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LORD Ruthven was yet
musing, in fearful anxiety, on Wallace’s solemn adieu; and the
confirmation, which the recitals of Grimsby and Hay had brought of his
determined exile; when he was struck with new consternation, by the flight
of his son. A billet, which Edwin had left with Scrymgeour, who guessed
not its contents, told his father, that he was gone to seek their friend;
and to unite himself for ever to his fortunes.
Bothwell, not less eager to
preserve Wallace to the world; with an intent to persuade him, to at least
abandon his monastic project; set off direct for France, hoping to arrive
before his friend, and engage the French monarch to assist in preventing
so grievous a sacrifice. Ruthven, meanwhile, fearful that the unarmed
Wallace, and the self-regardless Edwin, might fall into the hands of the
venal wretches, now widely dispersed to seize the chief and his
adherents, sent out the Lanark veterans in divers disguises, to pursue the
roads it was probable he might take; and, finding him, guard him safely to
the coast. Till Ruthven should receive accounts of their success, he
forbore to forward the letter which Wallace had left for Bruce; or to
increase the solicitude of the already anxious inhabitants of
Hunting-tower, with any intimation of what had happened. But on the fourth
day, Scrymgeour and his party returned, with the horrible narrative of
Lumloch.
After the murder of his
youthful friend, Wallace had been loaded with irons: and conveyed, so
unresistingly that he seemed in a stupor, on board a vessel, to be carried
without loss of time to the Tower of London. Sir John Monteith, though he
never ventured into his sight, attended as the accuser, who, to put a
vizard on cruelty, was to swear away his victim’s life. The honor and
grief of Ruthven, at these tidings, were unutterable: and Scrymgeour, to
turn the tide of the bereaved father’s thoughts, to the inspiring
recollection of the early glory of his son, proceeded to narrate,—that
he found the beauteous remains in the hovel, but bedecked with flowers by
the village girls. They were weeping over it, and lamenting the pitiless
heart which could slay such youth and loveliness. To bury him in so
obscure a spot, Scrymgeour would not allow; and he had sent Stephen
Ireland with the sacred corse to Dumbarton, with orders to see him
entombed in the chapel of that fortress.—"It is done;"
continued the worthy knight, "and those towers he so bravely scaled,
will stand for ever the monument of Edwin Ruthven." [Since this
little tale of Edwin’s fate has been recalled to memory, these towers
have often been revisited, as his noble monument: and many a warmhearted
schoolboy has shed a tear over his young mate in years.—.-(1820.)] —"Scrymgeour,"
said the stricken father, "the shafts fall thick upon us, but we must
fulfil our duty." Cautious of inflicting too heavy a blow
on the fortitude of his wife and of Helen, he commanded Grimsby, and Hay,
to withhold from everybody at Hunting-tower, the tidings of its young Lord’s
fate; but he believed it his duty, not to delay the letter of Wallace to
Bruce, and the dreadful information to him, of Monteith’s treachery.
Ruthven ended his short epistle to his wife, by saying he should soon
follow his messenger; but that at present, he could not bring himself to
entirely abandon the Lowlands, to even a temporary empire of the seditious
chiefs.
On Grimsby’s arrival at
Hunting-tower, he was conducted immediately to Bruce. Some cheering
symptoms having appeared that morning, he had just exchanged his bed for a
couch, when Grimsby entered the room. The countenance of the honest
Southron, was the harbinger of his news. Lady Helen started from her seat;
and Bruce stretching out his arm, eagerly caught the packets the soldier
presented. Isabella inquired if all were well with Sir William Wallace.
But ere he could make an answer, Lady Ruthven ran breathless into the
room, holding out the opened letter brought by Hay to her. Bruce had just
read the first line of his, which announced the captivity of Wallace; and,
with a groan, that pierced through the souls of every one present, he made
an attempt to spring from the couch ; but in the act he reeled, and fell
back in a fearful, but mute mental agony. The apprehensive heart of Helen,
guessed some direful explanation; she looked with speechless inquiry upon
her aunt and Grimsby. Isabella and Ercildown hastened to Bruce; and Lady
Ruthven, being too much appalled in her own feelings, to think for a
moment on the aghast Helen, hurriedly read to her from Lord Ruthven’s
letter, the brief but decisive account of Wallace’s dangerous situation—his
seizure, and conveyance to the Tower of England. Helen listened without a
word: her heart seemed locked within her; her brain was on fire; and
gazing fixedly on the floor while she listened, all else that was
transacted around her passed unnoticed.
The pangs of a convulsion
fit, did not long shackle the determined Bruce. The energy of his spirit,
struggling to gain the side of Wallace in this his extremest need (for he
well knew Edward’s implacable soul), roused him from his worse than
swoon.—With his extended arms dashing away the restoratives with which
both Isabella and Ercildown hung over him, he would have leaped on the
floor, had not the latter held him down. "Withhold me not !"
cried he; "this is not the time for sickness and indulgence. My
friend is in the fangs of the tyrant, and shall I lie here?—No, not for
all the empires in the globe, will I be detained another hour."
Isabella, affrighted at the
furies which raged in his eyes, but yet more terrified at the perils
attendant on his desperate resolution, threw herself at his feet, and
implored him to stay for her sake. "No," cried Bruce, not for
thy life, Isabella, which is dearer to me than my own! not to save this
ungrateful country from the doom it merits! would I linger one moment,
from the side of him, who has fought, bled, and suffered for me and mine—who
is now treated with ignominy, and sentenced to die, for my delinquency !—Had
I consented to proclaim myself on my landing, secure with Bruce the King,
envy would have feared to strike! but I must first win a fame like his!—
And while I lay here, they tore him from the vain and impotent Bruce!—But,
Almighty pardoner of my sins !" cried he with vehemence" grant
me strength to wrest him from their gripe, and I will go barefoot to
Palestine, to utter all my gratitude!"
Isabella sunk weeping into the arms
of her aunt. And the venerable Ercildown, wishing to curb an impetuosity
which could only involve its generous agent in a ruin deeper than that it
sought to revenge, with more zeal than judgment, urged to the Prince, the
danger into which such boundless resentment would precipitate his own
person. At this intimation, the impassioned Bruce, stung to the soul, that
such an argument could be expected to have weight with him, solemnly bent
his knee, and clasping his sword, vowed before Heaven "either to
release Wallace, or—"to share his fate!" he would have added;
but Isabella, watchful of his words, suddenly interrupted him, by throwing
herself wildly on his neck, and exclaiming— "Oh! say not so! Rather
swear to pluck the tyrant from his throne; that the sceptre of my Bruce
may bless England, as it will yet do this unhappy land! "—"She
says right!" ejaculated Ercildown, in a prophetic transport;
"and the sceptre of Bruce, in the hands of his offspring, shall bless
the united countries, to the latest generations! The walls of separation
shall then be thrown down, and England and Scotland be one people."
[Spottiswood insists very much on
this prediction of Ercildown’s, which was verified in James the First of
England, in the ninth degree from Bruce.
By a most extraordinary
coincidence, the author of this work was revising it, and in this very
page, and at this very passage, just as the guns were firing, which
proclaimed the coronation of King William IV., on the 8th of September,
1831.—Though several miles distant from the royal scene, she heard them,
and fervently united her response—"Long live the anointed
descendant of the Bruce and Plantagenet!"—(1831.)]
Bruce looked steadfastly on
the sage: "Then if thy voice utter holy verity, it will not again
deny my call, to wield the power that Heaven bestows! I follow my fate!
To-morrow’s dawn sees me in the path to snatch my best treasure, my
counsellor, my guide, from the judgment of his enemies—or woe to
England; woe to all Scotland born, who have breathed one hostile word
against his sacred life!—Helen, dost thou hear me?" cried he:
"Wilt thou not assist me, to persuade thy too timid sister, that her
Bruce’s honour, his happiness, lives in the preservation of his friend?
Speak to her, counsel her, sweet Helen; and, please the Almighty arm of
Heaven, I will reward thy tenderness with the return of Wallace!"
Helen gazed intently on him
while he spoke. She smiled when he ended, but she did not answer; and
there was a wild vacancy in the smile, that seemed to say she knew not
what had been spoken, and that her thoughts were far away. Without further
regarding him, or any present, she arose and left the room. At this moment
of fearful abstraction, her whole soul was bent, with an intensity that
touched on madness, on the execution of a project, which had rushed into
her mind in the moment she heard of Wallace’s deathful captivity and
destination.
The approach of night
favoured her design. Hurrying to her chamber, she dismissed her maids with
the prompt excuse that she was ill, and desired not to be disturbed till
morning; then bolting the door, she quickly habited herself in the page’s
clothes, which she had so carefully preserved, as the dear memorial of her
happy days in France; and dropping from her window into the pleasance
beneath, ran swiftly through its woody precincts towards Dundee.
Before she arrived at the
suburbs of Perth, her tender feet became so blistered, she found the
necessity of stopping at the first cottage. But her perturbed spirits
rendered it impossible for her to take rest; and she answered the
hospitable offer of its humble owner, with a request that he would go into
the town, and immediately purchase a horse, to carry her that night to
Dundee. She put her purse into the man’s hand; who without further
discussion obeyed. When the animal was brought, and the honest Scot
returned her the purse with its remaining contents, she divided them with
him; and turning from his thanks, mounted the horse, and rode away.
About an hour before dawn, she
arrived within view of the ships lying in the harbour at Dundee. At this
sight, she threw herself off the panting animal, and leaving it to rest
and liberty, hastened to the beach. A gentle breeze blew freshly from the
north-west; and several vessels were heaving their anchors, to get under
weigh. "Are any;" demanded she, "bound for the Tower of
London?"—"None;" were the replies. Despair was now in her
heart and gesture. But suddenly recollecting, that in dressing herself for
flight, she had not taken off the jewels she usually wore, she exclaimed
with renovated hope, "Will not gold tempt some one to carry me
thither?" A rough Norwegian sailor jumped from the side of the
nearest vessel, and readily answered in the affirmative. "My
life;" rejoined she, "or a necklace of pearls, shall be yours,
in the moment you land me at the Tower of London." The man, seeing
the youth and agitation of the seeming boy, doubted his power to perform
so magnificent a promise, and was half inclined to retract his
assent; but Helen, pointing to a jewel on her finger, as a proof that she
did not speak of things beyond her reach, he no longer hesitated ;and
pledging his word, that, wind and tide in his favour, he would land her at
the Tower stairs;—she, as if all happiness must meet her at that point,
sprang into his vessel. The sails were unfurled: the voices of the men
chanted forth their cheering responses, on clearing the harbour; and
Helen, throwing herself along the floor of her little cabin, in that
prostration of body and soul, silently breathed her thanks to God, for
being indeed launched on the ocean, whose waves, she trusted, would soon
convey her to Wallace. To soothe, to serve,—.to die, or to compass the
release of him who had sacrificed more than his life for her father’s
preservation—for him who had saved herself from worse than death.
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