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

sin; for it is more pain to witness and to occasion death, than for ourselves to die. It is also a lesson which God teaches his sons; and in the moment that he shows us death he convinces us of immortality. Look upon that face, Edwin!" continued he, turning his eyes on the breathless clay. His youthful auditor, awestruck, and his tears checked by the solemnity of this address, looked as he directed him. "Doth not that inanimate mold of earth testify that nothing less than an immortal spirit could have lighted up its marble substance with the life and god-like actions we have seen it perform?" Edwin shuddered; and Wallace, letting the shroud fall over the face, added: "Never more will I look at it, for it no longer wears the characters of my friend—they are pictured on my soul; and himself, my Edwin, still effulgent in beauty and glowing with imperishable life, looks down on us from heaven!" He rose as he spoke, and opening the door, the monks re-entered, and placing themselves at the head of the bier, chanted the vesper requiem. When it was ended, Wallace kissed the crucifix they laid on his friend's breast, and left the cell. Chapter LV.

Church of Falkirk.

No eye closed that night in the monastery of Falkirk. The Earl of Mar awaked about the twelfth hour, and sent to call Lord Ruthven, Sir William Wallace, and his nephews, to attend him. As they approached, the priests, who had just anointed his dying head with the sacred unction, drew back. The countess and Lady Ruthven supported his pillow. He smiled as he heard the advancing steps of those so dear to him. "I send for you," said he, "to give you the blessing of a true Scot and a Christian! May all who are here in thy blessed presence, Redeemer of mankind!" cried he, looking up with a supernatural brightness in his eye, "die as I do, rather than survive to see Scotland enslaved! But oh! may they rather long live under that liberty, perpetuated, which Wallace has again given to his country; peaceful will then be their last moments on earth, and full of joy their entrance into heaven!" His eyes closed as the concluding word died upon his tongue. Lady Ruthven looked intently on him; she bent her face to his, but he breathed no more; and, with a feeble cry, she fell back in a swoon.

The soul of the veteran earl was indeed fled. The countess was taken, shrieking, out of the apartment; but Wallace, Edwin, and Murray remained, kneeling over the body, and when they concluded, the priests throwing over it a cloud of incense, the mourners withdrew, and separated to their chambers.

By daybreak, Wallace met Murray by appointment in the cloisters. The remains of his beloved father had been brought from Dunipacis to the convent, and Murray now prepare to take them to Bothwell Castle, there to be interred in the cemetery of his ancestors. Wallace, who had approved his design, entered with him into the solitary court-yard, where the war-carriage stood which was to convey the deceased earl to Clydesdale. Four soldiers of his clan brought the corpse of their Lord from a cell, and laid him on his martial bier. His bed was the sweet heather of Falkirk, spread by the hands of his son. As Wallace laid the venerable chief's sword and helmet on his bier, he covered the whole with the flag he had torn from the standard of England in the last victory. "None other shroud is worthy of thy virtues!" cried he. "Dying for Scotland, thus let the memorial of her glory be the witness of thine!"

"Oh! my friend," answered Murray, looking on his chief with a smile, which beamed the fairer shining through sorrow, "thy gracious spirit can divest even death of its gloom. My father yet lives in his fame!"

"And in a better existence, too!" gently replied Wallace; "else the earth's fame were an empty shroud—it could not comfort."

The solemn procession, with Murray at its head, departed toward the valleys of Clydesdale, and Wallace returned to his chamber. Two hours before noon he was summoned by the tolling of the chapel bell. The Earl of Bute and his dearer friend were to be laid in their last bed. With a spirit that did not murmur, he saw the earth closed over both graves; but at Graham's he lingered; and when the funeral stone shut even the sod that covered him from his eyes, with his sword's point he drew on the surface these memorable words:

    "Mente manuque potens, et Walli fidus Achates.
     Conditus hic Gramus, bello interfectus ab Anglis."**

**These lines may be translated thus:

            Here lies
    The powerful in mind and body, the friend of Wallace;
  Graham, faithful unto death! slain in battle by the English.

While he yet leaned on the stone, which gently gave way to the registering pen of friendship, to be more deeply engraved afterward, a monk approached him, attended by a shepherd boy. At the sound of steps, Wallace looked up.

"This young man," said the father, "brings dispatches to the lord regent."

Wallace rose, and the youth presented his packet. Withdrawing to a little distance, he broke the seal, and read to this effect:

"My father and myself are in the Castle of Durham, and both under an arrest. We are to remain so till our arrival in London renders its sovereign, in his own opinion, more secure: when there, you shall hear from me again. Meanwhile, be on your guard: the gold of Edward has found its way into your councils. Beware of them who, with patriotism in their mouths, are purchased to betray you and their country into the hands of the enemy! Truest, noblest, best of Scots, farewell!—I must not write more explicitly.

"P.S.—The messenger who takes this is a simple border shepherd: he knows not whence comes the packet, hence he cannot bring an answer."

Wallace closed the letter; and putting gold into the shepherd's hand, left the chapel. In passing through the cloisters he met Ruthven, just returned from Stirling, whither he had gone to inform the chiefs of the council of the regent's arrival. "When I summoned them to the council-hall," continued Lord Ruthven, "and told them you had not only defeated Edward on the Carron, but in so doing had gained a double victory, over a foreign usurper and domestic traitors!-instead of the usual open-hearted gratulations on such a communication, a low whisper murmured through the hall; and the young Badenoch, unworthy of his patriotic father, rising from his seat, gave utterance to so many invectives against you, our country's soul, and arm! I should deem it treason even to repeat them. Suffice it to say, that out of five hundred chiefs and chieftains who were present, not one of those parasites who used to fawn on you a week ago, and make the love of honest men seem doubtful, now breathes one word for Sir William Wallace. But this ingratitude, vile as it is, I bore with patience till Badenoch, growing in insolency, declared that late last night dispatches had arrived from the King of France to the regent, and that he (in right of his birth, assuming to himself that dignity) had put their bearer, Sir Alexander Ramsay, under confinement, for having persisted to dispute his authority to withhold them from you."

Wallace, who had listened in silence, drew a deep sigh as Ruthven concluded; and, in that profound breath, exclaimed—"God must be our fortress still; must save Scotland from this gangrene in her heart! Ramsay shall be released; but I must first meet these violent men. And it must be alone, my lord," continued he; "you, and our coadjutors, may wait my return at the city gates; but the sword of Edward, if need be, shall defend me against his gold." As he spoke, he laid his hand on the jeweled weapon which hung at his side, and which he had wrested from that monarch in the last conflict.

Aware that this treason, aimed at him, would strike his country, unless timely warded off, he took his resolution; and requesting Ruthven not to communicate to any one what had passed, he mounted his horse, and struck into the road to Stirling. He took the plume from his crest, and closing his visor, enveloped himself in his plaid, that the people might not know him as he went along. But casting away his cloak, and unclasping his helmet at the door of the keep, he entered the council-hall, openly and abruptly. By an instantaneous impulse of respect, which even the base pay to virtue, almost every man arose at his appearance. He bowed to the assembly, and walked, with a composed yet severe air, up to his station at the head of the room. Young Badenoch stood there; and as Wallace approached he fiercely grasped his sword. "Proud upstart!" cried he, "betrayer of my father! set a foot further toward this chair, and the chastisement of every arm in this council shall fall on you for your presumption!"

"It is not in the arms of thousands to put me from my right," replied Wallace, calmly putting forth his hand and drawing the regent's chair toward him.

"Will ye bear this?" cried Badenoch, stamping with his foot, and plucking forth his sword; "is the man to exist who thus braves the assembled lords of Scotland?" While speaking, he made a desperate lunge at the regent's breast; Wallace caught the blade in his hand, and wrenching it from his intemperate adversary, broke it into shivers, and cast the pieces at his feet; then, turning resolutely toward the chiefs, who stood appalled, and looking on each other, he said, "I, your duly elected regent, left you only a few days ago, to repel the enemy whom the treason of Lord March would have introduced into these very walls. Many brave chiefs followed me to that field! and more, whom I see now, loaded me as I passed with benedictions. Portentous was the day of Falkirk to Scotland. Then did the mighty fall, and the heads of counsel perish. But treason was the parricide! The late Lord Badenoch stood his ground like a true Scot; but Athol and Buchan deserted to Edward." While speaking, he turned toward the furious son of Badenoch, who, gnashing his teeth in impotent rage, stood listening to the inflaming whispers of Macdougal of Lorn. "Young chief," cried he, "from their treachery date the fate of your brave father, and the whole of our grievous loss of that day; but the wide destruction has been avenged! more than chief for chief have perished in the Southron ranks, and thousands of the lowlier sort now swell the banks of Carron. Edward himself fell, wounded by my arm, and was born by his flying squadrons over the wastes of Northumberland. Thus have I returned to you with my duties achieved in a manner worthy of your regent! What, then, means the arrest of my embassador? what this silence when the representative of your power is insulted to your face?

"They mean," cried Badenoch, "that my words are the utterance of their sentiments." "They mean," cried Lorn, "that the prowess of the haughty boaster, whom their intoxicated gratitude raised from the dust, shall not avail him against the indignation of a nation over which he dares to arrogate a right."

"Mean they what they will," returned Wallace, "they cannot dispossess me of the rights with which assembled Scotland invested me on the plains of Stirling. And again I demand, by what authority do you and they presume to imprison my officer, and withhold from me the papers sent by the King of France to the Regent of Scotland?"

"By the authority that we will maintain," replied Badenoch; "by the right of my royal blood, and by the sword of every brave Scot, who spurns at the name of Wallace!"

"And as a proof that we speak not more than we act," cried Lorn, making assign to the chiefs, "you are our prisoner!"

Many weapons were instantly unsheathed; and their bearers, hurrying to the side of Badenoch and Lorn, attempted to lay hands on Wallace; but he, drawing the sword of Edward, with a sweep of his valiant arm that made the glittering blade seem a brand of fire, set his back against the wall, and exclaimed:

"He that first makes a stroke at me shall find his