Part 31 (1/2)
”You are to be healed with it, Lady Mar,” returned he, ”for it is not a man like the rest of his s.e.x that now addresses you, but a being whose heart is petrified to marble. I could feel no throb of yours; I should be insensible to all your charms, were I even vile enough to see no evil in trampling upon your husband's rights. Yes, were virtue lost to me, still memory would speak, still would she urge, that the chaste and last kiss, imprinted by my wife on these lips, should live there in unblemished sanct.i.ty, till I again meet her angel embraces in the world to come!”
The countess, awed by his solemnity, but not put from her suit, exclaimed: ”What she was, I would be to thee--thy consoler, thine adorer. Time may set me free. Oh! till then, only give me leave to love thee, and I shall be happy!”
”You dishonor yourself, lady,” returned he, ”by these pet.i.tions, and for what? You plunge your soul in guilty wishes--you sacrifice your peace, and your self-esteem, to a phantom; for I repeat, I am dead to woman; and the voice of love sounds like the funeral knell of her who will never breathe it to me again.” He arose as he spoke, and the countess, pierced to the heart, and almost despairing of now retaining any part in its esteem, was devising what next to say, when Murray came into the room.
Wallace instantly observed that his countenance was troubled. ”What has happened?” inquired he.
”A messenger from the mainland, with bad news from Ayr.”
”Of private or public import?” asked Wallace.
”Of both. There has been a horrid ma.s.sacre, in which the heads of many n.o.ble families have fallen.” As he spoke, the paleness of his countenance revealed to his friend that part of the information he had found himself unable to communicate.
”I comprehend my loss,” cried Wallace; ”Sir Ronald Crawford is sacrificed! Bring the messenger in.”
Murray withdrew; and Wallace, seating himself, remained with a fixed and stern countenance, gazing on the ground. Lady Mar durst not breathe for fear of disturbing the horrid stillness which seemed to lock up his grief and indignation.
Lord Andrew re-entered with a stranger, Wallace rose to meet him, and seeing Lady mar-”Countess,” said he, ”these b.l.o.o.d.y recitals are not for your ears;” and waving her to withdraw, she left the room.
”This gallant stranger,” said Murray, ”is Sir John Graham. He has just left that new theater of Southron perfidy.”
”I have hastened hither,” cried the knight, ”to call your victorious arm to take a signal vengeance on the murderers of your grandfather.
He, and eighteen other Scottish chiefs, have been treacherously put to death in the Barns of Ayr.”
Graham then gave a brief narration of the direful circ.u.mstance. He and his father, Lord Dundaff, having crossed the south coast of Scotland on their way homeward, stopped to rest at Ayr. They arrived there the very day that Lord Aymer de Valence had entered it, a fugitive from Dumbarton Castle. Much as that earl wished to keep the success of Wallace a secret from the inhabitants of Ayr, he found it impossible.
Two or three fugitive soldiers whispered the hard fighting they had endured; and in half an hour after the arrival of the English earl, every one knew that the recovery of Scotland was begun. Elated with this intelligence, the Scots went, under night, from house to house, congratulating each other on so miraculous an interference in their favor; and many stole to Sir Ronald Crawford, to felicitate the venerable knight on his glorious grandson.
The good old man listened with meek joy to their animated eulogiums on Wallace; and when Lord Dundaff, in offering his congratulations with the rest, said, ”But while all Scotland lay in va.s.salage, where did he imbibe this spirit, to tread down tyrants?” The venerable patriarch replied, ”He was always a n.o.ble boy. In infancy, he became the defender of every child he saw oppressed by boys of greater power; he was even the champion of the brute creation, and no poor animal was ever attempted to be tortured near him. The old looked on him for comfort, the young for protection. From infancy to manhood, he has been a benefactor; and though the cruelty of our enemies have widowed his youthful years--though he should go childless to the grave, the brightness of his virtues will now spread more glories around the name of Wallace than a thousand posterities.” Other ears than those of Dandaff heard this honest exultation.
The next morning this venerable old man, and other chiefs of similar consequence, were summoned by Sir Richard Arnuf, the governor, to his palace, there to deliver in a schedule of their estates; ”that quiet possession,” the governor said, ”might be granted to them, under the great seal of Lord Aymer de Valence, the deputy-warden of Scotland.”
The gray-headed knight, not being so active as his compeers of more juvenile years, happened to be the last who went to this tiger's den.
Wrapped in his plaid, his silver hair covered with a blue bonnet, and leaning on his staff, he was walking along attended by two domestics, when Sir John Graham met him at the gate of the palace. He smiled on him as he pa.s.sed, and whispered-”It will not be long before my Wallace makes even the forms of va.s.salage unnecessary; and then these failing limbs may sit undisturbed at home, under the fig-tree and vine of his planting!”
”G.o.d grant it!” returned Graham; and he saw Sir Ronald admitted within the interior gate. The servants were ordered to remain without. Sir John walked there some time, expecting the reappearance of the knight, whom he intended to a.s.sist in leading home; but after an hour, finding no signs of egress from the palace, and thinking his father might be wondering at his delay, he turned his steps toward his own lodgings.
While pa.s.sing along he met several Southron detachments hurrying across the streets. In the midst of some of these companies he saw one or two Scottish men of rank, strangers to him, but who, by certain indications, seemed to be prisoners. He did not go far before he met a chieftain in these painful circ.u.mstances whom he knew; but as he was hastening toward him, the n.o.ble Scot raised his manacled hand and turned away his head. This was a warning to the young knight, who darted into an obscure alley which led to the gardens of his father's lodgings, and was hurrying forward when he met one of his own servants running in quest of him.
Panting with haste, he informed his master that a party of armed men had come, under De Valence's warrant, to seize Lord Dundaff and bear him to prison; to lie there with others who were charged with having taken part in a conspiracy with the grandfather of the insurgent Wallace.
The officer of the band who took Lord Dundaff told him, in the most insulting language, that ”Sir Ronald, his ringleader, with eighteen n.o.bles, his accomplices, had already suffered the punishment of their crime, and were lying headless trunks in the judgment hall.”
”Haste, therefore,” repeated the man; ”my lord bids you haste to Sir William Wallace, and require his hand to avenge his kinsman's blood, and to free his countrymen from prison! These are your father's commands; he directed me to seek you and give them to you.”
Alarmed for the life of his father, Graham hesitated how to act on the moment. To leave him seemed to abandon him to the death the others had received; and yet, only by obeying him could he have any hopes of averting his threatened fate. Once seeing the path he ought to pursue, he struck immediately into it; and giving his signet to the servant, to a.s.sure Lord Dundaff of his obedience, he mounted a horse, which had been brought to the town end for that purpose, and setting off full speed, allowed nothing to stay him, till he reached Dumbarton Castle.
There, hearing that Wallace had gone to Bute, he threw himself into a boat, and plying every oar, reached that island in a shorter s.p.a.ce of time than the voyage had ever before been completed.
Being now conducted into the presence of the chief, he narrated his dismal tale with a simplicity and pathos which would have instantly drawn the retributive sword of Wallace, had he had no kinsman to avenge, no friend to release from the Southron dungeons. But as the case stood, his bleeding grandfather lay before his eyes; and the ax hung over the heads of the most virtuous n.o.bles of his country.