Berwick.
While Wallace, accompanied by his brave friends, was thus carrying all
before him from the Grampian to the Cheviot Hills, Bruce was rapidly
recovering. His eager wishes seemed to heal his wounds, and on the
tenth day after the departure of Wallace, he left the couch which had
been beguiled of its irksomeness by the smiling attentions of the
tender Isabella. The ensuing Sabbath beheld him still more restored,
and having imparted his intentions to the Lords Ruthven and Douglas,
who were both with him, the next morning he joyfully buckled on his
armor. Isabella, when she saw him thus clad, started, and the roses
left her cheek. "I am armed to be your guide to Huntingtower," said
he, with a look that showed her he read her thoughts. He then called
for pen and ink, to write to Wallace. The reassured Isabella,
rejoicing in the glad beams of his brightening eyes, held the standish.
As he dipped his pen, he looked at her with a grateful tenderness that
thrilled her soul, and made her bend her blushing face to hide emotions
which whispered bliss in every beat of her happy heart. Thus, with a
spirit wrapped in felicity, for victory hailed him from without, and
love seemed to woo him to the dearest transports within, he wrote the
following letter to Wallace:
"I am now well, my best friend! This day I attend my lovely nurse,
with her venerable guardian, to Huntingtower. Eastward of Perth,
almost every castle of consequence is yet filled by the Southrons, whom
the folly of James Cummin allowed to reoccupy the places whence you had
so lately driven them. I go to root them out; to emulate in the north,
what you are now doing in the south! You shall see me again when the
banks of the Spey are as free as you have made the Forth. In all this
I am yet Thomas de Longueville. Isabella, the sweet soother of my
hours, knows me as no other; for would she not despise the unfamed
Bruce? To deserve and win her love as De Longueville, and to marry her
as King of Scotland, is the fond hope of your friend and brother,
Robert ---. God speed me, and I shall send you dispatches of my
proceedings."
Wallace had just made a successful attack upon the outworks of Berwick,
when this letter was put into his hand. He was surrounded by his
chieftains; and having read it, he informed them that Sir Thomas de
Longueville was going to the Spey to rid its castles of the enemy.
"The hopes of his enterprising spirit," continued Wallace, "are so
seconded by his determination, I doubt not that what he promises, God
and the justice of our cause will perform; and we may soon expect to
hear Scotland has no enemies in her Highlands."
But in this hope Wallace was disappointed. Day after day passed, and
no tidings from the north. He became anxious; Bothwell and Edwin too
began to share his uneasiness. Continued successes against Berwick had
assured them a speedy surrender, when unexpected succors being thrown
in by sea, the confidence of the garrison became re-excited, and the
ramparts appeared doubly manned. Wallace saw that the only alternative
was to surprise and take possession of the ships, and turn the siege
into a blockade. Still trusting that Bruce would be prosperous in the
Highlands, he calculated on full leisure to await the fall of Berwick
on this plan; and so much blood might be spared. Intent and execution
were twin-born in the breast of Wallace. By a masterly stroke he
effected his design on the shipping; and having closed the Southrons
within their walls, he dispatched Lord Bothwell to Huntingtower, to
learn the state of military operations there, and above all to bring
back tidings of the prince's health.
On the evening of the very day in which Murray left Berwick, a
desperate sully was made by the garrison; but they were beaten back
with such effect, that Wallace gained possession of one of their most
commanding towers. The contest did not end till night; and after
passing a brief while in the council-tent listening to the suggestions
of his friends relative to the use that might be made of the new
acquisition, he retired to his own quarters at a late hour. At these
momentous periods he never seemed to need sleep; and sitting at his
table setting the dispositions for the succeeding day, he marked not
the time till the flame of his exhausted lamp expired in the socket.
He replenished it and had again resumed his military labors, when the
curtain which covered the door of his tent was drawn aside, and an
armed man entered. Wallace looked up, and seeing that it was the
Knight of the Green Plume, asked if anything had occurred from the town.
"Nothing," replied the knight, in an agitated voice, and seating
himself beside Wallace.
"Any evil tidings from Perthshire?" demanded Wallace, who now hardly
doubted that ill news had arrived of Bruce.
"None," was the knight's reply; "but I am come to fulfill my promise to
you, to unite myself forever heart and soul to your destiny, or you
behold me this night for the last time."
Surprised at this address, and the emotion which shook the frame of the
unknown warrior, Wallace answered him with expressions of esteem, and
added:
"If it depend on me to unite so brave a man to my friendship forever,
only speak the word, declare your name, and I am ready to seal the
compact."
"My name," declared the knight, "will indeed put these protestations to
the proof. I have fought by your side, Sir William Wallace; I would
have died at any moment to have spared that breast a wound, and yet I
dread to raise my visor to show you who I am. A look will make me live
or blast me."
"Your language confounds me, noble knight," replied Wallace. "I know
of no man living, save the base violators of Lady Helen Mar's liberty,
who need tremble before my eyes. It is not possible that either of
these men is before me; and whoever you are, whatever you may have
been, brave chief, your deeds have proved you worthy of a soldier's
friendship, and I pledge you mine."
The knight was silent. He took Wallace's hand--he grasped it; the arms
that held it did indeed tremble. Wallace again spoke.
"What is the meaning of this? I have a power to benefit, but none to
injure."
"To benefit and to injure!" cried the knight, in a transport of
emotion; "you have my life in your hands. Oh! grant it, as you value
your own happiness and honor! Look on me and say whether I am to live
or die."
As the warrior spoke, he cast himself impetuously on his knees, and
threw open his visor. Wallace saw a fine but flushed face. It was
much overshadowed by the helmet.
"My friend," said he, attempting to raise him by the hand which clasped
his, "your words are mysteries to me; and so little right can I have to
the power you ascribe to me, that although it seems to me as if I had
seen your features before, yet--"
"You forget me!" cried the knight, starting on his feet, and throwing
off his helmet to the ground; "again look on this face and stab me at
once by a second declaration that I am remembered no more!"
The countenance of Wallace now showed that he too well remembered it.
He was pale and aghast.
"Lady Mar," cried he, "not expecting to see you under a warrior's
casque--you will pardon me, that when so appareled I should not
immediately recognize the widow of my friend."
She gasped for articulation.
"And it is thus," cried she, "you answer the sacrifices I have made for
you? For you I have committed an outrage on my nature; I have put on
me this abhorrent steel; I have braved the dangers of many a
hard-fought day, and all to guard your life! to convince you of a love
unexampled in woman! and thus you recognize her who has risked honor
and life for you--with coldness and reproach!"
"With neither, Lady Mar," returned he, "I am grateful for the generous
motives of your conduct; but for the sake of the fair fame you confess
you have endangered, in respect to the memory of him whose name you
bear, I cannot but wish that so hazardous an instance of interest in me
had been left undone."
"If that is all," returned she, drawing toward him, "it is in your
power to ward from me every stigma! Who will dare to cast one
reflection on my fair fame when you bear testimony to my purity? Who
will asperse the name of Mar when you displace it with that of Wallace?
Make me yours, dearest of men," cried she, clasping his hands, "and
you will receive one to your heart who never knew how to love before,
who will be to you what your heart who never knew how to love before,
who will be to you what woman never yet was, and who will endow you
with territories nearly equal to those of the King of Scotland. My
father is no more; and now, as Countess of Strathearn and Princess of
the Orkneys, I have it in my power to earn and Princess of the Orkneys,
I have it in my power to bring a sovereignty to your head, and the
fondest of wives to your bosom." As she vehemently spoke, and clung to
Wallace, as if she had already a right to seek comfort within his arms,
her tears and violent agitations so disconcerted him that for a few
moments he could not find a reply. This short endurance of her passion
aroused her almost drooping hopes, and intoxicated with so rapturous an
illusion, she threw off the little restraint in which the awe of
Wallace's coldness had confined her, and flinging herself on his
breast, poured forth all her love and fond ambitions for him. In vain
he attempted to interrupt her, to raise her with gentleness from her
indecorous situation; she had no perception but the idea which had now
taken possession of her heart, and whispering to him softly, said: "Be
but my husband, Wallace, and all rights shall perish before my love and
your aggrandizement. In these arms, you shall bless the day you first
saw Joanna of Strathearn!"
The prowess of the Knight of the Green Plume, the respect he owed to
the widow of the Earl of Mar, the tenderness he ever felt for all of
womankind, were all forgotten in the disgusting blandishments of this
disgrace to her sex. She wooed to be his wife, but not with the chaste
appeal of the widow of Mahlon. "Let me find favor in thy sight, for
thou hast comforted me! Spread thy garment over me, and let me be thy
wife!" said the fair Moabitess who in a strange land cast herself at
the feet of her deceased husband's friend. She was answered, "I will
do all that thou requirest, for thou art a virtuous woman!" But
neither the actions nor the words of Lady Mar bore witness that she
deserved this appellation. The were the dictates of a passion impure
as it was intemperate. Blinded by its fumes, she forgot the nature of
the heart she sought to pervert to sympathy with hers. She saw not
that every look and movement on her part filled Wallace with aversion,
and not until he forcibly broke from her did she doubt the success of
her fond caresses.
"Lady mar," said he, "I must repeat that I am not ungrateful for the
proofs of regard you have bestowed on me; but such excess of attachment
is lavished upon a man that is a bankrupt in love. I am cold as
monumental marble to every touch of that passion to which I was once
but too entirely devoted. Bereaved of the object, I am punished; thus
is my heart doomed to solitude on earth for having made an idol of the
angel that was sent to cheer my path to Heaven." Wallace said even
more than this. He remonstrated with her on the shipwreck she was
making of her own happiness, in adhering thus tenaciously to a man who
could only regard her with the general sentiment of esteem. He urged
her beauty and yet youthful years, and how many would be eager to win
her love, and to marry her with honor. While he continued to speak to
her with the tender consideration of a brother, she, who knew no
gradations in the affections of the heart, doubted his words, and
believed that a latent fire glowed in his breast which her art might
yet blow into a flame. She threw herself upon her knees, she wept, she
implored his pity, she wound her arms around his, and bathed his hands
with her tears, but still he continued to urge her, by every argument
of female delicacy, to relinquish her ill-directed love, to return to
her domains before her absence could be generally known. She looked up
to read his countenance. A friend's anxiety, nay, authority, was
there, but no glow of passion; all was calm and determined. Her
beauty, then, had been shown to a man without eyes, her tender
eloquence poured on an ear that was deaf, her blandishments lavished on
a block of marble! In a paroxysm of despair she dashed the hand she
held far from her, and standing proudly on her feet--"Hear me, thou man
of stone!" cried she, "and answer me on your life and honor, for both
depend on your reply; is Joanna of Strathearn to be your wife?"
"Cease to urge me, unhappy lady," returned Wallace; "you already know
the decision of this ever-widowed heart."
Lady Mar looked steadfastly at him.
"Then receive my last determination!" and drawing near him with a
desperate and portentous countenance, as if she meant to whisper in his
ear, she suddenly plucked St. Louis' dagger from his girdle and struck
it into his breast. He caught the hand which grasped the hilt. Her
eyes glared with the fury of a maniac, and, with a horrid laugh, she
exclaimed: "I have slain thee, insolent triumpher in my love and
agonies! Thou shalt not now deride me in the arms of thy minion; for,
I know that it is not for the dead Marion you have trampled on my heart
but for the living Helen!"
As she spoke, he moved her hold from the dagger, and drew the weapon
from the wound. A torrent of blood flowed over his vest, and stained
the hand that grasped hers. She turned of a deadly paleness, but a
demoniac joy still gleamed in her eyes.
"Lady Mar," cried he, while he thrust the thickness of his scarf into
the wound, "I pardon this outrage. Go in peace, I shall never breathe
to man nor woman the occurrences of this night. Only remember, that
with regard to Lady Helen, my wishes are as pure as her own innocence."
"So they may be now, vainly boasting, immaculate Wallace!" answered
she, with bitter derision; "men are saints when their passions are
satisfied. Think not to impose on her who knows how this vestal Helen
followed you in page's attire, and without one stigma being cast upon
her maiden delicacy. I am not to learn the days and nights she passed
alone with you in the woods of Normandy? Did you not follow her to
France? Did you not tear her from the arms of Lord Aymer de Valence?
and now, relinquishing her yourself, you leave a dishonored bride to
cheat the vows of some honester man! Wallace, I know you, and as I
have been fool enough to love you beyond all woman's love, I swear by
the powers of heaven and hell to make you feel the weight of woman's
hatred!"
Her denunciation had no effect on Wallace; but her slander against her
unoffending daughter-in-law agitated him with an indignation that
almost dispossessed him of himself. In hurried and vehement words, he
denied all that she had alleged against Helen, and appealed to the
whole court of France to witness her spotless innocence. Lady Mar
exulted in this emotion, though every sentence, by the interest it
displayed in its object, seemed to establish the truth of a suspicion
which she at first only uttered from the vague workings of her revenge.
Triumphing in the belief that he had found another as frail as
herself, and yet maddened that another should have been preferred
before her, her jealous pride blazed into redoubled flame.
"Swear," cried she, "till I see the blood of that false heart forced to
my feet, and still I shall believe the base daughter of Mar a wanton.
I go, not to proclaim her dishonor to the world, but to deprive her of
her lover; to yield the rebel Wallace into the hands of justice! When
on the scaffold, proud exulter in those by me now detested beauties,
remember that it was Joanna Strathearn who laid thy matchless head upon
the block; who consigned those limbs, of Heaven's own statuary, to
decorate the spires of Scotland! Remember that my curse pursues you,
here and hereafter!"
A livid fire seemed to dart from her scornful eyes, her countenance was
torn as by some internal fiend, and, with the last malediction
thundering from her tongue, she darted from his sight.