The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter (good romance books to read TXT) 📕

soon increased by a redoubled noise from the house; oaths and horrid bursts of merriment seemed to have turned that once abode of honor and of loveliness into the clamorous haunts of ribaldry and rapine. In the midst of the uproar, he was surprised by seeing flames issue from the windows. Soldiers poured from the doors with shouts of triumph; some carried off the booty, and others watched by the fire till the interior of the building was consumed and the rest sunk a heap of smoking ruins.

"The work completed, these horrid ministers of devastation left the vale to its own solitude. Dugald, after waiting a long time to ascertain they were quite gone, crawled from the bushes, and, ascending the cliffs, he was speeding to the mountains, when, encountering our armed shepherds, they mistook him for an English soldier, and seized him. The chief of ruined Ellerslie recognized his servant; and, with redoubled indignation, his followers heard the history of the moldering ashes before them."

"Brave, persecuted Wallace!" exclaimed the earl; "how dearly was my life purchased! But proceed, Halbert; tell me that he returned safe from Lanark."

Halbert now recounted the dreadful scenes which took place in that town; and that when the governor fell, Wallace made a vow never to mingle with the world again till Scotland should be free.

"Alas!" cried the earl, "what miracle is to effect that? Surely he will not bury those noble qualities, that prime of manhood, within the gloom of a cloister!"

"No, my lord; he has retired to the fastnesses of Cartlane Craigs."

"Why," resumed Mar, "why did he not rather fly to me? This castle is strong; and while one stone of it remains upon another, not all the hosts of England should take him hence."

"It was not your friendship he doubted," returned the old man, "love for his country compels him to reject all comfort in which she does not share. His last words to me were these: 'I have nothing now to do but to assert the liberties of Scotland, and to rid her of her enemies. Go to Lord Mar; take this lock of my hair, stained with the blood of my wife. It is all, most likely, he will ever again see 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 armeth the patriot!"

Tears dropped so fast from the young lady's eyes, she was obliged to walk to a window, to restrain a more violent burst of grief.

"O! my uncle," cried the youth, "surely the freedom of Scotland is possible. I feel in my soul, that the words of the brave Wallace are prophetic."

The earl held the lock of hair in his hands; he regarded it, lost in meditation.

"'God armeth the patriot!'" He paused again, his before pallid cheek taking a thousand animated hues; then raising the sacred present to his lips, "Yes," cried he, "thy vow shall be performed; and while Donald Mar has an arm to wield a sword, or a man to follow to the field, thou shalt command both him and them!"

"But not as you are, my lord!" cried the elder lady; "your wounds are yet unhealed; your fever is still raging! Would it not be madness to expose your safety at such a crisis?"

"I shall not take arms myself," answered he, "till I can bear them to effect; meanwhile all of my clan, and of my friends, that I can raise to guard the life of my deliverer and to promote the cause, must be summoned. This lock shall be my pennon; and what Scotsman will look on that, and shrink from his colors! Here, Helen, my child," cried he, addressing the young lady, "before to-morrow's dawn, have this hair wrought into my banner. It will be a patriot's standard; and let his own irresistible words be the motto—God armeth me."

Helen advanced with awestruck trepidation. Having been told by the earl of the generous valor of Wallace, and of the cruel death of his lady, she had conceived a gratitude and a pity deeper than language could express, for the man who had lost so much by succoring one so dear to hear. She took the lock, waving in yellow light upon her hands, and, trembling with emotion, was leaving the room, when she heard her cousin throw himself on his knees.

"I beseech you, my honored uncle," cried he, "if you have love for me, or value for my future fame, allow me to be the bearer of your banner to Sir William Wallace."

Helen stopped at the threshold to hear the reply.

"You could not, my dear nephew," returned the earl, "have asked me any favor I could grant with so much joy. To-morrow I will collect the peasantry of Bothwell, and with those, and my own followers, you shall join Wallace the same night."

Ignorant of the horrors of war, and only alive to the glory of the present cause, Helen sympathized in the ardor of her cousin, and with a thrill of sad delight hurried to her apartment, to commence her task.

Far different were the sentiments of the countess, her stepmother. As soon as Lord Mar had let this declaration escape his lips, alarmed at the effect so much agitation might have on his enfeebled constitution, and fearful of the perilous cause he ventured thus openly to espouse, she desired his nephew to take the now comforted Halbert (who was pouring forth his gratitude to the earl, for the promptitude of his orders), and see that he was attended with hospitality.

When the room was left to the earl and herself, she ventured to remonstrate with him upon the facility with which he had become a party in so treasonable a matter. "Consider, my lord," continued she, "that Scotland is now entirely in the power of the English monarch. His garrisons occupy our towns, his creatures hold every place of trust in the kingdom!"

"And is such a list of oppressions, my dear lady, to be an argument for longer bearing them? Had I, and other Scottish nobles, dared to resist this overwhelming power after the battle of our liberties, kept our own unsheathed within the bulwarks of our mountains, Scotland might now be free; I should not have been insulted by our English tyrants in the streets of Lanark; and, to save my life, William Wallace would not now be mourning his murdered wife, and without a home to shelter him!"

Lady Mar paused at this observation, but resumed, "That may be true. But the die is cast; Scotland is lost forever; and by your attempting to assist your friend in this rash essay to recover it, you will only lose yourself also, without preserving him. The project is wild and needless. What would you have? Now that the contention between the two kings is past; now that Baliol has surrendered his crown to Edward, is not Scotland at peace?"

"A bloody peace, Joanna," answered the earl; "witness these wounds. A usurper's peace is more destructive than his open hostilities; plunder and assassination are its concomitants. I have now seen and felt enough of Edward's jurisdiction. It is time I should awake, and, like Wallace, determine to die for Scotland, or avenge her."

Lady Mar wept. "Cruel Donald! is this the reward of all my love and duty? You tear yourself from me, you consign your estates to sequestration, you rob your children of their name; nay, by your infectious example, you stimulate our brother Bothwell's son to head the band that is to join this madman, Wallace!"

"Hold, Joanna!" cried the earl; "what is it I hear? You call the hero who, in saving your husband's life, reduced himself to these cruel extremities, a madman! Was he made because he prevented the Countess of Mar from being a widow? Was he made because he prevented her children from being fatherless?"

The countess, overcome by this cutting reproach, threw herself upon her husband's neck. "Alas! my lord," cried she, "all is madness to me that would plunge you into danger. Think of your own safety; of my innocent twins now in their cradle, should you fall. Think of our brother's feeling when you send his only son to join one he, perhaps, would call a rebel!"

"If Earl Bothwell considered himself a vassal of Edward's he would not now be with Lord Loch-awe. From the moment that gallant Highlander retired to Argyleshire, the King of England regarded his adherents with suspicion. Bothwell's present visit to Loch-awe, you see, is sufficient to sanction the plunder of this castle by the peaceful government you approve. You saw the opening of those proceedings! And had they come to their dreadful issue, where, my dear Joanna, would now be your home, your husband, your children? It was the arm of the brave chief of Ellerslie which saved them from destruction."

Lady Mar shuddered. "I admit the truth of what you say. But oh! is it not hard to put my all to the hazard; to see the bloody field on one side of my beloved Donald, and the mortal scaffold on the other?"

"Hush!" cried the earl, "it is justice that beckons me, and victory will receive me to her arms. Let, oh Power above!" exclaimed he, in the fervor of enthusiasm, "let the victorious field for Scotland be Donald Mar's grave, rather than doom him to live a witness of her miseries!"

"I cannot stay to hear you!" answered the countess; "I must invoke the Virgin to give me courage to be a patriot's wife; at present, your words are daggers to me."

In uttering this she hastily withdrew, and left the earl to muse on the past—to concert plans for the portentous future.

Chapter VII.

Bothwell Castle.

Meanwhile the Lady Helen had retired to her own apartments. Lord Mar's banner being brought to her from the armory, she sat down to weave into its silken texture the amber locks of the Scottish chief. Admiring their softness and beauty, while her needle flew, she pictured to herself the fine countenance they had once adorned.

The duller extremities of the hair, which a sadder liquid than that which now dropped from her eyes and rendered stiff and difficult to entwine with the warp of the silk, seemed to adhere to her fingers. Helen almost shrunk from the touch. "Unhappy lady!" she sighed to herself; "what a pang must have rent her heart, when the stroke of so cruel a death tore her from such a husband! and how must he have loved her, when for her sake he thus forswears all future joys but those which camps and victories may yield! Ah! what would I give to be my cousin Murray, to bear this pennon at his side! What would I give to reconcile so admirable a being to happiness again—to weep his griefs, or smile him into comfort! To be that man's friend, would be a higher honor than to be Edward's queen."

Her heart was thus discoursing with itself when a page opened the door for her cousin, who begged admittance. She had just fastened the flowing charge into its azure field, and while embroidering the motto, gladly assented.

"You know not, my good old man," said the gallant Murray to Halbert, as he conducted him across the galleries, "what a noble mind is contained in that lovely young creature. I was brought up with her, and to the sweet contagion of her taste do I owe that love of true glory which carries me to the side of Sir William Wallace. The virtuous only can awaken any interest in her heart; and in these degenerate days long might have been its sleep had not the history which my uncle recounted of your brave master aroused her attention, and filled her with an admiration equal to my own. I know she rejoices in my present destination. And to prevent her hearing from your own lips all you have now told me of the mild as well as heroic virtues of my intended commander—all you have said of the heroism of his wife—would be depriving her of a mournful pleasure, only to be appreciated by a heart such as hers."

The gray-haired bard of Ellerslie, who had ever received the dearest reward of his songs in the smiles of its mistress,