The Governor's Apartments.
The sun rose on Wallace and his brave legions as they traversed the
once romantic glades of Strathmore; but now the scene was changed. The
villages were abandoned, and the land lay around in uncultivated
wastes. Sheep, without a shepherd, fled wild from the approach of man;
and wolves issued, howling, from the cloisters of depopulated
monasteries. The army approached Dumblane; but it was without
inhabitant; grass grew in the streets; and the birds which roosted in
the desert dwellings flew scared from the windows as the trumpet of
Wallace sounded through the town. Loud echoes repeated the summons
from its hollow walls; but no other voice was heard, no human face
appeared; for the ravening hand of Cressingham had been there! Wallace
sighed as he looked around him. "Rather smile," cried Graham, "that
Heaven hath given you the power to say to the tyrants who have done
this, 'Here shall your proud waves be stayed!'"
They proceeded over many a hill and plain, and found that the same
withering touch of desolation had burned up and overwhelmed the
country. Wallace saw that his troops were faint for want of food;
cheering them, he promised that Ormsby should provide them a feast in
Perth; and, with reawakened spirits, they took the River Tay at its
fords, and were soon before the walls of that well-armed city. But it
was governed by a coward, and Ormsby fled to Dundee at the first sight
of the Scottish army. His flight might have warranted the garrison to
surrender without a blow, but a braver man being his lieutenant, sharp
was the conflict before Wallace could compel that officer to abandon
the ramparts and to sue for the very terms he had at first rejected.
After the fall of Perth, the young regent made a rapid progress through
that part of the country; driving the southron garrisons out of Scone,
and all the embattled towns; expelling them from the castles of
Kincain, Elcho, Kinfauns, and Doune; and then proceeding to the marine
fortresses (those avenues by which the ships of England had poured its
legions on the eastern coast), he compelled Dundee, Cupar, Glamis,
Montrose, and Aberdeen, all to acknowledge the power of his arms. He
seized most of the English ships in those ports, and manning them with
Scots, soon cleared the seas of the vessels which had escaped, taking
some, and putting others to flight; and one of the latter was the
fugitive Ormsby.
This enterprise achieved, Wallace, with a host of prisoners, turned his
steps toward the Forth; but ere he left the banks of the Tay and Dee,
he detached three thousand men under the command of Lord Ruthven,
giving him a commission to range the country from the Carse of Gowrie
to remotest Sutherland, and in all that tract reduce every town and
castle which had admitted a Southron garrison. Wallace took leave of
Lord Ruthven at Huntingtower, and that worthy nobleman, when he
assumed, with the government of Perth, this extensive command, said, as
he grasped the regent's hand, "I say not, bravest of Scots, what is my
gratitude for thus making me an arm of my country, but deeds will show!"
He then bade a father's adieu to his son, counseling him to regard
Wallace as the light in his path; and, embracing him, they parted.
A rapid march, round by Fifeshire (through which victory followed their
steps), brought the conqueror and his troops again within sight of the
towers of Stirling. It was on the eve of the day on which he had
promised Earl de Warenne should see the English prisoners depart for
the borders. No doubt of his arriving at the appointed time was
entertained by the Scots or by the Southrons in the castle; the one
knew the sacredness of his word, and the other having felt his prowess,
would not so far disparage their own as to suppose that any could
withstand him by whom they were beaten.
De Warenne, as he stood on the battlements of the keep, beheld from
afar the long line of Scottish soldiers as they descended the Ochil
Hills. When he pointed it out to De Valence, that nobleman (who, in
proportion as he wished to check the arms of Wallace, had flattered
himself that it might happen), against the evidence of his eyesight,
contradicted the observation of the veteran earl.
"Your sight deceives you," said he, "it is only the sunbeams playing on
the cliffs."
"Then those cliffs are moving ones," cried De Warenne, "which, I fear,
have ground our countrymen on the coast to powder! We shall find
Wallace here by sunset, to show us how he has resented the affront our
ill-advised prince cast on his jealous honor."
"His honor," returned De Valence, "is like that of his countrymen's--an
enemy alike to his own interest and to that of others. Had it allowed
him to accept the crown of Scotland, and so have fought Edward with the
concentrating arm of a king; or would he even now offer peace to our
sovereign, granting his prerogative as liege lord of the country, all
might go well; but as the honor you speak of prevents his using these
means of ending the contest, destruction must close his career."
"And what quarrel," demanded De Warenne, "can you, my Lord de Valence,
have against this nice honor of Sir William Wallace, since you allow it
secures the final success of our cause?"
"His honor and himself are hateful to me!" impatiently answered De
Valence; "he crosses me in my wishes, public and private; and for the
sake of my king and myself, I might almost be tempted-" He turned pale
as he spoke, and met the penetrating glance of De Warenne. He paused.
"Tempted to what?" asked De Warenne.
"To a Brutus mode of ridding the state of an enemy."
"That might be noble in a Roman citizen," returned De Warenne, "which
would be villainous in an English lord, treated as you have been by a
generous victor, not the usurper of any country's liberties, but rather
a Brutus in defense of his own. Which man of us all, from the general
to the meanest follower in our camps, has he injured?"
Lord Aymer frowned. "Did he not expose me, threaten me with an
ignominious death, on the walls of Stirling?"
"But was it before he saw the Earl of Mar, with his hapless family,
brought, with halters on their necks, to be suspended from this very
tower? Ah! what a tale has the lovely countess told me of that direful
scene! What he then did was to check the sanguinary Cressingham from
imbruiting his hands in the blood of female and infant innocence."
"I care not," cried De Valence, "what are or are not the offenses of
this domineering Wallace, but I hate him; and my respect for his
advocates cannot but correspond with that feeling." As he spoke, that
he might not be further molested by the arguments of De Warenne, he
abruptly turned away, and left the battlements.
Pride would not allow the enraged earl to confess his private reasons
for this vehement enmity against the Scottish chief. A conference
which he had held the preceding evening with Lord Mar, was the cause of
this augmented hatred; and, from that moment, the haughty Southron
vowed the destruction of Wallace, by open attack, or secret treachery.
Ambition, and the base counterfeit of love, those two master passions
in untempered minds, were the springs of this antipathy. The instant
in which he knew that the young creature whom at a distance he
discerned clinging around the Earl of Mar's neck in the streets of
Stirling, was the same Lady Helen on whose account Lord Soulis had
poured on him such undeserved invectives in Bothwell Castle; curious to
have a nearer view of one whose transcendent beauty he had often heard
celebrated by others, he ordered her to be immediately conveyed to his
apartments in the citadel.
On their first interview he was more struck by her personal charms than
he had ever been with any woman's, although few were so noted for
gallantry in the English court as himself. He could hardly understand
the nature of his feelings while discoursing with her. To all others
of her sex he had declared his enamored wishes with as much ease as
vivacity, but when he looked on Helen the admiration her loveliness
inspired was checked by an indescribable awe. No word of passion
escaped his lips; he sought to win her by a deportment consonant with
her own dignity of manner, and obeyed all her wishes, excepting when
they pointed to any communication with her parents. He feared the wary
eyes of the Earl of Mar. But nothing of this reverence of Helen was
grounded on any principle within the heart of De Valence. His idea of
virtue was so erroneous that he believed, by the short assumption of
its semblance, he might so steal on the confidence of his victim as to
induce her to forget all the world--nay, heaven itself--in his sophistry
and blandishments. To facilitate this end he at first designed to
precipitate the condemnation of the earl, that he might be rid of a
father's existence, holding, in dread of his censure, the perhaps
otherwise yielding heart of his lovely intended mistress.
The unprincipled and impure can have no idea what virtue or delicacy
are other than vestments of disguise or of ornament, to be thrown off
at will; and therefore, to reason with such minds is to talk to the
winds--to tell a man who is born blind to decide between two colors. In
short, a libertine heart is the same in all ages of the world. De
Valence, therefore, seeing the anguish of her fears for her father, and
hearing the fervor with which she implored for his life, adopted the
plan of granting the earl reprieves from day to day; and in spite of
the remonstrances of Cressingham, he intended (after having worked upon
the terrors of Helen), to grant to her her father's release, on
condition of her yielding herself to be his. He had even meditated
that the accomplishment of this device should have taken place the very
night in which Wallace's first appearance before Stirling had called
its garrison to arms.
Impelled by vengeance against the man who had driven him from Dumbarton
and from Ayr, and irritated at being delayed in the moment when his
passion was to seize its object, De Valence thought to end all by a
coup de main--and rushing out of the gates, was taken prisoner. Such
was the situation of things, when Wallace first became master of the
place.
Now when the whole of the English army were in the same captivity with
himself, when he saw the lately proscribed Lord Mar, Governor of
Stirling, and that the Scottish cause seemed triumphant on every side,
De Valence changed his former illicit views on Helen, and bethought him
of making her his wife. Ambition, as well as love, impelled him to
this resolution; and he foresaw that the vast influence which his
marriage with the daughter of Mar must give him in the country, would
be a decisive argument with the King of England.
To this purpose, not doubting the Scottish's earl acceptance of such a
son-in-law, on the very day that Wallace marched toward the coast, De
Valence sent to request an hour's private audience of Lord Mar. He
could not then grant it; but at noon, next day, they met in the
governor's apartments.
The Southron, without much preface, opened his wishes, and proffered
his hand for the Lady Helen. "I'll make her the proudest lady in Great
Britain," continued he; "for she shall have a court in my Welsh
province, little inferior to that of Edward's queen."
"Pomp would have no sway with my daughter," replied the earl; "it is
the princely mind she values, not its pagentry. Whomsoever she prefers
the tribute will be paid to the merit of the object, not to his rank;
and therefore, earl, should it be you, the greater will be your pledge
of happiness. I shall repeat to her what you have said; and to-morrow
deliver her answer."
Not deeming it possible that it should be otherwise than favorable, De
Valence allowed his imagination to roam over every anticipated delight.
He exulted in the pride with which he would show this perfection of
northern beauty to the fair of England; how would the simple graces of
her seraphic form, which looked more like a being of air than of earth,
put to shame the labored beauties of the court? And then it was not
only the artless charms of a wood-nymph he would present to the
wondering throng, but a being whose majesty of soul proclaimed her high
descent and peerless virtues. How did he congratulate himself, in
contemplating this unsullied temple of virgin innocence, that he had
never, by even the vapor of one impassioned sigh, contaminated her pure
ear, or broken the magic spell, which seemed fated to crown him with
happiness unknown, with honor unexampled! To be so blessed, so
distinguished, so envied, was to him a dream of triumph, that wafted
away all remembrance of his late defeat; and he believed, in taking
Helen from Scotland, he should bear away a richer prize than any he
could leave behind.
Full of these anticipations, he attended the Governor of Stirling the
next day, to hear his daughter's answer. But unwilling to give the
earl that advantage over him which a knowledge of his views in the
matter might occasion, he affected a composure he did not feel; and
with a lofty air entered the room as if he were come rather to confer
than to beg a favor. This deportment did not lessen the satisfaction
with which the brave Scot opened his mission.
"My lord, I have just seen my daughter. She duly appreciates the honor
you would confer on her; she is grateful for all your courtesies whilst
she was your prisoner, but beyond that sentiment, her heart, attached
to her native land, cannot sympathize with your wishes."
De Valence started. He did not expect anything in the shape of a
denial; but supposing that perhaps a little of his own art was tried by
the father to enhance the value of his daughter's yielding, he threw
himself into a chair, and affecting chagrin at a disappointment (which
he did not believe was seriously intended), exclaimed with vehemence,
"Surely, Lord Mar, this is not meant as a refusal? I cannot receive it
as such, for I know Lady Helen's gentleness, I know the sweet
tenderness of her nature would plead for me, were she to see me at her
feet, and hear me pour forth the most ardent passion that ever burned
in a human breast. Oh, my gracious lord, if it be her attachment to
Scotland which alone militates against me, I will promise that her time
shall be passed between the two countries. Her marriage with me may
facilitate that peace with England which must be the wish of us all;
and perhaps the lord wardenship which De Warenne now holds may be
transferred to me. I have reasons for expecting that it will be so;
and then she, as a queen in Scotland, and you as her father, may claim
every distinction from her fond husband, every indulgence for the
Scots, which your patriot heart can dictate. This would be a certain
benefit to Scotland; while the ignis fatuus you are now following,
however brilliant may be its career during Edward's absence, must on
his return be extinguished in disaster and infamy."
The silence of the Earl of Mar, who, willing to hear all that was in
the mind of De Valence, had let him proceed uninterrupted, encouraged
the Southron lord to say more than he had at first intended to reveal;
but when he made a pause, and seemed to expect an answer, the earl
spoke:
"I am fully sensible of the honor you would bestow upon my daughter and
myself by your alliance; but, as I have said before, her heart is too
devoted to Scotland to marry any man whose birth does not make it his
duty to prefer the liberty of her native land, even before his love for
her. That hope to see our country freed from a yoke unjustly laid upon
her--that hope which you, not considering our rights, or weighing the
power that lies in a just cause, denominate an ignis fatuus, is the
only passion I believe that lives in the gentle bosom of my Helen; and
therefore, noble earl, not even your offers can equal the measure of
her wishes."
At this speech De Valence bit his lip with real disappointment; and
starting from his chair now in unaffected disorder, "I am not to be
deceived, Lord Mar," cried he; "I am not to be cajoled by the pretended
patriotism of your daughter; I know the sex too well to be cheated with
these excuses. The ignis fatuus that leads your daughter from my arms,
is not the freedom of Scotland, but the handsome rebel who conquers in
its name! He is now fortune's minion, but he will fall, Lord Mar, and
then what will be the fate of his mad adherents?"
"Earl de Valence," replied the veteran, "sixty winters have checked the
tides of passion in my veins; but the indignation of my soul against
any insult offered to my daughter's delicacy, or to the name of the
lord regent of Scotland is not less powerful in my breast. You are my
prisoner, and I pardon what I could so easily avenge. I will even
answer you, and say that I do not know of any exclusive affection
subsisting between my daughter and Sir William Wallace; but this I am
assured of, that were it the case, she would be more ennobled in being
the wife of so true a patriot and so virtuous a man, than were she
advanced to the bosom of an emperor. And for myself, were he to-morrow
hurled by a mysterious Providence from his present nobly-won elevation,
I should glory in my son were he such, and would think him as great on
a scaffold as on a throne."
"It is well that is your opinion," replied De Valence, stopping in his
wrathful strides, and turning on Mar with vengeful irony; "cherish
these heroics, for you will assuredly see him so exalted. Then where
will be his triumphs over Edward's arms and Pembroke's heart? Where
your daughter's patriot husband; you glorious son? Start not, old man,
for by all the powers of hell I swear that some eyes which now look
proudly on the Southron host, shall close in blood! I announce a fact!"
"If you do," replied Mar, shuddering at the demoniac fire that
lightened from the countenance of De Valence, "it must be by the agency
of devils; and their minister, vindictive earl, will meet the vengeance
of the Eternal arm."
"These dreams," cried De Valence, "cannot terrify me. You are neither
a seer, nor I a fool, to be taken by such prophecies. But were you
wise enough to embrace the advantage I offer, you might be a prophet of
good, greater than he of Ercildown, to your nation; for all that you
could promise, I would take care should be fulfilled. But you cast
from you your peace and safety; my vengeance shall therefore take its
course. I rely not on oracles of heaven or hell; but I have pronounced
the doom of my enemies; and though you now see me a prisoner, tremble,
haughty Scot, at the resentment which lies in this head and heart.
This arm perhaps needs not the armies of Edward to pierce you in your
boast!"
He left the room as he spoke; and Lord Mar, shaking his venerable head
as he disappeared, said to himself: "Impotent rage of passion and of
youth, I pity and forgive you."
It was not, therefore, so extraordinary that De Valence, when he saw
Wallace descending the Ochil hills with the flying banners of new
victories, should break into curses of his fortune, and swear inwardly
the most determined revenge.
Fuel was added to this fire at sunset, when the almost measureless
defiles of prisoners, marshaled before the ramparts of Stirling, and
taking the usual oath to Wallace, met his view.
"To-morrow we quit these dishonoring wall," cried he to himself: "but
ere I leave them, if there be power in gold, or strength in my arm, he
shall die!"