Wallace had just made a successful attack upon the outworks of Berwick, when this letter was put into his hand. He was surrounded by his chieftains; and having read it, he informed them that Sir Thomas de Longueville was going to the Spey to rid its castles of the enemy.

"The hopes of his enterprising spirit," continued Wallace, "are so seconded by his determination, I doubt not that what he promises, God and the justice of our cause will perform; and we may soon expect to hear Scotland has no enemies in her Highlands."

But in this hope Wallace was disappointed. Day after day passed, and no tidings from the north. He became anxious; Bothwell and Edwin too began to share his uneasiness. Continued successes against Berwick had assured them a speedy surrender, when unexpected succors being thrown in by sea, the confidence of the garrison became re-excited, and the ramparts appeared doubly manned. Wallace saw that the only alternative was to surprise and take possession of the ships, and turn the siege into a blockade. Still trusting that Bruce would be prosperous in the Highlands, he calculated on full leisure to await the fall of Berwick on this plan; and so much blood might be spared. Intent and execution were twin-born in the breast of Wallace. By a masterly stroke he effected his design on the shipping; and having closed the Southrons within their walls, he dispatched Lord Bothwell to Huntingtower, to learn the state of military operations there, and above all to bring back tidings of the prince's health.

On the evening of the very day in which Murray left Berwick, a desperate sully was made by the garrison; but they were beaten back with such effect, that Wallace gained possession of one of their most commanding towers. The contest did not end till night; and after passing a brief while in the council-tent listening to the suggestions of his friends relative to the use that might be made of the new acquisition, he retired to his own quarters at a late hour. At these momentous periods he never seemed to need sleep; and sitting at his table setting the dispositions for the succeeding day, he marked not the time till the flame of his exhausted lamp expired in the socket. He replenished it and had again resumed his military labors, when the curtain which covered the door of his tent was drawn aside, and an armed man entered. Wallace looked up, and seeing that it was the Knight of the Green Plume, asked if anything had occurred from the town.

"Nothing," replied the knight, in an agitated voice, and seating himself beside Wallace.

"Any evil tidings from Perthshire?" demanded Wallace, who now hardly doubted that ill news had arrived of Bruce.

"None," was the knight's reply; "but I am come to fulfill my promise to you, to unite myself forever heart and soul to your destiny, or you behold me this night for the last time."

Surprised at this address, and the emotion which shook the frame of the unknown warrior, Wallace answered him with expressions of esteem, and added:

"If it depend on me to unite so brave a man to my friendship forever, only speak the word, declare your name, and I am ready to seal the compact."

"My name," declared the knight, "will indeed put these protestations to the proof. I have fought by your side, Sir William Wallace; I would have died at any moment to have spared that breast a wound, and yet I dread to raise my visor to show you who I am. A look will make me live or blast me."

"Your language confounds me, noble knight," replied Wallace. "I know of no man living, save the base violators of Lady Helen Mar's liberty, who need tremble before my eyes. It is not possible that either of these men is before me; and whoever you are, whatever you may have been, brave chief, your deeds have proved you worthy of a soldier's friendship, and I pledge you mine."

The knight was silent. He took Wallace's hand—he grasped it; the arms that held it did indeed tremble. Wallace again spoke.

"What is the meaning of this? I have a power to benefit, but none to injure."

"To benefit and to injure!" cried the knight, in a transport of emotion; "you have my life in your hands. Oh! grant it, as you value your own happiness and honor! Look on me and say whether I am to live or die."

As the warrior spoke, he cast himself impetuously on his knees, and threw open his visor. Wallace saw a fine but flushed face. It was much overshadowed by the helmet.

"My friend," said he, attempting to raise him by the hand which clasped his, your words are mysteries to me; and so little right can I have to the power you ascribe to me, that although it seems to me as if I had seen your features before, yet-"

"You forget me!" cried the knight, starting on his feet, and throwing off his helmet to the ground; "again look on this face and stab me at once by a second declaration that I am remembered no more!"

The countenance of Wallace now showed that he too well remembered it. He was pale and aghast.

"Lady Mar," cried he, "not expecting to see you under a warrior's casque—you will pardon me, that when so appareled I should not immediately recognize the widow of my friend."

She gasped for articulation.

"And it is thus," cried she, "you answer the sacrifices I have made for you? For you I have committed an outrage on my nature; I have put on me this abhorrent steel; I have braved the dangers of many a hard-fought day, and all to guard your life! to convince you of a love unexampled in woman! and thus you recognize her who has risked honor and life for you—with coldness and reproach!"

"With neither, Lady Mar," returned he, "I am grateful for the generous motives of your conduct; but for the sake of the fair fame you confess you have endangered, in respect to the memory of him whose name you bear, I cannot but wish that so hazardous an instance of interest in me had been left undone."

"If that is all," returned she, drawing toward him, "it is in your power to ward from me every stigma! Who will dare to cast one reflection on my fair fame when you bear testimony to my purity? Who will asperse the name of Mar when you displace it with that of Wallace? Make me yours, dearest of men," cried she, clasping his hands, "and you will receive one to your heart who never knew how to love before, who will be to you what your heart who never knew how to love before, who will be to you what woman never yet was, and who will endow you with territories nearly equal to those of the King of Scotland. My father is no more; and now, as Countess of Strathearn and Princess of the Orkneys, I have it in my power to earn and Princess of the Orkneys, I have it in my power to bring a sovereignty to your head, and the fondest of wives to your bosom." As she vehemently spoke, and clung to Wallace, as if she had already a right to seek comfort within his arms, her tears and violent agitations so disconcerted him that for a few moments he could not find a reply. This short endurance of her passion aroused her almost drooping hopes, and intoxicated with so rapturous an illusion, she threw off the little restraint in which the awe of Wallace's coldness had confined her, and flinging herself on his breast, poured forth all her love and fond ambitions for him. In vain he attempted to interrupt her, to raise her with gentleness from her indecorous situation; she had no perception but the idea which had now taken possession of her heart, and whispering to him softly, said: "Be but my husband, Wallace, and all rights shall perish before my love and your aggrandizement. In these arms, you shall bless the day you first saw Joanna of Strathearn!"

The prowess of the Knight of the Green Plume, the respect he owed to the widow of the Earl of Mar, the tenderness he ever felt for all of womankind, were all forgotten in the disgusting blandishments of this disgrace to her sex. She wooed to be his wife, but not with the chaste appeal of the widow of Mahlon. "Let me find favor in thy sight, for thou hast comforted me! Spread thy garment over me, and let me be thy wife!" said the fair Moabitess who in a strange land cast herself at the feet of her deceased husband's friend. She was answered, "I will do all that thou requirest, for thou art a virtuous woman!" But neither the actions nor the words of Lady Mar bore witness that she deserved this appellation. The were the dictates of a passion impure as it was intemperate. Blinded by its fumes, she forgot the nature of the heart she sought to pervert to sympathy with hers. She saw not that every look and movement on her part filled Wallace with aversion, and not until he forcibly broke from her did she doubt the success of her fond caresses.

"Lady mar," said he, "I must repeat that I am not ungrateful for the proofs of regard you have bestowed on me; but such excess of attachment is lavished upon a man that is a bankrupt in love. I am cold as monumental marble to every touch of that passion to which I was once but too entirely devoted. Bereaved of the object, I am punished; thus is my heart doomed to solitude on earth for having made an idol of the angel that was sent to cheer my path to Heaven." Wallace said even more than this. He remonstrated with her on the shipwreck she was making of her own happiness, in adhering thus tenaciously to a man who could only regard her with the general sentiment of esteem. He urged her beauty and yet youthful years, and how many would be eager to win her love, and to marry her with honor. While he continued to speak to her with the tender consideration of a brother, she, who knew no gradations in the affections of the heart, doubted his words, and believed that a latent fire glowed in his breast which her art might yet blow into a flame. She threw herself upon her knees, she wept, she implored his pity, she wound her arms around his, and bathed his hands with her tears, but still he continued to urge her, by every argument of female delicacy, to relinquish her ill-directed love, to return to her domains before her absence could be generally known. She looked up to read his countenance. A friend's anxiety, nay, authority, was there, but no glow of passion; all was calm and determined. Her beauty, then, had been shown to a man without eyes, her tender eloquence poured on an ear that was deaf, her blandishments lavished on a block of marble! In a paroxysm of despair she dashed the hand she held far from her, and standing proudly on her feet—"Hear me, thou man of stone!" cried she, "and answer me on your life and honor, for both depend on your reply; is Joanna of Strathearn to be your wife?"

"Cease to urge me, unhappy lady," returned Wallace; "you already know the decision of this ever-widowed heart."

Lady Mar looked steadfastly at him.

"Then receive my last determination!" and drawing near him with a desperate and portentous countenance, as if she meant to whisper in his ear, she suddenly plucked St. Louis' dagger from his girdle and struck it into his breast. He caught the hand which grasped the hilt. Her eyes glared with the fury of a maniac, and, with a horrid laugh, she exclaimed: "I have slain thee, insolent triumpher in my love and agonies! Thou shalt not now deride me in the arms of thy minion; for, I know that it is not for the dead Marion you have trampled on my heart but for the living Helen!"

As she spoke, he moved her hold from the dagger, and drew the weapon from the wound. A torrent of blood flowed over his vest, and stained the hand that grasped hers. She turned of a deadly paleness, but a demoniac joy still gleamed in her eyes.

"Lady Mar," cried he, while he thrust the thickness of his scarf into the wound, "I pardon this outrage. Go in peace, I shall never breathe to man nor woman the occurrences of this night. Only remember, that with regard to Lady Helen, my wishes are as pure as her own innocence."

"So they may be now, vainly boasting, immaculate Wallace!" answered she, with bitter derision; "men are saints when their passions are satisfied. Think not to impose on her who knows how this vestal Helen followed you in page's attire, and without one stigma being cast upon her maiden delicacy. I am not to learn the days and nights she passed alone with you in the woods of Normandy? Did you not follow her to France? Did you not tear her from the arms of Lord Aymer de Valence? and now, relinquishing her yourself, you leave a dishonored bride to cheat the vows of some honester man! Wallace, I know you, and as I have been fool enough to love you beyond all woman's love, I swear by the powers of heaven and hell to make you feel the weight of woman's hatred!"

Her denunciation had no effect on Wallace; but her slander against her unoffending daughter-in-law agitated him with an indignation that almost dispossessed him of himself. In hurried and vehement words, be denied all that she had alleged against Helen, and appealed to the whole court of France to witness her spotless innocence. Lady Mar exulted in this emotion, though every sentence, by the interest it displayed in its object, seemed to establish the truth of a suspicion which she at first only uttered from the vague workings of her revenge. Triumphing in the belief that he bad found another as frail as herself, and yet maddened that another should have been preferred before her, her jealous pride blazed into redoubled flame.

"Swear," cried she, "till I see the blood of that false heart forced to my feet, and still I shall believe the base daughter of Mar a wanton. I go, not to proclaim her dishonor to the world, but to deprive her of her lover; to yield the rebel Wallace into the hands of justice! When on the scaffold, proud exulter in those by me now detested beauties, remember that it was Joanna Strathearn who laid thy matchless head upon the block; who consigned those limbs, of Heaven's own statuary, to decorate the spires of Scotland! Remember that my curse pursues you, here and hereafter!"

A livid fire seemed to dart from her scornful eyes, her countenance was torn as by some internal fiend, and, with the last malediction thundering from her tongue, she darted from his sight.

Chapter LXXI.

The Camp.



Next morning Wallace was recalled from the confusion into which his nocturnal visitor had thrown his mind by the entrance of Ker, who came, as usual, with the reports of the night. In the course of the communication he mentioned, that about three hours before sunrise, the Knight of the Green Plume had left the camp with his dispatches for Sterling. Wallace was scarcely surprised at this ready falsehood of Lady Mar's, and, not intending to betray her, he merely said, "Long ere be appears again I hope we shall have good tidings from our friend in the north."

But day succeeded day, and notwithstanding Bothweil's embassy, no accounts arrived. The countess had left an emissary in the Scottish camp, who did as she had done before—intercepted all messengers from Perthshire.

Indeed, from the first of her flight to Wallace to the hour of her qoitting him, she had never halted in her purpose from any regard to honor. Previous to her stealing from Huntingtower, she had bribed the senesehal to say that on the morning of her disappearance, he had met a knight, near Saint Concal's Well, coming to the castle; who told him that the Countess of Mar was gone on a secret mission to Norway, and she therefore had commanded him, by that knight, to enjoin her sister-in-law, for the sake of the cause most dear to them all, not to acquaint Lord Ruthven, or any of their friends, with her departure, till she should return with happy news for Scotland. The man added, that after declaring this, the knight rode hastily away. But this precaution, which did indeed impose on the innocent credulty of her husband's sister and his daughter, failed to satisfy the countess herself.

Fearful that Helen might communicate her flight to Wallace, and so excite his suspicion of her not being far from him, from the moment of her joining him at Linlithgow she intercepted every letter from Huntingtower: and when Bruce went to that castle, she continued the practice with double vigilance, being jealous of what might be said of Helen by this Sir Thomas de Longueville, in whom the master of her fate seemed so unreservedly to confide. To this end, even after she left the camp, all packets from Perthshire were conveyed to her by the spy she had stationed near Wallace; while all which were sent from him to Huntingtower were stopped by the treacherous seneschal, and thrown into the flames. No letters, however, ever came from Helen; a few bore Lord Ruthven's superscription, and all the rest were addressed by Sir Thomas de Longueville to Wallace. She broke the seals of this correspondence, but she looked in vain on their contents. Bruce and his friend, as well as Ruthven, wrote in a cipher, and only one passage, which the former had by chance written in the common character, could she ever make out. It ran thus:

"I have just returned to Huntingtower, after the capture of Kinfouns. Lady Helen sits by me on one side, Isabella on the other. Isabella smiles on me, like the spirit of happiness. Helen's look is not less gracious, for I tell her I am writing to Sir William Wallace. She smiles, hut it is with such a smile as that with which a saint would relinquish to Heaven the dearest object of its love. 'Helen,' said I, 'what shall I say from you to our friend?' 'That I pray for him.' 'That you think of him?' 'That I pray for him,' repeated she, more emphatically; 'that is the way I always think of my preserver.' Her manner checked me, my dear Wallace, but I would give worlds that you could bring your heart to make this sweet vestal smile as I do her sister!"

Lady Mar crushed the registered wish in her hand; and though she was never able to decipher a word or more of Bruce's numerous letters (many of which, could she have read them, contained complaints of that silence she had so cruelly occasioned), she took and destroyed them all.

She had ever shunned the penetrating eyes of young Lord Bothwell, and to have him on the spot when she should discover herself to Wallace, she thought would only invite discomfiture. Affecting to share the general anxiety respecting the failure of communications from the north, she it was who suggested the propriety of sending some one of peculiar trust to make inquiries. By covert insinuations, she easily induced Ker to propose Bothwell to Wallace, and, on the very night that her machinations had prevailed, to dispatch him on this embassy; impatient, yet doubting and agitated, she went to declare herself to the man for whom she had thus sunk herself in shame and falsehood.

Though Wallace heard the denunciation with which she left his presence, yet he did not conceive it was more than the evanescent rage of disappointed passion; and, anticipating persecutions rather from her love than her revenge, he was relieved, and not alarmed, by the intelligence that the Knight of the Green Plume had really taken his departure. More delicate of Lady Mar's honor than she was of her own, when he met Edwin at the works, he silently acquiesced in his belief also, that their late companion was gone with dispatches to the regent, who was now removed to Stirling.

After frequent sallies from the garrison, in which the Southrons were always beaten back with great loss, the lines of circumvallation were at last finished, and Wallace hourly anticipated the surrender of the enemy. Reduced for want of provisions, and seeing all succors cut off by the seizure of the fleet, the inhabitants, detesting their new rulers, collected in bands; and lying in wait for the soldiers of the garrison, murdered them secretly, and in great numbers. But here the evil did not end; for by the punishments which the governor thought proper to inflict by lots on the guilty, or the guiltless (he not being able to discover who were actually the assassins), the distress of the town was augmented to a horrible degree. Such a state of things could not be long maintained. Aware that should he continue in the fortress, his troops must assuredly perish, either by insurrection within, or from the enemy without, the Southron commander determined no longer to wait the appearance of a relief which might never arrive; and to stop the internal confusion, be sent a flag of truce to Wallace, accepting and signing his offered terms of capitulation. By this deed, he engaged to open the gates at sunset, but begged the interval between noon and that hour, to allow him time to settle the animosity between his men and the people before he should surrender his brave followers entirely into the hands of the Scots.

Having dispatched his assent to this request of the governor's, Wallace retired to his own tent. That he had effected his purpose without the carnage which must have ensued had he again stormed the place, gratified his humanity; and congratulating himself on such a termination of the siege, he turned with more than usual cheerfulness toward a herald, who brought him a packet from the north. The man withdrew, and Wallace broke the seal; but what was his astonishment to find it a citation for himself to repair immediately to Stirling, "to answer," it said,

"certain charges brought against him, by an authority too illustrious to be set aside without examination!" He had hardly read this extraordinary mandate when Sir Simon Fraser, his second in command, entered, and~, with consternation in his looks, put an open letter into his hand. It ran as follows:

"Sir Simon Fraser,—Allegations of treason against the liberties of Scotland having been preferred against Sir William Wallace, until he clears himself of these charges to the thanes of Scotland here assembled, you, Sir Simon Fraser, are directed to assume, in his stead, the command of the forces which form the blockade of Berwick, and, as the first act of your duty, you are ordered to send the accused toward Stirling under a strong guard, within an hour after you receive this dispatch.

"(Signed)

John Cummin,

"Earl of Badenoch, Lord Regent of Scotland.

"Stirling Castle."

Wallace returned the letter to Fraser with an undisturbed countenance. "I have received a similar order from the regent," said he; "and though I cannot guess the source whence these accusations spring, I fear not to meet them, and shall require no guard to speed me forward to the scene of my defense. I am ready to go, my friend, and happy to resign the brave garrison, that has just surrendered, to your honor and lenity." Fraser answered that he should be emulous to follow his example in all things, and to abide by his agreements with the Southron governor. He then retired to prepare the army for the departure of their commander, and, much against his feelings, to call out the escort that was to attend the calumniated chief Stirling.

When the marshal of the army read to the officers and men the orders of the regent, a speechless consternation seized on one part of the troops, and as violent an indignation agitated the other to tumult. The veterans, who had followed the chief of Ellerslie from the first hour of his appearing as a patriot in arms, could not brook this aspersion upon their leader's honor; and had it not been for the vehement exhortations of the no less incensed, though more moderate, Scrymgeour and Lockhart, they would have risen in instant revolt. Though persuaded to sheathe their half-drawn swords, they could not be withheld from immediately quitting the field, and marching directly to Wallace's tent. He was conversing with Edwin when they arrived; and, in some measure, he had broken the shock to him of so dishonoring a charge on his friend, by his being the first to communicate it. While Edwin strove to guess who could be the inventor of so dire a falsehood against the truest of Scots, he awakened an alarm in Wallace for Bruce, which could not be excited for himself, by suggesting that perhaps some intimation had been given to the most ambitious of the thanes, respecting the arrival of their rightful prince. "And yet," returned Wallace, "I cannot altogether suppose that; for even their desires of self-aggrandizement could not torture my share in Bruce's restoration to his country into anything like treason our friend's rights are too undisputed for that; and all I should dread, by a premature discovery of his being in Scotland, would be secret machinations against his life. There are men in this land who might attempt it; and it is our duty, my dear Edwin, to suffer death upon the rack, rather than betray our knowledge of him. "But," added he, with a smile, "we need not disturb ourselves with such thoughts—the regent is in our prince's confidence; and did this accusation relate to him, he would not, on such a plea, have arraigned me as a traitor."

Edwin again revolved in his mind the nature of the charge and who the villain could be who had made it; and, at last suddenly recollecting the Knight of the Green Plume, he asked if it were not possible that he, a stranger who had so sedulously kept himself from being known, might be the traitor?

"I must confess to you," continued Edwin, "that this knight, who ever appeared to dislike your closest friends, seems to me the most probable instigator of this mischief; and is, perhaps, the author of the strange failure of communication between you and Bruce! Accounts have not arrived, ever since Bothwell went; and that is more than natural. Though brave in his deeds, this unknown way prove only the more subtle spy and agent of our enemies."

Wallace changed color at these suggestions, but merely replied:

"A few hours will decide your suspicion, for I shall lose no time in confronting my accuser."

"I go with you," said Edwin; "never while I live, will I consent to lose sight of you again!"

It was at this moment that the tumultuous approach of the Lanark veterans was heard from without. The whole band rushed into the tent; and Stephen Ireland, who was foremost, raising his voice above the rest, exclaimed:

"They are the traitors, my lord, who accuse you! It is determined, by our corrupted thanes, that Scotland shall be sacrificed, and you are to be made the first victim. Think they, then, that we will obey such parricides? Lead us on, thou only worthy of the name of regent, and we will hurl these usurpers from their thrones."

This demand was reiterated by every man present—was echoed by hundreds who surrounded the tent. The Bothwell men and Ramsay's followers joined the men of Lanark, and the mutiny against the orders of the regent became general. Wallace walked out into the open field, and mounting his horse, rode forth amongst them. At sight of him the air resounded with acclamations, unceasingly proclaiming him their only leader, but, stretching out his arm to them, in token of silence, they became profoundly still.

"My friends and brother soldiers," cried he. "as you value the honor of William Wallace, as you have hitherto done this moment yield him implicit obedience."

"Forever!" shouted the Bothwel1 men.

"We never will obey any other!" rejoined his faithful Lanark followers, and, with an increased uproar, they demanded to be led to Stirling.

His extended hand again stilled the storm, and he resumed:

"You shall go with me to Stirling, but as my friends only: never as the enemies of the Regent of Scotland. I am charged with treason; it is his duty to try me by the laws of my country; it is mine to submit to the inquisition. I fear it not, and I invite you to accompany me; not to brand me with infamy, by passing between my now darkened honor and the light of justice—not to avenge an iniquitous sentence denounced on a guiltless man—but to witness my acquittal; and in that my triumph over them, who, through my breast would strike at what is greater than I."

At this mild persuasive every upraised sword dropped before him, and Wallace, turning his horse into the path which led toward Stirling, his men, with a silent determination to share the fate of their master, fell into regular marching order, and followed him. Edwin rode by his side, equally wondering at the unaffected composure with which he sustained such a weight of insult, and at the men who could be so unjust as to lay it upon him.

At the west of the camp, the detachment appointed to guard Wallace in his arrest came up with him. It was with difficulty that Fraser could find an officer who would command it; and he who did at last consent, appeared before his prisoner with downcast eyes; seeming rather the culprit than the guard. Wallace, observing his confusion, said a few gracious words to him; and the officer, more overcome by this than be could have been with reproaches, burst into tears and retired into the rear of his men.

Chapter LXXII.

Stirling Castle.

Wallace entered on the Carse of Stirling, that scene of his many victories, and beheld its northern horizon white with tents. Officers appointed for the purpose had apprised the thanes of Wallace having left Berwick; and knowing by the same means all his movements, an armed cavalcade met him near the Carron, to hold his followers in awe, and to conduct him without opposition to Stirling. In case it should be insufficient to quail their spirit, or to intimidate him who had never yet been made to fear by mortal man, the regent had summoned all the vassals of the various seigniories of Cummin, and planted them in battle array before the walls of Stirling. But whether they were friends or foes was equally indifferent to Wallace; for, strong in integrity, he went serenely forward to his trial; and, though inwardly marveling at such a panoply of war, being called out to induce him to comply with so simple an act of obedience to the laws, he met the heralds of the regent with as much ease as if they had been coming to congratulate him on the capitulation of Berwick, the ratification of which he brought in his hand.

By his order his faithful followers (who took a pride in obeying with the most scrupulous exactness the injunctions of their now deposed commander) encamped under Sir Alexander Scrymgeour to the northwest of the castle, near Ballockgeich. It was then night. In the morning, at an early hour, Wallace was summoned before the council in the citadel.

On his re-entrance into that room which he had left, the dictator of the kingdom, when every knee bent and every head bowed to his supreme mandate, he found not one who even greeted his appearance with the commonest ceremony of courtesy. Badenoch, the regent, sat upon the throne, with evident symptoms of being yet an invalid. The Lords Athol and Buchan, and the numerous chiefs of the clans of Cummin, were seated on his right: on his left were arranged the Earls of Fife and Lorn, Lord Soulis, and every Scottish baron of power who at any time bad shown himself hostile to Wallace. Others, who were of easy faith to a tale of malice, sat with them; and the rest of the assembly was filled up with men of better families than personal fame, and whose names swelled a list without adding any true importance to the side on which they appeared. A few, and those a very few, who still respected Wallace, were present; not because they were sent for (great care having been taken not to summon his friends), but in consequence of a rumor of the charge having reached them: and these were, the Lords Lennox and Loch-awe, with Kirkpatrick, and two or three chieftains from the western Highlands. None of them had arrived till within a few minutes of the council being opened, and Wallace was entering at one door as they appeared at the other.

At sight of him a low whisper buzzed through the hail, and a marshal took the plumed bonnet from his hand, which, out of respect to the nobility of Scotland, he had raised from his head at his entrance. A herald meanwhile proclaimed, in a loud voice, "Sir William Wallace! you are charged with treason; and, by an ordinance of Fergus the First, you must stand covered before the representative of the majesty of Scotland until that loyalty be proved, which would again restore you to a seat amongst her faithful barons."

Wallace, with the same equanimity as that with which he would have mounted the regal chair, bowed his head to marshal in token of acquiescence. But Edwin, whose indignation was reawakened at this exclusion of his friend from the privilege of his birth, said something so warm to the marshal that Wallace, in a low voice, was obliged to check his vehemence by a declaration, that, however obsolete the custom, and revived in his case only, it was his determination to submit himself in every respect to whatever was exacted of him by the laws of his country.

On Loch-awe and Lennox observing him stand thus before the bonneted and seated chiefs (a stretch of magisterial prerogative which had not been exercised on a Scottish knight for many a century), they took off their caps and bowing to Wallace, refused to occupy their places on the benches while the defender of Scotland stood. Kirkpatrick drew eagerly toward him, and throwing down his casque and sword at his feet, cried in a loud voice, "Lie there till the only true man in all this land commands me to take ye up in his defense. He alone had courage to look the Southrons in the face, and to drive their king over the borders, while his present accusers skulked in their chains!" Wallace regarded this ebullition from the heart of the honest veteran with a look that was eloquent to all. He would have animatedly praised such an instance of fearless gratitude expressed to another, and when it was directed to himself, his ingenuous soul showed approbation in every feature of his beaming countenance.

"Is it thus, presumptuous Knight of Ellerslie," cried Soulis, "that by your looks you dare encourage contumely to the lord regent and his peers?"

Wallace did not deign him an answer, but turning calmly toward the throne, "Representative of my king!" said he, "in duty to the power whose authority you wear, I have obeyed your summons, and I here await the appearance of the accuser who has had the hardihood to brand the name of William Wallace with disloyalty to prince or people."

The regent was embarrassed. He did not suffer his eyes to meet those of Wallace, but looked down in manifest confusion during this address; and then, without reply, turned to Lord Athol, and called on him to open the charge. Athol required not a second summons; he rose immediately, and, in a bold and positive manner, accused Wallace of having been won over by Philip of France to sell those rights of supremacy to him which, with a feigned patriotism, his sword had wrested from the grasp of England. For this treachery, Philip was to endow him with the sovereignty of Scotland; and, as a pledge of the compact, he had invested him with the principality of Gascony in France. "This is the groundwork of his treason," continued Athol; "but the superstructure is to be cemented with our blood. I have seen a list, in his own handwriting, of those chiefs whose lives are to pave his way to the throne."

At this point of the charge Edwin sprung forward; but Wallace, perceiving the intent of his movement, caught him by the arm, and, by a look, reminded him of his recently repeated engagement to keep silent.

"Produce the list," cried Lord Lennox. "No evidence that does not bring proof to our eyes ought to have any weight with us against the man who had bled in every vein for Scotland."

"It shall be brought to your eyes," returned Athol; "that, and other damning proofs, shall convince this credulous country of its abused confidence."

"I see these damning proofs now!" cried Kirkpatrick, who had frowningly listened to Athol; "the abusers of my country's confidence betray themselves at this moment by their eagerness to impeach her friends; and I pray Heaven, that before they mislead others into so black a conspiracy, the lie in their throats may choke its inventors!"

"We all know," cried Athol, turning on Kirkpatrick, "to whom you belong. You were brought with this shameless grant to mangle the body of the slain Cressingham; a deed which brought a stigma on the Scottish name never to be erased by the disgrace of its perpetrators. For this savage triumph did you sell yourself to Sir William Wallace; and a bloody champion you are, always ready for your secretly murderous master!"

"Hear you this, and bear it?" cried Kirkpatrick and Edwin in one breath, and grasping their daggers, Edwin's flashed in his hand.

"Seize them!" cried Athol; "my life is threatened by his myrmidons."

Marshals instantly approached; but Wallace, who had hitherto stood in silent dignity, turned to them with that tone of justice which had ever commanded from his lips, and bade them forbear:

"Touch these knights at your peril, marshals!" said he; "no man in this chamber is above the laws, and they protect every Scot who resents unjust aspersions upon his own character, or irrelevant and prejudicing attacks on that of an arraigned friend. It is before the majesty of the laws that I now stand; but were injury to usurp its place, not all the lords in Scotland should detain me a moment in a scene so unworthy of my country."

The marshals retreated, for they had been accustomed to regard with implicit deference the opinion of Sir William Wallace on the laws; and though he now stood in the light of their violator, yet memory bore testimony that he had always read them aright, and, to this hour, had ever appeared to make them the guide of his actions.

Athol saw that none in the assembly had courage to enforce this act of violence, and blazing with fury, he poured his whole wrath upon Wallace. "Imperious, arrogant traitor!" cried he; "this presumption only deepens our impression of your guilt! Demean yourself with more reverence to this august court, or expect to be sentenced on the proof which such insolence amply gives; we require no other to proclaim your domineering spirit, and at once to condemn you as the premeditated tyrant of land."

"Lord Athol," replied Wallace, "what is just I would say in the face of all the courts in Christendom. It is not in the power of man to make me silent when I see the laws of country outraged and my countrymen oppressed. Though I may submit my own cheek to the blow, I will not permit theirs to share the stroke. I have answered you, earl, to this point and am ready to hear you to the end."

Athol resumed. "I am not your only accuser, proudly-confident man; you shall see one whose truth cannot be doubted, and whose first glance will bow that haughty spirit, and cover that bold front with the livery of shame! My lord," cried he, turning to the regent, "I shall bring a most illustrious witness before you; one who will prove on oath that it was the intention of this arch-hypocrite, this angler for women's hearts, this perverter of men's understandings, before another moon to bury deep in blood the very people whom he now insidiously affects to protect! But to open your and the nation's eyes at once, to overwhelm him with his fate, I now call forth the evidence."

The marshals opened a door in the side of the hall, and led a lady forward, habited in regal splendor, and covered from head to foot with a veil of so transparent a texture, that her costly apparel and majestic contour were distinctly seen through it. She was conducted to a chair on an elevated platform a few paces from where Wallace stood. On her being seated the regent rose, and in a tremulous voice addressed her:

"Joanna, Countess of Strathearn and Mar, Princess of the Orkneys, we adjure thee by thy princely dignity, and in the name of the King of kings, to bear a just witness to the truth or falsehood, of the charges of treason and conspiracy now brought against Sir William Wallace."

The name of his accuser made Wallace start; and the sight of her unblushing face, for she threw aside her veil the moment she was addressed, overspread his cheek with a tinge of that shame for her which she was now too hardened in determined crime to feel herself. Edwin gazed at her in speechless horror; while she, casting a glance at Wallace, in which the full purpose of her soul was declared, turned with a softened though majestic air, to the regent, and spoke:

"My lord," said she, "you see before you a woman, who never knew what it was to feel a self-reproachful pang till an evil hour brought her to receive an obligation from that insidious treacherous man. But as my first passion has ever been the love of my country, I will prove it to this good assembly by making a confession of what was once my heart's weakness; and by that candor, I trust they will fully honor the rest of my narrative."

A Clamor of approbation resounded through the hall. Lennox and Loch-awe looked on each other with amazement. Kirkpatrick, recollecting the scenes at Dumbarton, exclaimed—"Jezebel!"—but the ejaculation was lost in the general burst of applause; and the countess opening a folded paper which she held in her hand, in a calm, collected voice, but with a flushing cheek, resumed:

"I shall read my further deposition. I have written it, that my memory might not err, and that my country may be unquestionably satisfied of the accuracy of every syllable I utter."

She paused an instant, drew a quick breath, and proceeded reading from the paper, thus: (But as occasion occurred for particularly pointing its contents, she turned her tutored eye upon the object, to look a signet on her mischief.)

"I am not to tell you, my lord, that Sir William Wallace twice released the late Earl of Mar and myself from Southron captivity. Our deliverer was what you see him: fraught with attractions, which he too successfully directed against the peace of a young woman married to a man of paternal years. While to all the rest of the world, he seemed to consecrate himself to the memory of his ill-fated wife, to me alone he unveiled his straying heart. I revered my nuptial vow too sincerely to listen to him with the complacency he wished; but, I blush to own, that his tears, his agonies of love, his manly graces, and the virtues I believed he possessed (for well he knows to feign!), cooperating with my gratitude, at last wrought such a change in my breast that—I became wretched. No guilty wish was there; but an admiration of him, a pity which undermined my health, and left me miserable! I forbade him to approach me. I tried to wrest him from my memory; and nearly had succeeded, when I was informed by my late husband's nephew—(the youth who now stands beside Sir William Wallace)—that he was returned under an assumed name from France. Then I feared that all my inward struggles were to recommence. I had once conquered myself; for abhorring the estrangement of my thoughts from my wedded lord, when he died I only yearned to appease my conscience; and in penance for my involuntary crime, I refused Sir William Wallace my hand. His return to Scotland filled me with tumults, which only they who would sacrifice all they prize to a sense of duty, can know. Edwin Ruthven left me at Huntingtower; and, that very evening, while walking alone in the garden, I was surprised by the sudden approach of an armed man. He threw a scarf over my head, to prevent my screams, but I fainted with terror. He then took me from the garden by the way he had entered, and placing me on a horse before him, carried me whither I know not; but on my recovery I found myself in a chamber, with a woman standing beside me, and the same warrior. His visor was so closed that I could not see his face. On my expressing alarm at my situation, he addressed me in French, telling me he had provided a man to carry an excuse to Huntingtower, to prevent pursuit; and then he put a letter into my hand, which, he said, he brought from Sir William Wallace. Anxious to know the purpose of this act, and believing that a man who had sworn to me devoted love could not premeditate a more serious outrage, I broke the seal and, nearly as I can recollect, read to this effect:

"That his passion was so imperious, he had determined to make me his in spite of those sentiments of female delicacy which, while they tortured him, rendered me dearer in his eyes. He told me, that as he had often read in my blushes the sympathy which my too severe virtue made me conceal, he would now wrest me from my cheerless widowhood; and having nothing in reality to reproach myself with, compel me to be happy. His friend, the only confidant of his love, had brought me to a spot whence I could not fly; there I should remain, till he, Wallace, could leave the army for a few days, and throwing himself on my compassion and tenderness, he received as the most faithful of lovers, the fondest of husbands.

"This letter," continued the countess, "was followed by many others; and suffice it to say, that the latent affection in my heart, and his subduing love, were too powerful in his cause. How his letters were conveyed I know not; but they were duly presented to me by the woman who attended me. At last the knight who had brought me to the place, and who wore green armor, and a green plume, reappeared."

"Prodigious villain!" broke from the lips of Edwin.

The countess turned her eye on him for a moment and then resumed: "He was the warrior who had borne me from Huntingtower, and from that hour until the period I now speak of, I had never seen him. He put another packet into my hand, desiring me to peruse it with attention, and return Sir William Wallace a verbal answer by him. Yes! was all he required. I retired to open it; and what was my horror, when I read a perfect development of the treasons for which he is now brought to account! By some mistake of my character, he had conceived me to be ambitious; and knowing himself to be the master of my heart, he fancied himself lord of my conscience also. He wrote, that until he saw me, he had no other end in his exertions for Scotland than her rescue from a foreign yoke; 'but,' added he, 'from the moment in which I first beheld my adored Joanna, I aspired to place a crown on her brow!" Be then told me, that he did not deem the time of its presentation to him on the Carse of Stirling a safe juncture for its acceptance; neither was he tempted to run the risk of maintaining an unsteady throne when I was not free to partake it; but since the death of Lord Mar, every wish, every hope was re-awakened; and then he determined to become a king. Philip of France had made secret articles with him to that end. He was to hold Scotland of him. While to make the surrender of his country's independence sure to Philip, and its scepter to himself and his posterity, he attempted to persuade me there would be no crime in destroying the chiefs whose names he enrolled in this list. The pope, he added, would absolve me from a transgression dictated by connubial duty; and, on our bridal day, he proposed the deed should be done. He would invite all the lords to a feast; and poison, or dagger, should lay them at his feet.

"So impious a proposal restored me to myself. My love at once turned to the most decided abhorrence; and hastening to the Knight of the Green Plume, I told him to carry my resolution to his master, that I would never see him more till I should appear as his accuser before the tribunal of his country. The knight tried to dissuade me from my purpose, but in vain, and at last, becoming alarmed at the punishment which might overtake himself as the agent of such treason, he confessed to me that the scene of his first appearance at Linlithgow was devised by Wallace, who, unknown to all others, had brought him from France to assist him in the scheme he durst not confide to Scotland's friends. If I would guarantee his life, he offered to take me from the place where I was then confined, and convey me safe to Stirling. All else that he asked was, that I would allow him to be the bearer of the casket which contained Sir William Wallace's letters, and suffer my eyes to be blindfolded during the first part of our journey. This I consented to; but the murderous list I had undesignedly put into my bosom. My bead was again wrapped in a thick veil, and we set out. It was very dark; and we traveled long and swiftly till we came to a wood. There was neither moon nor stars to point out any habitation. But being overcome with fatigue, my conductor persuaded me to dismount and take rest. I slept beneath the trees. In the morning, when I awoke, I in vain looked round for the knight and called him; he was gone; and I saw him no more. I then explored my way to Stirling, to warn my country of its danger—to unmask to the world the direst hypocrite that ever prostituted the name of virtue."

The countess ceased; and a hundred voices broke out at once, pouring invectives on the traitorous ambition of Sir William Wallace, and invoking the regent to pass some signal condemnation on so monstrous a crime. In vain Kirkpatrick thundered forth his indignant soul; he was unheard in the tumult; but going up to the countess, he accused her to her face of falsehood, and charged her with a design from some really treasonable motive to destroy the only sure hope of her country.

"And will you not speak?" cried Edwin in agony of spirit grasping Wallace's arm; "will you not speak before these ungrateful men shall dare to brand your ever-honored name with infamy! Make yourself be heard, my noblest friend! Confute that wicked woman, who too surely has proved what I suspected—that this self-concealing knight came to be a traitor."

"I will speak, my Edwin," returned Wallace, "at the proper moment; but not in this tumult of my enemies. Rely on it, your friend will submit to no unjust decree."

"Where is this Knight of the Green Plume?" cried Lennox, almost startled in his opinion of Wallace by the consistency of the countess' narrative. "No mark of dishonor shall be passed on Sir William Wallace without the strictest scrutiny. Let the mysterious stranger be found, and confronted with Lady Strathearn."

Notwithstanding the earl's insisting on impartial justice, she perceived the doubt in his countenance, and eager to maintain her advantage, replied—"The knight, I fear, has fled beyond our search; but that I may not want a witness to corroborate the love I once bore this arch-hypocrite, and, consequently, the sacrifice I make to loyalty in thus unveiling him to the world, I call upon you, Lord Lennox, to say whether you did not observe at Dumbarton Castle the state of my too grateful heart?"

Lennox, who well remembered her conduct in the citadel of that fortress, hesitated to answer, aware that his reply might substantiate a guilt which he now feared would be but too strongly manifest. Every ear hung on his answer. Wallace saw what was passing in his mind; and determined to all men to show what was in their hearts toward the earl and said, "Do not hesitate, my lord; speak all that you know or think of me. Could the deeds of my life be written on yon blue vault," added he, pointing to the heavens, "and my breast be laid open for men to scan. I should be content; for then Scotland would know me as my Creator knows me; and the evidence which now makes even friendship doubt, would meet the reception due to calumny."

Lord Lennox felt the last remark, and stung with remorse for having for a moment credited anything against the frank spirit which gave him this permission, he replied, "To Lady Strathearn's questions I must answer, that at Dumbarton I did perceive her preference to Sir William Wallace; but I never saw anything in him to warrant the idea that it was reciprocal. And yet, were it even so, that bears nothing to the point of the countess' accusation; and, notwithstanding her princely rank, and the deference all would pay to the widow of Lord Mar, as true Scots, we cannot relinquish to a single witness our faith in a man who has so eminently served his country."

"No," cried Loch-awe; "if the Knight of the Green Plume be above ground, he shall be brought before this tribunal. He alone can be the traitor; and to destroy us by exciting suspicions against our best defender, he has wrought with his own false pen this device to deceive the patriotic widow of the Earl of Mar."

"No, no," interrupted she; "I read the whole in his own—to me too well known—handwriting; and this list of the chiefs, condemned by yon, indeed, traitor! to die, shall fully evince his guilt. Even your name, too generous earl, is in the horrid catalogue." While she spoke, she rose eagerly, to hand to him the scroll.

"Let me now speak, or stab me to the heart!" hastily whispered Edwin to his friend. Wallace did not withhold him, for he guessed what would be the remark of his ardent soul. "Hear that woman!" cried the vehement youth to the regent, "and say whether she now speaks the language of one who had ever loved the virtues of Sir William Wallace? Were she innocent of malice toward the deliverer of Scotland, would she not have rejoiced in Loch-awe's suggestion, that the Green Knight is the traitor? Or, if that scroll she has now given into the regent's hand be too nicely forged for her to detect its not being indeed the handwriting of the noblest of men, would she not have shown some sorrow at the guilt of one she professes once to have loved?—of one who saved herself, her husband, and her child from perishing! But here her malice has overstepped her art; and after having promoted the success of her tale by so mingling insignificant truths with falsehoods of capital import—tbat in acknowledging the one we seem to grant the other—she falls into her own snare! Even a beardless boy can now discern that, however vile the Green Knight may be, she shares his wickedness!"

While Edwin spoke, Lady Stathearn's countenance underwent a thousand changes. Twice she attempted to rise and interrupt him, but Sir Roger Kirkpatrick having fixed his eyes on her with a menacing determination to prevent her, she found herself obliged to remain quiescent. Full of a newly-excited fear that Wallace had confided to her nephew the last scene in his tent, she started up as he seemed to pause, and with assumed mildness, again addressing the regent, said—that before this apparently ingenuous defense could mislead impartial minds, she thought it just to inform the council of the infatuated attachment of Edwin Ruthven to the accused; for she had ample cause to assert that the boy was so bewitched by his commander—who had flattered his youthful vanity by loading him with distinctions only due to approved valor in manhood—that he was ready at any time to sacrifice every consideration of truth, reason, and duty, to please Sir William Wallace.

"Such may be in a boy," observed Lord Loch-awe, interrupting her "but as I know no occasion in which it is possible for Sir William Wallace to falsify the truth, I call upon him, in justice to himself and to his country, to reply to three questions!" Wallace bowed to the venerable earl, and he proceeded: "Sir William Wallace, are you guilty of the charge brought against you, of a design to mount the throne of Scotland by means of the King of France?"

Wallace replied, "I never designed to mount the throne of Scotland, either by my own means or by any other man's."

Loch-awe proceeded: "Was this scroll, containing the names of certain Scottish chiefs noted down for assassination, written by you, or under your connivance?"

"I never saw the scroll, nor heard of the scroll, until this hour. And harder than death is the pang at my heart when a Scottish chief finds it necessary to ask me such a question regarding a people, to save even the least of whom he has often seen me risk my life!"

"Another question," replied Loch-awe, "and then, bravest of men, if your country acquits you not in thought and deed, Campbell of Loch-awe sits no more amongst its judges! What is your knowledge of the Knight of the Green Plume, that, in preference to any Scottish friend, you should intrust him with your wishes respecting the Countess of Strathearn?"

Wallace's answer was brief: "I never had any wishes respecting the wife or the widow of my friend the Earl of Mar that I did not impart to every chief in the camp, and those wishes went no further than for her safety. As to love, that is a passion I shall know no more; and Lady Strathearn alone can say what is the end she aims at, by attributing feelings to me with regard to her which I never conceived, and words which I never uttered. Like this passion, with which she says she inspired me," added he, turning his eyes steadfastly on her face, "was the Knight of the Green Plume! You are all acquainted with the manner of his introduction to me at Linlithgow. By the account that he then gave of himself, you all know as much of him as I did, till on the night that he left me at Berwick and then I found him, like this story of Lady Strathearn, all a fable."

"What is his proper title? Name him, on your knighthood!" exclaimed Buchan; "for he shall yet be dragged forth to support the veracity of my illustrious kinswoman, and to fully unmask his insidious accomplice!"

"Your kinswoman, Earl Buchan," replied Wallace, "can best answer your question."

Lord Athol approached the regent, and whispered something in his ear. This unworthy representative of the generous Bruce, immediate rose from his seat. "Sir William Wallace," said he, "you have replied to the questions of Lord Loch-awe, but where are your witnesses to prove that what you have spoken is the truth?"

Wallace was struck with surprise at this address from a man who, whatever might be demanded of him in the fulfillment of his office, he believed could not be otherwise than his friend because, from the confidence reposed in him both by Bruce and himself, he must be fully aware of the impossibility of these allegations being true. But Wallace's astonishment was only for a moment; he now saw with an eye that pierced through the souls of the whole assembly, and, with collected firmness, he replied; "My witnesses are in the bosom of every Scotsman."

"I cannot find them in mine," interrupted Athol.

"Nor in mine!" was echoed from various parts of the hall.

"Invalidate the facts brought against you by legal evidence, not a mere rhetorical appeal, Sir William Wallace," added the regent, "else the sentence of the law must be passed on so tacit an acknowledgment of guilt."

AAcknowledgment of guilt!" cried Wallace, with a flush of god-like indignation suffusing his noble brow. "If any one of the chiefs who have just spoken knew the beat of an honest heart, they would not have declared that they heard no voice proclaim the integrity of William Wallace. Let them look out on yon carse, where they saw me refuse that crown, offered by themselves, which my accuser alleges I would yet obtain by their blood. Let them remember the banks of the Clyde, where I rejected the Scottish throne offered me by Edward! Let these facts bear witness for me; and, if they be insufficient, look on Scotland, now, for the third time, rescued by my arm from the grasp of a usurper! That scroll locks the door of the kingdom upon her enemies." As he spoke he threw the capitulation of Berwick on the table. It struck a pause into the minds of the lords; they gazed with pallid countenances, and without a word, on the parchment where it lay, while he proceeded: "If my actions that you see, do not convince you of my integrity, then believe the unsupported evidence of words, the tale of a woman, whose mystery, were it not for the memory of the honorable man whose name she once bore, I would publicly unravel—believe her! and leave Wallace naught of his country to remember, but that he has served it, and that it is unjust!"

"Noblest of Scots!" cried Loch-awe, coming toward him, "did your accuser come in the shape of an angel of light, still we believe your life in preference to her testimony, for God himself speaks on your side. 'My servants,' he declares, 'shall be known by their fruits!' And have not yours been peace to Scotland and good-will to men?"

"They are the serpent-folds of his hypocrisy!" cried-Athol, alarmed at the awe-struck looks of the assembly.

"They are the baits by which he cheats fools!" re-echoed Soulis.

"They are snares, which shall catch us no more!" was now the general acclamation; and in proportion to the transitory respect which had made them bow, but for a moment, to virtue, they now vociferated their center both of Wallace and this his last achievement. Inflamed with rage at the manifest determination to misjudge his commander, and maddened at the contumely with which their envy affected to treat him, Kirkpatrick threw off all restraint, and with the bitterness of his reproaches still more incensed the jealousy of the nobles and augmented the tumult. Lennox, vainly attempting to make himself heard, drew toward Wallace, hoping, by that movement to at least show on whose side he thought justice lay. At this moment, while the uproar raged with redoubled clamor—the one party denouncing the Cummins as the source of this conspiracy against the life of Wallace; the other demanding that sentence should instantly be passed upon him as a traitor—the door burst open and Bothwell, covered with dust, and followed by a throng of armed knights, rushed into the center of the hall.

"Who is it ye arraign?" cried the young chief, looking indignantly around him. "Is it not your deliverer you would destroy? The Romans could not accuse the guilty Manlius in sight of the capitol he had preserved, but you, worse than heathens, bring your benefactor to the scene of his victories, and there condemn him for serving you too well! Has he not plucked you this third time out of the furnace that would have consumed you? And yet in this hour, you would sacrifice him to the disappointed passions of a woman! Falsest of thy sex!" cried he, turning to the countess, who shrunk before the penetrating eyes of Andrew Murray; "do I not know thee? Have I not read thine unfeminine, thy vindictive heart? You would destroy the man you could not seduce! Wallace!" cried he, "speak. Would not this woman have persuaded you to disgrace the name of Mar? When my uncle died, did she not urge you to intrigue for that crown which she knew you had so loyally declined?"

"My errand here," answered Wallace, "is to defend myself, not to accuse others. I have shown that I am innocent, and my judges will not look on the proofs. They obey not the laws in their judgment, and whatever may be the decree, I shall not acknowledge its authority."

As he spoke he turned away, and walked with a firm step out of the hall.

His disappearance gave the signal for a tumult more threatening to the welfare of the state, than if the armies of Edward had been in the midst of them. It was brother against brother, friend against friend. The Lords Lennox, Bothwell, and Loch-awe, were vehement against the unfairness with which Sir William Wallace bad been treated; Kirkpatrick declared that no arguments could be used with men so devoid of reason, and words of reproach and reviling passing on all sides, swords were fiercely drawn. The Countess of Strathearn seeing herself neglected by even her friends in the strife, and fearful that the party of Wallace might at last gain the ascendancy, and that herself, then without her traitor corslet on her breast, might meet their hasty vengeance, rose abruptly, and giving her hand to a herald, hurried out of the assembly.

Chapter LXXIII.

Ballochgeich.

The marshals with difficulty interrupted the mortal attack which the enemies and friends of Wallace made on each other; several of the Cummins were maimed, Lord Athol himself was severely wounded by Kirkpatrick, but the teacherous regent glad1y saw that none on his side were hurt unto death. With horrid menaces the two parties separated, the one to the regent's apartments, the other to the camp of Wal1ace.

Lord Bothwell found him encircled by his veterans, in whose breasts he was trying to allay the storm raging there against the injustice of the regent and the ingratitude of the Scottish lords. At sight of the young and ardent Bothwell, their clamor to be led instantly to revenge the indignity offered to their general redoubled, and Murray, not less incensed, turning to them exclaimed:

"Yes, my friends, keep quiet for a few hours, and then, what honor commands we will do!" At this assurance they retired to their quarters, and Bothwell turned with Wallace into his tent.

"Before you utter a word concerning the present scenes," cried Wallace, "tell me how is the hope of Scotland? the only earthly stiller of these horrid tumults!"

"Alas!" replied Bothwell. "After regaining, by a valor worthy of his destiny, every fortress north of the Forth, his last and greatest achievement was making himself master of Scone; but in storming its walls a fragment of stone falling heavily, terribly rent the muscles of his breast, and now—woe to Scotland!—he lies at Huntingtower reduced to infant weakness. All this you would have known had you received his letters; but villainy must have been widely at work, for none of yours have reached his hands.

This intelligence respecting Bruce was a more mortal blow to Wallace than all he had just sustained in his own person. He remained silent, but his mind was thronged with thoughts. Was Scotland to be indeed lost? Was all that he had suffered and achieved to have been done in vain? and should he be fated to behold her again made a sacrifice to the jealous rivalry of her selfish and contending nobles?

Bothwell continued to speak of the prince, and added, that it was with reluctance he had left him, even to share the anticipated success at Berwick. But Bruce, impatient to learn the issue of the siege (as still no letters arrived from that quarter), had dispatched him back to the borders. At Dunfermline he was stricken with horror by the information that treason had been alleged against Wallace, and turning his steps westward, he flew to give that support to his friend's innocence which the malignity of his enemies might render needful.

"The moment I heard how you were beset," continued Bothwell, "I dispatched a messenger to Lord Ruthven, warning him not to alarm Bruce with such tidings, but to send hither all the spare forces in Perthshire, to maintain you in your rights."

"No force, my dear Bothwell, must be used so hold me in a power which now would only keep alive a spirit of discord in my country. If I dare apply the words of my Divine Master, I would say, I came not to bring a sword but peace to the people of Scotland! Then, if they are weary of me, let me go. Bruce will recover, they will rally round his standard, and all be well."

"Oh, Wallace! Wallace!" cried Bothwell, "the scene I have this day witnessed is enough to make a traitor of me. I could forswear my insensible country—I could immolate its ungrateful chieftains on those very lands which your generous arm restored to these worthless men!" He threw himself into a seat, and leaned his burning forehead against his hand.

"Cousin, you declare my sentiments," rejoined Edwin; "my soul can never again associate with these sons of Envy. I cannot recognize a countryman in any one of them; and, should Sir William Wallace quit a land so unworthy of his virtues, where he goes I will go—his asylum shall be my country, and Edwin Ruthven will forget that he ever was a Scot."

"Never," cried Wallace, turning on him one of those looks which struck conviction into the heart. "Is man more just than God? Though a thousand of your countrymen offend you by their crimes, yet while there remains one honest Scot, for his sake and his posterity it is your duty to be a patriot. A nation is one great family, and every individual in it is as much bound to promote the general good as a brother or a father to maintain the welfare of his nearest kindred. And it the transgression of one son be no arouse for the omission of another, in like manner, the ruin these turbulent lords would bring upon Scotland is no excuse for your desertion of your interest. I would not leave the helm of my country did she not thrust me from it; but though cast by her into the waves, would you not blush for your friend should he wish her other than a peaceful haven?" Edwin spoke not, but putting the hand of Wallace to his lips, left the tent.

"Oh!" cried Bothwell, looking after him, "that the breast of woman had but half that boy's tenderness! And yet all of that dangerous sex are not like this hyena-hearted Lady Strathearn. Tell me, try friend, did she not, when she disappeared so strangely from Huntingtower, fly to you? I now suspect, from certain remembrances, that she and the Green Knight are one aid the same person. Acknowledge it, and I will unmask her at once to the court she has deceived."

"She has deceived no one," replied Wallace. "Before she spoke, the members of that court were determined to brand me with guilt, and her charge merely supplied the place of others which they would have devised against me. Whatever she may be, my dear Bothwell, for the sake of whose name she once bore, let us not expose her to open shame. Her love or her hatred are alike indifferent to me now, for I neither of them do I owe that innate malice of my countrymen which has only made her calumny the occasion of manifesting their resolution to make me infamous. But that, my friend, is beyond her compass. I have done my duty to Scotland, and that conviction must live in every honest heart—ay, and with dishonest too—for did they not fear my integrity, they would not have thought it necessary to deprive me of power. Heaven shield our prince! I dread that Badenoch's next shaft may be at him!"

"No," cried Bothwell, "all is leveled at his best friend. In a low voice, I taxed the regent with disloyalty for permitting this outrage on you, and his basely envious answer was: 'Wallace's removal is Bruce's security; who will acknowledge him when they know that this man is his dictator?'"

Wallace sighed at this reply, which only confirmed him in his resolution, and he told Bothwell that he saw no alternative, if he wished to still the agitations of his country, and preserve its prince from premature discovery, but to indeed remove the subject of all these contentions from their sight.

"Attempt it not!" exclaimed Bothwell; "propose but a step toward that end, and you will determine me to avenge my country, at the peril of my own life, on all in that accursed assembly who have menaced yours!" In short, the young earl's denunciations were so earnest against the lords in Stirling, that Wallace, thinking it dangerous to exasperate him further, consented to remain in his camp till the arrival of Ruthven should bring him the advantage of his counsel.

The issue showed that Bothwell was not mistaken. The majority of the Scottish nobles envied Wallace his glory, and hated him for that virtue which drew the eyes of the people to compare him with their selfish courses. The regent, hoping to become the first in Bruce's favor, was not less urgent to ruin the man who so deservedly stood the highest in that prince's esteem. He had therefore entered warmly into the project of Lady Strathearn. But when, during a select conference between them, previous to her open charge of Wallace, she named Sir Thomas de Longueville as one of his foreign emissaries, Cummin observed:

"If you would have your accusation succeed, do not mention that knight at all. He is my friend. He is now ill near Perth, and must know nothing of this affair till it be over. Should he live, he will nobly thank you for your forbearance; should he die, I will repay you as becomes your nearest kinsman."

All were thus united in one determined effort to hurl Wallace from his station in the state. But when they believed that done, they quarreled amongst themselves in deciding who was to fill the great military office, which his prowess had now rendered a post rather of honor than of danger.

In the midst of these feuds Sir Simon Fraser abruptly appeared in the council-hall. His countenance proclaimed his tidings. Lennox and Loch-awe (who had duly attended, in hopes of bringing over some of the more pliable chiefs to embrace the cause of justice) listened with something like exultation to his suddenly disastrous information. When the English governor at Berwick learned the removal of Wallace from his command and the consequent consternation of the Scottish troops, instead of surrendering at sunset as was expected, he sallied out at the head of the whole garrison, and attacking the Scots by surprise, gave them a total defeat. Every outpost around the town was retaken by the Southrons, the army of Fraser was cut to pieces or put to flight, and himself now arriving at Stirling, smarting with many a wound but more under his dishonor, to show to the Regent of Scotland the evil of having superseded the only man whom the enemy feared. The council stood in silence, staring on each other; and, to add to their dismay, Fraser had hardly completed his narration, before a messenger from Tiviotdale arrived to inform the regent that King Edward was himself within a few miles of the Cheviots; and, from the recovered position of Berwick, must have even now poured his thousands over those hills upon the plains beneath. While all the citadel was indecision, tumult, and alarm, Lennox hastened to Wallace's camp with the news.

Lord Ruthven and the Perthshire chiefs were already there. They had arrived early in the morning, but with unpromising tidings of Bruce. The state of his wound had induced a constant delirium. But still Wallace clung to the hope that his country was not doomed to perish—that its prince's recovery was only protracted. In the midst of this anxiety, Lennox entered; and relating what he had just heard, turned the whole current of the auditor's ideas. Wallace started from his seat. His hand mechanically caught up his sword, which lay upon the table. Lennox gazed at him with animated veneration. "There is not a man in the citadel," cried he, "who does not appear at his wits' end, and incapable of facing this often-beaten foe. Will you, Wallace, again condescend to save a country that has treated you so ungratefully?"

"I would die in its trenches!" cried the chief, with a generous forgiveness of all his injuries suffusing his magnanimous heart.

Lord Loch-awe soon after appeared, and corroborating the testimony of Lennox added, that on the regent's sending word to the troops on the south of Stirling, that in consequence of the treason of Sir William Wallace the supreme command was taken from him, and they must immediately march out under the orders of Sir Simon Fraser, to face a new incursion of the enemy, they began to murmur among themselves, saying that since Wallace was found to be a traitor, they knew not whom to trust; but certainly it should not be a beaten general. With these whisperings, they slid away from their standards; and when Loch-awe left them they were dispersed on all sides, like an already discomfited army.

CHAPTER LXXIV.

Arthur's Seat.



For a day or two the paralyzed terrors of the people, and the tumults in the citadel, seemed portentous of immediate ruin. A large detachment from the royal army had entered Scotland by the marine gate of Berwick; and, headed by De Warenne, was advancing rapidly toward Edinburgh. Not a soldier belonging to the regent remained on the carse; and the distant chiefs to whom he sent for aid refused it, alleging that the discovery of Wallace's patriotism having been a delusion, had made them suspect all men; and, now locking themselves within their own castles, each true Scot would there securely view a struggle in which they could feel no personal interest.

Seeing the danger of the realm, and hearing from the Lords Ruthven and Bothwell that their troops would follow no other leader than Sir William Wallace, and hopeless of any prompt decision from amongst the contusion of the council, Badenoch yielded a stern assent to the only apparent means of saving his sinking country. He turned ashy pale, while his silence granted to Lord Loch-awe the necessity of imploring Sir William Wallace to again stretch out his arm in their behalf. With this embassy the venerable chief had returned exultingly to Ballochgeich; and the so lately branded Wallace, branded as the intended betrayer of Scotland, was solicited by his very accusers to assume the trust of their sole defense!

"Such is the triumph of virtue!" whispered Edwin to his friend, as he vaulted on his horse.

A luminous smile from Wallace acknowledged that he felt the tribute and, looking up to Heaven ere he placed his helmet on his head, he said:

"Thence comes my power! and the satisfaction it brings, whether attended by man's applause or his blame, he cannot take from me. I now, perhaps for the last time, arm this head for Scotland. May the God in whom I trust again crown it with victory, and forever after bind the brows of our rightful sovereign with peace!"

While Wallace pursued his march, the regent was quite at a stand, confounded at the turn which events had taken, and hardly knowing whether to make another essay to collect forces for the support of their former leader, or to follow the refractory counsels of his lords, and await in inactivity the issue of the expected battle. He knew not bow to act, but a letter from Lady Strathearn decided him.

Though partly triumphant in her charges, yet the accusations of Bothwell had disconcerted her; and though the restoration of Wallace to his undisputed authority in the state; seemed to her next to impossible, still she resolved to take another step, to confirm her influence over the discontented of her country, and most likely to insure the vengeance she panted to bring upon her victim's head. To this end, on the very evening that she retreated in terror from the council hall, she set forward to the borders; and, easily passing thence to the English camp (then pitched at Alnwick), was soon admitted to the castle, where De Warenne lodged. She was too well taught in the school of vanity not to have remarked the admiration with which that earl had regarded her while he was a prisoner in Stirling; and, hoping that he might not be able to withstand the persuasion of her charms, she opened her mission with no less art than effect. De Warren was made to believe, that on the strength of a passion Wallace had conceived for her, and which she treated with disdain, he had repented of his former refusal of the crown of Scotland; and, misled by a hope that she would not repeat her rejection of his hand could it present her a scepter, he was now attempting to compass that dignity by the most complicated intrigues. She then related how, at her instigation, the regent had deposed him from his military command, and she ended with saying, that impelled by loyalty to Edward (whom her better reason now recognized as the lawful sovereign of her country), she had come to exhort that monarch to renew his invasion of the kingdom.

Intoxicated with her beauty, and enraptured, by a manner which seemed to tell him that a softer sentiment than usual had made her select him as the embassador to the king, De Warenne greedily drank in all her words; and ere he allowed this, to him, romantic conference to break up, he had thrown himself at her feet, and implored her, by every impassioned argument, to grant him the privilege of presenting her to Edward as his intended bride. De Warenne was in the meridian of life; and being fraught with a power at court beyond most of his peers, she determined to accept his hand and wield its high influence to the destruction of Wallace, even should she be compelled in the act to precipitate her country in his fall. De Warenne drew from her a half-reluctant consent; and, while he poured forth the transports of a happy lover, he was not so much enamored of the fine person of Lady Strathearn as to be altogether insensible to the advantages which his alliance with her would give to Edward in his Scottish pretensions. And as it would consequently increase his own importance with that monarch, he lost no time in communicating the circumstances to him. Edward suspected something in this sudden attachment of the countess, which, should it transpire, might cool the ardor of his officer for uniting so useful an agent to his cause; therefore, having highly approved De Warenne's conduct in affair, to hasten the nuptials, he proposed being present at their solemnization that very evening. The solemn vows which Lady Strathearn then pledged at the altar to be pronounced by her with no holy awe of the marriage contract; but rather as those alone by which she swore to complete her revenge on Wallace, and, by depriving him of life, prevent the climax to her misery, of seeing him (what she believed he intended to become) the husband of Helen Mar.

The day after she became De Warenne's wife, she accompanied him by sea to Berwick; and from that place she dispatched messengers to the regent, and to other nobles, her kinsmen, fraught with promises, which Edward, in the event of success had solemnly pledged himself to ratify. Her embassador arrived at Stirling the day succeeding that in which Wallace and his troops had marched from Ballochgeich. The letters brought were eagerly opened by Badenoch and his chieftains, and they found their contents to this effect. She announced to them her marriage with the lord warden, who was returned into Scotland with every power for the final subjugation of the country; and therefore she besought the regent and his council, not to raise a hostile arm against him if they would not merely escape the indignation of a great king, but insure his favor. She cast out hints to Badenoch, as if Edward meant to reward his acquiescence with the crown of Scotland; and with similar baits, proportioned to the views of all her other kinsmen, she smoothed their anger against that monarch's former insults persuading them to at least remain inactive during the last struggle of their country.

Meanwhile Wallace, taking his course along the banks of the Forth, when the night drew near, encamped his little army at the base of the craigs, east of Edinburgh Castle. His march having been long and rapid, the men were much fatigued, and hardly were laid upon their heather beds before they fell asleep. Wallace had learned from his scouts that the main body of the Southrons had approached within a few miles of Dalkeith. Thither he hoped to go next morning, and there, he trusted, strike the conclusive blow for Scotland, by the destruction of a division which he understood comprised the flower of the English army. With these expectations he gladly saw his troops lying in that repose which would rebrace their strength for the combat, and, as the hours of night stole on while his possessed mind waked for all around, he was pleased to see his ever-watchful Edwin sink down in a profound sleep.

It was Wallace's custom, once at least in the night, to go himself the rounds of his posts, to see that all was safe. The air was serene and he walked out on this duty. He passed from line to line, from station to station, and all was in order. One post alone remained to be visited, and that was a point of observation on the craigs near Arthur's Seat. As he proceeded along a lonely defile between the rocks which overhang the ascent of the mountain, he was startled by the indistinct sight of a figure amongst the rolling vapors of the night, seated on a towering cliff directly in the way he was to go. The broad light of the moon, breaking from behind the clouds, shone full upon the spot, and discovered a majestic form in gray robes, leaning on a harp; while his face, mournfully gazing upward, was rendered venerable by a long white beard that mingled with the floating mist. Wallace paused, and stopping some distance from this extraordinary apparition, looked on it in silence. The strings of the harp seemed softly touched, but it was only the sighing of a transitory breeze passing over them. The vibration ceased, but, in the next moment the hand of the master indeed struck the chords, and with so full and melancholy a sound that Wallace for a few minutes was riveted to the ground; then moving forward with a breathless caution, not to disturb the nocturnal bard, he gently approached. He was, however, descried! The venerable figure clasped his hands, and in a voice of mournful solemnity exclaimed:

"Art thou come, doomed of Heaven, to hear thy sad coronach?" Wallace started at this salutation. The bard, with the same emotion, continued; "No choral hymns hallow thy bleeding corpse—wolves howl thy requiem—eagles scream over thy desolate grave! Fly, chieftain, fly!"

"What, venerable father of the harp," cried Wallace, interrupting the awful pause, "thus addresses one whom he must mistake for some other warrior?"

"Can the spirit of inspiration mistake its object?" demanded the bard. "Can he whose eyes have been opened be blind to Sir William Wallace—to the blood which clogs his mounting footsteps?"

"And what or who am I to understand art thou?" replied Wallace. "Who is the saint whose holy charity would anticipate the obsequies of a man who yet may be destined to a long pilgrimage?"

"Who I am," resumed the bard, "will be sthown to thee when thou hast passed yon starry firmament. But the galaxy streams with blood; the bugle of death is alone heard; and thy lacerated breast heaves in vain against the hoofs of opposing squadrons. They charge—Scotland falls! Look not on me, champion of thy country! Sold by thine enemies—betrayed by thy friends! It was not the seer of St. Anton who gave thee these wounds—that heart's blood was not drawn by me: a woman's hand in mail, ten thousand armed warriors strike the mortal steel—he sinks, he falls! Red is the blood of Eske! Thy vital stream hath dyed it. Fly, bravest of the brave, and live! Stay, and perish!" With a shriek of horror, and throwing his aged arms extended toward the heavens, while his gray beard mingled in the rising blast, the seer rushed from sight. Wallace saw the misty rocks alone, and was left in awful solitude.

For a few minutes he stood in profound silence. His very soul seemed deprived of power to answer so terrible a denunciation, with even a questioning thought. He had heard the destruction of Scotland declared, and himself sentenced to perish if he did not escape the general ruin by flying from her side! This terrible decree of fate, so disastrously corroborated by the extremity of Bruce, and the divisions in the kingdom, had been sounded in his ear, had been pronounced by one of those sages of his country, on whom the spirit of prophecy, it was believed, yet descended, with all the horrors of a woe-denouncing prophet. Could he then doubt its truth? He did not doubt; he believed the midnight voice he had heard. But recovering from the first shock of such a doom, and remembering that it still left the choice to himself, between dishonored life or glorious death, he resolved to show his respect to the oracle by manifesting a persevering obedience to the eternal voice which gave those agents utterance: and while he bowed to the warning, he vowed to be the last who should fall from the side of his devoted country. "If devoted," cried he, "then our fates shall be the same. My fall from thee shall be into my grave. Scotland may have struck the breast the breast that shielded her, yet, Father of Mercies, forgive her blindness, and grant me still permission a little longer to oppose my heart between her and this fearful doom!"

CHAPTER LXXV.

Dalkeith.

Awed, but not intimidated by the prophecy of the seer, Wallace next day drew up his army in order for the new battle near a convent of Cistercian monks on the narrow plain of Dalkeith. The two rivers Eske, flowing on each side of the little phalanx, formed a temporary barrier between it and the pressing legions of De Warenne. The earl's troops seemed countless, while the Southron lords who led them on, being elated by the representations which the Countess of Strathearn had given to them of the disunited state of the Scottish army, and the consequent dismay which had seized their hitherto all-conquering commander, bore down upon the Scots with an impetuosity which threatened their universal destruction. Deceived by the blandishing falsehoods of his bride, De Warenne had entirely changed his former opinion of his brave opponent, and by her sophistries having brought his mind to adopt stratagems of intimidation unworthy of his nobleness (so contagious is baseness, in too fond a contact with the unprincipled!), he placed himself on an adjoining height, intending from that commanding post to dispense his orders and behold his victory.