Part 79 (2/2)
Lumloch.
Wallace, having turned abruptly away from his lamenting servants, struck into the deep defiles of the Pentland Hills. They pointed to different tracks. Aware that the determined affection of some of his friends might urge them to dare the perils attendant on his fellows.h.i.+p, he hesitated a moment which path to take. Certainly not toward Huntingtower, to bring immediate destruction on its royal inhabitant.
Nor to any chieftain of the Highlands, to give rise to a spirit of civil warfare. Neither would he pursue the eastern track; for in that direction, as pointing to France, his friends would most likely seek him. He therefore turned his steps toward the ports of Ayr. The road was circuitous; but it would soon enough take him from the land of his fathers--from the country he must never see again!
As morning dispelled the shades of night, it discovered still more dreary glooms. A heavy mist hung over the hills, and rolled before him along the valley. Still he pursued his way, although, the day advanced, the vapors collected into thicker blackness, and, floating down the heights, at last burst into a deluge of rain. All around was darkened by the descending water; and the acc.u.mulating floods, das.h.i.+ng from the projecting craigs above, swelled the burn in his path to a roaring river. Wallace stood in the torrent, with its wild waves breaking against his sides. The rain fell on his uncovered head, and the chilling blast sighed in his streaming hair. Looking around him, he paused amidst this tumult of nature. ”Must there be strife, even amongst the elements, to show that this is no longer a land for me?
Spirits of these hills,” cried he, ”pour not thus your rage on a banished man! A man without a friend, without a home.” He started and smiled at his own adjuration. ”The spirits of Heaven launch not this tempest on a defenseless head; 'tis chance!--but affliction shapes all things to its own likeness. Thou, oh, my Father! would not suffer any demon of the air to bend thy broken reed! Therefore rain on, ye torrents; ye are welcome to William Wallace. He can well breast the mountain's storm, who has stemmed the ingrat.i.tude of his country.”
Hills, rivers, and vales were measured by his solitary steps, till entering on the heights of Clydesdale, the broad river of his native glen spread its endeared waters before him. Not a wave pa.s.sed along that had not kissed the feet of some scene consecrated to his memory.
Over the western hills lay the lands of his forefathers. There he had first drawn his breath; there he imbibed from the lips of his revered grandfather, now no more, those lessons of virtue by which he had lived, and for which he was now ready to die. Far to the left stretched the wide domains of Lammington: there his youthful heart first knew the pulse of love: there all nature smiled upon him, for Marion was near, and hope hailed him, from every sunlit mountain's brow. Onward in the depths of the cliffs, lay Ellerslie, the home of his heart, where he had tasted the joys of Paradise; but all there, like that once blessed place, now lay in one wide ruin.
”Shall I visit thee again?” said he, as he hurried along the beetling craigs; ”Ellerslie! Ellerslie,” cried he; ”'tis no hero, no triumphant warrior, that approaches! Receive--shelter thy deserted, widowed master! I come, my Marion, to mourn thee in thine own domains!”
He flew forward; he ascended the cliffs; he rushed down the hazel-crowned pathway--but it was no longer smooth; thistles, and thickly-interwoven underwood, obstructed his steps. Breaking through them all, he turned the angle of the rock--the last screen between him and the view of his once beloved home. On this spot he used to stand on moonlight evenings, watching the graceful form of his Marion, as she pa.s.sed to and fro within her chamber. His eyes now turned instinctively to the point, but it gazed on vacancy. His home had disappeared: one solitary tower alone remained, standing like ”a hermit, the last of his race,” to mourn over the desolation of all by which it had once been surrounded. Not a human being now moved on the spot which, three years before, was thronged with his grateful va.s.sals.
Not a voice was now heard, where then sounded the harp of Halbert--where breathed the soul-entrancing song of his beloved Marion!
”Death!” cried he, striking his breast, ”how many ways hast thou to bereave poor mortality! All, all gone! My Marion sleeps in Bothwell: the faithful Halbert at her feet. And my peasantry of Lanark, how many of you have found untimely graves in the bosom of your vainly rescued country!”
A few steps forward, and he stood on a mound of moldering fragments, heaped over the pavement of what had been the hall.
”My wife's blood marks the stones beneath!” cried he.
He flung himself on the ruins, and a groan burst from his heart. It echoed mournfully from the opposite rock. He started and gazed around.
”Solitude!” cried he, with a faint smile; ”naught is here, but Wallace and his sorrow. Marion! I call, and even thou dost not answer me; thou, who didst ever fly at the sound of my voice! Look on me, love!”
exclaimed he, stretching his arms toward the sky; ”look on me, and for once, till ever, cheer thy lonely, heart-stricken Wallace!”
Tears choked his further utterance; and once more laying his head upon the stones, he wept in silence, till exhausted natured found repose in sleep.
The sun was gilding the gray summits of the ruined tower under whose shadow he lay, when Wallace slowly opened his eyes; looking around him, he smote his breast, and with a heavy groan sunk back upon the stones.
In the silence which succeeded this burst of memory, he thought he heard a rustling near him, and a half-suppressed sigh. He listened breathless. The sigh was repeated. He gently raised himself on his hand, and with an expectation he dared hardly whisper to himself, turned toward the spot whence the sound proceeded. The branches of a rose-tree that had been planted by his Marion, shook and scattered the leaves of its ungathered flowers upon the brambles which grew beneath.
Wallace rose in agitation. The skirts of a human figure appeared, retreating behind the ruins. He advanced toward it, and beheld Edwin Ruthven. The moment their eyes met, Edwin precipitated himself at his feet, and clinging to him, exclaimed:
”Pardon me this pursuit! But we meet to part no more.”
Wallace raised him, and strained him to his breast in silence. Edwin, in hardly articulate accents, continued:
”Some kind power checked your hand when writing to your Edwin. You could not command him not to follow you! you left the letter unfinished, and thus I come to bless you for not condemning me to die of a broken heart!”
”I did not write farewell to thee,” cried Wallace, looking mournfully on him, ”but I meant it, for I must part from all I love in Scotland.
It is my doom. The country needs me not, and I have need of Heaven. I go into its outcourts at Chartres. Follow me there, dear boy, when thou hast accomplished thy n.o.ble career on earth, and then our gray hairs shall mingle together over the altar of the G.o.d of Peace; but now receive the farewell of thy friend. Return to Bruce, and be to him the dearest representative of William Wallace.”
”Never!” cried Edwin; ”thou alone art my prince, my friend, my brother, my all in this world! My parents, dear as they are, would have buried my youth in a cloister, but your name called me to honor, and to you, in life or in death, I dedicate my being.”
”Then,” returned Wallace, ”that honor summons you to the side of the dying Bruce. He is now in the midst of his foes.”
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