Part 46 (2/2)
He then spoke apart to Murray, who cheerfully acquiesced in a commission that promised him not only the glory of being a conqueror, but the private satisfaction, he hoped, of driving the Southron garrison out of his own paternal castle. To send such news to his n.o.ble father at Stirling, would indeed be a wreath of honor to his aged and yet warlike brow. It was then arranged between the young chief and his commander that watchtowers should be thrown up on every conspicuous eminence which skirted the Scottish borders; whence concerted signals of victories, or other information, might be severally interchanged.
These preliminaries adjusted, the regent's bugle brought Ker and Sir John Graham to his side. The appointed number of men was left with Murray; and Wallace, joining his other chieftains, bade his friend and honest servant adieu.
He now awakened to a sense of the present scene, and speeded his legions over his and dale, till they entered on the once luxuriant banks of the Annan--this territory of some of the n.o.blest in Scotland, till Bruce, their chief, deserted them. It lay in more terrific ruin than even the tracts he had left. There reigned the silence of the tomb; there existed the expiring agonies of men left to perish. Recent marks of devastation smoked from the blood-stained earth; and in the midst of a barren waste, a few houseless wretches rushed forward at the sight of the regent, threw themselves before his horse, and begged a morsel of food for their famis.h.i.+ng selves and dying infants. ”Look,”
cried an almost frantic mother, holding toward him the living skeleton of a child; ”my husband was slain by the Southrons, who hold Lochmaben Castle; my subsistence was carried away, and myself turned forth, to give birth to this child on the rocks. We have fed till this hour on the wild berries; but I die, and my child expires before me!” A second group, with shrieks of despair, cried aloud, ”Here are our young ones exposed to equal miseries. Give us bread, Regent of Scotland, or we peris.h.!.+”
Wallace turned to his troops: ”Fast for a day, my brave friends,” cried he; ”lay the provisions you have brought with you before these hapless people. To-morrow you shall feed largely on Southron tables.”
He was instantly obeyed. As his men marched on, they threw their loaded wallets amongst the famis.h.i.+ng groups; and, followed by their blessings, descended with augmented speed the ravaged hills of Annandale. Dawn was brightening the dark head of Brunswark, as they advanced toward the Scottish boundary. At a distance, like a wreath of white vapors, lay the English camp, along the southern bank of the Esk.
At this sight, Wallace ordered his bugles to sound. They were immediately answered by those of the opposite host. The heralds of both armies advanced, and the sun rising from behind the eastern hills, shone full upon the legions of Scotland, winding down the romantic precipices of Wauchope.
Two hours arranged every preliminary to the exchange of prisoners; and when the clarion of the trumpet announced that each party was to pa.s.s over the river to the side of its respective country, Wallace stood in the midst of his chieftains to receive the last adieus of his ill.u.s.trious captives. When De Warenne approached, the regent took off his helmet; the Southron had already his in his hand. ”Farewell, gallant Scot,” said he, ”if aught could imbitter this moment of recovered freedom, it is that I leave a man I so revere, still confident in a finally hopeless cause!”
”It would not be the less just were it indeed desparate,” replied Wallace; ”but had not Heaven shown on which side it fought, I should not now have the honor of thus bidding the brave De Warenne farewell.”
The earl pa.s.sed on, and the other lords, with grateful and respectful looks, paid their obeisance. The litter of Montgomery drew near--the curtains were thrown open-Wallace stretched out his hand to him: ”The prayers of sainted innocence are thine!”
”Never more shall her angel spirit behold me here, as you now behold me,” returned Montgomery; ”I must be a traitor to virtue, before I ever again bear arms against Sir William Wallace!”
Wallace pressed his hand, and they parted.
The escort which guarded De Valence advanced; and the proud earl, seeing where his enemy stood, took off his gauntlet, and throwing it fiercely toward him, exclaimed, ”Carry that to your minion Ruthven, and tell him the hand that wore it will yet be tremendously revenged!”
As the Southron ranks filed off toward Carlisle, those of the returning Scottish prisoners approached their deliverer. Now it was that the full clangor of joy burst from every breast and triumph-breathing instrument in the Scottish legions; now it was that the echoes rung with loud huzzas of ”Long live the valiant Wallace, who brings our n.o.bles out of captivity! Long live our matchless regent!”
As these shouts rent the air, the Lords Badenoch and Athol drew near.
The princely head of the former bent with proud acknowledgement to the mild dignity of Wallace. Badenoch's penetrating eye saw that it was indeed the patriotic guardian of his country to whom he bowed, and not the vain affector of regal power. At his approach, Wallace alighted form his horse, and received his offered hand and thanks with every grace inherent in his n.o.ble nature. ”I am happy,” returned he, ”to have been the instrument of recalling to my country one of the princes of her royal blood.” ”And while one drop of it exists in Scotland,”
replied Badenoch, ”its possessors must acknowledge the bravest of our defenders in Sir William Wallace.”
Athol next advanced, but his gloomy countenance contradicted his words when he attempted to utter a similar sense of obligation. Sir John Monteith was eloquent in his thanks. And Sir William Maitland was not less sincere in his grat.i.tude, than Wallace was in joy, at having given liberty to so near a relation of Helen Mar. The rest of the captive Scots, to the number of several hundred, were ready to kiss the feet of the man who thus restored them to their honors, their country, and their friends, and Wallace bowed his happy head under a shower of blessings which poured on him from a thousand grateful hearts.
In pity to the wearied travelers, he ordered tents to be pitched; and for the sake of their distant friends, he dispatched a detachment to the top of Langholm Hill, to send forth a smoke in token to the Clydesdale watch, of the armistice being ended. He had hardly seen it ascend the mountain, when Graham arrived from reconnoitering, and told him that an English army of great strength was approaching by the foot of the more southern hills, to take the reposing Scots by surprise.
”They shall find us ready to receive them,” was the prompt reply of Wallace; and his actions were ever the companions of his words.
Leaving the new-arrived Scots to rest on the banks of the Esk, he put himself at the head of five thousand men; and dispatching a thousand more, with Sir John Graham, to pa.s.s the Cheviots, and be in ambush to attack the Southrons when he should give the signal, he marched swiftly forward, and soon fell in with some advanced squadrons of the enemy, amongst the recesses of those hills. Little expecting such a rencounter, they were marching in defiles upon the lower ridgy craigs, to avoid the swamps which occupied the broader way.
At sight of the Scots, Lord Percy, the Southron commander, ordered a party of his archers to discharge their arrows. The artillery of war being thus opened afresh, Wallace drew his bright sword, and waving it before him, just as the sun set, called aloud to his followers. His inspiring voice echoed from hill to hill; and the higher detachments of the Scots, pouring downward with the resistless impetuosity of their own mountain streams, precipitated their enemies into the valley; while Wallace, with his pikemen, charging the horses in those slippery paths, drove the terrified animals into the mora.s.ses, where some sunk at once, and others, plunging, threw their riders, to perish in the swamp.
Desperate at the confusion which now ensued, as his archers fell headlong from the rocks, and his cavalry lay drowning before him, Lord Percy called up his infantry; they appeared, but though ten thousand strong, the determined Scots met their first ranks breast to breast; and leveling them with their companions, rushed on the rest with the force of a thunder-storm. It was at this period, that the signal was given from the horn of Wallace; and the division of Graham, meeting the retreating Southrons as they attempted to form behind the hill, completed their defeat. The slaughter became dreadful, the victory decisive. Sir Ralph Lattimer, the second in command, was killed in the first onset; and Lord Percy himself, after fighting as became his brave house, fled, covered with wounds, toward Alnwick.
Chapter XLV.
Lochmaben Castle.
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