Part 23 (1/2)
Wallace caught him in his arms. ”Intrepid, glorious boy! tell me for what purpose did you thus hazard your precious life?”
”I wished to learn its most pregnable part,” replied Edwin, his young heart beating with triumph at these encomiums from his commander; ”and particularly where the good earl is confined, that we might make our attack directly to the point.”
”And have you been successful?” demanded Wallace.
”I have,” was his answer. ”Lord Mar and his lady are kept in a square tower which stands in the cleft between the two summits of the rock.
It is not only surrounded by embattled walls, which flank the ponderous b.u.t.tresses of this huge dungeon, but the s.p.a.ce on which it stands is bulwarked at each end by a stone curtain of fifteen feet high, guarded by turrets full of armed men.
”And yet by that side you suppose we must ascend?” said Wallace.
”Certainly; for if you attempt it on the west, we should have to scale the watch-tower cliff, and the ascent could only be gained in file. An auxiliary detachment, to attack in flank, might succeed there; but the pa.s.sage being so narrow, would be too tedious for the whole party to arrive in time. Should we take the south, we must cut through the whole garrison before we could reach the earl. And on this side, the mora.s.s lies too near the foot of the rock to admit an approach without the greatest danger. But on the north, where I descended, by wading through part of the Leven, and climbing from cliff to cliff, I have every hope you may succeed.”
Edwin recounted the particulars of his progress through the fortress; and by the minuteness of his topographical descriptions, enforced his arguments for the north to be the point a.s.sailed. Closing his narrative, he explained to the anxious inquiry of Wallace how he had escaped accident in a leap of so many feet. The wall was covered with ivy; he caught by its branches in his descent, and at last happily fell amongst a thick bed of furze. After this, he clambered down the steep, and fording the Leven (there only knee deep), now appeared before his general, elate in heart, and bright in valor.
”The intrepidity of this action,” returned Wallace, glowing with admiration at so n.o.ble a daring in so young a creature, ”merits that every confidence should be placed in the result of your observations.
Your safe return is a pledge of our design being approved. And when we go in the strength of Heaven, who can doubt the issue? This night, when the Lord of battles puts that fortress into our hands, before the whole of our little army you shall receive that knighthood you have so richly deserved. Such, my truly dear brother, my n.o.ble Edwin, shall be the reward of your virtue and your toil.”
Wallace would now have sent him to respose himself; but animated by the success of his adventure, and exulting in the honor which was so soon to stamp a sign of this exploit upon him forever, he told his leader that he felt no want of sleep, and would rather take on him the office of arousing the other captains to their stations, the moon, their preconcerted signal, being then approaching its rest.
Chapter XXIII.
The Fortress.
Kirkpatrick, Murray, and Scrymgeour hastened to their commander; and in a few minutes all were under arms. Wallace briefly explained his altered plan of a.s.sault, and marshaling his men accordingly, led them in silence through the water, and along the beach, which lay between the rock and the Leven. Arriving at the base just as the moon set, they began to ascend. To do this in the dark redoubled the difficulty; but as Wallace had the place of every accessible stone accurately described to him by Edwin, he went confidently forward, followed by his Lanarkmen.
He and they, being the first to mount, fixed and held the tops of the scaling-ladders, while Kirkpatrick and Scrymgeour, with their men, gradually ascended, and gained the bottom of the wall. Here, planting themselves in the crannies of the rock, under the impenetrable darkness of the night (for the moon had not only set, but the stars were obscured by clouds), they awaited the signal for the final ascent.
Meanwhile, Edwin led Lord Andrew with his followers, and the Fraser men, round by the western side to mount the watchtower rock, and seize the few soldiers who kept the beacon. As a signal of having succeeded, they were to smother the flame on the top of the tower, and thence descend toward the garrison to meet Wallace before the prison of the Earl of Mar.
While the men of Lanark, with their eyes fixed on the burning beacon, in deadly stillness watched the appointed signal for the attack, Wallace, by the aid of his dagger, which he struck into the firm soil that occupied the cracks in the rock, drew himself up almost parallel with the top of the great wall, which clasped the bases of the two hills. He listened; not a voice was to be heard in the garrison of all the legions he had so lately seen glittering on its battlements. It was an awful pause.
Now was the moment when Scotland was to make her first essay for freedom! Should it fail, ten thousand bolts of iron would be added to her chains! Should it succeed, liberty and happiness were the almost certain consequences.
He looked up, and fixing his eyes on the beacon-flame, thought he saw the figures of men pa.s.s before it--the next moment all was darkness. He sprung on the walls, and feeling by the touch of hands about his feet that his brave followers had already mounted their ladders, he grasped his sword firmly, and leaped down on the ground within. In that moment he struck against the sentinel, who was just pa.s.sing, and by the violence of the shock struck him to the earth; but the man, as he fell, catching Wallace round the waist, dragged him after him, and with a vociferous cry, shouted ”Treason!”
Several sentinels ran with leveled pikes to the spot, the adjacent turrets emptied themselves of their armed inhabitants, and all a.s.saulted Wallace, just as he had extricated himself from the grasp of the prostrate soldier.
”Who are you?” demanded they.
”Your enemy;” and the speaker fell at his feet with one stroke of his sword.
”Alarm!-treason!” resounded from the rest as they aimed their random strokes at the conquering chief. But he was now a.s.sisted by the vigorous army of Ker, and of several Lanarkmen, who, having cleared the wall, were dealing about blows in the darkness, which filled the air with groans, and strewed the ground with the dying and the dead.
One or two Southrons, whose courage was not equal to their caution, fled to arouse the garrison, and just as the whole of Wallace's men leaped the wall and rallied to his support, the inner ballium gate burst open, and a legion of foes, bearing torches, issued to the contest. With horrible threatenings, they came on, and by a rapid movement surrounded Wallace and his little company. But his soul brightened in danger, and his men warmed with the same spirit, stood firm with fixed pikes, receiving without injury the a.s.sault. Their weapons being longer than their enemy's, the Southrons, not aware of the circ.u.mstance, rushed upon their points, incurring the death they meant to give. Seeing their consequent disorder, Wallace ordered the pikes to be dropped, and his men to charge sword in hand. Terrible was now the havoc, for the desperate Scots, grapling each to his foe with a fatal hold, let not go till the piercing shriek, or the agonized groan, convinced him that death had seized its victim. Wallace fought in front, making a dreadful pa.s.sage through the falling ranks, while the tremendous sweep of his sword, flas.h.i.+ng in the intermitting light, warned the survivors where the avenging blade would next descend. A horrid vacuity was made in the lately thronged spot; it seemed not the slaughter of a mortal arm, but as if the destroying angel himself were there, and with one blast of his desolating brand, had laid all in ruin. The platform was cleared, and the fallen torches, some half-extinguished, and other flaming on the ground by the sides of the dead, showed, in their uncertain gleams, a few terrified wretches seeking safely in flight. The same lurid rays, casting a transitory light on the iron gratings of the great tower, informed Wallace that the heat of conflict had drawn him to the prison of the earl.
”We are now near the end of this night's work!” cried he. ”Let us press forward to give freedom to the Earl of Mar!”
”Liberty and Lord Mar!” cried Kirkpatrick, rus.h.i.+ng onward. He was immediately followed by his own men, but not quickly enough for his daring. The guard in the tower, hearing the outcry, issued from the flanking gates, and, surrounding him, took him prisoner.