The Thames.
On the evening of the fourteenth day from the one in which Helen had
embarked, the little ship of Dundee entered on the bright bosom of the
Nore. While she sat on the deck watching the progress of the vessel
with an eager spirit, which would gladly have taken wings to have flown
to the object of her voyage, she first saw the majestic waters of the
Thames. But it was a tyrannous flood to her, and she marked not the
diverging shores crowned with palaces; her eyes looked over every
stately dome to seek the black summits of the Tower. At a certain
point the captain of the vessel spoke through his trumpet to summon a
pilot from the land. In a few minutes he was obeyed. The Englishman
took the helm. Helen was reclined on a coil of ropes near him. He
entered into conversation with the Norwegian, and she listened in
speechless attention to a recital which bound up her every sense in
that hearing. The captain had made some unprincipled jest on the
present troubles of Scotland, now his adopted country from his
commercial interests, and he added with a laugh, "that he though any
ruler the right one who gave him a free course in traffic." In answer
to this remark, and with an observation not very flattering to the
Norwegian's estimation of right and wrong, the Englishman mentioned the
capture of the once renowned champion of Scotland. Even the enemy who
recounted the particulars, showed a truth in the recital which shamed
the man who had benefited by the patriotism he affected to despise, and
for which Sir William Wallace was now likely to shed his blood.
"I was present," continued the pilot, "when the brave Scot was put on
the raft, which carried him through the Traitor's Gate into the Tower.
His hands and feet were bound with iron; but his head, owing to
faintness from the wounds he had received at Lumloch, was so bent down
on his breast as he reclined on the float, that I could not then see
his face. There was a great pause, for none of us, when he did appear
in sight, could shout over the downfall of so merciful a conqueror.
Many were spectators of this scene whose lives he had spared on the
fields of Scotland; and my brother was amongst them. However, that I
might have a distinct view of the man who has so long held our warlike
monarch in dread, I went to Westminster Hall on the day appointed for
his trial. The great judges of the land, and almost all the lords
besides were there, and a very grand spectacle they made. But when the
hall-door was opened, and the dauntless prisoner appeared, then it was
that I saw true majesty. King Edward on his throne never looked with
such a royal air. His very chains seemed given to be graced by him as
he moved through the parting crowd with the step of one who had been
used to have all his accusers at his feet. Though pale with loss of
blood, and his countenance bore traces of the suffering occasioned by
the state of his yet unhealed wounds, his head was now erect, and he
looked with undisturbed dignity on all around. The Earl of Gloucester,
whose life and liberty he had granted at Berwick, sat on the right of
the lord chancellor. Bishop Beck, the Lords de Valence and Soulis,
with one Monteith (who it seems was the man that betrayed him into our
hands), charged him with high treason against the life of King Edward
and the peace of his majesty's realms of England and Scotland.
Grievous were the accusations brought against him, and bitter the
revilings with which he was denounced as a traitor too mischievous to
deserve any show of mercy. The Earl of Gloucester at last rose
indignantly, and in energetic and respectful terms, called on Sir
William Wallace, by the reverence in which he held the tribunal of
future ages, to answer for himself!
"'On this adjuration, brave earl!' replied he, 'I will speak!' O! men
of Scotland, what a voice was that! In it was all honesty and
nobleness! and a murmur arose from some who feared its power, which
Gloucester was obliged to check by exclaiming aloud with a stern voice;
'Silence, while Sir William Wallace answers. He who disobeys,
sergeant-at-arms, take into custody!' A pause succeeded, and the
chieftain, with god-like majesty of truth, denied the possibility of
being a traitor where he never had owed allegiance. But with a
matchless fearlessness, he avowed the facts alleged against him, which
told the havoc he had made of the English on the Scottish plains, and
the devastations he had afterward wrought in the lands of England. 'It
was a son,' cried he, 'defending the orphans of his father from the
steel and rapine of a treacherous friend! It was the sword of
restitution gathering on that false friend's fields the harvests he had
ravaged from theirs!' He spoke more and nobly--too nobly for them who
heard him. They rose to a man to silence what they could not confute;
and the sentence of death was pronounced on him--the cruel death of a
traitor! The Earl of Gloucester turned pale on his seat, but the
countenance of Wallace was unmoved. As he was led forth, I followed,
and of Wallace was unmoved. As he was led forth, I followed, and saw
the young Le de Spencer, with several other reprobate gallants of our
court, ready to receive him. With shameful mockery they flew laurels
on his head, and with torrents of derision, told him, it was meet they
should so salute the champion of Scotland! Wallace glanced on them a
look which spoke pity rather than contempt, and, with a serene
countenance, he followed the warden toward the Tower. The hirelings of
his accusers loaded him with invectives as he passed along; but the
populace who beheld his noble mien, with those individuals who had
heard of--while many had felt--his generous virtues, deplored and wept
his sentence. To-morrow at sunrise he dies."
Helen's face being overshadowed by the low brim of her hat, the agony
of her mind could not have been read in her countenance had the good
Southron been sufficiently uninterested in his story to regard the
sympathy of others; but as soon as he had uttered the last dreadful
words, "To-morrow at sunrise he dies!" she started from her seat; her
horror-struck senses apprehended nothing further, and turning to the
Norwegian, "Captain," cried she, "I must reach the Tower this night!"
"Impossible!" was the reply: "the tide will not take us up till
to-morrow at noon."
"Then the waves shall!" cried she, and frantically rushing toward the
ship's side, she would have thrown herself into the water, had not the
pilot caught her arm.
"Boy!" said he, "are you mad? your action, your looks--"
"No," interrupted she, wringing her hands; "but in the Tower I must be
this night, or-- Oh! God of mercy, end my misery!"
The unutterable anguish of her voice, countenance, and gesture excited
a suspicion in the Englishman, that this youth was connected with the
Scottish chief; and not choosing to hint his surmise to the unfeeling
Norwegian, in a different tone he exhorted Helen to composure, and
offered her his own boat, which was then towed at the side of the
vessel, to take her to the Tower. Helen grasped the pilot's rough
hand, and in a paroxysm of gratitude pressed it to her lips; then
forgetful of her engagements with the insensible man who stood unmoved
by his side, sprung into the boat. The Norwegian followed her, and in
a threatening tone demanded his hire. She now recollected it, and
putting her hand into her vest, gave him the string of pearls which had
been her necklace. He was satisfied, and the boat pushed off.
The cross, the cherished memorial of her hallowed meeting with Wallace
in the chapel of Snawdoun, and which always hung suspended on her
bosom, was now in her hand and pressed close to her heart. The rowers
plied their oars, and her eyes, with a gaze as if they would pierce the
horizon, looked intently onward, while the men labored through the
tide. Even to see the walls which contained Wallace, seemed to promise
her a degree of comfort she dared hardly hope herself to enjoy. At
last the awful battlements of England's state prison rose before her.
She could not mistake them. "That is the Tower," said one of the
rowers. A shriek escaped her, and instantly covering her face with her
hands, she tried to shut from her sight those very walls she had so
long sought amongst the clouds. They imprisoned Wallace! He groaned
within their confines! and their presence paralyzed her heart.
"Shall I die before I reach thee, Wallace?" was the question her almost
flitting soul uttered, as she, trembling, yet with swift steps,
ascended the stone stairs which led from the water's edge to the
entrance to the Tower. She flew through the different courts to the
one in which stood the prison of Wallace. One of the boatmen, being
bargeman to the Governor of the Tower, as a privileged person,
conducted her unmolested through every ward till she reached the place
of her destination. There she dismissed him with a ring from her
finger as his reward; and passing a body of soldiers, who kept guard
before a large porch that led to the dungeons, she entered, and found
herself in an immense paved room. A single sentinel stood at the end
near to an iron grating, or small portcullis; there, then, was Wallace!
Forgetting her disguise and situation, in the frantic eagerness of her
pursuit, she hastily advanced to the man:
"Let me pass to Sir William Wallace," cried she, "and treasures shall
be your reward."
"Whose treasures, my pretty page?" demanded the soldier; "I dare not,
were it at the suit of the Countess of Gloucester herself."
"Oh!" cried Helen, "for the sake of a greater than any countess in the
land, take this jeweled bracelet, and let me pass!"
The man, misapprehending the words of this adjuration, at sight of the
diamonds, supposing the page must come from the good queen, no longer
demurred. Putting the bracelet into his bosom, he whispered Helen,
that as he granted this permission at the risk of his life, she must
conceal herself in the interior chamber of the prisoner's dungeon
should any person from the warden visit him during their interview.
She readily promised this; and he informed her that, when through this
door, she must cross two other apartments, the bolts to the entrances
of which she must undraw; and then, at the extremity of a long passage,
a door, fastened by a latch, would admit her to Sir William Wallace.
With these words, the soldier removed the massy bars, and Helen entered.