"And why, Jane," asked the king, "did you not impart these suspicions to your husband or to me?"
"Because," replied she, "remembering that my interference on a certain public occasion brought my late husband, Clare, under your majesty's displeasure; on my marriage with Monthermer, I made a solemn vow before my confessor never to offend in the like manner. And besides, the countenance of this stranger was so ingenious, and his sentiments so natural and honorable, I could not suspect he came on any disloyal errand."
"Lady," observed one of the elder lords, "if you thought so well of the queen and of this man, why did you caution her against his smiles, and deem it necessary to persuade her not to see him again?"
The countess blushed at this question, but replied, "Because I saw the minstrel was a gentleman. He possessed a noble figure, and a handsome face in spite of his Egyptian skin. Like most young gentlemen, he might be conscious of these advantages, and attribute the artless approbation, the innocent smiles of my gracious queen, to a source more flattering to his vanity. I have known many lords, not far from your majesty, make similar mistakes on as little grounds," added she, looking disdainfully toward some of the younger nobles; "and, therefore, to prevent such insolence, I desired his final dismission."
"Thank you, my dear Jane," replied the king; "you almost persuade me ofMargaret's innocence."
"Believe it, sire!" cried she with animation; "whatever romantic thoughtlessness her youth and inexperience may have led her into, I pledge my life on her purity."
"First, let us hear what that French woman has to say to the assignation," exclaimed Soulis, whose polluted heart could not suppose the existence of true purity, and whose cruel disposition exulted in torturing and death; "question her, and then her majesty may have full acquittal."
Again the brow of Edward was overcast. The fiends of jealously once more tugged at his heart; and ordering the Countess of Gloucester to withdraw he commanded the Baroness de Pontoise to be brought into his presence.
When she saw the king's threatening looks, and beheld the fearful expression which shot from every surrounding countenance, she shrunk with terror. Long backneyed in secret gallantries, the same inward whisper which had proclaimed to Soulis that the queen was guilty, induced her to believe that she had been the confidante of an illicit passion; and therefore, though she knew nothing really bad of her unhappy mistress, yet, fancying that she did, she stood before the royal tribunal with the air and aspect of a culprit.
"Repeat to me," demanded the king, "or answer it with your head, all that you know of Queen Margaret's intimacy with the man who calls himself a minstrel."
At these words, which were delivered in a tone that seemed the sentence of death, the French woman fell on her knees, and in a burst of terror exclaimed, "Sire, I will reveal all if your majesty will grant me pardon for having too faithfully served my mistress!"
"Speak! speak!" cried the king, with desperate impatience. "I swear to pardon you, even if you have joined in a conspiracy against my life; but speak the truth, and all the truth, that judgment, without mercy, may fall on the guilty heads!"
"Then I obey," answered the baroness.
"Foul betrayer!" half-exclaimed Gloucester, turning disappointed away. "O! what it is to be vile, and to trust the vile! But virtue will not be auxiliary to vice—and so wickedness falls by its own agents."
The baroness, raised from her kneeling position by Soulis, began:
"The only time I ever heard of, or saw this man, to my knowledge, was when he was brought to play before my lady at the bishop's banquet. I did not much observe him, being engaged in conversation at the other end of the room; so I cannot say, whether I might not have seen him in France; for many noble lords adored the Princess Margaret, though she appeared to frown upon them all. But I must confess, when I attended her majesty's disrobing after the feast, she put to me so many questions about what I thought of the minstrel who had sung so divinely, that I began to think her admiration too great to have been awakened by a mere song. And then she asked me, if a king could have a nobler air than he had; and she laughed, and said she would send your majesty to school to learn of him."
"Damnable traitress!" exclaimed the king.
The baroness paused, and retreated before the sudden fury which flashed from his eyes.
"Go on!" cried he; "hide neither word nor circumstance, that my vengeance may lose nothing of its aim!"
She proceeded:
"Her majesty then talked of his beautiful eyes; so blue, she said, so tender, yet proud in their looks; and only a minstrel! 'De Pontoise,' added she, 'can you explain that?' I being rather, perhaps, too well learned in the idle tales of our troubadours, heedlessly answered: 'Perhaps he is some king in disguise, just come to look at your majesty's charms, and go away again!' She laughed much at this conceit; said he must be one of Pharaoh's race then, and that had he not such white teeth, his complexion would be intolerable. Being pleased to see her majesty in such spirits, and thinking no ill, I sportively answered, 'I read once of a certain Spanish lover, who went to the court of Tunis to carry off the king's daughter; and he had so black a face, that none suspected him to be other than the Moorish Prince of Granada; when lo! one day in a pleasure-party on the sea, he fell overboard, and came up with the fairest face in the world, and presently acknowledged himself to be the Christian King of Castile.' The queen laughed at this story, but not answering me, went to bed. Next morning, when I entered her chamber, she received me with even more gayety, and putting aside my coiffure, said, 'Let me see if I can find the devil's mark here!' 'What do you mean?' I asked, 'does your majesty take me for a witch?' 'Exactly so,' she replied; 'for a little sprite told me last night that all you told me was true.' And then she began to tell me with many smiles, that she had dreamed the minstrel was the very Prince of Portugal, whom, unseen, she had refused for the King of England; and that he gave her a harp set with jewels. She then went to your majesty, and I saw no more of her till she sent for me late in the evening. She seemed very angry. 'You are faithful,' said she to me, 'and you know me. De Pontoise; you know me too proud to degrade myself, and too highminded to submit to tyranny. The Countess of Gloucester, with persuasions too like commands, will not allow me to see the minstrel any more.' She then declared her determination that she would see him; that she would feign herself sick, and he should come and sing to her when she was alone; and that she was sure he was too modest to presume on her condescension. I said something to dissuade her, but she overruled me; and, shame to myself, I consented to assist her. She embraced me, and gave me a letter to convey to him, which I did, by slipping it beneath the ornaments of the handle of her lute, which I sent as an excuse for the minstrel to tune. It was to acquaint him with her intentions, and this night he was to have visited her apartment!"
During this recital the king sat with compressed lips listening, but with a countenance proclaiming the collecting tempest within—changing to livid paleness or portentous fire, at almost every sentence. On mentioning the letter, he clinched his hand, as if then he grasped the thunderbolt. The lords immediately apprehended that this was the letter which Soulis found.
"And is this all you know of the affair?" inquired Percy, seeing that she made a pause. "And enough, too?" cried Soulis, "to blast the most vaunted chastity in Christendom."
"Take the woman hence," cried the king, in a burst of wrath, that gave his voice a preternatural force, which yet resounded from the vaulted roof, while he added—"Never let me see her traitor face again!" The baroness withdrew in terror; and Edward, calling Sir Piers Gaveston, commanded him to place himself at the head of a double guard, and go in person to bring the object of his officious introduction to meet the punishment due to his crime. "For," cried the king, "be he prince or peasant, I will see him hanged before my eyes, and then return his wanton paramour, branded with infamy, to her disgraced family!"
Soulis now suggested that, as the delinquent was to be found with Bruce, most likely that young nobleman was privy to his designs. "We shall see to him hereafter," replied the king; "meanwhile, look that I am obeyed."
The moment this order passed the king's lips, Gloucester, now not doubting the queen's guilt, hastened to warn Bruce of what had occurred, that he might separate himself from the crime of a man who appeared to have been under his protection. But when he found that the accused was no other than the universally feared, universally beloved, and generous Wallace, all other considerations were lost in the desire of delivering him from the impending danger. He knew the means, and he did not hesitate to employ them.
During the recital of this narrative, Gloucester narrowly observed the auditor, and the ingenuous bursts of his indignation, and the horror he evinced at the crime he was suspected of having committed, the earl, while more fully convinced of his innocence, easily conceived how the queen's sentiments for him might have gone no further than a childish admiration, very pardonable in a guileless creature hardly more than sixteen.
"See," cried Wallace, "the power which lies with the describer of actions! The chaste mind of your countess saw nothing in the conduct of the queen but thoughtless simplicity. The contaminated heart of the Baroness de Pontoise descried passion in every word, wantonness in every movement; and, judging of her mistress by herself, she has wrought this mighty ruin. How, then, does it behove virtue to admit the virtuous only to her intimacy: association with the vicious makes her to be seen in their colors! Impress your king with this self-evident conclusion; and were it not for endangering the safety of Bruce, the hope of my country, I myself would return and stake my life on proving the innocence of the Queen of England. But if a letter, with my word of honor, could convince the king—"
"I accept the offer," interrupted Gloucester, "I am too warmly the friend of Bruce—too truly grateful to you—to betray either into danger; but from Sunderland, whither I recommend you to go, and there embark for France, write the declaration you mention, and inclose it to me. I can contrive that the king shall have your letter without suspecting by what channel; and then, I trust, all will be well."
During this discourse, they passed on through the vaulted passage, till, arriving at a wooden crucifix which marked the boundary of the domain of Durham, Gloucester stopped.
"I must not go further. Should I prolong my stay from the castle during the search for you, suspicion may be awakened. You must therefore proceed alone. Go straight forward, and at the extremity of the vault you will find a flag stone, surmounted like the one by which we descended; raise it, and it will let you into the cemetery of the Abbey of Fincklay. One end of that burying-place is always open to the east. Thence you will emerge to the open world; and may it in future, noble Wallace, ever treat you according to your unequaled merits. Farewell!"
The earl turned to retrace his steps, and Wallace pursued his way through the rayless darkness toward the Fincklay extremity of the vault.
Gallic Seas.
Wallace having issued from his subterranean journey, made direct to Sunderland, where he arrived about sunrise. A vessel belonging to France (which, since the marriage of Margaret with Edward, had been in amity with England as well as Scotland) rode there, waiting a favorable wind. Wallace secured a passage in her; and, going on board, wrote his promised letter to Edward. It ran thus:
"This testament is to assure Edward, King of England, upon the word of a knight, that Queen Margaret, his wife, is in every respect guiltless of the crimes alleged against her by the Lord Soulis, and sworn to by the Baroness de Pontoise. I came to the court of Durham on an errand connected with my country; and that I might be unknown, I assumed the disguise of a minstrel. By accident I encountered Sir Piers Gaveston, and, ignorant that I was other than I seemed, he introduced me at the royal banquet. It was there I first saw her majesty. And I never had that honor but three times; and the third and last in her apartments, to which your majesty's self saw me withdraw. The Countess of Gloucester was present the whole time, and to her highness I appeal. The queen saw in me only a minstrel; on my art alone as a musician was her favor bestowed; and by expressing it with an ingenuous warmth which none other than an innocent heart would have dared to display, she has thus exposed herself to the animadversions of libertinism, and to the false representations of a terror-struck, because worthless, friend.
"I have escaped the snare which the queen's enemies laid for me; and for her sake, for the sake of truth, and your own peace, King Edward, I declare before the Searcher of all hearts, and before the world, in whose esteem I hope to live and die—that your wife is innocent! And should I ever meet the man, who, after this declaration, dares to unite her name with mine in a tale of infamy—by the power of truth, I swear that I will make him write a recantation with his blood. Pure as a virgin's chastity is, and shall ever be, the honor of William Wallace."
This letter was inclosed in one to the Earl of Gloucester, and having dispatched his packet to Durham, the Scottish chief gladly saw a brisk wind blow up from the north-west. The ship weighed anchor, cleared the harbor, and, under a fair sky, swiftly cut the waves toward the Gallic shores. But ere she reached them, the warlike star of Wallace directed to his little bark the terrific sails of the Red Reaver, a formidable pirate who then infested the Gallic seas, swept their commerce, and insulted their navy. He attacked the French vessel, but it carried a greater than Caesar and his fortunes; Wallace and his destiny were there, and the enemy struck to the Scottish chief. The Red Reaver (so surnamed because of his red sails and sanguinary deeds) was killed in the action; but his younger brother, Thomas de Longueville, was found alive with in the captive ship, and a yet greater prize! Prince Louis, of France, who having been out the day before on a sailing-party, had been descried, and seized as an invaluable booty by the Red Reaver.
Adverse winds for some time prevented Wallace from reaching port with his capture; but on the fourth day after the victory, he cast anchor in the harbor of Havre. The indisposition of the prince from a wound he had received in his own conflict with the Reaver, made it necessary to apprise King Philip of the accident. In answer to Wallace's dispatches on this subject, the grateful monarch added to the proffers of personal friendship, which had been the substance of his majesty's embassy to Scotland, a pressing invitation that the Scottish chief would accompany the prince to Paris, and there receive a public mark of royal gratitude, which, with due honor, should record this service done to France to future ages. Meanwhile Philip sent the chief a suit of armor, with a request that he would wear it in remembrance of France and his own heroism. But nothing could tempt Wallace to turn aside from his duty. Impatient to pursue his journey toward the spot where he hoped to meet Bruce, he wrote a respectful excuse to the king; but arraying himself in the monarch's martial present (to assure his majesty by the evidence of his son that his royal wish had been so far obeyed), he went to the prince to bid him farewell. Louis was preparing for their departure, all three together, with young De Longueville (whose pardon Wallace had obtained from the king on account of the youth's abhorrence of the service which his brother had compelled him to adopt), and the two young men, from different feelings, expressed their disappointment when they found that their benefactor was going to leave them. Wallace gave his highness a packet for the king, containing a brief statement of his vow to Lord Mar, and a promise, that when he had fulfilled it, Philip should see him at Paris. The royal cavalcade then separated from the deliverer of its prince; and Wallace, mounting a richly-barbed Arabian, which had accompanied his splendid armor, took the road to Rouen.
Meanwhile, events not less momentous took place at Durham. The instant Wallace had followed the Earl of Gloucester from the apartment in the castle, it was entered by Sir Piers Gaveston. He demanded the minstrel. Bruce replied, he knew not where he was. Gaveston, eager to convince the king that he was no accomplice with the suspected person, put the question a second time, and in a tone which he meant should intimidate the Scottish prince—"Where is the minstrel?"
"I know not," replied Bruce.
"And will you dare to tell me, earl," asked his interrogator, "that within this quarter of an hour he has not been in this tower?—nay, in this very room? The guards in your antechamber have told me that he was; and can Lord Carrick stoop to utter a falsehood to screen an wandering beggar?"
While he was speaking, Bruce stood eying him with increasing scorn.Gaveston paused.
"You expect me to answer you!" said the prince. "Out of respect to myself I will, for such is the unsullied honor of Robert Bruce, that even the air shall not be tainted with slander against his truth, without being repurified by its confutation. Gaveston, you have known me five years; two of them we passed together in the jousts of Flanders, and yet you believe me capable of falsehood! Know then, unworthy of the esteem I have bestowed on you, that neither to save mean or great, would I deviate from the strict line of truth. The man you seek may have been in this tower, in this room, as you present are, and as little am I bound to know where he now is, as whither you go when you relieve me from an inquisition which I hold myself accountable to no man to answer."
"'Tis well," cried Gaveston; "and I am to carry this haughty message to the king?"
"If you deliver it as a message," answered Bruce, "you will prove that they who are ready to suspect falsehood, find its utterance easy. My reply is to you. When King Edward speaks to me, I shall find the answer that is due to him."
"These attempts to provoke me into a private quarrel," cried Gaveston, "will not succeed. I am not to be so foiled in my duty. I must seek the man through your apartments."
"By whose authority?" demanded Bruce.
"By my own, as the loyal subject of my outraged monarch. He bade me bring the traitor before him; and thus I obey."
While speaking, Gaveston beckoned to his attendants to follow him to the door whence Wallace had disappeared. Bruce threw himself before it.
"I must forget the duty I owe to myself, before I allow you, or any other man, to invade my privacy. I have already given you the answer that becomes Robert Bruce; and in respect to your knighthood, instead of compelling I request you to withdraw."
Gaveston hesitated; but he knew the determined character of his opponent, and therefore, with no very good grace, muttering that he should hear of it from a more powerful quarter, he left the room.
And certainly his threats were not in this instance vain; for prompt was the arrival of a marshal and his officers to force Bruce before the king.
"Robert Bruce, Earl of Cleveland, Carrick and Annandale, I come to summon you into the presence of your liege lord, Edward of England."
"The Earl of Cleveland obeys," replied Bruce; and, with a fearless step, he walked out before the marshal.
When he entered the presence-chamber, Sir Piers Gaveston stood beside the royal couch, as if prepared to be his accuser. The king sat supported by pillows, paler with the mortifications of jealousy and baffled authority than from the effects of his wounds.
"Robert Bruce!" cried he, the moment his eyes fell on him; but the sight of his mourning habit made a stroke upon his heart that sent out evidence of remorse in large globules on his forehead; he paused, wiped his face with his handkerchief, and resumed: "Are you not afraid, presumptuous young man, thus to provoke your sovereign? Are you not afraid that I shall make that audacious head answer for the man whom you thus dare to screen from my just revenge?"
Bruce felt all the injuries he had suffered from this proud king rush at once upon his memory; and, without changing his position or lowering the lofty expression of his looks, he firmly answered: "The judgment of a just king I cannot fear; the sentence of an unjust one I despise."
"This to his majesty's face!" exclaimed Soulis.
"Insolence—rebellion—chastisement—even death!" were the words which murmured round the room at the honest reply.
Edward had too much good sense to echo any one of them; but turning to Bruce, with a sensation of shame he would gladly have repressed, he said that, in consideration of his youth, he would pardon him what had passed, and reinstate him in all the late Earl of Carrick's honors, if he would immediately declare where he had hidden the offending minstrel.
"I have not hidden him," cried Bruce; "nor do I know where he is; but had that been confided to me, as I know him to be an innocent man, no power on earth should have wrenched him from me!"
"Self-sufficient boy!" exclaimed Earl Buchan, with a laugh of contempt; "do you flatter yourself that he would trust such a novice as you are with secrets of this nature?"
Bruce turned on him an eye of fire.
"Buchan," replied he, "I will answer you on other ground. Meanwhile, remember that the secrets of good men are open to every virtuous heart; those of the wicked they would be glad to conceal from themselves."
"Robert Bruce," cried the king, "before I came this northern journey I ever found you one of the most devoted of my servants, the gentlest youth in my court; and how do I see you at this moment? Braving my nobles to my face! How is it that until now this spirit never broke forth?"
"Because," answered the prince, "until now I have never seen the virtuous friend whom you call upon me to betray."
"Then you confess," cried the king, "that he was an instigator to rebellion?"
"I avow," answered Bruce, "that I never knew what true loyalty was till he taught it me; I never knew the nature of real chastity till he explained it to me; nor comprehended what virtue might be till he allowed me to see in himself incorruptible fidelity, bravery undaunted, and a purity of heart not to be contaminated! And this is the man on whom these lords would fasten a charge of treason and adultery! But out of the filthy depths of their own breast arise the streams from which they would blacked his fairness."
"Your vindication," cried the king, "confirms his guilt. You admit that he is not a minstrel in reality. Wherefore, then, did he steal in ambuscade into my palace, but to betray either my honor or my life—perhaps both?"
"His errand here was to see me."
"Rash boy!" cried Edward; "then you acknowledge yourself a premeditated conspirator against me?"
Soulis now whispered in the king's ear, but so low that Bruce did not hear him.
"Penetrate further, my liege; this may be only a false confession to shield the queen's character. She who has once betrayed her duty, finds it easy to reward such handsome advocates."
The scarlet of inextinguishable wrath now burned on the face of Edward. "I will confront them," returned he; "surprise them into betraying each other."
By his immediate orders the queen was brought in. She leaned on theCountess of Gloucester.
"Jane," cried the king, "leave that woman; let her impudence sustain her."
"Rather her innocence, my lord," said the countess, bowing, and hesitating to go.
"Leave her to that," returned the incensed husband, "and she would grovel on the earth like her own base passions. But stand before me she shall, and without other support than the devils within her."
"For pity!" cried the queen, extending her clasped hands toward Edward, and bursting into tears; "have mercy on me, for I am innocent!"
"Prove it then," cried the king, "by agreeing with this confidant of your minstrel, and at once tell me by what name you addressed him when you allured him to my court? Is he French, Spanish, or English?"
"By the Virgin's holy purity, I swear!" cried the queen, sinking on her knees, "that I never allured him to this court; I never beheld him till I saw him at the bishop's banquet; and for his name, I know it not."
"Oh, vilest of the vile!" cried the king, fiercely grasping his couch; "and didst thou become a wanton at a glance? From my sight this moment, or I shall blast thee!"
The queen dropped senseless into the arms of the Earl of Gloucester, who at that moment entered from seeing Wallace through the cavern. At sight of him, Bruce knew that his friend was safe; and fearless for himself when the cause of outraged innocence was at stake, he suddenly exclaimed:
"By one word, King Edward, I will confirm the blamelessness of this injured queen. Listen to me, not as a monarch and an enemy, but with the unbiased judgment of man with man; and then ask your own brave heart if it would be possible for Sir William Wallace to be a seducer."
Every mouth was dumb at the enunciation of that name. None dared open a lip in accusation; and the king himself, thunderstruck alike with the boldness of the conqueror venturing within the grasp of his revenge and at the daringness of Bruce in thus declaring his connection with him, for a few minutes he knew not what to answer; only he had received conviction of his wife's innocence! He was too well acquainted with the history and uniform conduct of Wallace to doubt his honor in this transaction; and though a transient fancy of the queen's might have had existence, yet he had now no suspicion of her actions. "Bruce," said he, "your honesty has saved the Queen of England. Though Wallace is my enemy, I know him to be of an integrity which neither man nor woman can shake; and therefore," added he, turning to the lords, "I declare before all who have heard me so fiercely arraign my injured wife, that I believe her innocent of every offense against me. And whoever, after this, mentions one word of what has passed in these investigations, or even whispers that they have been held, shall be punished as guilty of high treason."
Bruce was then ordered to be reconducted to the round-tower; and the rest of the lords withdrawing by command, the king was left with Gloucester, his daughter Jane, and the now reviving queen to make his peace with her, even on his knees.
Burce was more closely immured than ever. Not even his senachie was allowed to approach him; and double guards were kept constantly around his prison. On the fourth day of his seclusion an extra row of iron bars was put across his windows. He asked the captain of the party the reason for this new rivet on his captivity; but he received no answer. His own recollection, however, solved the doubt; for he could not but see that his own declaration respecting his friendship with Wallace had increased the alarm of Edward respecting their political views. One of the warders, on having the same inquiry put to him which Bruce had addressed to his superior, in a rough tone replied:
"He had best not ask questions, lest he should hear that his majesty had determined to keep him under Bishop Beck's padlock for life."
Bruce was not to be deprived of hope by a single evidence, and smiling, said:
"There are more ways of getting out of a tyrant's prison, than by the doors and windows!"
"Why, you would not eat through the walls?" cried the man.
"Certainly," replied Bruce, "if I have no other way, and through the guards too."
"We'll see to that," answered the man.
"And feel it too, my sturdy jailer," returned the prince; "so look to yourself."
Bruce threw himself recklessly into a chair as he spoke; while the man, eying him askance, and remembering how strangely the minstrel had disappeared, began to think that some people born in Scotland inherited from nature a necromantic power of executing whatever they determined.
Though careless in his manner of treating the warder's information, Bruce thought of it with anxiety; and lost in reflections, checkered with hope and doubt of his ever effecting an escape, he remained immovable on the spot where the man had left him, till another sentinel brought in a lamp. He set it down in silence, and withdrew; Bruce then heard the bolts on the outside of his chamber pushed into their guards. "There they go," said he to himself; "and those are to be the morning and evening sounds to which I am to listen all my days! At least Edward would have it so. Such is the gratitude he shows to the man who restored to him his wife; who restored to him the consciousness of possessing that honor unsullied which is so dear to every married man! Well, Edward, kindness might bind generous minds even to forget their rights; but thanks to you, neither in my own person, nor for any of my name, do I owe you aught, but to behold me King of Scotland; and please God, that you shall, if the prayers of faith may burst these double-steeled gates, and set me free!"
While invocations to the Power in which he confided, and resolutions respecting the consequences of his hoped-for liberty, by turns occupied his mind, he heard the tread of a foot in the adjoining passage. He listened breathless; for no living creature, he thought, could be in that quarter of the building, as he had suffered none to enter it since Wallace had disappeared by that way. He half rose from his couch, as the door at which he had seen him last gently opened. He started up, and Gloucester, with a lantern in his hand, stood before him. The earl put his finger on his lip, and taking Bruce by the hand, led him, as he had done Wallace, down into the vault which leads to Fincklay Abbey.
When safe in that subterraneous cloister, the earl replied to the impatient gratitude of Bruce (who saw that the generous Gloucester meant he should follow the steps of his friend) by giving him a succinct account of his motives for changing his first determination, and now giving him liberty. He had not visited Bruce since the escape of Wallace, that he might not excite any new suspicion in Edward; and the tower being fast locked at every usual avenue, he had now entered it from the Fincklay side. He then proceeded to inform Bruce, that after his magnanimous forgetfulness of his own safety to insure that of the queen had produced a reconciliation between her and her husband, Buchan, Soulis, and Athol, with one or two English lords, joined the next day to persuade the king that Bruce's avowal respecting Wallace had been merely an invention of his own to screen some baser friend and royal mistress. They succeeded in reawakening doubts in Edward, who, sending for Gloucester, said to him, "Unless I could hear from Wallace's own lips (and in my case the thing is impossible), that he has been here, and that my wife is guiltless of this foul stain, I must ever remain in horrible suspense. These base Scots, ever fertile in maddening suggestions, have made me even more suspect that Bruce had other reasons for his apparently generous risk of himself, than a love of justice."
While these ideas floated in the mind of Edward, Bruce had been more closely immured. And Gloucester having received the promised letter from Wallace, determined to lay it before the king. Accordingly, one morning the earl, gliding unobserved into the presence-chamber before Edward was brought in, laid the letter under his majesty's cushion. As Gloucester expected, the moment the king saw the superscription, he knew the hand; and hastily breaking the seal, read the letter twice over to himself without speaking a word. But the clouds which had hung on his countenance all passed away; and with a smile reaching the packet to Gloucester, he commanded him to read aloud "that silencer of all doubts respecting the honor of Margaret of France and England." Gloucester obeyed; and the astonished nobles, looking on each other, one and all assented to the credit that ought to be given to Wallace's word, and deeply regretted having ever joined in a suspicion against her majesty. Thus, then, all appeared amicably settled. But the embers of discord still glowed. The three Scottish lords, afraid lest Bruce might be again taken into favor, labored to show that his friendship with Wallace, pointed to his throwing off the English yoke, and independently assuming the Scottish crown. Edward required no arguments to convince him of the probability of this; and he readily complied with Bishop Beck's request to allow him to hold the royal youth his prisoner. But when the Cummins won this victory over Bruce, they gained nothing for themselves. During the king's vain inquiries respecting the manner in which Wallace's letter had been conveyed to the apartment, they had ventured to throw hints of Bruce having been the agent, by some secret means, and that however innocent the queen might be, he certainly evinced, by such solicitude for her exculpation, a more than usual interest in her person. These latter innuendoes the king crushed in the first whisper. "I have done enough with Robert Bruce," said he. "He is condemned a prisoner for life, and a mere suspicion shall never provoke me to give sentence for his death." Irritated by this reply, and the contemptuous glance with which it was accompanied, the vindictive triumvirate turned from the king to the court; and having failed in accomplishing the destruction of Bruce and his more renowned friend, they determined at least to make a wreck of their moral fame. The guilt of Wallace and the queen, and the participation of Bruce, was now whispered through every circle, and credited in proportion to the evil disposition of the hearers.
Once of his pages at last brought to the ears of the kings the stories which these lords so basely circulated; and sending for them, he gave them so severe a reprimand, that, retiring from his presence with stifled wrath, they agreed to accept the invitation of young Lord Badenoch, return to their country, and support him in the regency. Next morning Edward was informed they had secretly left Durham; and fearing that Bruce might also make his escape, a consultation was held between the king and Beck of so threatening a complexion, that Gloucester no longer hesitated to run all risks, but immediately to give the Scottish prince his liberty.
Having led him to safety through the vaulted passage, they parted in the cemetery of Fincklay; Gloucester, to walk back to Durham by the banks of the Wear; and Bruce, to mount the horse the good earl had left tied to a tree, to convey him to Hartlepool. There he embarked for Normandy.
When he arrived at Caen, he made no delay, but taking a rapid course across the country toward Rouen, on the second evening of his traveling, having pursued his route without sleep, he felt himself so overcome with fatigue, that, in the midst of a vast and dreary plain, he found it necessary to stop for rest at the first habitation he might find. It happened to be the abode of one of those poor, but pious matrons, who, attaching themselves to some neighboring order of charity, live alone in desert places for the purpose of succoring distressed travelers. Here Bruce found the widow's cruse, and a pallet to repose his weary limbs.
Normandy.
Wallace, having separated from the Prince Royal of France, pursued his solitary way toward the capital of Normandy, till night overtook him ere he was aware. Clouds so obscured the sky, that not a star was visible; and his horse, terrified at the impenetrable darkness, and the difficulties of the path, which lay over a barren and stony moor, suddenly stopped. This aroused Wallace from a long fit of musing to look around him; but on which side lay the road to Rouen, he could form no guess. To pass the night in so exposed a spot might be dangerous, and spurring the animal, he determined to push onward.
He had ridden nearly another hour, when the dead silence of the scene was broken by the roll of distant thunder. Then forked lightning shooting from the horizon showed a line of country unmarked by any vestige of human habitation. Still he proceeded. The storm approached, till, breaking in peals over his head, it discharged such sheets of livid fire at his feet that the horse reared, and plunging amidst the blaze, flashed the light of his rider's armor on the eyes of a troop of horsemen, who also stood under the tempest, gazing with affright at the scene. Wallace, by the same transitory illumination, saw the travelers, as they seemed to start back at his appearance; and, mistaking their apprehension, he called to them, that his well-managed, though terrified steed, would do theirs no harm. One of them advanced and respectfully inquired of him the way to Rouen. Wallace replied that he was a stranger in this part of the country, and was also seeking that city. While he was yet speaking the thunder became more tremendous, and the lightning rolled in volumes along the ground, the horses of the troop became restive, and one of them threw its rider. Cries of lamentation, mingling with the groans of the fallen person, excited the compassion of Wallace. He rode toward the spot from when the latter proceeded, and asked the nearest bystander (for several had alighted) whether the unfortunate man was much hurt. The answer returned was full of alarm for the sufferer, and anxiety to obtain some place of shelter, for rain began to fall. In a few minutes it increased to torrents, and the lightning ceasing, deepened the horrors of the scene by preventing the likelihood of discovering any human abode. The men gathered round their fallen companion bewailing the prospect of his perishing under these inclemencies; but Wallace cheered them by saying he would seek a shelter for their friend, and blow his bugle when he had found one. With the word he turned his horse, and as he galloped along, called aloud on any Christian man who might live near, to open his doors to a dying traveler! After riding about in all directions, he saw a glimmering light for a moment, and then all was darkness; but again he called aloud for charity! and a shrill female voice answered, "I am a lone woman, with already one poor traveler in my house; but, for the Virgin's sake, I will open my door to you, whatever you may be." The good woman relighted her lamp, which the rain had extinguished; and, on her unlatching the door, Wallace briefly related what had happened, entreating her permission to bring the unfortunate person into the cottage. She readily consented; and giving him a lantern to guide his way, he blew his bugle, which was instantly answered by so glad and loud a shout that it assured him his companions could not be far distant, and that he must have made many a useless circuit before he had stopped at this charitable door.
The men directed him through the darkness by their voices, for the lantern threw its beams but a very little way, and, arriving at their side, by his assistance the bruised traveler was brought to the cottage. It was a poor hovel; but the good woman had spread a clean wooden coverlet over her own bed, in the inner chamber, and thither Wallace carried the invalid. He seemed in great pain, but his kind conductor answered their hostess' inquiries respecting him, with a belief that no bones were broken.
"But yet," cried she, "sad may be the effects of internal bruises on so emaciated a frame. I will venture to disturb my other guest, who sleeps in the loft, and bring down a decoction that I keep there. It is made from simple herbs, and I am sure will be of service."
The old woman having shown to the attendants where they might put their horses under shelter of a shed which projected from the cottage, ascended a few steps to the chamber above. Meanwhile, the Scottish chief, assisted by one of the men, disengaged the sufferer from his wet garments, and covered him with the blankets of the bed. Recovered to recollection by the comparative comfort of his bodily feelings, the stranger opened his eyes. He fixed them on Wallace, then looked around, and turned to Wallace again.
"Generous knight!" cried he, "I have nothing but thanks to offer for this kindness. You seem to be of the highest rank, and yet have succored one who the world abjures!"
The knight returned a courteous answer, and the invalid, in a paroxysm of emotion, added:
"Can it be possible that a prince of France has dared to act contrary to his peers?"
Wallace, not apprehending what had given rise to this question, supposed the stranger's wits were disordered, and looked with that inquiry toward the attendant. Just at that moment a step, more active than that of their aged hostess, sounded above, and an exclamation of surprise followed it, in a voice that startled Wallace. He turned hastily round, and a young man sprung from the cottage stairs into the apartment—joy danced in every feature, and the ejaculation, "Wallace!"—"Bruce!" burst at once from the hearts of the two friends as they rushed into each other's arms. All else present was lost to them in the delight of meeting after so perilous a separation—a delight not confined for its object to their individual selves, each saw in the other the hope of Scotland; and when they embraced, it was not merely with the ardor of friendship, but with that of patriotism, rejoicing in the preservation of its chief dependence.
While the chiefs spoke freely in their native tongue, before a people who could not be supposed to understand them, the aged stranger on the bed reiterated his moans. Wallace, in a few words, telling Bruce the manner of his reencounter with the sick man, and his belief that he was disordered in his mind, drew toward the bed, and offered him some of the decoction which the woman now brought. The invalid drank it, and gazed earnestly, first on Wallace and then on Bruce. "Pierre, withdraw," cried he to his personal attendant. The man obeyed. "Sit down by me, noble friends," said he to the Scottish chiefs, "and read a lesson, which I pray ye lay to your hearts!" Bruce glanced a look at Wallace that declared he was of his opinion. Wallace drew a stool, while his friend seated himself on the bed. The old woman, perceiving something extraordinary in the countenance of the bruised stranger, thought he was going to reveal some secret heavy on his mind, and also withdrew.
"You think my intellects are injured," returned he, turning to Wallace, "because I addressed you as one of the house of Philip! Those jeweled lilies round your helmet led me into the error; I never before saw them granted to other than a prince of the blood. But think not, brave man, I respect you less, since I have discovered that you are not of the race of Philip—that you are other than a prince! Look on me—at this emaciated form—and behold the reverses of all earthly grandeur! This palsied hand once held a scepter—these hollow temples were once bound with a crown! He that used to be followed as the source of honor, as the fountain of prosperity—with suppliants at his feet, and flatterers at his side—would now be left to solitude were it not for these few faithful servants, who, in spite of all changes, have preserved their allegiance to the end. Look on me, chiefs, and behold him who was the King of Scots!"
At this declaration, both Wallace and Bruce, struck with surprise and compassion at meeting their ancient enemy reduced to such abject misery, with one impulse bowed their heads to him with an air of reverence. The action penetrated the heart of Baliol. For when at the meeting and mutual exclamation of the two friends, he recognized in whose presence he lay, he fearfully remembered that, by his base submissions, turning the scale of judgment in his favor, he had defrauded the grandsire of the very Bruce now before him of a fair decision on his rights to the crown! And when he looked on Wallace, who had preserved him from the effects of his accident, and brought him to a shelter from the raging terrors of the night, his conscience doubly smote him! for, from the hour of his elevation to that of his downfall, he had ever persecuted the family of Wallace; and, at the hour which was the crisis of her fate, had denied them the right of drawing their swords in defense of Scotland. He, her king, had resigned her into the hands of an usurper; but Wallace, the injured Wallace, had arisen, like a star of light on the deep darkness of her captivity, and Scotland was once more free. In the tempest, the exiled monarch had started at the blaze of the unknown knight's jeweled panoply; at the declaration of his name he shrunk before the brightness of his glory! and, falling back on the bed, he groaned aloud. To these young men, so strangely brought before him, and both of whom he had wronged, he determined immediately to reveal himself, and see whether they were equally resentful of injuries as those he had served had proved ungrateful for benefits received. He spoke; and when, instead of seeing the pair rise in indignation on his pronouncing his name, they bowed their heads and sat in respectful silence, his desolate heart expanded at once to admit the long-estranged emotion, and he burst into tears. He caught the hand of Bruce, who sat nearest to him, and, stretching out the other to Wallace, exclaimed, "I have not deserved this goodness from either of you. Perhaps you two are the only men now living whom I ever greatly injured; and you, excepting my four poor attendants, are, perhaps, the only men living who would compassionate my misfortunes!"
"These are lessons, king," returned Wallace, with reverence, "to fit you for a better crown. And never in my eyes did the descendant of Alexander seem so worthy of his blood!"
The grateful monarch pressed his hand. Bruce continued to gaze on him with a thousand awful thoughts occupying his mind. Baliol read in his expressive countenance the reflections which chained his tongue.
"Behold, how low is laid the proud rival of your grandfather!" exclaimed he, turning to Bruce. "I compassed a throne I could not fill. I mistook the robes, the homage, for the kingly dignity. I bartered the liberties of my country for a crown I knew not how to wear, and the insidious trafficker not only reclaimed it, but repaid me with a prison. There I expiated my crime against the upright Bruce! Not one of all the Scottish lords who crowded Edward's court came to beguile a moment of sorrow from their captive monarch. Lonely I lived, for the tyrant even deprived me of the comfort of seeing my fellow-prisoner, Lord Douglas—he whom attachment to my true interests had betrayed to an English prison. I never saw him after the day of his being put into the Tower until that of his death." Wallace interrupted the afflicted Baliol with an exclamation of surprise. "Yes," added he, "I myself closed his eyes. At that awful hour he had petitioned to see me, and the boon was granted. I went to him, and then, with his dying breath, he spoke truths to me, which were indeed messengers from Heaven! They taught me what I was, and what I might be. He died. Edward was then in Flanders, and you, brave Wallace, being triumphant in Scotland, and laying such a stress in your negotiations for the return of Douglas, the Southron cabinet agreed to conceal his death, and, by making his name an instrument to excite your hopes and fears, turn your anxiety for him to their own advantage."
A deep scarlet kindled over the face of Bruce. "With what a race have I been so long connected! What mean subterfuges, what dastardly deceits, for the leaders of a great nation to adopt! Oh, king!" exclaimed he, turning to Baliol, "if you have errors to atone for, what then must be the penalty of my sin, for holding so long with an enemy as vile as he is ambitious! Scotland! Scotland! I must weep tears of blood for this!" He rose in agitation. Baliol followed him with his eyes.
"Amiable Bruce! you too severely arraign a fault that was venial in you. Your father gave himself to Edward, and his son accompanied the tribute."
Bruce vehemently answered, "If King Edward ever said that, he uttered a falsehood. My father loved him, confided in him, and the ingrate betrayed him! His fidelity was no gift of himself, in acknowledgment of inferiority; it was the pledge of a friendship exchanged on equal terms on the fields of Palestine. And well did King Edward know that he had no right over either my father or me; for in the moment he doubted our attachment, he was aware of having forfeited it. He knew he had no legal claim on us; and forgetting every law, human and divine, he made us prisoners. But my father found liberty in the grave, and I am ready to take a sure revenge in—" he would have added "Scotland," but he forbore to give the last blow to the unhappy Baliol, by showing him that his kingdom had indeed passed from him, and that the man was before him who might be destined to wield his scepter. Bruce paused, and sat down in generous confusion.
"Hesitate not," said Baliol, "to say where you will take your revenge! I know that the brave Wallace has laid open the way. Had I possessed such a leader of my troops, I should not now be a mendicant in this hovel; I should not be a creature to be pitied and despised. Wear him, Bruce—wear him in your heart's core. He gives the throne he might have filled."
"Make not that a subject of praise," cried Wallace, "which if I had left undone, would have stamped me a traitor. I have only performed my duty; and may the Holy Anointer of the hearts of kings guide Bruce to his kingdom, and keep him there in peace and honor!"
Baliol rose in his bed at these words: "Bruce," said he, "approach me near." He obeyed. The feeble monarch turned to Wallace: "You have supported what was my kingdom through its last struggles for liberty; put forth your hand and support its exiled sovereign in his last legal act." Wallace raised the king, so as to enable him to assume a kneeling posture. Dizzy with the exertion, for a moment he rested on the shoulder of the chief; and then looking up, he met the eyes of Bruce gazing on him with compassionate interest. The unhappy monarch stretched out his arms to Heaven: "May God pardon the injuries which my fatal ambition did to you and yours—the miseries I brought upon my country; and let your reign redeem my errors! May the spirit of wisdom bless you, my son!" His hands were now laid, with pious fervor, on the head of Bruce, who sunk on his knees before him. "Whatever rights I had to the crown of Scotland, by the worthlessness of my reign they are forfeited; and I resign all unto you, even to the participation of the mere title of king. It has been as the ghost of my former self, as an accusing spirit to me, but, I trust, an angel of light to you, it will conduct your people into all happiness!" Exhausted by his feelings, he sunk back into the arms of Wallace. Bruce, rising from his knees, poured a little of the herb-balsam into the king's mouth, and he revived. As Wallace laid him back on his pillows, he gazed wistfully at him, and grasping his hand, said in a low voice: "How did I throw a blessing from me! But in those days, when I rejected your services at Dunbar, I knew not the Almighty arm which brought the boy of Ellerslie to save his country! I scorned the patriot flame that spoke your mission, and the mercy of Heaven departed from me!"**
**This renunciation of Baliol's in favor of Bruce is an historical fact, and it was made in France.
Memory was now busy with the thoughts of Bruce. He remembered his father's weak, if not criminal devotion at that time to the interests of Edward; he remembered his heart-wrung death; and looking at the desolate old age of another of Edward's victims, his brave soul melted to pity and regret, and he retired into a distant part of the room, to shed, unobserved, the tears he could not restrain. Wallace soon after saw the eyes of the exhausted king close in sleep; and cautious of awakening him, he did not stir; but leaning against the thick oaken frame of the bed, was soon lost in as deep a repose.
After some time of complete stillness (for the old dame and the attendants were at rest in the outer chamber), Bruce, whose low sighs were echoed by the wind alone, which swept in gusts by the little casement, looked toward the abdicated monarch's couch. He slept profoundly, yet frequently started, as if disturbed by troubled dreams. Wallace moved not on his hard pillow; and the serenity of perfect peace rested upon all his features.
"How tranquil is the sleep of the virtuous!" thought Bruce, as he contemplated the difference between his state and that of Baliol; "there lies an accusing conscience; here rests one of the most faultless of created beings. It is, it is the sleep of innocence! Come, ye slanderers," continued he, mentally calling on those he had left at Edward's court, "and tell me if an adulterer could look thus when he sleeps! Is there one trace of irregular passion about that placid mouth? Does one of those heavenly-composed features bear testimony to emotions which leave marks even when subdued? No, virtue has set up her throne in that breast, and well may kings come to bow to it!"
The Widow's Cell.
The entrance of the old woman, about an hour after sunrise, awakened Wallace; but Baliol continued to sleep. On the chief's opening his eyes, Bruce with a smile, stretched out his hand to him. Wallace rose; and whispering the widow to abide by her guest till they should return, the twain went forth to enjoy the mutual confidence of friendship. A wood opened its umbrageous arms at a little distance; and thither, over the dew-bespangled grass, they bent their way. The birds sung from tree to tree; and Wallace, seating himself under an overhanging beech, which canopied a narrow winding of the River Seine, listened with mingled pain and satisfaction, to the communications which Bruce had to impart relative to the recent scenes at Durham.
"So rapid had been the events," observed the Scottish prince, when he concluded his narrative, "that all appears to me a troubled vision; and blessed, indeed, was the awaking of last night, when your voice, sounding from the room below that in which I slept, called me to embrace my best friend, as became the son of my ancestors—free, and ready to renew the brightness of their name!"
The discourse next turned to their future plans. Wallace, narrating his adventure with the Red Reaver, proposed that the favor he should ask in return (the King of France being earnest to bestow on him some especial mark of gratitude), should be his interference with Edward to grant the Scots a peaceable retention of their rights.
"In that case, my prince," said he, "you will take possession of your kingdom with the olive-branch in your hand."
Bruce smiled, but shook his head.
"And what then will Robert Bruce be? A king to be sure!—but a king without a name! Who won me my kingdom? Who accomplished this peace? Was it not William Wallace? Can I then consent to mount the throne of my ancestors—so poor, so inconsiderable a creature? I am not jealous of your fame, Wallace; I glory in it; for you are more to me than the light to my eyes; but I would prove my right to the crown by deeds worthy of a sovereign. Till I have shown myself in the field against Scotland's enemies, I cannot consent to be restored to my inheritance, even by you."
"And is it in war alone," returned Wallace, "that you can show deeds worthy of a sovereign? Think a moment, my honored prince, and then scorn your objection. Look on the annals of history, nay, on the daily occurrences of the world, and see how many are brave and complete generals; how few wise legislators; how few such efficient rulers as to procure obedience to the laws, and so give happiness to their people. This is the commission of a king—to be the representative on earth of the Father who is in heaven. Here is exercise for courage, for enterprise, for fortitude, for every virtue which elevates the character of a man, this is the godlike jurisdiction of a sovereign. TO go to the field, to lead his people to scenes of carnage, is often a duty in kings; but it is one of those necessities, which, more than the trifling circumstances of sustaining nature by sleep and food, reminds the conqueror of the degraded state of mortality.** The one shows the weakness of the body, the other, the corruption of the soul. For, how far must man have fallen beneath his former heavenly nature before he can delight in the destruction of his fellow-men! Lament not, then, brave and virtuous prince, that I have kept your hands from the stains of blood. Show yourself beyond the vulgar apprehension of what is fame; and, conscious of the powers with which the Creator has endowed you, assume your throne with the dignity that is their due. Whether it be to the cabinet or to the field that He calls you to act, obey; and rely on it, a name greater than that of the hero of Macedon will await Robert, King of Scots!"
**Alexander the Great one day said to his friend Hephaestion, that "the business of eating and drinking compelled him to remember, and with a sense of abasement, his mortal nature, although he was the son of Ammon."
"You almost persuade me," returned Bruce; "but let us see Philip, and then I will decide."
As morning was now advanced, the friends turned toward the cottage, intending to see Baliol safe, and then proceed together to Guienne to the rescue of Lady Helen. That accomplished, they would visit Paris and hear its monarch's determination.
On entering the humble mansion they found Baliol awake, and anxiously inquiring of the widow what was become of the two knights. At sight of them he stretched out his hands to both, and said he should be able to travel in a few hours. Wallace proposed sending to Rouen for a litter to carry him the more easily thither. "No," cried Baliol with a frown; "Rouen shall never see me again within its walls. It was coming from thence that I lost my way last night; and though my poor servants would gladly have returned with me sooner than see me perish in the storm; yet rather would I have been found dead on the road, a reproach to the kings who have betrayed me, than have taken an hour's shelter in that inhospitable city."
While the friends took the simple breakfast prepared for them by the widow, Baliol related, that in consequence of the interference of Philip le Bel with Edward, he had been released from the Tower of London and sent to France, but under an oath never to leave that country. Philip gave the exiled king the castle of Galliard for a residence; where for some time he enjoyed the shadow of royalty, having still a sort of court composed of his own noble followers, some of whom were now with him, and the barons of the neighborhood. Philip allowed him guards and a splendid table. But on the peace being signed between France and England, in order that Edward might give up his ally the Earl of Flanders to his offended liege lord, the French monarch consented to relinquish the cause of Baliol, and though he should continue to grant him a shelter in his dominions, he removed from him all the appendages of a king.
"Accordingly," continued Baliol, "the guard was taken from my gates, my establishment reduced to that of a private nobleman, and no longer having it in my power to gratify the avidity or to flatter the ambition of those who came about me, I was soon left nearly alone. All but the poor old lieges whom you see, and who had been faithful to me through every change of my life, instantly deserted the forlorn Baliol. In vain I remonstrated with Philip. Either my letters never reached him, or he disdained to answer the man whose claims he had abandoned. Things were in this state when, the other day, and English lord found it convenient to bring his suit to my castle. I received him with hospitality, but soon found that what I gave in courtesy he seized as a right. In the true spirit of his master Edward he treated me more like the keeper of an hostel than a generous host. And on my attempting to plead with him for a Scottish lady whom his turbulent passions have forced from her country and reduced to a pitiable state of illness, he derided my arguments, sarcastically telling me that had I taken care of my kingdom, the door would not have been left open for him to steal its fairest prize—"
Wallace interrupted him: "Heaven grant you may be speaking of Lord deValence and Lady Helen Mar."
"I am," replied Baliol. "They are now at Galliard, and as her illness seems a lingering one, De Valence declared to me his intentions of continuing there. He seized upon the best apartments, and carried himself with so much haughtiness that, provoked beyond endurance, I ordered my horse and, accompanied by my honest courtiers, rode to Rouen to obtain redress from the governor. But the unworthy Frenchman advised me to go back, and by flattering De Valence try to regain the favor of Edward. I retired in indignation, determined to assert my own rights in my own castle, but the storm overtook me, and being forsaken by false friends, I am saved by generous enemies."
Wallace explained his errand respecting Lady Helen, and anxiously inquired of Baliol whether he meant to return to Galliard?
"Immediately," replied he; "go with me, and if the lady consents (which I do not doubt, for she scorns his prayers for her hand, and passes night and day in tears), I engage to assist in her escape."
Baliol then advised they should not all return to the castle together, the sight of two knights of their appearance accompanying his host being likely to alarm De Valence.
"The quietest way," continued the deposed king, "is the surest. Follow me at a short distance, and toward the shadows of evening, knock at the gates and request a night's entertainment. I will grant it, and then your happy destiny, ever fortunate Wallace, must do the rest."
This scheme being approved, a litter of hurdles was formed for the invalid monarch, and the old woman's pallet spread upon it.
"I will return it to you, my good widow," said Baliol, "and with proofs of my gratitude."
The two friends assisted the king to rise. When he set his food on the floor, he felt so surprisingly better that he though he could ride the journey. Wallace overruled this wish, and with Bruce supported his emaciated figure toward the door. The widow stood to see her guests depart. As Baliol mounted the litter, he slid a piece of gold into her hand. Wallace saw not what the king had given and gave a purse as his reward. Bruce had naught to bestow. He had left Durham with little, and that little was expended.
"My good widow," said he, "I am poor in everything but gratitude. In lieu of gold you must accept my prayers."
"May they, sweet youth," replied she, "return on your own head, giving you bread from the barren land and water out of sterile rock!"
"And have you no blessing for me, mother?" asked Wallace, turning round and regarding her with an impressive look; "some spirit you wist not of, speaks in your words."
"Then it must be a good spirit," answered she; "for all around me betokens gladness. The Scripture saith, 'Be kind to the wayfaring man, for many have so entertained angels unawares!' Yesterday at this time I was the poorest of all the daughters of charity.
"Last night I opened my doors in the storm, you enter and give me riches; he follows and endows me with his prayers! Am I not then greatly favored by Him who dispenseth to all who trust in Him. His mercy and your goodness shall not be hidden; for from this day forth I will light a fire each night in a part of my house whence it may be seen on every side from a great distance. Like you, princely knight, whose gold will make it burn, it shall shine afar, and give light and comfort to all who approach it."
"And when you look on it," said Wallace, "tell your beads for me. I am a son of war, and it may blaze when my vital spark is expiring."
The widow paused, gazed on him steadily, and then burst into tears.
"Is it possible," cried she, "that beautiful face may be laid in dust, that youthful form lay cold in clay, and these aged limbs survive to light a beacon to your memory!—and it shall arise! it shall burn like a holy flame, an incense to Heaven for the soul of him who has succored the feeble, and made the widow's heart to sing for joy!"
Wallace pressed the old woman's withered hand; Bruce did the same. She saw them mount their horses, and when they disappeared from her eyes, she returned into her cottage and wept.