For the better comprehension of the events related in the preceding
chapter, it will be necessary to cast a summary glance on matters of
historical and domestic import no way irrelevant to our subject, save
and except their having taken place some few years previous to the
commencement of our tale.
The early years of Isabella of Buchan had been passed in happiness. The
only daughter, indeed for seven years the only child, of Malcolm, Earl
of Fife, deprived of her mother on the birth of her brother, her youth
had been nursed in a tenderness and care uncommon in those rude ages;
and yet, from being constantly with her father, she imbibed those higher
qualities of mind which so ably fitted her for the part which in after
years it was her lot to play. The last words of his devoted wife,
imploring him to educate her child himself, and not to sever the tie
between them, by following the example of his compeers, and sending her
either to England, France, or Norway, had been zealously observed by the
earl; the prosperous calm, which was the happy portion of Scotland
during the latter years of Alexander III., whose favorite minister he
was, enabled him to adhere to her wishes far more successfully than
could have been the case had he been called forth to war.
In her father's castle, then, were the first thirteen years of the Lady
Isabella spent, varied only by occasional visits to the court of
Alexander, where her beauty and vivacity rendered her a universal
favorite. Descended from one of the most ancient Scottish families,
whose race it was their boast had never been adulterated by the blood of
a foreigner, no Norman prejudice intermingled with the education of
Isabella, to tarnish in any degree those principles of loyalty and
patriotism which her father, the Earl of Fife, so zealously inculcated.
She was a more true, devoted Scottish woman at fourteen, than many of
her own rank whose years might double hers; ready even then to sacrifice
even life itself, were it called for in defence of her sovereign, or the
freedom of her country; and when, on the death of Alexander, clouds
began to darken the horizon of Scotland, her father scrupled not to
impart to her, child though she seemed, those fears and anxieties which
clouded his brow, and filled his spirit with foreboding gloom. It was
then that in her flashing eye and lofty soul, in the undaunted spirit,
which bore a while even his colder and more foreseeing mood along with
it, that he traced the fruit whose seed he had so carefully sown.
"Why should you fear for Scotland, my father?" she would urge; "is it
because her queen is but a child and now far distant, that anarchy and
gloom shall enfold our land? Is it not shame in ye thus craven to deem
her sons, when in thy own breast so much devotion and loyalty have rest?
why not judge others by yourself, my father, and know the dark things of
which ye dream can never be?"
"Thou speakest as the enthusiast thou art, my child. Yet it is not the
rule of our maiden queen my foreboding spirit dreads; 'tis that on such
a slender thread as her young life suspends the well-doing or the ruin
of her kingdom. If she be permitted to live and reign over us, all may
be well; 'tis on the event of her death for which I tremble."
"Wait till the evil day cometh then, my father; bring it not nearer by
anticipation; and should indeed such be, thinkest thou not there are
bold hearts and loyal souls to guard our land from foreign foe, and give
the rightful heir his due?"
"I know not, Isabella. There remain but few with the pure Scottish blood
within their veins, and it is but to them our land is so dear: they
would peril life and limb in her defence. It is not to the proud baron
descended from the intruding Norman, and thinking only of his knightly
sports and increase of wealth, by it matters not what war. Nor dare we
look with confidence to the wild chiefs of the north and the Lords of
the Isles; eager to enlarge their own dominions, to extend the terrors
of their name, they will gladly welcome the horrors and confusion that
may arise; and have we true Scottish blood enough to weigh against
these, my child? Alas! Isabella, our only hope is in the health and
well-doing of our queen, precarious as that is; but if she fail us, woe
to Scotland!"
The young Isabella could not bring forward any solid arguments in answer
to this reasoning, and therefore she was silent; but she felt her
Scottish blood throb quicker in her veins, as he spoke of the few pure
Scottish men remaining, and inwardly vowed, woman as she was, to devote
both energy and life to her country and its sovereign.
Unhappily for his children, though perhaps fortunately for himself, the
Earl of Fife was spared the witnessing in the miseries of his country
how true had been his forebodings. Two years after the death of his
king, he was found dead in his bed, not without strong suspicion of
poison. Public rumor pointed to his uncle, Macduff of Glamis, as the
instigator, if not the actual perpetrator of the deed; but as no decided
proof could be alleged against him, and the High Courts of Scotland not
seeming inclined to pursue the investigation, the rumor ceased, and
Macduff assumed, with great appearance of zeal, the guardianship of the
young Earl of Fife and his sister, an office bequeathed to him under the
hand and seal of the earl, his nephew.
The character of the Lady Isabella was formed; that of her brother, a
child of eight, of course was not; and the deep, voiceless suffering her
father's loss occasioned her individually was painfully heightened by
the idea that to her young brother his death was an infinitely greater
misfortune than to herself. He indeed knew not, felt not the agony which
bound her; he knew not the void which was on her soul; how utterly,
unspeakably lonely that heart had become, accustomed as it had been to
repose its every thought, and hope, and wish, and feeling on a parent's
love; yet notwithstanding this, her clear mind felt and saw that while
for herself there was little fear that she should waver in those
principles so carefully instilled, for her brother there was much, very
much to dread. She did not and could not repose confidence in her
kinsman; for her parent's sake she struggled to prevent dislike, to
compel belief that the suavity, even kindness of his manner, the
sentiments which he expressed, had their foundation in sincerity; but
when her young brother became solely and entirely subject to his
influence, she could no longer resist the conviction that their guardian
was not the fittest person for the formation of a patriot. She could
not, she would not believe the rumor which had once, but once, reached
her ears, uniting the hitherto pure line of Macduff with midnight
murder; her own noble mind rejected the idea as a thing utterly and
wholly impossible, the more so perhaps, as she knew her father had been
latterly subject to an insidious disease, baffling all the leech's art,
and which he himself had often warned her would terminate suddenly; yet
still an inward shuddering would cross her heart at times, when in his
presence; she could not define the cause, or why she felt it sometimes
and not always, and so she sought to subdue it, but she sought in vain.
Meanwhile an event approached materially connected with the Lady
Isabella, and whose consummation the late Thane of Fife had earnestly
prayed he might have been permitted to hallow with his blessing.
Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan and High Constable of Scotland, had been
from early youth the brother in arms and dearest friend of the Earl of
Fife, and in the romantic enthusiasm which ever characterized the
companionship of chivalry, they had exchanged a mutual vow that in after
years, should heaven grant them children, a yet nearer and dearer tie
should unite their houses. The birth of Isabella, two years after that
of an heir to Buchan, was hailed with increased delight by both fathers,
and from her earliest years she was accustomed to look to the Lord John
as her future husband. Perhaps had they been much thrown together,
Isabella's high and independent spirit would have rebelled against this
wish of her father, and preferred the choosing for herself; but from the
ages of eleven and nine they had been separated, the Earl of Buchan
sending his son, much against the advice of his friend, to England,
imagining that there, and under such a knight as Prince Edward, he would
better learn the noble art of war and all chivalric duties, than in the
more barbarous realm of Scotland. To Isabella, then, her destined
husband was a stranger; yet with a heart too young and unsophisticated
to combat her parent's wishes, by any idea of its affections becoming
otherwise engaged, and judging of the son by the father, to whom she was
ever a welcome guest, and who in himself was indeed a noble example of
chivalry and honor, Isabella neither felt nor expressed any repugnance
to her father's wish, that she should sign her name to a contract of
betrothal, drawn up by the venerable abbot of Buchan, and to which the
name of Lord John had been already appended; it was the lingering echoes
of that deep, yet gentle voice, blessing her compliance to his wishes,
which thrilled again and again to her heart, softening her grief, even
when that beloved voice was hushed forever, and she had no thought, no
wish to recall that promise, nay, even looked to its consummation with
joy, as a release from the companionship, nay, as at times she felt, the
wardance of her kinsman.
But this calm and happy frame of mind was not permitted to be of long
continuance. In one of the brief intervals of Macduff's absence from the
castle, about eighteen months after her father's death, the young earl
prevailed on the aged retainer in whose charge he had been left, to
consent to his going forth to hunt the red deer, a sport of which, boy
as he was, he was passionately fond. In joyous spirits, and attended by
a gallant train, he set out, calling for and receiving the ready
sympathy of his sister, who rejoiced as himself in his emancipation from
restraint, which either was, or seemed to be, adverse to the usual
treatment of noble youths.
Somewhat sooner than Isabella anticipated, they returned. Earl Duncan,
with a wilfulness which already characterized him, weary of the extreme
watchfulness of his attendants, who, in their anxiety to keep him from
danger, checked and interfered with his boyish wish to signalize himself
by some daring deed of agility and skill, at length separated himself,
except from one or two as wilful, and but little older than himself. The
young lord possessed all the daring of his race, but skill and foresight
he needed greatly, and dearly would he have paid for his rashness. A
young and fiery bull had chanced to cross his path, and disregarding the
entreaties of his followers, he taunted them with cowardice, and goaded
the furious animal to the encounter; too late he discovered that he had
neither skill nor strength for the combat he had provoked, and had it
not been for the strenuous exertions of a stranger youth, who diverted
aside the fury of the beast, he must have fallen a victim to his
thoughtless daring. Curiously, and almost enviously, he watched the
combat between the stranger and the bull, nor did any emotion of
gratitude rise in the boy's breast to soften the bitterness with which
he regarded the victory of the former, which the reproaches of his
retainers, who at that instant came up, and their condemnation of his
folly, did not tend to diminish; and almost sullenly he passed to the
rear, on their return, leaving Sir Malise Duff to make the
acknowledgments, which should have come from him, and courteously invite
the young stranger to accompany them home, an invitation which, somewhat
to the discomposure of Earl Duncan, was accepted.
If the stranger had experienced any emotion of anger from the boy's
slight of his services, the gratitude of the Lady Isabella would have
banished it on the instant, and amply repaid them; with cheeks glowing,
eyes glistening, and a voice quivering with suppressed emotion, she had
spoken her brief yet eloquent thanks; and had he needed further proof,
the embrace she lavished on her young brother, as reluctantly, and after
a long interval, he entered the hall, said yet more than her broken
words.
"Thou art but a fool, Isabella, craving thy pardon," was his ungracious
address, as he sullenly freed himself from her. "Had I brought thee the
bull's horns, there might have been some cause for this marvellously
warm welcome; but as it is--"
"I joy thou wert not punished for thy rashness, Duncan. Yet 'twas not in
such mood I hoped to find thee; knowest thou that 'tis to yon brave
stranger thou owest thy life?"
"Better it had been forfeited, than that he should stand between me and
mine honor. I thank him not for it, nor owe him aught like gratitude."
"Peace, ungrateful boy, an thou knowest not thy station better," was his
sister's calm, yet dignified reply; and the stranger smiled, and by his
courteous manner, speedily dismissed her fears as to the impression of
her brother's words, regarding them as the mere petulance of a child.
Days passed, and still the stranger lingered; eminently handsome, his
carriage peculiarly graceful, and even dignified, although it was
evident, from the slight, and as it were, unfinished roundness of his
figure, that he was but in the first stage of youth, yet his discourse
and manner were of a kind that would bespeak him noble, even had his
appearance been less convincing. According to the custom of the time,
which would have deemed the questioning a guest as to his name and
family a breach of all the rules of chivalry and hospitality, he
remained unknown.
"Men call me Sir Robert, though I have still my spurs to win," he had
once said, laughingly, to Lady Isabella and her kinsman, Sir Malise
Duff, "but I would not proclaim my birth till I may bring it honor."
A month passed ere their guest took his departure, leaving regard and
regret behind him, in all, perhaps, save in the childish breast of Earl
Duncan, whose sullen manner had never changed. There was a freshness and
light-heartedness, and a wild spirit of daring gallantry about the
stranger that fascinated, men scarce knew wherefore; a reckless
independence of sentiment which charmed, from the utter absence of all
affectation which it comprised. To all, save to the Lady Isabella, he
was a mere boy, younger even than his years; but in conversation with
her his superior mind shone forth, proving he could in truth appreciate
hers, and give back intellect for intellect, feeling for feeling;
perhaps her beauty and unusual endowments had left their impression upon
him. However it may be, one day, one little day after the departure of
Sir Robert, Isabella woke to the consciousness that the calm which had
so long rested on her spirit bad departed, and forever; and to what had
it given place? Had she dared to love, she, the betrothed, the promised
bride of another? No; she could not have sunk thus low, her heart had
been too long controlled to rebel now. She might not, she would not
listen to its voice, to its wild, impassioned throbs. Alas! she
miscalculated her own power; the fastnesses she had deemed secure were
forced; they closed upon their subtle foe, and held their conqueror
prisoner.
But Isabella was not one to waver in a determination when once formed;
how might she break asunder links which the dead had hallowed? She
became the bride of Lord John; she sought with her whole soul to forget
the past, and love him according to her bridal vow, and as time passed
she ceased to think of that beautiful vision of her early youth, save as
a dream that had had no resting; and a mother's fond yearnings sent
their deep delicious sweetness as oil on the troubled waters of her
heart. She might have done this, but unhappily she too soon discovered
her husband was not one to aid her in her unsuspected task, to soothe
and guide, and by his affection demand her gratitude and reverence.
Enwrapped in selfishness or haughty indifference, his manner towards her
ever harsh, unbending, and suspicious, Isabella's pride would have
sustained her, had not her previous trial lowered her in self-esteem;
but as it was, meekly and silently she bore with the continued outbreak
of unrestrained passion, and never wavered from the path of duty her
clear mind had laid down.
On the birth of a son, however, her mind regained its tone, and inwardly
yet solemnly she vowed that no mistaken sense of duty to her husband
should interfere with the education of her son. As widely opposed as
were their individual characters, so were the politics of the now Earl
and Countess of Buchan. Educated in England, on friendly terms with her
king, he had, as the Earl of Fife anticipated, lost all nationality, all
interest in Scotland, and as willingly and unconcernedly taken the vows
of homage to John Baliol, as the mere representative and lieutenant of
Edward, as he would have done to a free and unlimited king. He had been
among the very first to vote for calling in the King of England as
umpire; the most eager to second and carry out all Edward's views, and
consequently high in that monarch's favor, a reputation which his enmity
to the house of Bruce, one of the most troublesome competitors of the
crown, did not tend to diminish. Fortunately perhaps for Isabella, the
bustling politics of her husband constantly divided them. The births of
a daughter and son had no effect in softening his hard and selfish
temper; he looked on them more as incumbrances than pleasures, and
leaving the countess in the strong Tower of Buchan, he himself, with a
troop of armed and mounted Comyns, attached himself to the court and
interests of Edward, seeming to forget that such beings as a wife and
children had existence. Months, often years, would stretch between the
earl's visits to his mountain home, and then a week was the longest
period of his lingering; but no evidence of a gentler spirit or of less
indifference to his children was apparent, and years seemed to have
turned to positive evil, qualities which in youth had merely seemed
unamiable.
Desolate as the situation of the countess might perhaps appear, she
found solace and delight in moulding the young minds of her children
according to the pure and elevated cast of her own. All the
long-suppressed tenderness of her nature was lavished upon them, and on
their innocent love she sought to rest the passionate yearnings of her
own. She taught them to be patriots, in the purest, most beautiful
appropriation of the term,--to spurn the yoke of the foreigner, and the
oppressor, however light and flowery the links of that yoke might seem.
She could not bid them love and revere their father as she longed to do,
but she taught them that where their duty to their country and their
free and unchained king interfered not, in all things they must obey and
serve their father, and seek to win his love.
Once only had the Countess of Buchan beheld the vision which had crossed
her youth. He had come, it seemed unconscious of his track, and asked
hospitality for a night, evidently without knowing who was the owner of
the castle; perhaps his thoughts were preoccupied, for a deep gloom was
on his brow, and though he had started with evident pleasure when
recognizing his beautiful hostess, the gloom speedily resumed
ascendency. It was but a few weeks after the fatal battle of Falkirk,
and therefore Isabella felt there was cause enough for depression and
uneasiness. The graces of boyhood had given place to a finished
manliness of deportment, a calmer expression of feature, denoting that
years had changed and steadied the character, even as the form. He then
seemed as one laboring under painful and heavy thought, as one brooding
over some mighty change within, as if some question of weighty import
were struggling with recollections and visions of the past. He had
spoken little, evidently shrinking in pain from all reference to or
information on the late engagement. He tarried not long, departing with
dawn next day, and they did not meet again.
And what had been the emotions of the countess? perhaps her heart had
throbbed, and her cheek paled and flushed, at this unexpected meeting
with one she had fervently prayed never to see again; but not one
feeling obtained ascendency in that heart which she would have dreaded
to unveil to the eye of her husband. She did indeed feel that had her
lot been cast otherwise, it must have been a happy one, but the thought
was transient. She was a wife, a mother, and in the happiness of her
children, her youth, and all its joys and pangs, and dreams and hopes,
were merged, to be recalled no more.
The task of instilling patriotic sentiments in the breast of her son had
been insensibly aided by the countess's independent position amid the
retainers of Buchan. This earldom had only been possessed by the family
of Comyn since the latter years of the reign of William the Lion,
passing into their family by the marriage of Margaret Countess of Buchan
with Sir William Comyn, a knight of goodly favor and repute. This
interpolation and ascendency of strangers was a continual source of
jealousy and ire to the ancient retainers of the olden heritage, and
continually threatened to break out into open feud, had not the soothing
policy of the Countess Margaret and her descendants, by continually
employing them together in subjecting other petty clans, contrived to
keep them in good humor. As long as their lords were loyal to Scotland
and her king, and behaved so as to occasion no unpleasant comparison
between them and former superiors, all went on smoothly; but the haughty
and often outrageous conduct of the present earl, his utter neglect of
their interests, his treasonous politics, speedily roused the slumbering
fire into flame. A secret yet solemn oath went round the clan, by which
every fighting man bound himself to rebel against their master, rather
than betray their country by siding with a foreign tyrant; to desert
their homes, their all, and disperse singly midst the fastnesses and
rocks of Scotland, than lift up a sword against her freedom. The
sentiments of the countess were very soon discovered; and even yet
stronger than the contempt and loathing with which they looked upon the
earl was the love, the veneration they bore to her and to her children.
If his mother's lips had been silent, the youthful heir would have
learned loyalty and patriotism from his brave though unlettered
retainers, as it was to them he owed the skin and grace with which he
sate his fiery steed, and poised his heavy lance, and wielded his
stainless brand--to them he owed all the chivalric accomplishments of
the day; and though he had never quitted the territories of Buchan, he
would have found few to compete with him in his high and gallant spirit.
Dark and troubled was the political aspect of unhappy Scotland, at the
eventful period at which our tale commences. The barbarous and most
unjust execution of Sir William Wallace had struck the whole country as
with a deadly panic, from which it seemed there was not one to rise to
cast aside the heavy chains, whose weight it seemed had crushed the
whole kingdom, and taken from it the last gleams of patriotism and of
hope. Every fortress of strength and consequence was in possession of
the English. English soldiers, English commissioners, English judges,
laws, and regulations now filled and governed Scotland. The abrogation
of all those ancient customs, which had descended from the Celts and
Picts, and Scots, fell upon the hearts of all true Scottish men as the
tearing asunder the last links of freedom, and branding them as slaves.
Her principal nobles, strangely and traitorously, preferred safety and
wealth, in the acknowledgment and servitude of Edward, to glory and
honor in the service of their country; and the spirits of the middle
ranks yet spurned the inglorious yoke, and throbbed but for one to lead
them on, if not to victory, at least to an honorable death. That one
seemed not to rise; it was as if the mighty soul of Scotland had
departed, when Wallace slept in death.