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

my station, for any gratification, till he gives me leave? No, my son! Be you my representative to your mother; and while my example teaches you, above all earthly considerations, to obey your honor, those tender embraces will show her what I sacrifice to duty."

Edwin no longer urged his father, and leaving his apartment, flew to the gate of the inner ballium. It was open; and Murray already stood on the platform before the keep, receiving the keys to the garrison.

"Blessed sight!" cried the earl, to his nephew. "When I put the banner of Mar into your unpracticed hand, little could I expect that, in the course of four months, I should see my brave Andrew receive the keys of proud Stirling from its commander!"

Murray smiled, while his plumed head bowed gratefully to his uncle, and turning to the lieutenant, "Now," said he, "lead me to the Ladies Mar and Ruthven that I may assure them they are free."

The gates of the keep were now unclosed, and the lieutenant conducted his victors along a gloomy passage, to a low door, studded with knobs of iron. As he drew the bolt, he whispered to Lord Mar, "These severities are the hard policy of Governor Cressingham."

He pushed the door slowly open, and discovered a small, miserable cell—its walls, of rugged stone, having no other covering than the incrustations which time, and many a dripping winter, had strewn over their vaulted service. On the ground, on a pallet of straw, lay a female figure in a profound sleep. But the light which the lieutenant held, streaming full upon the uncurtained slumberer, she started, and, with a shriek of terror at the sight of so many armed men, discovered the pallid features of the Countess of Mar. With an anguish which hardly the freedom he was going to bestow could ameliorate, the earl rushed forward, and, throwing himself beside her, caught her in his arms.

"Are we, then, to die?" cried she, in a voice of horror. "Has Wallace abandoned us? Are we to perish? Heartless-heartless man!"

Overcome by his emotions, the earl could only strain her to his breast in speechless agitation. Edwin saw a picture of his mother's sufferings, in the present distraction of the countess; and he felt his powers of utterance locked up; but Lord Andrew, whose ever-light heart was gay the moment he was no longer unhappy, jocosely answered, "My fair aunt, there are many hearts to die by your eyes before that day! and, meanwhile, I come from Sir William Wallace—to set you free!"

The name of Wallace, and the intimation that he had sent to set her free, drove every former thought of death and misery from her mind; again the ambrosial gales of love seemed to breathe around her—she saw not her prison walls; she felt herself again in his presence; and in a blissful trance, rather endured than participated in the warm congratulations of her husband on their mutual safety.

Edwin and Murray turned to follow the lieutenant, who, preceding them, stopped at the end of the gallery. "Here," said he, "is Lady Ruthven's habitation; and—alas! not better than the countess'." While he spoke, he threw open the door, and discovered its sad inmate also asleep. But when the glad voice of her son pierced her ear—when his fond embraces clung to her bosom, her surprise and emotions were almost insupportable. Hardly crediting her senses, that he whom she had believed was safe in the cloisters of St. Colomba, could be within the dangerous walls of Stirling; that it was his mailed breast that pressed against her bosom; that it was his voice she heard exclaiming, "Mother, we come to give you freedom!" all appeared to her like a dream of madness.

She listened, she felt him, she found her cheek wet with his rapturous tears. "Am I in my right mind?" cried she, looking at him with a fearful, yet overjoyed countenance; "am I not mad? Oh! tell me," cried she, turning to Murray, and the lieutenant, "is this my son that I see, or has terror turned my brain?"

"It is indeed your son, your Edwin, my very self," returned he, alarmed at the expression of her voice and countenance. Murray gently advanced, and kneeling down by her, respectfully took her hand. "He speaks truth, my dear madam. It is your son Edwin. He left his convent, to be a volunteer with Sir William Wallace. He has covered himself with honor on the walls of Dumbarton; and here also a sharer in his leader's victories, he is come to set you free."

At this explanation, which, being given in the sober language of reason, Lady Ruthven believed, she gave way to the full happiness of her soul, and falling on the neck of her son, embraced him with a flood of tears: "And thy father, Edwin, where is he? Did not the noble Wallace rescue him from Ayr?"

"He did, and he is here." Edwin then repeated to his mother the affectionate message of his father, and the particulars of his release. Perceiving how happily they were engaged, Murray, now with a flutter in his own bosom, rose from his knees, and requested the lieutenant to conduct him to Lady Helen Mar.

His guide led the way by a winding staircase into a stone gallery, where letting Lord Andrew into a spacious apartment, divided in the midst by a vast screen of carved cedar-wood, he pointed to a curtained entrance. "In that chamber," said he, "lodges the Lady Helen."

"Ah, my poor cousin," exclaimed Murray; "though she seems not to have tasted the hardships of her parents, she has shared their misery, I do not doubt." While he spoke, the lieutenant bowed in silence, and Murray entered alone. The chamber was magnificent, and illumined by a lamp which hung from the ceiling. He cautiously approached the bed, fearing too hastily to disturb her, and gently pulling aside the curtains, beheld vacancy. An exclamation of alarm had almost escaped him, when observing a half-open door at the other side of the apartment, he drew toward it, and there beheld his cousin, with her back to him, kneeling before a crucifix. She spoke not, but the fervor of her action manifested how earnestly she prayed. He moved behind her, but she heard him not; her whole soul was absorbed in the success of her petition; and at last raising her clasped hands in a paroxysm of emotion, she exclaimed,-"If that trumpet sounded the victory of the Scots, then, Power of Goodness! receive thy servant's thanks. But if De Warenne have conquered, where De Valence has failed; if all whom I love be lost to me here, take me then to thyself, and let my freed spirit fly to their embraces in heaven!"

"Ay, and on earth too, thou blessed angel!" cried Murray, throwing himself toward her. She started from her knees, and with such a cry as the widow of Sarepta uttered when she embraced her son from the dead, Helen threw herself on the bosom of her cousin, and closed her eyes in a blissful swoon—for even while every outward sense seemed fled, the impression of joy played about her heart; and the animated throbbings of Murray's breast, while he pressed her in his arms, at last aroused her to recollection. Her glistening and uplifted eyes told all the happiness, all the gratitude of her soul.

"My father? All are safe?" demanded she.

"All, my best beloved!" answered Murray, forgetting in his powerful emotions of his heart, that what he felt, and what he uttered, were beyond even a cousin's limits: "My uncle, the countess, Lord and Lady Ruthven—all are safe."

"And Sir William Wallace?" cried she; "you do not mention him. I hope no ill-"

"He is conqueror here!" interrupted Murray. "He has subdued every obstacle between Berwick and Stirling; and he has sent me hither to set you and the rest of the dear prisoners free."

Helen's heart throbbed with a new tumult as he spoke. She longed to ask whether the unknown knight from whom she had parted in the hermit's cell, had ever joined Sir William Wallace. She yearned to know that he yet lived. At the thought of the probability of his having fallen in some of these desperate conflicts, her soul seemed to gasp for existence; and dropping her head on her cousin's shoulder, "Tell me, Andrew," said she, and there she paused, with an emotion for which she could not account to herself.

"Of what would my sweet cousin inquire?" asked Murray, partaking her agitation.

"Nothing particular," said she, covered with blushes; "but did you fight alone in these battles? Did no other knight but Sir William Wallace?"

"Many, dearest Helen," returned Murray, enraptured at a solicitude which he appropriated to himself. "Many knights joined our arms. All fought in a manner worthy of their leader, and thanks to Heaven, none have fallen."

"Thanks, indeed," cried Helen; and with a hope she dared hardly whisper to herself, of seeing the unknown knight in the gallant train of the conqueror, she falteringly said, "Now, Andrew, lead me to my father."

Murray would perhaps have required a second bidding, had not Lord Mar, impatient to see his daughter, appeared with the countess at the door of the apartment. Hastening toward them, she fell on the bosom of her father; and while she bathed his face and hands with her glad tears, he, too, wept, and mingled blessings with his caresses. No coldness here met his paternal heart: no distracting confusions tore her from his arms; no averted looks, by turns, alarmed and chilled the bosom of tenderness. All was innocence and duty in Helen's breast; and every ingenuous action showed its affection and its joy. The estranged heart of Lady Mar had closed against him; and though he suspected not its wanderings, he felt the unutterable difference between the warm transports of his daughter and the frigid gratulations forced from the lips of his wife.

Lady Mar gazed with a weird frown on the lovely form of Helen, as she wound her exquisitely turned arms round the earl in filial tenderness. Her bosom, heaving in the snowy whiteness of virgin purity; her face, radiant with the softest blooms of youth; all seemed to frame an object which malignant fiends had conjured up to blast her stepdame's hope. "Wallace will behold these charms!" cried her distracted spirit to herself, "and then, where am I?"

While her thoughts thus followed each other, she unconsciously darted looks on Helen, which, if an evil eye had any bewitching power, would have withered all her beauties. At one of these portentous moments, the glad eyes of Helen met her glance. She started with horror. It made her remember how she had been betrayed, and all that she had suffered from Soulis. But she could not forget that she had also been rescued; and with that blessed recollection, the image of her preserver rose before her. At this gentle idea, her alarmed countenance took a softer expression; and, tenderly sighing, she turned to her father's question of "How she came to be with Lady Ruthven, when he had been taught by Lord Andrew to believe her safe at St. Fillan's?"

"Yes," cried Murray, throwing herself on a seat beside her, "I found in your letter to Sir William Wallace, that you had been betrayed from your asylum by some traitor Scot; and but for the fullness of my joy at our present meeting, I should have inquired the name of the villian!"

Lady Mar felt a deadly sickness at her heart, on hearing that Sir William Wallace was already so far acquainted with her daughter as to have received a letter from her; and in amazed despair, she prepared to listen to what she expected would bring a death-stroke to her hopes. They had met—but how?—where? They wrote to each other. Then, far indeed had proceeded that communication of hearts, which was now the aim of her life—and she was undone! Helen glanced at the face of Lady mar, and observing its changes, regarded them as corroborations of her having been the betrayer. "If conscience disturbs you thus," thought Helen, "let it rend your heart, and perhaps remorse may follow!"

As the tide of success seemed so full for the patriot Scots, Helen no longer feared that her cousin would rashly seek a precarious vengeance on the traitor Soulis, when he might probably soon have an opportunity of making it