The Scottish Chiefs
Chapter LXXXV.
The Warden's Apartments.
On the evening of the fatal day in which the sun of William Wallace hadset forever on his country, the Earl of Gloucester was imparting to theWarden of the Tower his last directions respecting the sacred remains,when the door of the chamber suddenly opened, and a file of soldiersentered. A man in armor, with his visor closed, was in the midst ofthem. The captain of the band told the warden that the person beforehim had behaved in a most seditious manner. He first demandedadmittance into the Tower; then, on the sentinel making answer that inconsequence of the recent execution of the Scottish chief, orders hadbeen given "to allow no strangers to approach the gates till thefollowing morning," he, the prisoner, burst into a passionate emotion,uttering such threats against the King of England, that the captainthought it his duty to have him seized and brought before the warden.
On the entrance of the soldiers, Gloucester had retired into the shadowof the room. He turned round on hearing these particulars. When thecaptain ceased speaking, the stranger fearlessly threw up his visor andexclaimed:
"Take me, not to our warden alone, but to your king; let me pierce hisconscience with his infamy--would it were to stab him ere I die!"
In this frantic adjuration, Gloucester discovered the gallant Bruce.And hastening toward him to prevent his apparently determined exposureof himself, with a few words he dismissed the officer and his guard;and then, turning to the warden, "Sir Edward," said he, "this strangeris not less my friend than he that was Sir William Wallace!"
"Then far be it from me, earl, to denounce him to our enraged monarch.I have seen enough of noble blood shed already. And though we, thesubjects of King Edward, may not call your late friend a martyr, yet wemust think his country honored in so steady a patriot, and may surelywish we had many the like in our own!" With these words the worthy oldknight bowed and withdrew.
Bruce, who had hardly heard the observation of the warden, on hisdeparture turned upon the earl, and, with a bursting heart, exclaimed:
"Tell me, is it true? Am I so lost a wretch as to be deprived of mybest, my dearest friend? And is it true, as I am told, that everyinfernal rigor of the sentence has been executed on that brave andbreathless body! Answer me to the fact, that I may speedily take mycourse!"
Alarmed at the direful expression of his countenance, with a quiveringlip, but in silence, Gloucester laid his hand upon his arm. Bruce toowell understood what he durst not speak, and, shaking it off,frantically:
"I have no friend!" cried he. "Wallace! my dauntless, my only Wallace,thou art rifled from me! And shall I have fellowship with these? No,all mankind are my enemies, and soon will I leave their detestedsojourn!"
Gloucester attempted to interrupt him; but he broke out afresh and withredoubled violence:
"And you, earl," cried he, "lived in this realm, and suffered such asacrilege on God's most perfect work! Ungrateful, worthless man! fillup the measure of your baseness; deliver me to Edward, and let me bravehim to his face. Oh! let me die, covered with the blood of thyenemies, my murdered Wallace! my more than brother, that shall be theroyal robe thy Bruce will bring to thee!"
Gloucester stood in dignified forbearance under the invectives andstormy grief of the Scottish prince; but when exhausted nature seemedto take rest in momentary silence, he approached him. Bruce cast onhim a lurid glance of suspicion.
"Leave me!" cried he; "I hate the whole world, and you the worst in it;for you might have saved him, and you did not--you might have preservedhis sacred limbs from being made the gazing-stock of traitors, and youdid not. Away from me, apt son of a tyrant, lest I tear you inpiecemeal!"
"By the heroic spirit of him whom this outrage on me dishonors, hear myanswer, Bruce! And, if not on this spot, let me then exculpate myselfby the side of his body, yet uninvaded by a sacrilegious touch."
"How?" interrupted Bruce. Gloucester continued:
"All that was mortal in our friend now lies in a distant chamber ofthis quadrangle. When I could not prevail on Edward, either byentreaty or reproaches, to remit the last gloomy vengeance of tyrants,I determined to wrest its object from his hands. A notorious murdererdied yesterday under the torture. After the inanimate corpse of ourfriend was brought into this house, to be conveyed to the scene of itslast horrors, by the assistance of the warden the malefactor's body wasconveyed here also, and placed on the traitor's sledge, in the stead ofhis who was no traitor, and on that murderer most justly fell the rigorof so dreadful a sentence."
The whole aspect of Bruce changed during this explanation, which wasfollowed by a brief account from Gloucester of their friend's heroicsuffering and death.
"Can you pardon my reproaches to you?" cried the prince, stretching outhis hand. "Forgive, generous Gloucester, the distraction of a severelywounded spirit!"
This pardon was immediately accorded; and Bruce impetuously added:
"Lead me to these dear remains, that with redoubled certainty I maystrike his murderer's heart! I came to succor him. I now stay todie--but not unrevenged!"
"I will lead you," returned the earl, "where you shall learn adifferent lesson. His soul will speak to you by the lips of his bride,now watching by those sacred relics. Feeble is now her lamp of life;but a saint's vigilance keeps it burning, till it may expire in thegrave with him she so chastely loved."
A few words gave Bruce to understand that he meant Lady Helen Mar; andwith a deepened grief when he heard in what an awful hour their handswere plighted, he followed his conductor through the quadrangle.
When Gloucester gently opened the door, which contained the remains ofthe bravest and the best, Bruce stood for a moment on the threshold.At the further end of the apartment, lighted by a solitary taper, laythe body of Wallace on a bier, covered with a soldier's cloak.Kneeling by its side, with her head on its bosom, was Helen. Her hairhung disordered over her shoulders, and shrouded with its dark locksthe marble features of her beloved. Bruce scarcely breathed. Heattempted to advance, but he staggered and fell against the wall. Shelooked up at the noise; but her momentary alarm ceased when she sawGloucester. He spoke in a tender voice.
"Be not agitated, lady; but here is the Earl of Carrick."
"Nothing can agitate me more," replied she, turning mournfully towardthe prince; who, raised from his momentary dizziness, beheld herregarding him with the look of one already an inhabitant of the grave."Helen!" faintly articulated Bruce; "I come to share your sorrows, andto avenge them."
"Avenge them!" repeated she, after a pause; "is there aught invengeance that can awaken life in these cold veins again? Let themurderers live in the world they have made a desert by the destructionof its brightest glory, and then our home will be his tomb!" Again shebent her head upon Wallace's cold breast; and seemed to forget that shehad been spoken to--that Bruce was present.
"May I not look upon him?" cried he, grasping her hand. "Oh! Helen,show me that heroic face from whose beams my heart first caught thefire of virtue!" She moved; and the clay-hued features of all that wasever perfect in manly beauty met his sight. But the bright eyes wereshut; the radiance of his smile was dimmed in death, yet still thatsmile was there. Bruce precipitated his lips to his, and sinking onhis knees, remained in a silence only broken by his sighs.
It was an awful and heart-breaking pause, for the voice which in allscenes of weal or woe had ever mingled sweetly with theirs, was silent.Helen, who had not wept since the tremendous hour of the morning, nowburst into an agony of tears; and the vehemence of her feelings tearingso delicate a frame (now rendered weak unto death by a consumingsickness, which her late exertions and present griefs had made seize onher very vitals), seemed to threaten the immediate extinction of herbeing. Bruce, aroused by her smothered cries, as she lay almostexpiring, upheld by Gloucester, hurried to her side. By degrees sherecovered to life and observance; but finding herself removed from thebier, she sprang wildly toward it. Bruce caught her arm to support hertottering steps. She looke
d steadfastly at him, and then at themotionless body. "He is there," cried she, "and yet he speaks not! Hesoothes not my grief--I weep, and he does not comfort me! And there helies! O! Bruce, can this be possible? Do I really see him dead? Andwhat is death?" added she, grasping the cold hand of Wallace to herheart. "Didst thou not tell me, when this hand pressed mine andblessed me, that it was only a translation from grief to joy? And isit not so, Bruce? Behold how we mourn and he is happy! I will obeythee, my immortal Wallace!" cried she, casting her arms about him; "Iwill obey thee, and weep no more!"
She was silent and calm. And Bruce, kneeling on the opposite side ofhis friend, listened, without interrupting him, to the arguments whichGloucester adduced to persuade him to abstain from discovering himselfto Edward, or even uttering resentment against him till he could doboth as became the man for whom Wallace had sacrificed so much, eventill he was King of Scotland. "To that end," said Gloucester, "didthis gallant chieftain live. For, in restoring you to the people ofScotland, he believed he was setting a seal to their liberties andtheir peace. To that end did he die, and in the direful moment,uttered prayers for your establishment. Think then of this, and lethim not look down from his heavenly dwelling and see that Brucedespises the country for which he bled; that the now only hope ofScotland has sacrificed himself in a moment of inconsiderate revenge tothe cruel hand which broke his dauntless heart!"
Bruce did not oppose this counsel; and as the fumes of passion passedaway, leaving a manly sorrow to steady his determination of revenge, helistened with approbation, and finally resolved, whatever violence hemight do his nature, not to allow Edward the last triumph of findinghim in his power.
The earl's next essay was with Helen. He feared that a rumor of thestranger's indignation at the late execution, and that the Earl ofGloucester had taken him in charge, might, when associated with thefact of the widow of Sir William Wallace still remaining under hisprotection, awaken some dangerous suspicion and direct investigations,too likely to discover the imposition he had put on the executioners ofthe last clause in his royal father's most iniquitous sentence. Hetherefore explained his new alarm to Helen, and conjured her, if shewould yet preserve the hallowed remains before her from any chance ofviolence (which her lingering near them might induce by attractingnotice to her movements), she must consent to immediately leave thekingdom. The valiant and ever faithful heart of Wallace should be hercompanion; and an English captain, who had partaken of his clemency atBerwick, be her trusty conductor to her native land. To meet everyobjection, he added, "Bruce shall be protected by me with strictfidelity till some safe opportunity may offer for his bearing toScotland the sacred corpse that must ever be considered the mostprecious relic in his country."
"As Heaven wills the trials of my heart," returned she, "so let it be!"and bending her aching head on the dear pillow of her rest--the bosomwhich, though cold and deserted by its heavenly inhabitant, was stillthe bosom of her Wallace! the ravaged temple rendered sacred by thefootsteps of a god! For, had not virtue, and the soul of Wallace,dwelt there? and where virtue is, there abides the Spirit of the HolyOne! With these thoughts, she passed the remainder of the night invigils; and they were not less devoutly shared by the chastened heartof the Prince of Scotland.