Part 8 (1/2)
”But not as you are, my lord!” cried the elder lady; ”your wounds are yet unhealed; your fever is still raging! Would it not be madness to expose your safety at such a crisis?”
”I shall not take arms myself,” answered he, ”till I can bear them to effect; meanwhile all of my clan, and of my friends, that I can raise to guard the life of my deliverer and to promote the cause, must be summoned. This lock shall be my pennon; and what Scotsman will look on that, and shrink from his colors! Here, Helen, my child,” cried he, addressing the young lady, ”before to-morrow's dawn, have this hair wrought into my banner. It will be a patriot's standard; and let his own irresistible words be the motto--G.o.d armeth me.”
Helen advanced with awestruck trepidation. Having been told by the earl of the generous valor of Wallace, and of the cruel death of his lady, she had conceived a grat.i.tude and a pity deeper than language could express, for the man who had lost so much by succoring one so dear to hear. She took the lock, waving in yellow light upon her hands, and, trembling with emotion, was leaving the room, when she heard her cousin throw himself on his knees.
”I beseech you, my honored uncle,” cried he, ”if you have love for me, or value for my future fame, allow me to be the bearer of your banner to Sir William Wallace.”
Helen stopped at the threshold to hear the reply.
”You could not, my dear nephew,” returned the earl, ”have asked me any favor I could grant with so much joy. To-morrow I will collect the peasantry of Bothwell, and with those, and my own followers, you shall join Wallace the same night.”
Ignorant of the horrors of war, and only alive to the glory of the present cause, Helen sympathized in the ardor of her cousin, and with a thrill of sad delight hurried to her apartment, to commence her task.
Far different were the sentiments of the countess, her stepmother. As soon as Lord Mar had let this declaration escape his lips, alarmed at the effect so much agitation might have on his enfeebled const.i.tution, and fearful of the perilous cause he ventured thus openly to espouse, she desired his nephew to take the now comforted Halbert (who was pouring forth his grat.i.tude to the earl, for the prompt.i.tude of his orders), and see that he was attended with hospitality.
When the room was left to the earl and herself, she ventured to remonstrate with him upon the facility with which he had become a party in so treasonable a matter. ”Consider, my lord,” continued she, ”that Scotland is now entirely in the power of the English monarch. His garrisons occupy our towns, his creatures hold every place of trust in the kingdom!”
”And is such a list of oppressions, my dear lady, to be an argument for longer bearing them? Had I, and other Scottish n.o.bles, dared to resist this overwhelming power after the battle of our liberties, kept our own unsheathed within the bulwarks of our mountains, Scotland might now be free; I should not have been insulted by our English tyrants in the streets of Lanark; and, to save my life, William Wallace would not now be mourning his murdered wife, and without a home to shelter him!”
Lady Mar paused at this observation, but resumed, ”That may be true.
But the die is cast; Scotland is lost forever; and by your attempting to a.s.sist your friend in this rash essay to recover it, you will only lose yourself also, without preserving him. The project is wild and needless. What would you have? Now that the contention between the two kings is past; now that Baliol has surrendered his crown to Edward, is not Scotland at peace?”
”A b.l.o.o.d.y peace, Joanna,” answered the earl; ”witness these wounds. A usurper's peace is more destructive than his open hostilities; plunder and a.s.sa.s.sination are its concomitants. I have now seen and felt enough of Edward's jurisdiction. It is time I should awake, and, like Wallace, determine to die for Scotland, or avenge her.”
Lady Mar wept. ”Cruel Donald! is this the reward of all my love and duty? You tear yourself from me, you consign your estates to sequestration, you rob your children of their name; nay, by your infectious example, you stimulate our brother Bothwell's son to head the band that is to join this madman, Wallace!”
”Hold, Joanna!” cried the earl; ”what is it I hear? You call the hero who, in saving your husband's life, reduced himself to these cruel extremities, a madman! Was he made because he prevented the Countess of Mar from being a widow? Was he made because he prevented her children from being fatherless?”
The countess, overcome by this cutting reproach, threw herself upon her husband's neck. ”Alas! my lord,” cried she, ”all is madness to me that would plunge you into danger. Think of your own safety; of my innocent twins now in their cradle, should you fall. Think of our brother's feeling when you send his only son to join one he, perhaps, would call a rebel!”
”If Earl Bothwell considered himself a va.s.sal of Edward's he would not now be with Lord Loch-awe. From the moment that gallant Highlander retired to Argyles.h.i.+re, the King of England regarded his adherents with suspicion. Bothwell's present visit to Loch-awe, you see, is sufficient to sanction the plunder of this castle by the peaceful government you approve. You saw the opening of those proceedings! And had they come to their dreadful issue, where, my dear Joanna, would now be your home, your husband, your children? It was the arm of the brave chief of Ellerslie which saved them from destruction.”
Lady Mar shuddered. ”I admit the truth of what you say. But oh! is it not hard to put my all to the hazard; to see the b.l.o.o.d.y field on one side of my beloved Donald, and the mortal scaffold on the other?”
”Hus.h.!.+” cried the earl, ”it is justice that beckons me, and victory will receive me to her arms. Let, oh Power above!” exclaimed he, in the fervor of enthusiasm, ”let the victorious field for Scotland be Donald Mar's grave, rather than doom him to live a witness of her miseries!”
”I cannot stay to hear you!” answered the countess; ”I must invoke the Virgin to give me courage to be a patriot's wife; at present, your words are daggers to me.”
In uttering this she hastily withdrew, and left the earl to muse on the past--to concert plans for the portentous future.
Chapter VII.
Bothwell Castle.
Meanwhile the Lady Helen had retired to her own apartments. Lord Mar's banner being brought to her from the armory, she sat down to weave into its silken texture the amber locks of the Scottish chief. Admiring their softness and beauty, while her needle flew, she pictured to herself the fine countenance they had once adorned.
The duller extremities of the hair, which a sadder liquid than that which now dropped from her eyes and rendered stiff and difficult to entwine with the warp of the silk, seemed to adhere to her fingers.
Helen almost shrunk from the touch. ”Unhappy lady!” she sighed to herself; ”what a pang must have rent her heart, when the stroke of so cruel a death tore her from such a husband! and how must he have loved her, when for her sake he thus forswears all future joys but those which camps and victories may yield! Ah! what would I give to be my cousin Murray, to bear this pennon at his side! What would I give to reconcile so admirable a being to happiness again--to weep his griefs, or smile him into comfort! To be that man's friend, would be a higher honor than to be Edward's queen.”