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

death on this Southron steel! This sword I made the puissant arm of the usurper yield to me; and this sword shall defend the Regent of Scotland against his ungrateful countrymen!"

The chieftains who pressed on him recoiled at these words, but their leaders, Badenoch and Lorn, waved them forward, with vehement exhortations.

"Desist, young men!" continued he, "provoke me not beyond my bearing. With a single blast of my bugle I could surround this building with a band of warriors, who at sight of their chief being thus assaulted, would lay this tumult in blood. Let me pass, or abide the consequence!"

"Through my breast, then," exclaimed Badenoch; "for, with my consent, you pass not here but on your bier. What is in the arm of a single man," cried he to the lords, "that ye cannot fall on him at once, and cut him down?"

"I would not hurt a son of the virtuous Badenoch," returned Wallace; "but his life be on your hands," said he, turning to the chiefs, "if one of you point a sword to impede my passage."

"And wilt thou dare it, usurper of my powers and honors?" cried
Badenoch. "Lorn, stand by your friend—all here who are true to the
Cummin and Macdougal, hem in the tyrant."

Many a traitor hand now drew forth its dagger, and the intemperate Badenoch, drunk with choler and mad ambition, snatching a sword from one of his accomplices, made another violent plunge at Wallace, but its metal flew in splinters on the guard-stroke of the regent, and left Badenoch at his mercy. "Defend me, chieftains, or I am slain!" cried he. But Wallace did not let his hand follow its advantage; with the dignity of conscious desert, he turned from the vanquished, and casting the enraged Lorn from him, who had thrown himself in his way, he exclaimed: "Scots, that arm will wither which dares to point its steel on me." The pressing crowd, struck in astonishment, parted before him as they could have done in the path of a thunderbolt, and unimpeded, he passed to the door.

That their regent had entered the keep was soon rumored through the city; and when he appeared from the gate he was hailed by the acclamations of the people. He found his empire again in the hearts of the lowly, they whom he had restored to their cottages, knelt to him in the streets, and called for blessings on his name; while they—oh! blasting touch of envy!-whom he had restored to castles, and elevated from a state of vassalage to the power of princes, they raised against him that very power to lay him in the dust.

Now it was, that when surrounded by the grateful citizens of Stirling (whom it would have been as easy for him to have inflamed to the massacre of Badenoch and his council, as to have lifted his bugle to his lips), that he blew the summons for his captains. Every man in the keep flew to arms, expecting that Wallace was returning upon them with the host he had threatened. In a few minutes the Lord Ruthven, with his brave followers, entered the inner ballium gate. Wallace smiled proudly as they drew near. "My lords," said he, "you come to witness the last act of my delegated power! Sir Alexander Scrymgeour, enter into that hall, which was once the seat of council, and tell the violent men who fill it, that for the peace of Scotland, which I value more than my life, I allow them to stand unpunished of their offense against me. But the outrage they have committed on the freedom of one of her bravest sons I will not pardon, unless he be immediately set at liberty; let them deliver to you Sir Alexander Ramsay, and then I permit them to hear my final decision. IF they refuse obedience, they are all my prisoners, and, but for my pity on their blindness, should perish by the laws."

Eager to open the prison door for his friend Ramsay, and little suspecting to what he was calling the insurgents, Scrymgeour hastened to obey. Lorn and Badenoch gave him a very rough reception, uttering such rebellious defiance of the regent that the brave standard-bearer lost all patience, and denounced the immediate deaths of the whole refractory assembly. "The courtyard," cried he, "is armed with thousands of the regent's followers, his foot is on your necks, obey, or this will be a more grievous day for Scotland than even that of Falkirk; for the Castle of Stirling will run with Scottish blood!" At this menace Badenoch became more enraged, and Scrymgeour, seeing no chance of prevailing by argument, sent a messenger to privately tell Wallace the result. The regent immediately placed himself at the head of twenty men, and, re-entering the keep, went directly to the warder, whom he ordered, on his allegiance to the laws, to deliver Sir Alexander Ramsay into his hands. He was obeyed, and returned with his recovered chieftain to the platform. When Scrymgeour was apprised of the knight's release, he turned to Badenoch, with whom he was still contending in furious debate, and demanded:

"Will you or will you not attend me to the regent? He of you all," added he, addressing the chieftains, "who in this simple duty disobeys, shall receive from him the severer doom."

Badenoch and Lorn, affecting to deride this menace, replied, they would not for an empire do the usurper the homage of a moment's voluntary attention; but if any of their followers chose to view the mockery, they were at liberty. A very few, and those of the least turbulent spirits went forth. They began to fear having embarked in a desperate cause; and, by their present acquiescence, were willing to deprecate the wrath of Wallace, while thus assured of not exciting the resentment of Badenoch.

When Wallace looked around him and saw the space before the keep filled with armed men and citizens, he ascended an elevated piece of ground, which rose a little to the left, and waving his hand in token that he intended to speak, a profound silence took place of the buzz of admiration, gratitude, and discontent. He then addressed the people:

"Brother soldiers! friends! And—am I so to distinguish Scots?-enemies!"

At this word, a loud cry of "Perish all who are the enemies of our glorious regent!" penetrated to the inmost chambers of the citadel.

Believing that the few of his partisans who had ventured out, were falling under the vengeance of Wallace, Badenoch, with a brandished weapon, and followed by the rest, sallied toward the door, but there he stopped, for he saw his friends standing unmolested.

Wallace proceeded; and, with calm dignity, announced the hatred that was now poured upon him by a large part of that nobility who had been so eager to invest him with the high office he then held.

"Though they have broken their oaths," cried he, "I have fulfilled mine! They vowed to me all lawful obedience; I swore to free Scotland or to die. Every castle in this realm is restored to its ancient lord; every fortress is filled with a native garrison; the sea is covered with our ships, and the kingdom, one in itself, sits secure behind her well-defended bulwarks. Such have I, through the strength of the Almighty arm, made Scotland! Beloved by a grateful people, I could wield half her power to the destruction of the rest; but I would not pluck one stone out of the building I have raised. To-day I deliver up my commission, since its design is accomplished. I resign the regency."

As he spoke, he took off his helmet, and stood uncovered before the people.

"No, no!" seemed the voice from every lip; "we will acknowledge no other power, we will obey no other leader!"

Wallace expressed his sense of their attachment, but repeating to them that he had fulfilled the end of his office, by setting them free, he explained that his retaining it was no longer necessary. "Should I remain your regent," continued he, "the country would be involved in ruinous dissensions. The majority of your nobles now find a vice in the virtue they once extolled; and seeing its power, no longer needful, seek to destroy my upholders with myself. I therefore remove the cause of contention. I quit the regency; and I bequeath your liberty to the care of your chiefs. But should it be again in danger, remember, that while life breathes in this heart, the spirit of William Wallace will be with you still!"

With these words he descended the mound, and mounted his horse, amidst the cries and tears of the populace. They clung to his garments as he rode along; and the women, with their children, throwing themselves on their knees in his path, implored him not to leave them to the inroads of a ravager; not to abandon them to the tyranny of their own lords; who, unrestrained by a king, or a regent like himself, would soon subvert his good laws, and reign despots over every district in the country. Wallace answered their entreaties with the language of encouragement; adding, that he was not their prince, to lawfully maintain a disputed power over the legitimate chiefs of the land. "But," he said, "a rightful sovereign may yet be yielded to your prayers; and to procure that blessing, daughters of Scotland, night and day invoke the Giver of every good gift."

When Wallace and his weeping train separated, at the foot of Falkirk Hill, he was met by his veterans of Lanark; who, having heard of what had passed in the citadel, advanced to him with one voice, to declare that they never would fight under any other commander. "Wherever you are, my faithful friends," returned he, "you shall still obey my word." When he entered the monastery, the opposition that was made to his resignation of the regency, by the Bishop of Dunkeld, Lord Loch-awe, and others, was so vehement, so persuasive, that had not Wallace been steadily principled not to involve his country in domestic war, he must have yielded to the affectionate eloquence of their pleading. But showing to them the public danger attendant on his provoking the wild ambition of the Cummins, and their multitudinous adherents, his arguments, which the sober judgment of his friends saw conclusive, at last ended the debate. He then rose, saying, "I have yet to perform my vow to our lamented Mar. I shall seek his daughter; and then, my brave companions, you shall hear of me, and, I trust, see me again!"

Chapter LVI.

The Monastery.

It being Lady Ruthven's wish that the remains of her brother should be entombed with his ancestors, preparations were made for the mournful cavalcade to set forth toward Braemar Castle. The countess, hoping that Wallace might be induced to accompany them, did not long object to this proposal, which Lady Ruthven had enforced with tears. Had any one seen the tow, and been called upon to judge, by their deportment, of the relationship in which each lady stood to the deceased, he must have decided that the sister was the widow. At the moment of her husband's death, Lady Mar had felt a shock; she had long looked for this event, as to the seal of her happiness; it was the sight of mortality that appalled her. The man she doted on, nay, even herself, must one day lie as the object now before her—dead!-insensible to all earthly joys, or pains! but awake, perhaps, fearfully awake, to the judgments of another world! This conviction caused her shrieks, when she saw Lord Mar expire. Every obstacle between her and Wallace she now believed removed. Her husband was dead; Helen was carried away by a man devotedly enamored of her; and most probably was at that time his wife. The specters of conscience passed from her eyes; she no longer thought of death and judgment; and, under a pretense that her feelings could not bear the sight of her husband's bier, she determined to seclude herself in her own chamber, till the freshness of Wallace's grief for his friend should have passed away. But when she heard, from the indignant Edwin, of the rebellious conduct of the young Lord Badenoch, and that the regent had abdicated, her consternation superseded all caution. "I will soon humble that proud boy," exclaimed she; "and let him know, that in opposing the elevation of Sir William Wallace, he treads down his own interest. You