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

are beloved by the regent, Edwin!" cried she, interrupting herself, and clasping his hand with earnestness; "teach his enthusiastic heart the true interests of his country! I am the first woman of the house of Cummin; and is not that family the most powerful** in the kingdom? By the adherence of one branch to Edward, the battle of Falkirk was lost; by the rebellion of another, the regent of Scotland is obliged to relinquish that dignity? It is in my power to move the whole race at my will; and if Wallace would mingle his blood with theirs, would espouse me (an overture which the love I bear my country impels me to make), every nerve would then be strained to promote the elevation of their nearest kinswoman. Wallace would reign in Scotland, and the whole land lie at peace."

**The family of Cummin was so powerful and numerous, that an incredible number of chieftains of that name attended the first parliament which Robert I. Held at Dunstaffnage Castle. The relationship between the heiress of Stratheaarn and that family was very near, her paternal grandmother having been the daughter of a Lord Badenoch.—(1809.)

Edwin eyed her with astonishment while she spoke. All her late conduct to his cousin Helen, to his uncle, and to Wallace, was now explained; and he saw in her flushed cheek, that it was not the patriot who desired this match, but the enamored woman.

"You do not answer," said she; "have you any apprehension that Sir William Wallace would reject the hand which would give him a crown? which would dispense happiness to many thousand people?"

"No," replied he; "I believe that, much as he is devoted to the memory of her, whom alone he can ever love, could he purchase true happiness to Scotland by the sacrifice, he would espouse any virtuous woman who could bring him so blessed a dowry. But in your case, my honored aunt, I can see no probability of such a consequence. In the first place, I know, that now the virtuous Earl of Badenoch is no more, he neither respects nor fears the Cummins; and that he would scorn to purchase a crown or even the people's happiness, by baseness in himself. To rise by their means, who, you have seen, will at any time immolate all that is sacred to man to their own caprice, or fancied interests, would be unworthy of him; therefore, I am sure, if you wish to marry Sir William Wallace, you must not urge the use he may make of the Cummins as an argument. He need not stoop to cajole the men he may command. Did he not drive the one-half of their clan, with the English host to boot, to seek any shelter from his vengeance? And for them in the citadel, had he chosen to give the word, they would now be all numbered with the dust! Aunt! he has a Divine Master, whose example he follows, though in deep humility! He lays down his power; it is not taken from him. Earthly crowns are dross to him who looks for a heavenly one. Therefore, honored lady, believe it no longer necessary to wound your delicacy, by offering him a hand, which cannot produce the good you meditate!"

The complexion of the countess varied a thousand times during this answer. Her reason assented to many parts of it; but the passion she could not acknowledge to her nephew, urged her to persist. "You may be right, Edwin," she replied; "but still, as there is nothing very repugnant in me, the project is surely worth trying! At any rate, even setting the Cummins aside, a marriage with the daughter of Strathearn, by allying your noble friend to every illustrious house in the kingdom, would make his interest theirs, and all must unit in retaining to him the regency. Scotland will be wrecked should he leave the helm; and, sweet Edwin, though your young heart is yet unacquainted with the strange inconsistencies of the tenderest passion, I must whisper you that your friend will never be happy till he again live in the bosom of domestic affection."

"Ah! but where is he to find it?" cried Edwin, "what will ever restore his Marion to his arms?"

"I," cried she-"I will be more than ever Marion was to him! She knew not—O! she could not—the boundless love that fills my heart for him!" Edwin's blushes at this wild declaration told her how far she had betrayed herself. She attempted to palliate what she could no longer conceal, and, covering her face with her hand, exclaimed, "You, who love Sir William Wallace, cannot be surprised that all who adore human excellence should participate in that sentiment. How could I see him, the benefactor of my family, the blessing to all Scotland, and not love him?"

"True," replied Edwin; "but not as a wife would love her husband! You were married. And was it possible you could feel thus when my uncle lived? So strong a passion cannot have grown in your breast since he died; for surely, love should not enter a widow's heart at the side of an unburied husband!"

"Edwin!" replied she, "you, who never felt the throbs of this tyrant, judge with a severity you will one day regret. When you love, and struggle with a passion that drinks your very life, you will pity Joanna of Mar, and forgive her!"

"I pity you now, aunt," replied he; "but you bewilder me. I cannot understand the possibility of a virtuous married woman suffering any passion of this kind to get such domination over her as to cause her one guilty sigh; for guilty must every wish be that militates against the duty of her marriage vow. Surely, love comes not in a whirlwind, to seize the soul at once; but grows by degrees, according to the development of the virtues of the object, and the freedom we give ourselves in their contemplation—and, if it be virtue that you love in Sir William Wallace, had you not virtue in your noble husband?"

The countess perceived by the remarks of Edwin than he was deeper read in the human heart than she had suspected; that he was neither ignorant of the feelings of the passion, nor of what ought to be its source; and therefore, with a deep blush, she replied:

"Think for a moment before you condemn me. I acknowledge every good quality that your uncle possessed—but oh! Edwin, he had frailties that you know not of—frailties that reduced me to be, what the world never saw, the most unhappy of women."

Edwin turned pale at this charge against his uncle; and, while he forbore to draw aside the veil which covered the sacred dead, little did he think that the artful woman meant a frailty to which she had equally shared, and the consequences of which dangerous vanity had constrained her to become his wife. She proceeded:

"I married your uncle when I was a girl, and knew not that I had a heart. I saw Wallace; his virtues stole me from myself, and I found— In short, Edwin, your uncle became of too advanced an age to sympathize with my younger heart. How could I, then, defend myself against the more congenial soul of your friend? He was reserved during Mar's life! but he did not repulse me with unkindness. I therefore hope; and do you, my Edwin, gently influence him in my favor, and I will forever bless you."

"Aunt," answered he, looking at her attentively, "can you, without displeasure, hear me speak a few, perhaps ungrateful, truths?"

"Say what you will," said she, trembling; "only be my advocate with the noblest of human beings, and I can take naught amiss."

"Lady Mar," resumed he, "I answer you with unqualified sincerity, because I love you, and venerate the memory of my uncle, whose frailties, whatever they might be, were visible to you alone. I answer you with sincerity, because I would spare you much future pain, and Sir William Wallace a task that would pierce him to the soul. You confess that he already knows you love him—that he has received such demonstrations with coldness. Recollect what it is you love him for, and then judge if he could do otherwise. Could he approve affections which a wife transferred to him from her husband, and that husband his friend?"

"Ah! but he is now dead!" interrupted she; "that obstacle is removed."

"But the other, which you raised yourself!" replied Edwin; "while a wife, you showed to Sir William Wallace that you could not only indulge yourself in wishes hostile to your nuptial faith, but divulge them to him. Ah! my aunt, what could you look for as the consequence of this? My uncle yet lived when you did this! And that act, were you youthful as Hebe, and more tender than ever was fabled the queen of love, I am sure, the virtue of Wallace would never pardon. He never could pledge his faith to one whose passions had so far silenced her sense of duty; and did he even love you, he would not, for the empire of the world, repose his honor in such keeping."

"Edwin!" cired she, at last summoning power to speak, for during the latter part of this address she had sat gasping from unutterable disappointment and rage; "are you not afraid to breathe all this to me? I have given you my confidence and do you abuse it? Do you stab me, when I ask you to heal?"

"No, my dear aunt," replied he; "I speak the truth to you, ungrateful as it is, to prevent you hearing it in perhaps a more painful form from Wallace himself."

"Oh, no!" cried she, with contemptuous haughtiness; "he is a man, and he knows how to pardon the excesses of love! Look around you, foolish boy, and see how many of our proudest lords have united their fates with women who not only loved them while their husbands lived, but left their homes and children to join their lovers! And what is there in me, a princess of the crowns of Scotland and of Norway—a woman who has had the nobles of both kingdoms at her feet, and frowned upon them all-that I should now be contemned? Is the ingrate for whom alone I ever felt a wish of love—is he to despise me for my passion? You mistake, Edwin; you know not the heart of man."

"Not of the common race of men, perhaps," replied he; "but certainly that of Sir William Wallace. Purity and he are too sincerely one for personal vanity to blind his eyes to the deformity of the passion you describe. And mean as I am when compared with him, I must aver that, were a married woman to love me, and seek to excuse her frailty, I should see alone her contempt of the principles which are the only impregnable bulwarks of innocence, and shrink from her as I would from pollution."

"Then you declare yourself my enemy, Edwin?"

"No," replied he; "I speak to you as a son; but if you are determined to avow to Sir William Wallace what you have revealed to me, I shall not even observe on what has passed, but leave you, unhappy lady, to the pangs I would have spared you."

He rose. Lady Mar wrung her hands in a paroxysm of conviction that what he said was true.

"Then, Edwin, I must despair?"

He looked at her with pity.

"Could you abhor the dereliction that your soul has thus made from duty, and leave him, whom your unwidowed wishes now pursue, to seek you; then I should say that you might be happy; for penitence appeases God, and shall it not find grace with man?"

"Blessed Edwin," cried she, falling on his neck, and kissing him; "whisper but my penitence to Wallace; teach him to think I hate myself. Oh, make me that in his eyes which you would wish, and I will adore you on my knees?"

The door opened at this moment, and Lord Ruthven entered. The tears she was profusely shedding on the bosom of his son, he attributed to some conversation she might be holding respecting her deceased lord, and taking her hand, he told her he came to propose her immediate removal from the scene of so many horrors.

"My dear sister," said he, "I will attend you as far as Perth. After that, Edwin shall be