The Days of Bruce: A Story from Scottish History. Vol. 1 by Grace Aguilar (books for men to read .txt) 📕

known, but on what passed in that interview even tradition is silent, it can only be imagined by the sequel; they appeared, however, less reserved than at first. The baron treated him with the same distinction as his fellow-nobles, and the stranger's manner towards him was even more respectful than the mere difference of age appeared to demand. Important business with the Lord of Brus was alleged as the cause of his accepting that nobleman's invitation to the tower of Kildrummie, in preference to others earlier given and more eagerly enforced. They departed together, the knight accompanied but by two of his followers, and the baron leaving the greater[Pg 190] number of his in attendance on his wife and child, who, for some frivolous reason, he left with the court. It was a strange thing for him to do, men said, as he had never before been known to lose sight of his boy even for a day. For some days all seemed peace and hospitality within the tower. The stranger was too noble himself, and too kindly disposed towards all his fellow-creatures, to suspect aught of treachery, or he might have remarked the retainers of the baron were changed; that ruder forms and darker visages than at first were gathering around him. How the baron might have intended to make use of them—almost all robbers and murderers by trade—cannot be known, though it may be suspected. In this room the last interview between them took place, and here, on this silent witness of the deed, the hand of the father was bathed in the blood of the son!"

"God in heaven!" burst from Nigel's parched lips, as he sprang up. "The son—how could that be? how known?"

"Fearfully, most fearfully!" shudderingly answered the old man; "through the dying ravings of the maniac Lord of Brus himself. Had not heaven, in its all-seeing justice, thus revealed it, the crime would ever have remained concealed. His bandit hirelings were at hand to remove and bury, many fathoms deep in moat and earth, all traces of the deed. One of the unfortunate knight's followers was supposed to have shared the fate of his master, and to the other, who escaped almost miraculously, you owe the preservation of your royal line.

"But there was one witness of the deed neither time nor the most cunning art could efface. The blood lay in a pool on the oaken floor, and the voice of tradition whispers that day after day it was supernaturally renewed; that vain were the efforts to absorb it, it ever seemed moist and red; and that to remove the plank and re-floor the apartment was attempted again and again in vain. However this may be, it is evident that erasing it was attended with extreme difficulty; that the blood had penetrated well-nigh through the immense thickness of the wood."

Nigel stooped down over the crumbling fragment; years, aye, centuries had rolled away, yet there it still stood, arrested it seemed even in its decay, not permitted to crumble into dust, but to remain an everlasting monument of crime and its retribution. After a brief pause Nigel resumed his seat, and push[Pg 191]ing the hair from his brow, which was damp with some untold emotion, signed to the old man to proceed.

"That the stranger warrior returned not to Malcolm's court, and had failed in his promises to various friends, was a matter of disappointment, and for a time, of conjecture to the king and his court. That his followers, in obedience, it was said, to their master's signet, set off instantly to join him either in England or Normandy, for both of which places they had received directions, satisfied the greater number. If others suspected foul play, it was speedily hushed up; for the baron was too powerful, too closely related to the throne, and justice then too weak in Scotland to permit accusation or hope for conviction. Time passed, and the only change observable in the baron was, that he became more gloomy, more abstracted, wrapt up, as it were, in one dark remembrance, one all-engrossing thought. Towards his wife he was changed—harsh, cold, bitterly sarcastic; as if her caresses had turned to gall. Her gentle spirit sunk beneath the withering blight, and he was heard to laugh, the mocking laugh of a fiend, as he followed her to the grave; her child, indeed, he still idolized, but it was a fearful affection, and a just heaven permitted not its continuance. The child, to whom many had looked as likely to ascend the Scottish throne, from the failure of all direct heirs, the beautiful and innocent child of a most guilty father, faded like a lovely flower before him, so softly, so gradually, that there came no suspicion of death till the cold hand was on his heart, and he lay lifeless before him who had plunged his soul in deadliest crime through that child to aggrandize himself. Then was it that remorse, torturing before, took the form of partial madness, and there was not one who had power to restrain, or guide, or soothe.

"Then it was the fearful tale was told, freezing the blood, not so much with the wild madness of the tone, but that the words were too collected, too stamped with truth, to admit of aught like doubt. The couch of the baron was, at his own command, placed here, where we now stand, covering the spot where his first-born fell, and that portrait, obtained from Normandy, hung where it now is, ever in his sight. The dark tale which those wild ravings revealed was simply this:

"He had married, as was suspected, during his wanderings, but soon tired of the yoke, more particularly as his wife possessed a spirit proud and haughty as his own, and all efforts to[Pg 192] mould her to his will were useless, he plunged anew into his reckless career. He had never loved his wife, marrying her simply because it suited his convenience, and brought him increase of wealth and station; and her ill-disguised abhorrence of many of his actions, her beautiful adherence to virtue, however tempted, occasioned all former feelings to concentrate in hatred the most deadly. More than one attempt to rid himself of her by poison she had discovered and frustrated, and at last removed herself and her child, under a feigned name, to Normandy, and ably eluded all pursuit and inquiry.

"The baron's search continued some time, in the hope of silencing her forever, as he feared she might prove a dangerous enemy, but failing in his wishes, he travelled some time over different countries, returned at length to Scotland, and acted as we have seen. The young knight had been informed of his birthright by his mother, at her death, which took place two years before he made his appearance in Scotland; that she had concealed from him the fearful character of his father, being unable so completely to divest herself of all feeling towards the father of her child, as to make him an object of aversion to his son. She had long told him his real name, and urged him to demand from his father an acknowledgment of his being heir to the proud barony of the Bruce. His likeness to herself was so strong, that she knew it must carry conviction to his father; but to make his identity still more certain, she furnished him with certain jewels and papers, none but herself could produce. She had done this in the presence of two faithful witnesses, the father and brother of her son's betrothed bride, high lords of Normandy, the former of which made it a condition annexed to his consent to the marriage, that as soon as possible afterwards he should urge and claim his rights. Sir Walter, of course, willingly complied; they were married by the name of Brus, and their child so baptized. A war, which retained Sir Walter in arms with his sovereign, prevented his seeking Scotland till his boy was a year old, and then for his sake, far more than for his own, the young father determined on asserting his birthright, his child should not be nameless, as he had been; but to spare his unknown parent all public mortification, he joined the martial games without any cognizance or bearing on his shield.

"Terrible were the ravings in which the baron alluded to the interview he had had with his murdered child; the angelic[Pg 193] mildness and generosity of the youthful warrior; that, amid all his firmness never to depart from his claim—as it was not alone himself but his child he would irreparably injure—he never wavered in his respectful deference to his parent. He quitted the court in the belief that the baron sought Kildrummie to collect the necessary papers for substantiating his claim; but ere he died, it appeared his eyes were opened. The fierce passions of the baron had been too long restrained in the last interview; they burst even his politic control, and he had flung the papers received from, the hand of his too-confiding son on the blazing hearth, and with dreadful oaths swore that if he would not instantly retract his claim, and bind himself by the most sacred promise never to breathe the foul tale again, death should be its silent keeper. He would not bring his own head low, and avow that he had dishonored a scion of the blood-royal.

"Appalled far more at the dark, fiendish passions he beheld than the threat held out to himself, Sir Walter stood silent a while, and then mildly demanded to be heard; that if so much public mortification to his parent would attend the pursuance of his claims at the present time, he would consent to forego them, on condition of his father's solemnly promising on his deathbed to reveal the truth, and do him tardy justice then, but forego them altogether he would not, were his life the forfeit. The calm firmness of his tone, it is supposed, lashed his father into greater madness, and thus the dark deed was done.

"That the baron several times endeavored to possess himself of the infant child of Sir Walter, also came to light in his dying moments; that he had determined to exterminate root and branch, fearful he should still possess some clue to his birth; he had frantically avowed, but in his last hour, he would have given all his amassed treasure, his greatness, his power, but for one little moment of assurance that his grandson lived. He left him all his possessions, his lordship, his name, but as there were none came forth to claim, they of necessity passed to the crown."

"But the child, the son of Sir Walter—if from him our line descends, he must have lived to manhood—why did not he demand his rights?"

"He lived, aye, and had a goodly progeny; but the fearful[Pg 194] tale of his father's fate related to him again and again by the faithful Edric, who had fled from his master's murdered corse to watch over the safety of that master's child, and warn all who had the charge of him of the fiend in human shape who would probably seek the boy's life as he had his father's, caused him to shun the idea of his Scottish possessions with a loathing horror which he could not conquer; they were associated with the loss of both his parents, for his father's murder killed his devoted mother. He was contented to feel himself Norman in possessions as well as in name. He received lands and honors from the Dukes of Normandy, and at the advanced age of seventy and five, accompanied Duke William to England. The third generation from him obtained anew Scottish possessions, and gradually Kildrummie and its feudal tenures returned to its original lords; but the tower had been altered and enlarged, and except the tradition of these chambers, the fearful fate of the second of the line has faded from the minds of his descendants, unless casually or supernaturally recalled."

"Ha! supernaturally, sayest thou?" interrupted Nigel, in a tone so peculiar it almost startled his companion. "Are there those who assert they have seen his semblance—good, gifted, beautiful as thou hast described him? why not at once deem him the guardian spirit of our house?"

"And there are those who deem him so, young lord," answered the seer. "It is said that until the Lords of Bruce again obtained possession of these lands, in the visions of the night the form of the murdered warrior, clad as in yon portrait, save with the addition of a scarf across his breast bearing the crest and cognizance of the Bruce, appeared once in his lifetime to each lineal descendant. Such visitations are said to have ceased, and he is now only seen by those destined like himself to an early and bloody death, cut off in