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

"Sir William Wallace has almost finished his business in the great hall. He has made my uncle governor of this place, and has committed nearly a thousand prisoners of rank to his care. If you be not expeditious, you will allow him to enter the gallery before you."

Hardly observing her face, from the happy emotions which dazzled his own eyes, he seized her hand, and hurried her to the gallery.

Only her aunt and step-mother were yet there. Lady Ruthven sat composedly, on a tapestried bench, awaiting the arrival of the company. But Lady Mar was near the door, listening impatiently to the voices beneath. At sight of Helen, she drew back; but she smiled exultingly when she saw that all the splendour of beauty she had so lately beheld and dreaded was flown. Her unadorned garments gave no particular attraction to the simple lines of her form; the effulgence of her complexion was gone; her cheek was pale, and the tremulous motion of her step deprived her of the elastic grace which was usually the charm of her nymph-like figure.

Triumph now sat in the eyes of the countess; and, with an air of authority, she waved Helen to take a seat beside Lady Ruthven. But Helen, fearful of what might be her emotion when the train should enter, had just placed herself behind her aunt, when the steps of many a mailed foot sounded upon the oaken floor of the outward gallery. The next moment the great doors of the huge screen opened, and a crowd of knights in armor flashed upon her eyes. A strange dimness overspread her faculties, and nothing appeared to her but an indistinct throng approaching. She would have given worlds to have been removed from the spot, but was unable to stir; and on recovering her senses, she beheld Lady Mar (who, exclaiming, "Ever my preserver!" had hastened forward), now leaning on the bosom of one of the chiefs: his head was bent as if answering her in a low voice. By the golden locks, which hung down upon the jeweled tresses of the countess, and obscured his face, she judged it must indeed be the deliverer of her father, the knight of her dream. But where was he, who had delivered herself from a worse fate than death? Where was the dweller of her daily thoughts, the bright apparition of her unslumbering pillow?

Helen's sight, now clearing to as keen a vision as before it had been dulled and indistinct, with a timid and anxious gaze glanced from face to face of the chieftains around; but all were strange. Then withdrawing her eyes with a sad conviction that their search was indeed in vain; in the very moment of that despair, they were arrested by a glimpse of the features of Wallace. He had raised his head; he shook back his clustering hair, and her secret was revealed. In that god-like countenance she recognized the object of her devoted wishes! and with a gasp of overwhelming surprise, she must have fallen from her seat, had not Lady Ruthven, hearing a sound like the sigh of death, turned round, and caught her in her arms. The cry of her aunt drew every eye to the spot. Wallace immediately relinquished the countess to her husband, and moved toward the beautiful and senseless form that lay on the bosom of Lady Ruthven. The earl and his agitated wife followed.

"What ails my Helen?" asked the affectionate father.

"I know not," replied his sister; "she sat behind me, and I knew nothing of her disorder till she fell as you see."

Murray instantly supposed that she had discovered the unknown knight; and looking from countenance to countenance, amongst the train, to try if he could discern the envied cause of such emotions, he read in no face an answering feeling with that of Helen's; and turning away from his unavailing scrutiny, on hearing her draw a deep sigh, his eyes fixed themselves on her, as if they would have read her soul. Wallace, who, in the pale form before him, saw, not only the woman whom he had preserved with a brother's care, but the compassionate saint, who had given a hallowed grave to the remains of an angel, pure as herself, now hung over her with anxiety so eloquent in every feature that the countess would willingly at that moment have stabbed her in every vein.

Lady Ruthven had sprinkled her niece with water; and as she began to revive, Wallace motioned to his chieftains to withdraw; her eyes opened slowly; but recollection returning with every reawakened sense, she dimly perceived a press of people around her, and fearful of again encountering that face, which declared the Bruce of her secret meditations and the Wallace of her declared veneration were one, she buried her blushes in the bosom of her father. In that short point of time, images of past, present, and to come, rushed before her; and without confessing to herself why she thought it necessary to make the vow, her soul seemed to swear on the sacred altar of a parent's heart, never more to think on either idea. Separate, it was sweet to muse on her own deliverer; it was delightful to dwell on the virtues of her father's preserver. But when she saw both characters blended in one, her feelings seemed sacrilege; and she wished even to bury her gratitude, where no eye but Heaven's could see its depth and fervor.

Trembling at what might be the consequences of this scene, Lady mar determined to hint to Wallace that Helen loved some unknown knight; and bending to her daughter, said in a low voice, yet loud enough for him to hear, "Retire, my child; you will be better in your own room, whether pleasure or disappointment about the person you wished to discover in Sir William's train have occasioned these emotions."

Helen recovered herself at this indelicate remark; and raising her head with that modest dignity which only belongs to the purest mind, gently but firmly said, "I obey you, madam; and he whom I have seen will be too generous, not to pardon the effects of so unexpected a weight of gratitude." As she spoke, her turning eye met the fixed gaze of Wallace. His countenance became agitated, and dropping on his knee beside her; "Gracious lady;" cried he, "mine is the right of gratitude; but it is dear land precious to me; a debt that my life will not be able to repay. I was ignorant of all your goodness, when we parted in the hermit's cave. But the spirit of an angel like yourself, Lady Helen, will whisper to you all her widowed husband's thanks." He pressed her hand fervently between his, and rising, left the room.

Helen looked on with an immovable eye, in which the heroic vow of her soul spoke in every beam; but as he arose, even then she felt its frailty, for her spirit seemed leaving her; and as he disappeared from the door, her world seemed shut from her eyes. Not to think of him was impossible; how to think of him was in her own power. Her heart felt as if suddenly made a desert. But heroism was there. She had looked upon the Heaven-dedicated Wallace; on the widowed mourner of Marion; the saint and the hero; the being of another world! and as such she would regard him, till in the realms of purity she might acknowledge the brother of her soul!

A sacred inspiration seemed to illuminate her features, and to brace with the vigor of immortality those limbs which before had sunk under her. She forgot she was still of earth, while a holy love, like that of the dove in Paradise, sat brooding on her heart.

Lady Mar gazed on her without understanding the ethereal meaning of those looks. Judging from her own impassioned feelings, she could only resolve the resplendent beauty which shone from the now animated face and form of Helen into the rapture of finding herself beloved. Had she not heard Wallace declare himself to be the unknown knight who had rescued Helen? She had heard him devote his life to her, and was not his heart included in that dedication? She had then heard that love vowed to another, which she would have sacrificed her soul to win!

Murray too was confounded; but his reflections were far different from those of Lady Mar. He saw his newly self-discerned passion smothered in its first breath. At the moment in which he found that he loved his cousin above all of women's mold, an unappealable voice in his bosom made him crush every fond desire. That heart which, with the chaste transports of a sister, had throbbed so entrancingly against his, was then another's! was become the captive of Wallace's virtues; of the only man who, his judgment would have said, deserves Helen Mar! But when he clasped her glowing beauties in his arms only the night before, his enraptured soul then believed that the tender smile he saw on her lips was meant as the sweet earnest of the happier moment, when he might hold her there forever! That dream was now past. "Well! be it so!" said he to himself, "if this too daring passion must be clipped on the wing, I have at least the consolation that it soared like the bird of Jove! But, loveliest of created beings," thought he, looking on Helen with an expression which, had she met it, would have told her all that was passing in his soul, "if I am not to be thy love, I will be thy friend—and live for thee and Wallace!"

Believing that she had read her sentence in what she thought the triumphant glances of a happy passion, Lady Mar turned from her daughter-in-law with such a hatred kindling in her heart, she durst not trust her eyes to the inspection of the bystanders; but her tongue could not be restrained beyond the moment in which the object of her jealousy left the room. As the door closed upon Helen, who retired leaning on the arms of her aunt and Edwin, the countess turned to her lord; his eyes were looking with doting fondness toward the point where she withdrew. This sight augmented the angry tumults in the breast of his wife; and with a bitter smile she said, "So, my lord, you find the icy bosom of your Helen can be thawed!"

"How do you mean, Joanna?" returned the earl, doubting her words and looks; "you surely cannot blame our daughter for being sensible of gratitude."

"I blame all young women," replied she, "who give themselves airs of unnatural coldness; and then, when the proof comes, behave in a manner so extraordinary, so indelicately, I must say."

"My Lady Mar!" ejaculated the earl, with an amazed look, "what am I to think of you from this? How has my daughter behaved indelicately? She did not lay her head on Sir William Wallace's bosom and weep there till he replaced her on her natural pillow, mine. Have a care, madam, that I do not see more in this spleen than would be honorable to you for me to discover."

Fearing nothing so much as that her husband should really suspect the passion which possessed her, and so remove her from the side of Wallace, she presently recalled her former duplicity, and with a surprised and uncomprehending air replied, "I do not understand what you mean, Donald." Then turning to Lord Ruthven, who stood uneasily viewing this scene, "How," cried she, "can my lord discover spleen in my maternal anxiety respecting the daughter of the husband I love and honor above all the earth? But men do not properly estimate female reserve. Any woman would say with me, that to faint at the sight of Sir William Wallace was declaring an emotion not to be revealed before so large a company! a something from which men might not draw the most agreeable inferences."

"It only declared surprise, madam," cried Murray, "the surprise of a modest and ingenuous mind that did not expect to recognize its mountain friend in the person of the protector of Scotland."

Lady mar put up her lip, and turning to the still silent Lord Ruthven, again addressed him. "Stepmothers, my lord," said she, "have hard duties to perform; and when we think we fulfill them best, our suspicious husband comes with a magician's wand, and turns all our good to evil."

"Array your