He spoke to the winds. They poured toward Edwin; Wallace, with a giant's strength, dispersed them as they advanced; the beam of wood fell on the heads, the breasts of his assailants. Himself bleeding at every pore, he felt not a smart while yet he defended Edwin. But a shout was heard from the door, a faint cry was heard at his side. He looked around. Edwin lay extended on the ground, with an arrow quivering in his breast, his closing eyes still looking upward to his friend. The beam fell from the hands of Wallace. He threw himself on his knees beside him. The dying boy pressed his hand to his heart, and dropped his head upon his bosom—Wallace moved not, spoke not. His hand was bathed in the blood of his friend, but not a pulse beat beneath it; no breath warmed the paralyzed chill of his face as it hung over the motionless lips of Edwin.

The men were more terrified at this unresisting stillness than at the invincible prowess of his arm, and stood gazing on him in mute wonder. But Monteith, in whom the fell appetite of avarice had destroyed every perception of humanity, sent in other ruffians with new orders to bind Wallace. They approached him with terror; two of the strongest stealing behind him, and taking advantage of his face being bent upon that of his murdered Edwin, each in the same moment seized his hands. As they griped them fast, the others advanced eagerly to fasten the bands, he looked calmly up, but it was a dreadful calm; it spoke of despair, of the full completion of all woe. "Bring chains," cried one of the men, "he will burst these thongs."

"You may bind me with a hair," said he; "I contend no more." The bonds were fastened on his wrists; and then, turning toward the lifeless body of Edwin, he raised it gently in his arms. The rosy red of youth yet tinged his cold cheek; his parted lips still beamed with the same—but the breath that had so sweetly informed them, was flown. "Oh! my best brother that ever I had" cried Wallace in a sudden transport, and kissing his pale forehead; "my sincerest friend in my greatest need! In thee was truth, manhood, and nobleness; in thee was all man's fidelity with woman's tenderness. My friend, my brother, oh! would to God I had died for thee!"

Chapter LXXX.

Huntingtower.

Lord Ruthven was yet musing, in fearful anxiety, on Wallace's solemn adieu, and the confirmation which the recitals of Grimsby and Hay had brought of his determined exile, when he was struck with a new consternation by the flight of his son. A billet, which Edwin had left with Scrymgeour, who guessed not its contents, told his father that he was gone to seek their friend, and to unite himself forever to his fortunes.

Bothwell not less eager to preserve Wallace to the world, with an intent to persuade him to at least abandon his monastic project, set off direct for France, hoping to arrive before his friend, and engage the French monarch to assist in preventing so grievous a sacrifice. Ruthven, meanwhile, fearful that the unarmed Wallace and the self-regardless Edwin might fall into the hands of the venal wretches now widely dispersed to seize the chief and his adherents, sent out the veterans, in divers disguises, to pursue the roads it was probable he might take, and finding him, guard him safely to the coast. Till Ruthven should receive accounts of their success, he forbore to forward the letter which Wallace had left for Bruce, or to increase the solicitude of the already anxious inhabitants of Huntingtower with any intimation of what had happened. But on the fourth day, Scrymgeour and his party returned with the horrible narrative of Lumloch.

receive accounts of their success, he forbore to forward the letter which Wallace had left for Bruce, or to increase the solicitude of the already anxious inhabitants of Huntingtower with any intimation of what had happened. But on the fourth day, Scrymgeour and his party returned with the horrible narrative of Lumloch.

After the murder of his youthful friend, Wallace had been loaded with irons, and conveyed, so unresistingly that he seemed in a stupor, on board a vessel, to be carried without loss of time to the Tower of London. Sir John Monteith, though he never ventured into his sight, attended as the accuser, who, to put a visor on cruelty, was to swear away his victim's life. The horror and grief of Ruthven at these tidings were unutterable; and Scrymgeour, to turn the tide of the bereaved father's thoughts to the inspiring recollection of the early glory of his son, proceeded to narrate, that he found the beauteous remains in the hovel, but bedecked with flowers by the village girls. They were weeping over it, and lamenting the pitiless heart which could slay such youth and loveliness. To bury him in so obscure a spot, Scrymgeour would not allow, and he had sent Stephen Ireland with the sacred corpse to Dumbarton, with orders to see him entombed in the chapel of that fortress.

"It is done," continued the worthy knight, "and those towers he so bravely scaled with stand forever the monument of Edwin Ruthven."

"Scrymgeour," said the stricken father, "the shafts fall thick upon us, but we must fulfill our duty."

Cautious of inflicting too heavy a blow on the fortitude of his wife and of Helen, he commanded Grimsby and Hay to withhold from everybody at Huntingtower the tidings of its young lord's fate; but he believed it his duty not to delay the letter of Wallace to Bruce, and the dreadful information to him of Monteith's treachery. Ruthven ended his short epistle to his wife by saying he should soon follow his messenger; but that at present he could not bring himself to entirely abandon the Lowlands to even a temporary empire of the seditious chiefs.

Ruthven ended his short epistle to his wife by saying he should soon follow his messenger; but that at present he could not bring himself to entirely abandon the Lowlands to even a temporary empire of the seditious chiefs.

On Grimsby's arrival at Huntingtower he was conducted immediately to Bruce. Some cheering symptoms having appeared that morning, he had just exchanged his bed for a couch when Grimsby entered the room. The countenance of the honest Southron was the harbinger of his news. Lady Helen started from her seat, and Bruce, stretching out his arms, eagerly caught the packets the soldier presented. Isabella inquired if all were well with Sir William Wallace; but ere he could make an answer, Lady Ruthven ran breathless into the room, holding out the open letter brought by Hay to her. Bruce had just read the first line of his, which announced the captivity of Wallace; and, with a groan that pierced through the souls of every one present, he made an attempt to spring from the couch; but in the act he reeled, and fell back in a fearful but mute mental agony. The apprehensive heart of Helen guessed some direful explanation; she looked with speechless inquiry upon her aunt and Grimsby. Isabella and Ercildown hastened to Bruce; and Lady Ruthven being too much appalled in her own feelings to think for a moment on the aghast Helen, hurriedly read to her from Lord Ruthven's letter the brief but decisive account of Wallace's dangerous situation—his seizure and conveyance to the Tower of England. Helen listened without a word; her heart seemed locked within her; her brain was on fire; and gazing fixedly on the floor while she listened, all else that was transacted around her passed unnoticed.

The pangs of a convulsion fit did not long shackle the determined Bruce. The energy of his spirit struggling to gain the side of Wallace in this his extreme need (for he well knew Edward's implacable soul), roused him from his worse than swoon. With his extended arms dashing away the restoratives with which both Isabella and Ercildown hung over him, he would have leaped on the floor had not the latter held him down.

"Withhold me not!" cried he; "this is not the time for sickness and indulgence. My friend is in the fangs of the tyrant, and shall I lie here? No, not for all the empires in the globe will I be detained another hour."

Isabella, affrighted at the furies which raged in his eyes, but yet more terrified at the perils attendant on his desperate resolution, threw herself at his feet, and implored him to stay for her sake.

"No," cried Bruce, "not for thy life, Isabella, which is dearer to me than my own! not to save this ungrateful country from the doom it merits would I linger one moment from the side of him who has fought, bled, and suffered for me and mine, who is now treated with ignominy, and sentenced to die, for my delinquency! Had I consented to proclaim myself on my landing, secure with Bruce the king envy would have feared to strike; but I must first win a fame like his! And while I lay here, they tore him from the vain and impotent Bruce! But, Almighty pardoner of my sins!" cried he, with vehemence, "grant me strength to wrest him from their grip, and I will go barefoot to Palestine, to utter all my gratitude!"

Isabella sunk weeping into the arms of her aunt. And the venerable Ercildown, wishing to curb an impetuosity which could only involve its generous agent in a ruin deeper than that it sought to revenge, with more zeal than judgment, urged to the prince the danger into which such boundless resentment would precipitate his own person. At this intimation the impassioned Bruce, stung to the soul that such an argument could be expected to have weight with him, solemnly bent his knees, and clasping his sword, vowed before Heaven "either to release Wallace or—" to share his fate! he would have added; but Isabella, watchful of his words, suddenly interrupted him, by throwing herself wildly on his neck, and exclaiming:

"Oh, say not so! Rather swear to pluck the tyrant from his throne; that the scepter of my Bruce may bless England, as it will yet do this unhappy land!"

"She says right!" ejaculated Ercildown, in a prophetic transport; "and the scepter of Bruce, in the hands of his offspring, shall bless the united countries to the latest generations! The walls of separation shall then be thrown down, and England and Scotland be one people."

Bruce looked steadfastly on the sage: "Then if thy voice utter holy verity, it will not again deny my call to wield the power that Heaven bestows! I follow my fate! To-morrow's dawn sees me in the path to snatch my best treasure, my counselor, my guide, from the judgment of his enemies—or woe to England, woe to all Scotland born who have breathed one hostile word against his sacred life! Helen dost thou hear me?" cried he: "Wilt thou not assist me to persuade thy too timid sister that her Bruce's honor, his happiness, lives in the preservation of his friend? Speak to her, counsel her, sweet Helen, and, and, please the Almighty arm of Heaven, I will reward thy tenderness with the return of Wallace!"

Helen gazed intently on him while he spoke. She smiled when he ended, but she did not answer, and there was a wild vacancy in the smile that seemed to say she knew not what had been spoken, and that her thoughts were far away. Without further regarding him or any present, she arose and left the room. At this moment of fearful abstraction, her whole soul was bent with an intensity that touched on madness, on the execution of a project which had rushed into her mind in the moment she heard of Wallace's deathful captivity and destination.

Helen gazed intently on him while he spoke. She smiled when he ended, but she did not answer, and there was a wild vacancy in the smile that seemed to say she knew not what had been spoken, and that her thoughts were far away. Without further regarding him or any present, she arose and left the room. At this moment of fearful abstraction, her whole soul was bent with an intensity that touched on madness, on the execution of a project which had rushed into her mind in the moment she heard of Wallace's deathful captivity and destination.

The approach of night favored her design. Hurrying to her chamber, she dismissed her maids with the prompt excuse that she was ill, and desired not to be disturbed until morning, then bolting the door, she quickly habited herself as the dear memorial of her happy days in France, and dropping from her window into the pleasance beneath, ran swiftly through its woody precincts toward Dundee.

Before she arrived at the suburbs of Ferth, her tender feet became so blistered, she found the necessity of stopping at the first cottage. But her perturbed spirits rendered it impossible for her to take rest, and she answered the hospitable offer of its humble owner, with a request that he would go into the town and immediately purchase a horse, to carry her that night to Dundee. She put her purse into the man's hand, who without further discussion obeyed. When the animal was brought and the honest Scot returned her the purse with its remaining contents, she divided them with him, and turning from his thanks, mounted the horse, and rode away.

About an hour before dawn, she arrived within view of the ships lying in the harbor at Dundee. At this sight she threw herself off the panting animal, and leaving it to rest and liberty, hastened to the beach. A gentle breeze blew freshly from the northwest, and several vessels were heaving their anchors to get under weigh.

"Are any," demanded she, "bound for the Tower of London?"

"None," were the replies. Despair was now in her heart and gesture. But suddenly recollecting that in dressing herself for flight she had not taken off the jewels she usually wore, she exclaimed with renovated hope, "Will not gold tempt some one to carry me thither?" A rough Norwegian sailor jumped from the side of the nearest vessel, and readily answered in the affirmative. "My life," rejoined she, "or a necklace of pearls shall be yours, in the moment you land me at the Tower of London." The man seeing the youth and agitation of the seeming boy, doubted his power to perform so magnificent a promise, and was half inclined to retract his assent; but Helen pointing to a jewel on her finger as a proof that she did not speak of things beyond her read, he no longer hesitated; and pledging his word that wind and tide in his favor, he would land her at the Tower Stairs, she, as if all happiness must meet her at that point, sprung into his vessel. The sails were unfurled, the voices of the men chanted forth their cheering responses on clearing the harbor, and Helen throwing herself along the floor of her little cabin, in that prostration of body and soul, silently breathed her thanks to God for being indeed launched on the ocean, whose waves she trusted would soon convey her to Wallace; to sooth, to serve—to die, or to compass the release of him who had sacrificed more than his life for her father's preservation—for him who had saved herself from worse than death.

Chapter LXXXI.

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.

Chapter LXXXII.

The Tower of London.



Helen's fleet steps carried her in a few minutes through the intervening dungeons to the door which would restore to her eyes the being with whose life her existence seemed blended. The bolts had yielded to her hands. The iron latch now gave way; and the ponderous oak, grating dismally on its hinges, she looked forward, and beheld the object of all her solicitude leaning along a couch; a stone table was before him, at which he seemed writing. He raised his head at the sound. The peace of virtue was in his eyes, and a smile on his lips, as if he had expected some angel visitant.

The first glance at his pale, but heavenly countenance struck to the heart of Helen; veneration, anguish, shame, all rushed on her at once. She was in his presence! but how might he turn from consolations he had not sought! The intemperate passion of her step-mother now glared before her; his contempt of the countess' unsolicited advances appeared ready to be extended to her rash daughter-in-law; and with an irrepressible cry, which seemed to breathe out her life, Helen would have fled, but her failing limbs bent under her, and she fell senseless into the dungeon. Wallace started from his reclining position. He thought his senses must deceive him—and yet the shriek was Lady Helen's. He had heard the same cry on the Pentland Hills; in the chamber of Chateau Galliard! He rose agitated; he approached the prostrate youth, and bending to the inanimate form, took off the Norman hat; he parted the heavy locks which fell over her brow, and recognized the features of her who alone had ever shared his meditations with his Marion. He sprinkled water on her face and hands; he touched her cheek; it was ashy cold, and the chill struck to his heart. "Helen!" exclaimed he; "Helen, awake! Speak to thy friend!"

Still she was motionless. "Dead!" cried he, with increased emotion. His eye and his heart in a moment discerned and understood the rapid emaciation of those lovely features—now fearing the worst; "Gone so soon!" repeated he, "gone to tell my Marion that her Wallace comes. Blessed angel!" cried he, clasping her to his breast, with an energy of which he was not aware, "take me, take me with thee!" The pressure, the voice, roused the dormant life of Helen. With a torturing sigh she unsealed her eyes from the death-like load that oppressed them, and found herself in the arms of Wallace.

All her wandering senses, which from the first promulgation of his danger had been kept in a bewildered state, now rallied; and, in recovered sanity, smote her to the soul. Though still overwhelmed with grief at the fate which threatened to tear him from her and life, she now wondered how she could ever have so trampled on the retreating modesty of her nature, as to have brought herself thus into his presence; and in a voice of horror, of despair, believing that she had forever destroyed herself in his opinion, she exclaimed: "O! Wallace! how came I here? I am lost—and innocently; but God—the pure God—can read the soul!"

She lay in hopeless misery on his breast, with her eyes again closed, almost unconscious of the support on which she leaned.

"Lady Helen," returned he, "was it other than Wallace you sought in these dungeons? I dared to think that the Parent we both adore had sent you hither to be His harbinger of consolation!" Recalled to self-possession by the kindness of these words, Helen turned her head on his bosom, and in a burst of grateful tears, hardly articulated:

"And will you not abhor me for this act of madness? But I was not myself. And yet, where should I live but at the feet of my benefactor?"

The steadfast soul of Wallace was subdued by this language, and the manner of its utterance. It was the disinterested dictates of a pure though agitated spirit, which he now was convinced did most exclusively love him, but with the passion of an angel; and the tears of a sympathy which spoke their kindred natures stole from his eyes as he bent his cheek on her head. She felt them; and rejoicing in such an assurance that she yet possessed his esteem, a blessed calm diffused itself over her mind, and raising herself, with a look of virtuous confidence, she exclaimed:

"Then you do understand me, Wallace? you pardon me this apparent forgetfulness of my sex; and you recognize a true sister in Helen Mar? I may administer to that noble heart, till—" she paused, turning deathly pale, and then clasping his hand in both hers, in bitter agony added, "till we meet in heaven!"

"And blissful, dearest saint, will be our union there," replied he, "where soul meets soul, unencumbered of these earthly fetters; and mingles with each other, even as thy tender teardrops now glide into mine! But there, my Helen, we shall never weep. No heart will be left unsatisfied; no spirit will mourn in unrequited love, for that happy region is the abode of love—of love without the defilements or the disquietudes of mortality, for there it is an everlasting, pure enjoyment. It is a full, diffusive tenderness, which, penetrating all hearts, unites the whole in one spirit of boundless love in the bosom of our God! Who, the source of all love, as John the beloved disciple saith, 'so loved a lost world, that he sent his only Son to redeem it from its sins, and to bring it to eternal blessedness!'"

"Ah!" cried Helen, throwing herself on her knees in holy enthusiasm; "join then your prayers with mine, most revered of friends, that I may be admitted into such blessedness! Petition our God to forgive me, and do you forgive me, that I have sometimes envied the love you bear your Marion! But now I love her so entirely, that to be her and your ministering spirit in Paradise would amply satisfy my soul."

"O! Helen," cried Wallace, grasping her uplifted hands in his, and clasping them to his heart, "thy soul and Marion's are indeed one, and as one I love ye!"

This unlooked-for declaration almost overpowered Helen in its flood of happiness; and, with a smile, which seemed to picture the very heavens opening before her, she turned her eyes from him to a crucifix which stood on a table, and bowing her head on its pedestal, was lost in the devotion of rapturous gratitude.

At this juncture, when, perhaps, the purest bliss that ever descended on woman's heart now glowed in that of Helen, the Earl of Gloucester entered. His were not visits of consolation, for he knew that his friend, who had built his heroism on the rock of Christianity, did not require the comfortings of any mortal hand. At sight of him Wallace pointing to the kneeling Helen, beckoned him into the inner cell, where his straw pallet lay; and there, in a low voice, declared who she was, and requested the earl to use his authority to allow her to remain with him to the last.

"After that," said he, "I rely on you, generous Gloucester, to convey safely back to her country a being who seems to have nothing of earth about her but the terrestrial body which enshrines her angelic soul!"

The sound of a voice speaking with Wallace roused Helen from her happy trance. Alarmed that it might be the fatal emissaries of the tyrant, come prematurely to summon him to his last hour, she started on her feet. "Where are you, Wallace?" cried she, looking distractedly around her; "I must be with you even in death!"

Hearing her fearful cry, he hastened into the dungeon, and relieved her immediate terror by naming the Earl of Gloucester, who followed him. The conviction that Wallace was under mortal sentence, which the heaven-sent impression of his eternal bliss had just almost obliterated, now glared upon her with redoubled horrors. This world again rose before her in the person of Gloucester. It reminded her that she and Wallace were not yet passed into the hereafter, whose anticipated reunion had wrapt her in such sweet elysium. He had yet the bitter cup of death to drink to the dregs; and all of human weakness again writhed within her bosom. "And is there no hope?" faltered she, looking earnestly on the disturbed face of Gloucester, who had bowed with a pitying respect to her as he approached her. And then, while he seemed hesitating for an answer, she more firmly, but imploringly resumed: "Oh, let me seek your king? once he was a crusade prince! The cross was then on his breast, and the love of Him who came to redeem lost man, nay, even his direst enemies, from death unto life, must have been then in your king's heart. Oh, if once there, it cannot be wholly extinguished now! Let me, gracious earl, but recall to him that he was then beloved by a queen who to this day is the glory of her sex. On that spot of holy contest she preserved his life from an assassin's poison, by daring the sacrifice of her own! But she lived to bless him, and to be blessed herself! While Sir William Wallace, also a Christian knight, anointed by virtue and his cause, hath only done for his own country and its trampled land what King Edward then did for Christendom in Palestine. And he was roused to the defense, by a deed worse than ever infidel inflicted! The wife of his bosom—who had all of angel about her, but that of her mortal body—was stabbed by a murderous Southron governor in Scotland, because she would not betray her husband to his desolating brand! I would relate this on my knees, to your royal Edward, and call on the spirit of his sainted queen to enforce my suit, by the memory of her love and her devotedness."

Helen, who had risen in her energy of speech and supplication, suddenly paused, clasped her hands, and stood with upward eyes, looking as if she beheld the beatified object of her invocation.

"Dearest sister of my soul!" cried Wallace, who had forborne to interrupt her, taking her clasped hands in his, "thy knees shall never bend to any less than to the blessed Lord of all mankind, for me! Did He will my longer pilgrimage on this earth, of which my spirit is already weary, it would not be in the power of any human tyrant to hold me in these bonds. And, for Edward! believe, that not all thy tender eloquence could make one impression, where a long obdurate ambition hath set so deep a seal. I am content to go, my sister—and angels whisper me," (and his voice became subdued, though still calm, while he added, in a lowered tone, like that angel whisper) "that thy bridal bed will be in William Wallace's grave!" She spoke not, but at this assurance turned her tearful eyes upon him, with a beam of delight; with such delight, the vestal consigns herself to the cloister; with such delight, the widowed mourner lays her head to rest on the tomb of him she loved. But with such delight none are acquainted who know not what it is to be wedded to the soul of a beloved being, when the body which was once its vestment lies moldering in the earth.

Gloucester contemplated this chaste union of two spotless hearts, with an admiration almost amounting to devotion. "Noble lady," said he, "the message that I came to impart to Sir William Wallace bears with it a show of hope; and, I trust that your gentle spirit will yet be as persuasive as consolatory. A deputation has just arrived from our border-counties, headed by the good Barons de Hilton and De Blenkinsopp, praying the royal mercy for their gallant foe, who had been most generous to them, they set forth, in their extremity. And the king was listening to them, with what temper I know not, when a private embassy, as opportunely, made its appearance from France, on the same errand; in short, to negotiate with Edward for the safety of our friend, as a prince of that realm. I left the embassadors," continued the earl, turning to Wallace, "in debate with his majesty; and he has at length granted a suspension—nay, has even promised a repeal of the horrible injustice that was to be completed to-morrow, if you can be brought to accord with certain proposals, now to be laid before you. Accept them, and Edward will comply with all King Philip's demands in your behalf."

"Then you will accept them!" cried Helen, in a tumult of suspense. The communication of Gloucester had made no change in the equable pulse of Wallace; and he replied, with a look of tender pity upon her animated countenance. "The proposals of Edward are too likely to be snares for that honor which I would bear with me uncontaminated to the grave. Therefore, dearest consoler of my last hours, do not give way to hopes which a greater King than Edward may command me to disappoint." Helen bowed her head in silence. The color again faded from her cheek, and despair once more seized on her heart.

Gloucester resumed; and, after narrating some particulars concerning the conference between the king and the embassadors, he suggested the impracticality of secretly retaining Lady Helen, for any length of time, in the state dungeon. "I dare not," continued he, "be privy to her presence here, and yet conceal it from the king. I know not what messengers he may send to impart his conditions to you; and should she be discovered, Edward, doubly incensed, would tear her from you; and, as an accessory, so involve me in his displeasure, that I should be disabled from serving either of you further. Were I so to honor his feelings as a man as to mention it to him, I do not believe that he would oppose her wishes; but how to reveal such a circumstance with any regard to her fair fame, I know not; for all are not sufficiently virtuous to believe her spotless innocence."

Helen hastily interrupted Gloucester, and with firmness said, "When I entered these walls, the world and I parted forever. The good or the evil opinion of the impure in heart can never affect me—they shall never see me more. The innocent will judge me by themselves, and by the end of my race. I came to minister with a sister's duty to my own and my father's preserver; and while he abides here, I will never consent to leave his feet. When he goes hence, if it be to bless mankind again, I shall find the longest life too short to pour forth all my gratitude; and for that purpose I will dedicate myself in some nunnery of my native land. But should he be taken from a world so unworthy of him, soon, very soon, I shall cease to feel its aspersions in the grave."

"No aspersions which I can avert, dearest Helen," cried Wallace, "shall ever tarnish the fame of one whose purity can only be transcended by her who is now made perfect in heaven! Consent, noblest of women, to wear, for the few days I may yet linger here, a name which thy sister angel has sanctified to me. Give me a legal right to call you mine, and Edward himself will not then dare to divide what God has joined together!"

Helen paused—even her heart seemed to cease its pulsation in the awful moment. Did she hear aright? and was she indeed going to invade the rights of the wife she had so often vowed to regard as the sole object of Wallace's dearest wishes? Oh, no; it was not the lover that shone in his luminous eyes; it was not the mistress that glowed in her bosom. Words might be breathed; but no change would be wrought in the souls of them who were already separated from the earth. With these thoughts Helen turned toward Wallace; she attempted to answer, but the words died on the seraphic smile which beamed upon her lips, and she dropped her head upon his breast.

Gloucester, who saw no other means of insuring to his friend the comfort of her society, was rejoiced at this mutual resolution. He had longed to propose it; but considering the peculiarities of their situation, knew not how to do so without seeming to mock their sensibility and fate. It was now near midnight; and having read the consent of Helen in the tender emotion which denied her speech, without further delay he quitted the apartment to summon the confessor of the warden to unite their hands.

On his re-entrance, he found Helen sitting, dissolved in tears, with her hand clasped in his friend's. The sacred rite was soon performed which endowed her with all the claims upon Wallace which her devoted heart had so long contemplated with resigned hopelessness—to be his helpmate on earth, his partner in the tomb, his dear companion in heaven! With the last benediction she threw herself on her knees before him, and put his hand to her lips in eloquent silence. Gloucester, with a look of kind farewell, withdrew with the priest.

"Thou noble daughter of the noblest Scot!" said Wallace, raising her from the ground, "this bosom is thy place, and not my feet. Long it will not be given me to hold thee here; but even in the hours of years of our separation my spirit will hover near thee, to bear thine to our everlasting home."

The heart of Helen alternatively beat violently, and stopped, as if the vital current were suddenly impeded. Hope and fear agitated her by turns; but clinging to the flattering ideas which the arrival of the embassadors had excited, she timidly breathed a hope that, by the present interferences of King Philip, Edward might not be found inexorable.

"Disturb not the holy composure of your soul by such an expectation," returned Wallace; "I know my adversary too well to anticipate his relinquishing the object of his vengeance but at a price more infamous than the most ignoble death. Therefore, best beloved of all on earth! look for no deliverance for thy Wallace but what passes through the grave; and to me, dearest Helen, its gates are on golden hinges turning; for all is light and bliss which shines on me from within their courts!"

Helen's thoughts, in the idea of his being torn from her, could not wrest themselves from the dire images of his execution; she shuddered, and in faltering accents replied, "Ah! could we glide from sleep into so blessed a death, I would hail it even for thee! But the threatened horrors, should they fall on thy sacred head, will in that hour, I trust, also divorce my soul from this grievous world!"

"Not so, my Helen," returned he, "keep not thy dear eyes forever fixed on the gloomy appendages of death. The scaffold and the grave have naught to do with the immortal soul; it cannot be wounded by the one nor confined by the other. And is not the soul thy full and perfect Wallace? It is that which now speaks to thee—which will cherish thy beloved idea forever. Lament not, then, how soon this body, its mere apparel, is laid down in the dust. But rejoice still in my existence, which, through Him who 'led captivity captive,' will never know a pause? Comfort then thy heart, my soul's dear sister, and sojourn a little while on this earth to bear witness for thy Wallace to the friends he loves."

Helen, who felt the import of his words in her heart, gently bowed her head, and he proceeded:

"As the first who stemmed with me the torrent which, with God's help, we so often laid into a calm, I mention to you my faithful men of Lanark. Many of them bled and died in the contest; and to their orphans, with the children of those who yet survive, I consign all of the world's wealth that yet belongs to William Wallace; Ellerslie and its estates are theirs.** To Bruce, my sovereign and my friend—the loved companion of the hour in which I freed you, my Helen, from the arms of violence! to him I bequeath this heart, knit to him by bonds more dear than even loyalty. Bear it to him; and when he is summoned to his heavenly throne, then let his heart and mine fill up one urn. To Lord Ruthven, to Bothwell, to Lockhart, to Scrymgeour, and to Kirkpatrick I give my prayers and blessings."

**This bequest of Wallace is a fact.

Here Wallace paused. Helen had listened to him with a holy attention, which hardly allowed a sigh to breathe from her steadfast heart. She spoke, but the voice was scarcely audible.

"And what for him who loves you dearer than life—for Edwin? He cannot be forgotten!"

Wallace started at this; then she was ignorant of the death of that too-faithful friend! In a hurrying accent he replied, "Never forgotten! Oh, Helen. I asked for him life; and Heaven gave him long life, even forever and ever!"

Helen's eyes met his, with a look of inquiry:

"That would mean he is gone before you?"

The countenance of Wallace answered her.

"Happy Edwin!" cried she, and the tears rained over her cheeks as she bent her head on her arms. Wallace continued—

"He laid down his life to preserve mine in the hovel of Lumloch. The false Monteith could get no Scot to lay hands on their true defender; and even the foreign ruffians he brought to the task might have spared the noble boy, but an arrow from the traitor himself pierced his heart. Contention was then no more, and I resigned myself, to follow him."

"What a desert does the world become!" exclaimed Helen; then turning on Wallace with a saint-like smile, she added, "I would hardly now withhold you. You will bear him Helen's love, and tell him how soon I shall be with you. If your Father would not allow my heart to break, in his mercy he may take my soul in the prayers which I shall hourly breathe to him!"

"Thou hast been lent to me as my sweet consolation here, my Helen," replied he, "and the Almighty dispenser of that comfort will not long banish you from the object of your innocent wishes."

While they thus poured into each other's bosoms the ineffable balm of friendship's purest tenderness, the eyes of Wallace insensibly closed. "Your gentle influence," gently murmured he, "brings that sleep to my eyelids which has not visited them since I first entered these walls. Like my Marion, Helen, thy presence brings healing on its wings."

"Sleep, then," replied she, "and Marion's angel spirit will keep watch with mine."

Chapter LXXXIII.

The State Dungeon.



Though all the furies of the elements seemed let loose to rage around the walls of the dungeon, still Wallace slept in the loud uproar. Calm was within, and the warfare of the world could not disturb the balmy rest into which the angel of peace had steeped his senses. From this profound repose he was awakened by the entrance of Gloucester. Helen had just sunk into a slight slumber; but the first words of the earl aroused her, and rising, she followed her beloved Wallace to his side.

Gloucester put a scroll into the hand of Wallace: "Sign that," said he, "and you are free. I know not its contents; but the king commissioned me, as a mark of his grace, to be the messenger of your release."

Wallace read the conditions, and the color deepened on his cheek as his eye met each article. "He was to reveal the asylum of Bruce, to forswear Scotland forever, and to take an oath of allegiance to Edward, the seal of which should be the English earldom of Cleveland!' Wallace closed the parchment. "King Edward knows what will be my reply, I need not speak it."

"You will accept his terms?" asked the earl.

"Not to insure me a life of ages, with all earthly bliss my portion! I have spoken to these offers before. Read them, my noble friend, and then give him as mine the answer which would be yours."

Gloucester obeyed, and while his eyes were bent on the parchment, those of Helen were fixed on her almost worshiped husband, she looked through his beaming countenance into his very soul, and there saw the sublime purpose that consigned his unbending head to the scaffold. When Gloucester had finished, covered with the burning blush of shame, he crushed the disgraceful scroll in his hand, and exclaimed, with honorable vehemence, against the deep duplicity, the deeper cruelty, of his father-in-law, so to mock by base subterfuges the embassy of France and its noble object.

"This is the morning in which I was to have met my fate!" replied Wallace. "Tell this tyrant of the earth that I am even now ready to receive the last stroke of his injustice. In the peaceful grave, my Helen," added he, turning to her, who sat pale and aghast, "I shall be beyond his power!"

Gloucester walked the room in great disturbance of mind, while Wallace continued, in a lowered tone, to recall some perception of his own consolations to the abstracted and soul-struck Helen.

The earl stopped suddenly before them: "That the king did not expect your acquiescence without some hesitation, I cannot doubt, for when I informed him the Lady Helen Mar, now your wife, was the sharer of your prison, he started, and told me that should you still oppose yourself to his conditions, I must bring her to him; who might, perhaps, be the means of persuading you to receive his mercy."

"Never!" replied Wallace; "I reject what he calls mercy. He has no rights of judgment over me, and his pretended mercy is an assumption which, as a true Scot, I despise. He may rifle me of my life, but he shall never beguile me into any acknowledgment of an authority that is false. No wife, nor aught of mine, shall ever stand before him as a suppliant for William Wallace. I will die as I have lived, the equal of Edward in all things but a crown, and his superior in being true to the glory of prince or peasant—unblemished honor!"

Finding the Scottish chief not to be shaken in this determination, Gloucester, humbled to the soul by the base tyranny of his royal father-in-law, soon after withdrew, to acquaint that haughty monarch with the ill success of his embassy. But ere noon had turned, he reappeared, with a countenance declarative of some distressing errand. He found Helen awakened to the full perception of all her pending evils—that she was on the eve of losing forever the object dearest to her in this world! and though she wept not, though she listened to the lord of all her wishes with smiles of holy approval, her heart bled within; and, with a welcome which enforced his consolatory arguments, she hailed her own inwardly foreboding mortal pains.

"I come," said Gloucester, "not to urge you to send Lady Helen as a suitor to King Edward, but to spare her the misery of being separated from you while life is yours." He then said that the French embassadors were kept in ignorance of the conditions which were offered to the object of their mission; and on being informed that he had refused them, they showed themselves so little satisfied with the sincerity of what had been done, that Edward thought it expedient to conciliate Philip by taking some pains to dislodge their suspicions. To this effect he proposed to the French lords sending his final propositions to Sir William Wallace by that chieftain's wife, who he found was then his companion in the Tower. "On my intimating," continued the earl, "that I feared she would be unable to appear before him, his answer was, 'Let her see to that; such a refusal shall be answered by an immediate separation from her husband.'"

"Let me in this demand," cried she, turning with collected firmness to Wallace, "satisfy the will of Edward. It is only to purchase my continuance with you. Trust me, noblest of men; I should be unworthy of the name you have given me could I sully it in my person by one debasing word or action to the author of all our ills!"

"Ah! my Helen," replied he, "what is it you ask? Am I to live to see a repetition of the horrors of Ellerslie?"

"No, on my life," answered Glouceseter; "in this instance I would pledge my soul for King Edward's manhood. His ambition might lead him to trample on all men; but still for woman he feels as becomes a man and a knight."

Helen renewed her supplications; and Wallace (aware that should he withhold her attendance, his implacable adversary, however he might spare her personal injury, would not forbear wounding her to the soul by tearing her from him) gave an unwilling consent to what might seem a submission on his part to an authority he had shed his blood to oppose.

Helen renewed her supplications; and Wallace (aware that should he withhold her attendance, his implacable adversary, however he might spare her personal injury, would not forbear wounding her to the soul by tearing her from him) gave an unwilling consent to what might seem a submission on his part to an authority he had shed his blood to oppose.

"But not in these garments," said he; "she must be habited as becomes her sex and her own delicacy."

Anticipating this propriety, Gloucester had imparted the circumstance to his countess, and she had sent a casket, which the earl himself now brought in from the passage. Helen retired to the inner cell, and hastily arranging herself in the first suit that presented itself, reappeared in female apparel, and wrapped in a long veil. As Gloucester took her hand to lead her forth, Wallace clasped the other in his.

"Remember, my Helen," cried he, "that on no terms but untrammeled freedom of soul, will your Wallace accept of life. This will not be granted by the man to whom you go; then speak and act in his presence as if I were already beyond the skies."

Had this faithful friend, now his almost adoring wife, left his side with more sanguine hopes, how grievously would they have been blasted!

After an absence of two hours, she returned to the dungeon of Wallace: and as her trembling form was clasped in his arms, she exclaimed, in a passion of tears:

"Here will I live, here will I die! They may sever my soul from my body, but never again part me from this dear bosom!"

"Never, never, my Helen!" said he, reading her conference with the king in the wild terror of its effects. Her senses seemed fearfully disordered. While she clung to him, and muttered sentences of an incoherency that shook him to the soul, he cast a look of such expressive inquiry upon Gloucester, that the earl could only answer by hastily putting his hand on his face to hide his emotion. At last the tears she shed appeared to relieve the excess of her agonies, and she gradually sunk into an awful calm. Then rising from her husband's arms, she seated herself on his stony couch, and said in a firm voice, "Earl, I can now bear to hear you repeat the last decision of the King of England."

Though not absolutely present at the interview between his sovereign and Lady Helen, from the anteroom Gloucester had heard all that passed, and now he briefly confessed to Wallace, that he had too truly appreciated the pretended conciliation of the king. Edward's proposals to Helen were as artfully couched as deceptive in their design. Their issue was to make Wallace his slave, or to hold him his victim. In his conference with her, he addressed the vanity of an ambitious woman; then, all the affections of a devoted heart: he enforced his arguments with persuasions to allure, and threats to compel obedience. In the last he called up every image to appall the soul of Helen; but, steadfast in the principles of her lord, while ready to sink under the menaced horrors of his fate, she summoned all her strength to give utterance to her last reply.

"Mortal distinctions, King of England!" cried she, "cannot bribe the wife of Sir William Wallace to betray his virtues. His life is dear to me, but his immaculate faith to his God and his lawful prince are dearer. I can see him die and live—for I shall join him triumphant in Heaven; but to behold him dishonor himself, to counsel him so to do, is beyond my power—I should expire with grief in the shameful moment!"

The indignation of the king at this answer was too oppressive of the tender nature of Lady Wallace for Gloucester to venture repeating it to her husband; and, while she turned deathly pale at the recollection, Wallace, exulting in her conduct, pressed her hand silently but fervently to his lips.

The earl resumed, but, observing the reawakened agonies of her mind in her too expressive countenance, he strove to soften the blow he must inflict in the remainder of his narrative.

"Dearest lady," said he, rather addressing her than Wallace, "to convince your suffering spirit that no earthly means have been left unessayed to change the unjust purpose of the king, know that when he quitted you I left in his presence the queen and my wife, both weeping tears of disappointment. On the moment when I found that arguments could no longer avail, I implored him, by every consideration of God and man, to redeem his honor, sacrificed by the unjust decree pronounced on Sir William Wallace. My entreaties were repulsed with anger, for the sudden entrance of Lord Athol with fresh fuel to his flame, so confirmed his direful resolution that, desperate for my friend, I threw myself on my knees. The queen, and then my wife, both prostrate at his feet, enforced my suit, but all in vain; his heart seemed hardened by our earnestness; and his answer, while it put us to silence, granted Wallace a triumph even in his dungeon.

"Cease!" cried the king, "Wallace and I have now come to that issue where one must fall. I shall use my advantage, though I should walk over the necks of half my kindred to accomplish his fate. I can find no security on my throne, no peace in my bed, until I know that he, my direst enemy, is no more."

"Sorry am I, generous Gloucester," interrupted Wallace, "that for my life, you have stooped your knee to one so unworthy of your nobleness. Let, then, his tyranny take its course. But its shaft will not reach the soul his unkingly spirit hopes to wound. The bitterness of death was passed when I quitted Scotland. And for this body, he may dishonor it, mangle its limbs, but William Wallace may then be far beyond his reach."

Gloucester gazed on him, doubting the expression of his countenance. It was calm, but pale even to a marble hue.

"Surely," said he, "my unconquered friend will not now be forced to self violence?"

"God forbid!" returned Wallace; "suspect me not of such base vassalage to this poor tabernacle of clay. Did I believe it my Father's will that I should die at every pore I would submit, for so his immaculate Son laid down his life for a rebellious world. And is a servant greater than his master, that I should say, Exempt me from this trial? No! I await his summons, but he so strengthens my soul on his breast, that the cord of Edward shall never make my free-born Scottish neck feel its degrading touch."

His pale cheek was now luminous with a bright smile as he pressed his swelling heart.

With reawakened horror Helen listened to the words of Wallace, which referred to the last outrage to be committed on his sacred remains. She recalled the corresponding threats of the king, and again losing self-possession, starting wildly up, exclaimed:

"And is there no humanity in that ruthless man! Oh!" cried she, tearing her eyes from the beloved form on which it had been such bliss to gaze, "let the sacrifice of my life be offered to this cruel king to save from indignity—"

She could add no more, but dropped half lifeless on the arm of Wallace.

Gloucester understood the object of such anguished solicitude, and while Wallace again seated her, he revived her by a protestation, that the clause she so fearfully deprecated, had been repealed by Edward. But the good earl blushed as he spoke, for in this instance he said what was not the truth. Far different had been the issue of all his attempts at mitigation. The arrival of Athol from Scotland with advices from the Countess of Strathearn, that Lady Helen Mar had fled southward to raise an insurrection in favor of Wallace, and that Lord Bothwell had gone to France to move Philip to embrace the same cause, gave Edward so apt an excuse for giving full way to his hatred against the Scottish chief, that he pronounced an order for the immediate and unrestricted execution of his sentence. Artifice to mislead the French embassadors with an idea that he was desirous to accord with their royal master's wish, had been the sole foundation of his proposals to Wallace. And his interview with Lady Helen, though so intemperately conducted, was dictated by the same subtle policy.

When Gloucester found the impossibility of obtaining any further respite from the murderous decree, he attempted to prevail for the remission of the last clause, which ordered that his friend's noble body should be dismembered, and his limbs sent, as terrors to rebellion, to the four capital fortresses of Scotland. Edward spurned at this petition with even more acrimony than he had done the prayer for his victim's life, and Gloucester then starting from his knee, in a burst of honest indignation exclaimed, "Oh! king, remember what is done by thee this day. Refusing to give righteous judgment in favor of one who prefers virtue to a crown and life! As insincere, as secret, have been your last conditions with him, but they will be revealed when the great Judge that searcheth all men's hearts shall cause thee to answer for this matter at the dreadful day of universal doom. Thou has now given sentence on a patriot and a prince, and then shall judgment be given on thee!"

"Dangerous indeed is his rebellious spirit," cried Edward, in almost speechless wrath, "since it affects even the duty of my own house! Gloucester, leave my presence, and on pain of your own death, dare not approach me till I send for you, to see this rebel's head on London Bridge!"

To disappoint the revengeful monarch of at least this object of his malice, Gloucester was now resolved, and imparting his wishes to the warden of the Tower, who was his trusty friend, he laid a plan accordingly.

Helen had believed his declaration to her, and bowed her head in sign that she was satisfied with his zeal. The earl, addressing Wallace, continued: "Could I have purchased thy life, thou preserver of mine, with the forfeiture of all I possess I should have rejoiced in the exchange. But as that may not be, is there aught in the world which I can do to administer to thy wishes?"

"Generous Gloucester!" exclaimed Wallace, "how unwearied has been your friendship! But I shall not tax it much further. I was writing my last wishes when this angel entered my apartment; she will now be the voice of William Wallace to his friends. But still I must make one request to you—one which I trust will not be out of your power. Let this heart, ever faithful to Scotland, be at least buried in its native country. When I cease to breathe, give it to Helen, and she will mingle it with the sacred dust of those I love. For herself, dear Gloucester! ah! guard the vestal purity and life of my best beloved! for there are those who, when I am gone, may threaten both."

Gloucester, who knew that in this apprehension Wallace meant the Lords Soulis and De Valence, pledged himself for the performance of his first request; and for the second, he assured him he would protect Helen as a sister. But she, regardless of all other evils than that of being severed from her dearest and best friend, exclaimed in bitter sorrow:

"Wherever I am, still and forever shall all of Wallace that remains on earth be with me. He gave himself to me, and no mortal power shall divide us!"

Gloucester could not reply before the voice of the warden, calling to him that the hour of shutting the gates was arrived, compelled him to bid his friend farewell. He grasped the hand of Wallace with a strong emotion, for he knew that the next time he should meet him would be on the scaffold. During the moments of his parting, Helen, with her hands clasped on her knees, and her eyes bent downward, inwardly and earnestly invoked the Almighty to endow her with fortitude to bear the horrors she was to witness, that she might not, by her agonies, add to the tortures of Wallace.

The cheering voice, that was ever music to her ears, recalled her from this devout abstraction. He laid his hand on hers, and gazing on her with a tender pity, held such sweet discourse with her on the approaching end of all his troubles, of his everlasting happiness, where "all tears are dried away!" that she listened, and wept, and even smiled.

"Yes," added he, "a little while, and my virgin bride shall give me her dear embrace in heaven; angels will participate our joy, and my Marion's grateful spirit join the blest communion! She died to preserve my life; you suffered a living death to maintain my honor! Can I then divide ye, noblest of created beings, in my soul! Take, then, my heart's kiss, dear Helen, thy Wallace's last earthly kiss!"

She bent toward him, and fixed her lips to his. It was the first time they had met; his parting words still hung on them, and an icy cold ran through all her veins. She felt his heart beat heavily against hers, as he said:

"I have not many hours to be with thee, and yet a strange lethargy overpowers my senses; but I shall speak to thee again!"

He looked on her as he spoke, with such a glance of holy love, that not doubting he was now bidding her, indeed, his last farewell, that he was to pass from this sleep out of the power of man, she pressed his hand without a word, and as he dropped his head back upon his straw pillow, with an awed spirit she saw him sink to profound repose.

Chapter LXXXIV.

Tower Hill.



Long and silently had she watched his rest. So gentle was his breath, that he scarcely seemed to breathe; and often, during her sad vigils, did she stoop her cheek to feel the respiration which might still bear witness that his outraged spirit was yet fettered to earth. She tremblingly placed her hand on his heart, and still its warm beats spake comfort to hers. The soul of Wallace, as well as his beloved body, was yet clasped in her arms. "The arms of a sister enfold thee," murmured she to herself; "they would gladly bear thee up, to lay thee on the bosom of thy martyred wife; and there, how wouldst thou smile upon and bless me! And shall we not meet so before the throne of Him whose name is Truth?"

The first rays of the dawn shone upon his peaceful face just as the door opened, and a priest appeared. He held in his hands the sacred host, and the golden dove, for performing the rites of the dying. At this sight, the harbinger of a fearful doom, the fortitude of Helen forsook her; and throwing her arms frantically over the sleeping Wallace, she exclaimed, "He is dead! his sacrament is now with the Lord of Mercy!" Her voice awakened Wallace; he started from his position; and Helen seeing, with a wild sort of disappointment that he, whose gliding to death in his sleep she had even so lately deprecated, now, indeed, lived to mount the scaffold, in unutterable horror, fell back with a heavy groan.

Wallace accosted the priest with a reverential welcome; and then turning to Helen, tenderly whispered her, "My Helen! in this moment of my last on earth, O! engrave on thy heart, that—in the sacred words of the patriarch of Israel—I remember thee, in the kindness of thy youth! in the love of thy desolate espousals to me! when thou camest after me into the wilderness, into a land thou didst not know, and comforted me! And shalt thou not, my soul's bride, be sacred unto our Lord? the Lord of the widow and the orphan! To Him I commit thee, in steadfast faith that He will never forsake thee! Then, O, dearest part of myself, let not the completion of my fate shake your dependence on the only True and Just. Rejoice that Wallace has been deemed worthy to die for his having done his duty. And what is death, my Helen, that we should shun it, even to rebelling against the Lord of Life? Is it not the door which opens to us immortality? and in that blest moment who will regret that he passed through it in the bloom of his years? Come, then, sister of my soul, and share with thy Wallace the last supper of his Lord; the pledge of the happy eternity to which, by His grace, I now ascend!"

Helen, conscience-struck and re-awakened to holy confidence by the heavenly composure of his manner, obeyed the impulse of his hand, and they both knelt before the minister of peace. While the sacred rite proceeded, it seemed the indissoluble union of Helen's spirit with that of Wallace: "My life will expire with his!" was her secret response to the venerable man's exhortation to the anticipated passing soul; and when he sealed Wallace with the holy cross, under the last unction, as one who believed herself standing on the brink of eternity, she longed to share also that mark of death. At that moment the dismal toll of a bell sounded from the top of the Tower. The heart of Helen paused. The warden and his train entered. "I will follow him," cried she, starting from her knees, "into the grave itself!"

What was said, what was done, she knew not, till she found herself on the scaffold, upheld by the arm of Gloucester. Wallace stood before her, with his hands bound across and his noble head uncovered. His eyes were turned upward, with a martyr's confidence in the Power he served. A silence, as of some desert waste, reigned throughout the thousands who stood below. The executioner approached to throw the rope over the neck of his victim. At this sight, Helen, with a cry that was reechoed by the compassionate spectators, rushed to his bosom. Wallace, with a mighty strength, burst the bands asunder which confined his arms, and clasping her to him with a force that seemed to make her touch his very heart, his breast heaved as if his soul were breaking from its outraged tenement; and, while his head sunk on her neck, he exclaimed, in a low and interrupted voice:

"My prayer is heard, Helen! Life's cord is cut by God's own hand! May he preserve my country, and— Oh! trust from my youth—"

He stopped—he fell; and with the shock, the hastily-erected scaffold shook to its foundation. The pause was dreadful.

The executioner approached the prostrate chief. Helen was still locked close in his arms. The man stooped to raise his victim, but the attempt was beyond his strength. In vain he called on him—to Helen—to separate, and cease from delaying the execution of the law; no voice replied, no motion answered his loud remonstrance. Gloucester, with an agitation which hardly allowed him power to speak or move, remembered the words of Wallace, "that the rope of Edward would never sully his animate body!" and, bending to his friend, he spoke; but all was silent there. He raised the chieftain's head, and, looking on his face, found indeed the indisputable stamp of death.

"There," cried he, in a burst of grief, and letting it fall again upon the insensible bosom of Helen—"there broke the noblest heart that ever beat in the breast of man!"

The priests, the executioners crowded round him at this declaration. But, while giving a command in a low tone to the warden, he took the motionless Helen in his arms, and leaving the astonished group round the noble dead, carried her from the scaffold back into the Tower.**

**The last words of Wallace were from the 71st Psalm—"My trust from my youth! O Lord God, thou art my hope unto the end!"



Chapter LXXXV.

The Warden's Apartments.



On the evening of the fatal day in which the sun of William Wallace had set forever on his country, the Earl of Gloucester was imparting to the Warden of the Tower his last directions respecting the sacred remains, when the door of the chamber suddenly opened, and a file of soldiers entered. A man in armor, with his visor closed, was in the midst of them. The captain of the band told the warden that the person before him had behaved in a most seditious manner. He first demanded admittance into the Tower; then, on the sentinel making answer that in consequence of the recent execution of the Scottish chief, orders had been given "to allow no strangers to approach the gates till the following morning," he, the prisoner, burst into a passionate emotion, uttering such threats against the King of England, that the captain thought it his duty to have him seized and brought before the warden.

On the entrance of the soldiers, Gloucester had retired into the shadow of the room. He turned round on hearing these particulars. When the captain ceased speaking, the stranger fearlessly threw up his visor and exclaimed:

"Take me, not to our warden alone, but to your king; let me pierce his conscience 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 exposure of himself, with a few words he dismissed the officer and his guard; and then, turning to the warden, "Sir Edward," said he, "this stranger is 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, the subjects of King Edward, may not call your late friend a martyr, yet we must think his country honored in so steady a patriot, and may surely wish we had many the like in our own!" With these words the worthy old knight bowed and withdrew.

Bruce, who had hardly heard the observation of the warden, on his departure 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 my best, my dearest friend? And is it true, as I am told, that every infernal rigor of the sentence has been executed on that brave and breathless body! Answer me to the fact, that I may speedily take my course!"

Alarmed at the direful expression of his countenance, with a quivering lip, but in silence, Gloucester laid his hand upon his arm. Bruce too well 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 detested sojourn!"

Gloucester attempted to interrupt him; but he broke out afresh and with redoubled violence:

"And you, earl," cried he, "lived in this realm, and suffered such a sacrilege on God's most perfect work! Ungrateful, worthless man! fill up the measure of your baseness; deliver me to Edward, and let me brave him to his face. Oh! let me die, covered with the blood of thy enemies, my murdered Wallace! my more than brother, that shall be the royal robe thy Bruce will bring to thee!"

Gloucester stood in dignified forbearance under the invectives and stormy grief of the Scottish prince; but when exhausted nature seemed to take rest in momentary silence, he approached him. Bruce cast on him 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 preserved his sacred limbs from being made the gazing-stock of traitors, and you did not. Away from me, apt son of a tyrant, lest I tear you in piecemeal!"

"By the heroic spirit of him whom this outrage on me dishonors, hear my answer, Bruce! And, if not on this spot, let me then exculpate myself by 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 of this quadrangle. When I could not prevail on Edward, either by entreaty or reproaches, to remit the last gloomy vengeance of tyrants, I determined to wrest its object from his hands. A notorious murderer died yesterday under the torture. After the inanimate corpse of our friend was brought into this house, to be conveyed to the scene of its last horrors, by the assistance of the warden the malefactor's body was conveyed here also, and placed on the traitor's sledge, in the stead of his who was no traitor, and on that murderer most justly fell the rigor of so dreadful a sentence."

The whole aspect of Bruce changed during this explanation, which was followed by a brief account from Gloucester of their friend's heroic suffering and death.

"Can you pardon my reproaches to you?" cried the prince, stretching out his hand. "Forgive, generous Gloucester, the distraction of a severely wounded spirit!"

This pardon was immediately accorded; and Bruce impetuously added:

"Lead me to these dear remains, that with redoubled certainty I may strike his murderer's heart! I came to succor him. I now stay to die—but not unrevenged!"

"I will lead you," returned the earl, "where you shall learn a different 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 the grave with him she so chastely loved."

A few words gave Bruce to understand that he meant Lady Helen Mar; and with a deepened grief when he heard in what an awful hour their hands were plighted, he followed his conductor through the quadrangle.

When Gloucester gently opened the door, which contained the remains of the bravest and the best, Bruce stood for a moment on the threshold. At the further end of the apartment, lighted by a solitary taper, lay the 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 hair hung disordered over her shoulders, and shrouded with its dark locks the marble features of her beloved. Bruce scarcely breathed. He attempted to advance, but he staggered and fell against the wall. She looked up at the noise; but her momentary alarm ceased when she saw Gloucester. 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 toward the prince; who, raised from his momentary dizziness, beheld her regarding him with the look of one already an inhabitant of the grave. "Helen!" faintly articulated Bruce; "I come to share your sorrows, and to avenge them."

"Avenge them!" repeated she, after a pause; "is there aught in vengeance that can awaken life in these cold veins again? Let the murderers live in the world they have made a desert by the destruction of its brightest glory, and then our home will be his tomb!" Again she bent her head upon Wallace's cold breast; and seemed to forget that she had 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 the fire of virtue!" She moved; and the clay-hued features of all that was ever perfect in manly beauty met his sight. But the bright eyes were shut; the radiance of his smile was dimmed in death, yet still that smile was there. Bruce precipitated his lips to his, and sinking on his knees, remained in a silence only broken by his sighs.

It was an awful and heart-breaking pause, for the voice which in all scenes of weal or woe had ever mingled sweetly with theirs, was silent. Helen, who had not wept since the tremendous hour of the morning, now burst into an agony of tears; and the vehemence of her feelings tearing so delicate a frame (now rendered weak unto death by a consuming sickness, which her late exertions and present griefs had made seize on her very vitals), seemed to threaten the immediate extinction of her being. Bruce, aroused by her smothered cries, as she lay almost expiring, upheld by Gloucester, hurried to her side. By degrees she recovered to life and observance; but finding herself removed from the bier, she sprang wildly toward it. Bruce caught her arm to support her tottering steps. She looked steadfastly at him, and then at the motionless body. "He is there," cried she, "and yet he speaks not! He soothes not my grief—I weep, and he does not comfort me! And there he lies! O! Bruce, can this be possible? Do I really see him dead? And what is death?" added she, grasping the cold hand of Wallace to her heart. "Didst thou not tell me, when this hand pressed mine and blessed me, that it was only a translation from grief to joy? And is it not so, Bruce? Behold how we mourn and he is happy! I will obey thee, my immortal Wallace!" cried she, casting her arms about him; "I will obey thee, and weep no more!"

She was silent and calm. And Bruce, kneeling on the opposite side of his friend, listened, without interrupting him, to the arguments which Gloucester adduced to persuade him to abstain from discovering himself to Edward, or even uttering resentment against him till he could do both as became the man for whom Wallace had sacrificed so much, even till he was King of Scotland. "To that end," said Gloucester, "did this gallant chieftain live. For, in restoring you to the people of Scotland, he believed he was setting a seal to their liberties and their peace. To that end did he die, and in the direful moment, uttered prayers for your establishment. Think then of this, and let him not look down from his heavenly dwelling and see that Bruce despises the country for which he bled; that the now only hope of Scotland has sacrificed himself in a moment of inconsiderate revenge to the cruel hand which broke his dauntless heart!"

Bruce did not oppose this counsel; and as the fumes of passion passed away, leaving a manly sorrow to steady his determination of revenge, he listened with approbation, and finally resolved, whatever violence he might do his nature, not to allow Edward the last triumph of finding him in his power.

The earl's next essay was with Helen. He feared that a rumor of the stranger's indignation at the late execution, and that the Earl of Gloucester had taken him in charge, might, when associated with the fact of the widow of Sir William Wallace still remaining under his protection, awaken some dangerous suspicion and direct investigations, too likely to discover the imposition he had put on the executioners of the last clause in his royal father's most iniquitous sentence. He therefore explained his new alarm to Helen, and conjured her, if she would yet preserve the hallowed remains before her from any chance of violence (which her lingering near them might induce by attracting notice to her movements), she must consent to immediately leave the kingdom. The valiant and ever faithful heart of Wallace should be her companion; and an English captain, who had partaken of his clemency at Berwick, be her trusty conductor to her native land. To meet every objection, he added, "Bruce shall be protected by me with strict fidelity till some safe opportunity may offer for his bearing to Scotland the sacred corpse that must ever be considered the most precious 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 bosom which, though cold and deserted by its heavenly inhabitant, was still the bosom of her Wallace! the ravaged temple rendered sacred by the footsteps of a god! For, had not virtue, and the soul of Wallace, dwelt there? and where virtue is, there abides the Spirit of the Holy One! With these thoughts, she passed the remainder of the night in vigils; and they were not less devoutly shared by the chastened heart of the Prince of Scotland.

Chapter LXXXVI.

Highgate.



The tidings of the dreadful vengeance which Edward had taken against the Scottish nation, by pouring all his wrath upon the head of Wallace, struck like the lightning of heaven through the souls of men. None of either country, but those in the confidence of Gloucester, knew that Heaven had snatched him from the dishonor of so vile a death. The English turned, blushing, from each other, and ventured not to breathe the name of a man whose virtues seemed to have found a sanctuary for his fame in every honest heart. But when the news reached Scotland, the indignation was general. All envyings, all strifes were forgotten, in unqualified resentment of the deed. There was not a man, even amongst the late refractory chiefs, excepting the Cummins, and their coadjutors Soulis and Monteith, who really had believed that Edward seriously meant to sentence the Scottish patriot to a severer fate than what he had pronounced against his rebellious vassal, the exiled Baliol. The execution of Wallace, whose offense could only be that of having served his country too faithfully, was therefore so unexpected, that on the first promulgation of it, so great an abhorrence of the perpetrator was excited in every breast, that the whole country rose as one man, threatening to march instantly to London, and sacrifice the tyrant on his throne.

At this crisis, when the mountains of the north seemed heaving from their base, to overwhelm the blood-stained fields of England, every heart which secretly rejoiced in the late sanguinary event quailed within its possessor, as it tremblingly anticipated the consequences of the fall of Wallace. At this instant, when the furies armed every clan in Scotland, breathing forth revenge like a consuming fire before them, John Cummin, the regent, stood aghast. He foresaw his own downfall, in this reawakened enthusiasm respecting the man whom his treachery had been the first means of betraying to his enemies. Baffled in the aim of his ambition by the very means he had taken to effect it, Cummin saw no alternative, but to throw himself at once upon the bounty of England; and, to this purpose, he bethought him of the only chance of preserving the power of past events, that this tempest of the soul—excited by remorse in some, and gratitude in others—could only be maintained to any conclusive injury to England, by a royal hand, and that that hand was expected to be Bruce's, he determined at once, that the prince to whom he had sworn fealty, and to whom he owed his present elevation, should follow the fate of his friend. By the spies which he constantly kept round Huntingtower, he was apprised that Bruce had set off toward London in a vessel from Dundee. On these grounds, he sent a dispatch to King Edward, informing him that destiny had established him supreme lord of Scotland; for not its second and its last hope had put himself into his hands. With this intelligence, he gave a particular account of all Bruce's proceedings, from the time of his meeting Wallace in France, to his present following the chief to London. He then craved his majesty's pardon for having been betrayed into a union with such conspirators; and repeating his hope that the restitution he now made, in thus showing the royal hand where to find its last opponent, would give full conviction of his penitence and duty. He closed his letter by urging the king to take instant and effectual measures to disable Bruce from disturbing the quiet of Scotland, or ever again disputing his regal claims!

Gloucester happened to be in the presence when this epistle was delivered in and read by his majesty. On the suit of his daughter, Edwin had been reconciled to his son-in-law; but when he showed him the contents of Cummin's letter, with a suspicious smile he said in a loud voice, "In case you should know this new rebel's lurking-place, presume not to leave this room till he is brought before me. See to your obedience, Ralph, or your head shall follow Wallace's."

The king instantly withdrew, and the earl, aware that search would be made through all his houses, sought in his own mind for some expedient to apprise Bruce of his danger. To write in the presence=chamber was impossible; to deliver a message in a whisper would be hazardous—for most of the surrounding courtiers, seeing the frown with which the king had left the apartment, marked the commands he gave the marshal: "Be sure that the Earl of Gloucester quits not this room till I return."

In the confusion of his thoughts, the earl turned his eye on Lord Montgomery, who had only arrived that very morning from an embassy to Spain. He had heard with unutterable horror the fate of Wallace; and extending his interest in him to those whom he loved, had arranged with Gloucester to accompany him that very evening to pledge his friendship to Bruce. To Montgomery, then, as to the only man acquainted with his secret, he turned; and taking his spurs off his feet, and pulling out a purse of gold, he said aloud, and with as easy an air as he could assume, "Here, my Lord Montgomery, as you are going directly to Highgate, I will thank you to call at my lodge; put these spurs and this purse into the hands of the groom we spoke of; tell him they do not fit me, and he will know what use to make of them." He then turned negligently on his heel, and Montgomery quitted the apartment.

The apprehension of this young lord was not less quick than the invention of his friend. He guessed that the Scottish prince was betrayed; and to render his escape the less likely to be traced (the ground being wet, and liable to retain impression), before he went to the lodge he dismounted in the adjoining wood, and with his own hands reversed the iron on the feet of the animal he had provided for Bruce. He then proceeded to the house, and found the object of his mission disguised as a Carmelite, and in the chapel paying his vesper adorations to the Almighty Being on whom his whole dependence hung. Uninfluenced by the robes he wore, his was the devotion of the soul; and not unaptly at such an hour came one to deliver him from a danger which, unknown to himself, was then within a few minutes of seizing its prey.