heart also. The
prior, full of compassion, hesitated to speak. The Scot abruptly
answered her:

"Be not alarmed, lady, your parents have fallen into humane hands. I am
sent, under the command of this noble Southron knight, to conduct you
to them."

"Then my father lives! They are safe!" cried she, in a transport of
joy, and bursting into tears.

"He yet lives," returned the officer; "but his wounds opening afresh,
and the fatigues of his journey, have so exhausted him that Lord Aymer
de Valence has granted the prayers of the countess, and we come to take
you to receive his last blessing."

A cry of anguish burst from the heart of Lady Helen, and falling into
the arms of the prior, she found refuge from woe in a merciful
insensibility. The pitying exertions of the venerable father at last
recalled her to recollection and to sorrow. She rose from the bench on
which he had laid her, and begged permission to retire for a few
minutes; tears choked her further utterance, and, being led out by the
friar, she once more reentered her cell.

Lady Helen passed the moments she had requested in those duties which
alone can give comfort to the afflicted, when all that is visible bids
us despair; and rising from her knees, with that holy fortitude which
none but the devout can know, she took her mantle and veil, and
throwing them over her, sent her attendant to the prior, to say she was
ready to set out on her journey, and wished to receive his parting
benediction. The venerable father, followed by Halbert, obeyed her
summons. On seeing the poor old harper, Helen's heart lost some of its
newly-acquired composure. She held out her hand to him; he pressed it
to his lips. "Farewell, sweetest lady! May the prayers of the dear
saint, to whose remains your pious care gave a holy grave, draw down
upon your own head consolation and peace!" The old man sobbed; and the
tears of Lady Helen, as he bent upon her hand, dropped upon his silver
hair. "May Heaven hear you, good Halbert! And cease not, venerable
man, to pray for me; for I go into the hour of trial."

"All that dwell in this house, my daughter," rejoined the prior, "shall
put up orisons for your comfort, and for the soul of the departing
earl." Observing that her grief augmented at these words, he proceeded
in a yet more soothing voice: "Regret not that he goes before you, for
what is death but entrance into life? It is the narrow gate, which
shuts us from this dark world, to usher us into another, of everlasting
light and happiness. Weep not, then, dear child of the church, that
your earthly parents precede you to the Heavenly Father; rather say,
with the Virgin Saint Bride, 'How long, O Lord, am I to be banished thy
presence? How long endure the prison of my body, before I am admitted
to the freedom of Paradise, to the bliss of thy saints above?'"

Helen raised her eyes, yet shining in tears, and with a divine smile
pressing the crucifix to her breast, "You do indeed arm me, my father!
This is my strength!"

"And one that will never fail thee!" exclaimed he. She dropped upon
one knee before him. He crossed his hands over her head-he looked up
to heaven-his bosom heaved-his lips moved-then pausing a moment-"Go,"
said he, "and may the angels which guard innocence minister to your
sorrows, and lead you into peace!"

Helen bowed, and breathing inwardly a devout response, rose and
followed the prior out of the cell. At the end of the cloister she
again bade farewell to Halbert. Before the great gates stood the
knights with their attendants. She once more kissed the crucifix held
by the prior, and giving her hand to the Scot, was placed by him on a
horse richly caparisoned. He sprung on another himself, while the
English officer, who was already mounted, drawing up to her, she pulled
down her veil, and all bowing to the holy brotherhood at the porch,
rode off at a gentle pace.

A long stretch of wood, which spread before the monastery, and screened
the back of Bothwell Castle from being discernible on that side of the
Clyde, lay before them. Through this green labyrinth they pursued
their way, till they crossed the river.

"Time wears!" exclaimed the Scot to his companion; "we must push on."
The English knight nodded, and set his spurs into his steed. The whole
troop now fell into a rapid trot. The banks of the Avon opened into a
hundred beautiful seclusions, which, intersecting the deep sides of the
river with umbrageous shades and green hillocks, seemed to shut it from
the world. Helen in vain looked for the distant towers of Dumbarton
Castle marking the horizon; no horizon appeared, but ranges of rocks
and wooded precipices.

A sweet breeze played through the valley and revived her harassed
frame. She put aside her veil to enjoy its freshness, and saw that the
knights turned their horses' heads into one of the obscurest mountain
defiles. She started at its depth, and at the gloom which involved its
extremity. "It is our nearest path," said the Scot. Helen made no
reply, but turning her steed also, followed him, there being room for
only one at a time to ride along the narrow margin of the river that
flowed at its base. The Englishman, whose voice she had not yet heard,
and his attendants, followed likewise in file; and with difficulty the
horses could make their way through the thicket which interlaced the
pathway, so confined, indeed, that it rather seemed a cleft made by an
earthquake in the mountain than a road for the use of man.

When they had been employed for an hour in breaking their way through
this trackless glen, they came to a wider space, where other and
broader ravines opened before them. The Scot, taking a pass to the
right, raised his bugle, and blew so sudden a blast that the horse on
which Lady Helen sat took fright, and began to plunge and rear, to the
evident hazard of throwing her into the stream. Some of the dismounted
men, seeing her danger, seized the horse by the bridle; while the
English knight extricating her from the saddle, carried her through
some clustering bushes into a cave, and laid her at the feet of an
armed man.

Terrified at this extraordinary action, she started up with a piercing
shriek, but was at that moment enveloped in the arms of the stranger,
while a loud shout of exhultation resounded from the Scot who stood at
the entrance. It was echoed from without. There was horror in every
sound. "Blessed Virgin, protect me!" she cried, striving to break from
the fierce grasp that held her. "Where am I?" looking wildly at the
two men who had brought her: "Why am I not taken to my father?"

She received no answer, and both the Scot and the Englishman left the
place. The stranger still held her locked in a gripe that seemed of
iron. In vain she struggled, in vain she shrieked, in vain she called
on earth and Heaven, for assistance; she was held, and still he kept
silence. Exhausted with terror and fruitless attempt for release, she
put her hands together, and in a calmer tone exclaimed: "If you have
honor or humanity in your heart, release me! I am an unprotected
woman, praying for your mercy; withhold it not, for the sake of Heaven
and your own soul."

"Kneel to me then, thou siren!" cried the warrior, with fierceness. As
he spoke he threw the tender knees of Lady Helen upon the rocky floor.
His voice echoed terribly in her ears, but obeying him, "Free me,"
cried she, "for the sake of my dying father!"

"Never, till I have had my revenge!"

At this dreadful denunciation she shuddered to the soul, but yet she
spoke: "Surely I am mistaken for some one else! Oh, how can I have
offended any man to incur so cruel an outrage?"

The warrior burst into a satanic laugh, and, throwing up his visor,
"Behold me, Helen!" cried he, grasping her clasped hands with a
horrible force, "My hour is come!"

At the sight of the dreadful face of Soulis she comprehended all her
danger, and with supernatural strength, wresting her hands from his
hold, she burst through the bushes out of the cave. Her betrayers
stood at the entrance, and catching her in their arms, brought her back
to their lord. But it was an insensible form they now laid before him;
overcome with horror her senses had fled. Short was this suspension
from misery; water was thrown on her face, and she awoke to
recollection, lying on the bosom of her enemy. Again she struggled,
again her cries echoed from side to side of the cavern. "Peace!" cried
the monster; "you cannot escape; you are now mine forever! Twice you
refused to be my wife; you dared to despise my love and my power; now
you shall feel my hatred and my revenge!"

"Kill me!" cried the distracted Helen; "kill me and I will bless you!"

"That would be a poor vengeance," cried he; "you must be humbled, proud
minion, you must learn to fawn on me for a smile; to woo, as my slave,
for one of those caresses you spurned to receive as my wife." As he
spoke, he strained her to his breast, with the contending expressions
of passion and revenge glaring in his eyes. Helen shrieked at the
pollution of his lips; and as he more fiercely held her, her hand
struck against the hilt of his dagger. In a moment she drew it, and
armed with the strength of outraged innocence, unwitting whether it
gave death or not, only hoping it would release her, she struck it into
his side. All was the action of an instant while, as instantaneously,
he caught her wrist, and exclaiming, "Damnable traitress!" dashed her
from him, stunned and motionless to the ground.

The weapon had not penetrated far. But the sight of his blood, drawn
by the hand of a woman, incensed the raging Soulis. He called aloud on
Macgregor. The two men, who yet stood without the cave, re-entered.
They started when they saw a dagger in his hand, and Helen, lying
apparently lifeless, with blood sprinkled on her garments.

Macgregor, who had personated the Scottish knight, in a tremulous voice
asked why he had killed the lady?

Soulis frowned: "Here!" cried he, throwing open his vest: "this wound,
that beautiful fiend you so piteously look upon, aimed at my life!"

"My lord," said the other man, who had heard her shrieks, "I expected
different treatment for the Earl of Mar's daughter."

"Base Scot!" returned Soulis, "when you brought a woman into these
wilds to me, you had no right to expect that I should use her otherwise
than as I pleased, and you, as the servile minister of my pleasures."

"This language, Lord Soulis!" rejoined the man, much agitated; "but you
mistook me-I meant not to reproach."

"'Tis well you did not;" and turning from him with contempt, he
listened to Macgregor, who, stooping toward the inanimate Helen,
observed that her pulse beat. "Fool!" returned Soulis, "did you think
I would so rashly throw away what I have been at such pains to gain?
Call your wife; she knows how to teach these minions submission to my
will."

The man obeyed; and while his companion, by the command of Soulis,
bound a fillet round the bleeding forehead of Helen, cut by the flints,
the chief brought two chains, and fastening them to her wrists and
ankles, exclaimed, with brutal triumph, while he locked them on:
"There, my haughty damsel, flatter not thyself that the arms of Soulis
shall be thine only fetters."

Macgregor's wife entered, and promised to obey all her lord's
injunctions. When she was left alone with the breathless body of
Helen, water, and a few cordial drops, which she poured into the
unhappy lady's mouth, soon recalled her wretched senses. On opening
her eyes, the sight of one of her own sex inspired her with some hope;
but attempting to stretch out her hands in supplication, she was
horror-struck at finding them fastened, and at the clink of the chains
which bound her. "Why am I thus?" demanded she of the woman; but
suddenly recollecting having attempted to pierce Soulis with his own
dagger, and now supposing she had slain him, she added, "Is Lord Soulis
killed?"

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.