Montgomery entered; and being instantly recognized by Bruce, the ingenuous prince, never doubting a noble heart, stretched out his hand to him. "I take it," returned the earl, "only to give it a parting grasp. Behold these spurs and purse sent to you by Gloucester. You know their use. Without further observation follow me." Montgomery was thus abrupt, because as he left the palace he had heard the marshal give orders for different military detachments to search every residence of Gloucester for the Earl of Carrick; and he did not doubt that the party dispatched to Highgate were now mounting the hill.

Bruce, throwing off his cassock and cowl, again appeared in his martial garb, and after bending his knee for a moment on the chancel-stone which covered the remains of Wallace, he followed his friend from the chapel, and thence through a solitary path to the park, to the center of the wood. Montgomery pointed to the horse. Bruce grasped the hand of his faithful conductor. "I go, Montgomery," said he, "to my kingdom. But its crown shall never clasp my brows till the remains of Wallace return to their country. And whether peace or the sword restore them to Scotland, still shall a king's, a brother's friendship unite my heart to Gloucester and to you." While speaking he vaulted into his saddle, and receiving the cordial blessings of Montgomery, touched his good steed with his pointed rowels, and was out of sight in an instant.

Chapter LXXXVII.

Scotland — Dumfries.



About the hour of twilight on the tenth day after Bruce had cast his last look on the capital of England—that scene of his long captivity under the spell of delusion, that theater of his family's disgrace, of his own eternal regrets—he crossed the little stream which marked the oft-contended barrier-land of the two kingdoms. He there checked the headlong speed of his horse, and having alighted to give it breath, walked by its side, musing on the different feelings with which he now entered Scotland, from the buoyant emotions with which he had sprung on its shore at the beginning of the year. These thoughts, as full of sorrow as of hope, had not occupied him long when he espied a man, in the Red Cummin's colors, speeding toward the south. He guessed him to be some new messenger of the regent to Edward, and throwing himself before the horse, caught it by the bridle, then coolly commanded its rider to deliver to him the dispatches which he carried to the King of England. The man refused, and, striking his spurs into his beast, tried to trample down his assailant. But Bruce was not to be put from his aim. The manner of the Scot convinced him that his suspicions were right, and putting forth his nervous arm, with one action he pulled the messenger from his saddle and laid him prostrate on the ground. Again he demanded the papers. "I am your prince," cried he, "and by the allegiance you owe to Robert Bruce, I command you to deliver them into my hands. Life shall be your reward, immediate death the punishment of your obstinacy."

In such an extremity the man did not hesitate, and taking from his bosom a sealed packet, immediately resigned it. Bruce ordered him to stand before him till he had read the contents. Trembling with terror of this formidable freebooter (for he placed no belief in the declaration that he was the Prince of Scotland), the man obeyed, and Bruce, breaking his seals, found, as he expected a long epistle from the regent, urging the sanguinary aim of his communications. He reiterated his arguments for the expediency of speedily putting Robert Bruce to death; he represented the danger that there was in delay, lest a man so royally descended and so popular as he had become (since it was now publicly understood that he had already fought his country's battles under the name of Sir Thomas de Longueville) should find means of replacing himself at the head of so many zealots in his favor. These circumstances so propitious to ambition, and now adding person revenge to his former boldness and policy, would at this juncture (should he arrive in Scotland) turn its growing commotions to the most decisive uses against the English power. The regent concluded with saying, "that the Lords Loch-awe, Douglas, and Ruthven were come down from the Highlands with a multitudinous army, to drive out the Southron garrisons, and to repossess themselves of the fortresses of Stirling and Edinburgh. That Lord Bothwell had returned from France with the real Sir Thomas de Longueville, a knight of great valiancy. And that Sir Roger Kirkpatrick, after having massacred half the English castellans in the border counties, was now lying at Torthorald ready to commence his murderous reprisals through the coasts of Galloway. For himself, Cummin told the kind he had secretly removed to the Franciscan monastery at Dumfries, where he should most anxiously await his majesty's pardon and commands."

Bruce closed the packet. To prevent his discovery being betrayed ere he was ready to act, he laid his sword upon the shoulder of the man: "You are my prisoner," said he; "but fear not. I only mean to hold you in safety till your master has answered for his treason." The messenger thought, whoever this imperious stranger might be, that he saw a truth in his eyes which ratified this assurance; and without opposition, he walked before him till they stopped at Torthorald.

Night had closed in when Bruce sounded his bugle under the walls. Kirkpatrick answered from the embrasure over the barbican-gate with a demand of who desired admittance.

"'Tis the avenger of Sir William Wallace," was the reply. The gates flew open at the words; and Kirkpatrick, standing in the archway amid a blaze of torches, received his guest with a brave welcome.

Bruce spoke no more till he entered the banqueting-hall. Three other knights were seated by the table. He turned to Kirkpatrick. "My valiant friend," said he, "order your servants to take charge of yon Scot," pointing to the messenger of Cummin; "and till I command his release, let him be treated with the lenity which shall ever belong to a prisoner of Robert Bruce!" As he spoke he threw up his visor; and Kirkpatrick, who had heard that the supposed De Longueville was his rightful prince, now recognized the well-known features of the brave foreigner in the stranger before him. Not doubting the verity of his words, he bent his knee with the homage due to his king; and in the action was immediately followed by Sir Eustace Maxwell, Sir James Lindsay, and Adam Fleming, who were the other knights present.

"I come," cried the prince, "in the spirit of my heart's sovereign and friend, the now immortal Wallace, to live or to die with you in the defense of my country's liberties. With such assistance as yours, his invincible coadjutors, and with the blessing of Heaven on our arms, I hope to redeem Scotland from the disgrace which her late horrible submission to the tyrant has fastened on her name. The transgressions of my house have been grievous; but that last deadly sin of my people called for an expiation awful indeed! And it came in the moment of guilt! in their crime they receive punishment. They broke from their side the arms which alone had rescued them from their enemies! I now come to save them from themselves. Their having permitted the sacrifice of the rights of my family was the first injury committed on the constitution, and it prepared a path for the ensuing tyranny which seized upon the kingdom. But, by resuming these rights, which is now my firm purpose, I open to you a way to recover our hereditary independence. The direful scene just acted on the Tower Hill of London, that horrible climax of Scottish treason! must convince every reasonable mind that all the late misfortunes of our country have proceeded from the base jealousies of its nobles. There, then, let them die; and may the grave of Wallace be the tomb of dissension! Seeing where their own true interests point, surely the brave chieftains of this land will rally round their lawful prince, who here declares he knows no medium between death and victory!"

The spirit with which this address was pronounced, the magnanimity it conveyed, assisted by the graces of his youth, and noble deportment, struck the hearts of its auditors, and aroused in double vigor the principles of resentment to which the first tidings of their heroic countryman's fate had given birth. Kirkpatrick needed no other stimulus than his almost idolatrous memory of Wallace, and he listened with an answering ardor to Bruce's exhortation. The prince next disclosed to his now zealously-pledged friends the particulars of the Red Cummin's treachery. "He now lies at Dumfries!" cried Kirkpatrick; "thither, then, let us go, and confront him with his treason. When falsehood is to be confounded, it is best to grapple with the sorceress in the moment of detection; should we hesitate, she may elude our grasp."

Dumfries was only a few miles distant, and they might reach its convent before the first matins. Fatigue was not felt by Bruce when in pursuit of a great object; and, after a slight refreshment, he and his four determined friends took horse.

As they had anticipated, the midnight bell was ringing for prayers when the troop stopped at the Franciscan gate. Lindsay, having been in the Holy Land during the late public struggles, alleged business with the abbot, and desired to see him. On the father's bidding the party welcome, Bruce stepped forward and addressed him: "Reverend sir, I come from London. I have an affair to settle with Lord Badenoch; and I know by his letters to King Edward, that he is secretly lodged in this convent. I therefore command to be conducted to him." This peremptory requisition, with the superior air of the person who made it, did not leave the abbot room to doubt that he was some illustrious messenger from the King of England, and with hardly a demur, he left the other knights in the cloisters of the church while he led the noble Southron (as he thought) to his kinsman.

The treacherous regent had just retired from the refectory to his own apartment, as the abbot conducted the stranger into his presence. Badenoch started frowningly from his seat at such unusual intrusion. Bruce's visor was closed; and the ecclesiastic, perceiving the regent's displeasure, dispersed it by announcing the visitant as a messenger from King Edward. "Then leave us together," returned he, unwilling that even this, his convenient kinsman, should know the extent of his treason against his country. The abbot had hardly closed the door, when Bruce, whose indignant soul burned to utter his full contempt of the wretch before him, hastily advanced to speak; but the cautious Badenoch, fearful that the father might yet be within hearing, put his finger to his lips. Bruce paused, and listened gloomily to the departing steps of the abbot. When they were no more heard, with one hand raising his visor, and the other grasping the scroll of detection: "Thus, basest of the base race of Cummin!" exclaimed he, "you may for a moment elude the universal shame which awaits your crimes."

At sight of the fate, on hearing the words of Bruce, the unmanly coward uttered a cry of terror, and rushed toward the door.

"You pass not here," continued the prince, "till I have laid open all your guilt; till I have laid open all your guilt; till I have pronounced you the doom due to a treacherous friend and traitorous subject."

"Infatuated Bruce!" exclaimed Badenoch, assuming an air of insulted friendship, not that he found escape impossible; "what false tongue has persuaded you to arraign one who has ever been but too faithfully the adherent of your desperate fortunes? I have labored in secret, day and night, in your service, and thus am I repaid."

Bruce smiled disdainfully at this poor attempt to deceive him; and, as he stood with his back against the door, he opened the murderous packet, and read from it all its contents. Cummin turned pale and red at each sentence; and at last, Bruce closing it:

"Now, then, faithful adherent of Robert Bruce!" cried he, "say what the man deserves who, in these blood-red lines, petitions the death of his lawful prince! Oh! thou arch-regicide! Doth not my very look kill thee?"

Badenoch, his complexion turning of a livid hue, and his voice faltering, attempted to deny the letter having been his handwriting, or that he had any concern in the former embassy to Edward; then, finding that these falsehoods only irritated Bruce to higher indignation, and fearful of being immediately sacrificed to his just resentment, he threw himself on his knees, and confessing each transaction, implored his life in pity to the natural desire of self-preservation which, alone, had precipitated him to so ungrateful a proceeding.

"Oh!" added he, "even this danger I have incurred upon your account! For your ultimate advantage did I bring on my head the perils which now fill me with dismay! Love alone for you made me hasten the execution of William Wallace, that insidious friend, who would have crept from your bosom into your throne. And then, fear of your mistaking the motives of so good a service, betrayed me to throw myself into the arms of Edward!"

"Bury thyself and crimes, thou foulest traitor, deep in the depths of hell!" cried the prince, starting away with a tremendous gesture! "Out of my sight forever, that I may not pollute these hands with thy monstrous blood!" Till this moment Bruce was ignorant that Badenoch had been the instigator in the murder of Wallace; and forgetting all his own person wrongs in this more mighty injury, with tumultuous horror, he turned from the coward to avoid the self-blame of stabbing an unarmed wretch at his feet. But at that moment Cummin, who believed his doom only suspended, rose from his knee, and drawing his dirk from under his plaid, struck it into the back of the prince. Bruce turned on him with the quickness of thought. "Hah!" exclaimed he, seizing him by the throat, "then take thy fate! This accursed deed hath removed the only barrier between vengeance and thee—thus remember William Wallace!"

As the prince spoke he plunged his dagger into the breast of the traitor. Cummin uttered a fearful cry, and rolled down at his feet murmuring imprecations.

Bruce fled from the spot. It was the first time his arm had drawn blood except in the field of battle, and he felt as if the base tide had contaminated his hand. In the cloisters he was encountered by his friends. A few words informed them of what had happened.

"Is he dead?" inquired Kirkpatrick.

"I can hardly doubt it," answered Bruce.

"Such a matter," returned the veteran, "must not be left to conjecture; I will secure him!"** And running forward, he found the wounded regent crawling from the door of the cell. Throwing himself upon him without noise, he stabbed him to the heart.

**In memory of this circumstance, the crest of the family of Kirkpatrick is a hand grasping a dagger distilling gouts of blood; the motto, "I mak sikkar."

Before the catastrophe was known in the convent, Bruce and his friends had left it some time, and were far on their road to Lochmaben. They arrived before sunrise, and once more an inmate of his paternal castle, he thence dispatched Fleming to Lord Ruthven, with a transcript of his designs.

In the same packed he inclosed a letter for the Lady Isabella. It contained this brave resolution—that, in his present return to Scotland, he did not consider himself merely as Robert Bruce, come to reclaim the throne of his ancestors, but as the executor of the last dying will of Sir William Wallace, which was—that Bruce should confirm the independence of Scotland, or fall, as Wallace had done, invincible at his post. "Till that freedom is accomplished," continued the virtuous prince, "I will never shake the steadfast purpose of my soul by even once glance at thy life-endearing beauties. I am Wallace's soldier, Isabella, as he was Heaven's! and, while my captain looks on me from above, shall I not approve myself worthy his example? I wooed you as a knight, I will win you as a king; and on the day when no hostile Southron breathes in Scotland I will demand my sweetest reward, my beloved bride, of her noble uncle. You shall come to me as the angel of peace, and in one hour we will receive the nuptial benediction and the vows of our people!"

The purport of the prince's letter to Ruthven was well adapted to the strain of the foregoing. He then announced his intention of proceeding immediately to the plain of Stirling; and there, putting himself at the head of his loyal Scots, declare himself their lawful sovereign, and proclaim to the world that he acknowledged no legal superior but the Great Being whose vicegerent he was. From that center of his kingdom he would make excursions to its furthest extremities, and, with God's will, either drive his enemies from the country, or perish with the sword in his hand, as became the descendant of William the Lion, as became the friend of William Wallace!

Ruthven lay encamped on the Carse of Gowrie when this letter was delivered to him. He read it aloud to his assembled chieftains, and, with waving bonnets, they hailed the approach of their valiant prince. Bothwell alone, whose soul-devoted attachment to Wallace could not be superseded by any other affection allowed his bonnet to remain inactive in his hand; but with the ferver of true loyalty he thanked God for thus bringing the sovereign whom his friend loved to bind in one the contending interests of his country—to wrest from the hand of that friend's assassin the scepter for which he had dyed them so deep in blood.

Chapter LXXXVIII.

Stirling.



The word of Bruce was as irreversible as his spirit was determined. No temptation of indulgence could seduce him from the one, no mischance of adversity could subdue the other. The standard of liberty had been raised by him on the Carse of Gowrie, and he carried it in his victorious arm from east to west, from the most northern point of Sutherland to the walls of Stirling; but there, the garrison which the treason of the late regent had admitted into the citadel gave a momentary check to his career. The English governor hesitated to surrender on the terms proposed, and while his first flag of truce was yet in the tent of the Scottish monarch, a second arrived to break off the negotiation. Whatever were the reasons for this abrupt determination, Bruce paid him not the compliment of asking a wherefore, but advancing his troops to the Southron outposts, drove them in with great loss; and, approaching the lower works of the town by the road of Ballochgeich, so alarmed the governor as to induce him to send forth several squadrons of horse to stop his progress.

Vain was the attempt. They shrunk before the resolute prince and his enthusiastic followers. The governor dispatched others, and at last marched himself out to their support. No force seemed able to withstand the pressing valor of the Scots. The Southron saw himself in the midst of his slain, and deserted by half of his surviving troops. A surrender, both of himself and his fainting companions, was now his only recourse. His herald sounded a parley. The generous victor, in the midst of triumph, listened to the offered capitulation. It was not to include the citadel of Stirling.

Bruce stopped the herald at this clause, and at once demanded the unconditional surrender of both the town and citadel. The governor, being aware that in his present state there was no alternative, and knowing the noble nature of the prince who made the requisition, yielded to necessity, and resigned the whole into his hands.

Next morning Bruce entered Stirling as a conqueror, with the whole of his kingdom at his feet; for, from the Solway Frith to the Northern Ocean, no Scottish town or castle owned a foreign master. The acclamations of a rescued people rent the skies; and, while prayers and blessings poured on him from above, below, and around, he did indeed feel himself a king, and that he had returned to the land of his forefathers. While he sat on his proud war-horse, in front of the great gates of the citadel, now thrown wide asunder to admit its rightful sovereign, his noble prisoners came forward. They bent their knees before him; and delivering their swords, received in return, his gracious assurance of mercy. At this moment all Scottish hearts and wishes seemed riveted on their youthful monarch. Dismounting from his steed, he raised his helmet from his head, as the souls of his enemies, he raised his helmet from his head, as the Bishop of Dunkeld, followed by all the ecclesiastics in the town, came forward to wait upon the triumph of their king.

The beautiful anthem of the virgins of Israel on the conquests of David, was chanted forth by the nuns who in this heaven-hallowed hour, like the spirits of the blest, revisited the world to give the chosen of their land, "All hail."

The words, the scene, smote the heart of Bothwell; he turned aside and wept. Where were now the buoyant feelings with which he had followed the similar triumph of Wallace into these gates? "Buried, thou martyred hero, in thy bloody grave!" New men and new services seemed to have worn out remembrance of the past; but in the memories of even this joyous crowd, Wallace lived, though like a bright light which had passed through their path, and was gone never more to return.

On entering the citadel, Bruce was informed by Mowbray, the English governor, that he would find a lady there in a frightful state of mental derangement, and who might need his protection. A question or two from the victorious monarch told him that this was the Countess of Strathearn. On the revolted abthanes having betrayed Wallace and his country to England, the joy and ambition of the countess knew no bounds; and hoping to eventually persuade Edward to adjudge to her the crown, she made it apparent to the English king how useful would be her services to Scotland; while with a plenary though secret mission, she took her course through her native land, to discover who were inimical to the foreign interest, and who, likely to promote her own; after this circuit, she fixed her mimic court at Stirling, and living there in real magnificence, exercised the functions of a vice-queen. At this period intelligence arrived, which the governor thought would fill her with exultation; and hastening to declare it, he proclaimed to her, that the King of England's authority was now firmly established in Scotland, for that on the twenty-third of August Sir William Wallace had been executed in London, according to all the forms of law, upon the Tower Hill!

On the full declaration of this event, she fell senseless on the floor. It was not until the next morning that she recovered to perfect animation, and then her ravings were horrible and violent. She accused herself of the murder of Sir William Wallace. She seemed to hear him upbraid her with his fate: and her shrieks and tremendous ejaculations so fearfully presented the scene of his death before the eyes of her attendants, that her women fled and none others of that sex would afterward venture to approach her. In these fearful moments the dreadful confession of all her premeditated guilt, of her infuriate and disappointed passion for Wallace, and her vowed revenge, were revealed, under circumstances so shocking, that the English governor declared to the King of Scots, while he conducted him toward her apartment, that he would rather wear out his life in a rayless dungeon, then endure one hour of her agonies.

There was a dead silence in her chamber as they approached the door. Mowbray cautiously opened it, and discovered the object of their visit. She was seated at the further end of the room on the floor, enveloped in a mass of scarlet velvet she had drawn off her bed; her hands clasped her knees, and she bent forward, with her eyes fixed on the door at which they entered. Her once dazzling beauty was now transformed to a haggard glare—the terrible lightning which gleamed on the face of Satan, when he sat brooding on the burning marl of Tartarus.

She remained motionless as they advanced. But when Bruce stopped directly before her, contemplating with horror the woman whom he regarded as one of the murderers of his most beloved friend, she sprung at once upon him, and clinging to him, with shrieks buried her head in his bosom. "Save me! save me!" cried she. "Mar drags me down to hell; I burn there, and yet I die not!" Then bursting from Bruce, with an imprecation that froze his blood, she flew to the other side of the chamber, crying aloud, "Thou hast torn out my heart! Fiend, I took thee for Wallace—but I murdered him!" Her agonies, her yells, her attempts at self-violence, were now so dreadful, that Bruce, raising her bleeding from the hearth on which she had furiously dashed her head, put her into the arms of the men who attended her, and then, with an awful sense of Divine retribution, left the apartment.

Chapter LXXXIX.

Bannockburn.



The generality of his prisoners Bruce directed should be kept safe in the citadel; but to Mobray he gave his liberty, and ordered every means to facilitate the commodious journey of that brave knight whom he had requested to convey the insane Lady Strathearn to the protection of her husband.

Mowbray accepted his freedom with gratitude, and gladly set forth with his unhappy charge to meet his sovereign. Expectation of Edward's approach had been the reason of his withdrawing his herald from the camp of Bruce, and though the king did not arrive time enough to save Stirling, Mowbray yet hoped he might still be continuing his promised march. This anticipation the Southron's loyalty would not allow him to impart to Bruce, and he bade that generous prince adieu, with the full belief of soon returning to find him the vanquished of Edward.

At the decline of day Bruce returned to his camp, to pass the night in the field with his soldiers, intending next morning to give his last orders to the detachments which he meant to send out under the command of Lennox and Douglas, to disperse themselves over the border counties, and there keep station till that peace should be signed by England which he was determined, by unabated hostilities, to compel.

Having taken these measures for the security of his kingdom and the establishment of his own happiness, he had just returned to his tent on the banks of the Bannockburn when Grimsby, his now faithful attendant, conducted an armed knight into his presence. The light of the lamp which stood on the table, streaming full on the face of the stranger, discovered to the king his English friend, the intrepid Montgomery. With an exclamation of glad surprise Bruce would have clasped him in his arms; but Montgomery dropping on his knee, exclaimed, "Receive a subject as well as a friend, victorious and virtuous prince! I have forsworn the vassalage of the Plantagenets; and thus, without title or land, with only a faithful heart, Gilbert Hambledon comes to vow himself yours and Scotland's forever."

Bruce raised him from the ground, and welcoming him with the warm embrace of friendship, inquired the cause of so extraordinary an abjuration of his legal sovereign. "No light matter," observed the king, "could have so wrought upon my noble Montgomery!"

"Montgomery no more!" replied the ear, with indignant eagerness; "when I threw the insignia of my earldom at the feet of the unjust Edward, I told him that I would lay the saw to the root of the nobility I had derived from his house, and cut it through; that I would sooner leave my posterity without titles and without wealth, than deprive them of real honor.** I have done as I said! And yet I come not without a treasure, for the sacred corpse of William Wallace is now in my bark, floating on the waves of the Forth!"

**This event is perpetuated in the crest of the noble family of Hamilton in Scotland.

The subjugation of England would hardly have been so welcome to Bruce as this intelligence. He received it with an eloquent though unutterable look of gratitude. Hambledon continued: "On the tyrant summoning the peers of England to follow him to the destruction of Scotland, Gloucester got excused under a plea of illness, and I could not but show a disinclination to obey. This occasioned some remarks from Edward respecting my known attachment to the Scottish cause, and they were so couched as to draw from me this honest answer; my heart would not, for the wealth of the world, permit me to join in the projected invasion, since I had seen the spot in my own country where a most inordinate ambition had cut down the flower of all knighthood, because he was a Scot who would not sell his birthright! The king left me in wrath and threatened to make me recant my words—I as proudly declared I would maintain them. Next morning, being in waiting on the prince, I entered his chamber, and found John le de Spencer (the coward who so basely insulted Wallace on the day of his condemnation); he was sitting with his highness. On my offering the services due from my office, this worthless minion turned on me, and accused me of having declined joining the army for the sole purpose of executing some plot in London, devised between me and my Scottish partisans for the subversion of the English monarchy. I denied the charge. He enforced it with oaths, and I spurned his allegations. The prince, who believed him, furiously gave me the lie, and commanded me as a traitor to leave his presence. I refused to stir an inch till I made the base heart of Le de Spencer retract his falsehood. The coward took courage on his master's support, and drawing his sword upon me, in language that would blister my tongue to repeat, threatened to compel my departure. He struck me on the face with his weapon. The arms of his prince could not then save him; I thrust him through the body, and he fell. Edward ran on me with his dagger, but I wrested it from him. Then it was that, I reply to his menaces, I revoked my fealty to a sovereign I abhorred, a prince I despised. Leaving his presence before the fluctuations of so versatile a mind could fix upon seizing me, I hastened to Highgate, to convey away the body of our friend from its brief sanctuary. The same night I embarked it and myself on board a ship of my own, and am now at your feet, brave and just king!—no longer Montgomery, but a true Scot in heart and loyalty."

"And as a kinsman, generous Hambledon!" returned Bruce, "I receive and will portion thee. My paternal lands of Cadzow, on the Clyde, shall be thine forever; and may thy posterity be as worthy of the inheritance as their ancestor is of all my love and confidence."

Hambledon, having received his new sovereign's directions concerning the disembarkation of those sacred remains, which the young king declared he should welcome as the pledge of Heaven to bless his victories with peace, returned to the haven, where Wallace rested in that sleep which even the voice of friendship could not disturb.

At the hour of the midnight watch, the trumpets of approaching heralds resounded without the camp. Bruce hastened to the council-tent to receive the now anticipated tidings. The communications of Hambledon had given him reason to expect another struggle for his kingdom, and the message of the trumpets declared it might be a mortal one.

At the head of a hundred thousand men, Edward had forced a rapid passage through the Lowlands, and was now within a few hours' march of Stirling, fully determined to bury Scotland under her own slain, or, by one decisive blow, restore her to his empire.

When this was uttered by the English herald, Bruce turned to Ruthven with an heroic smile:

"Let him come, my brave barons, and he shall find that Bannockburn shall page with Cambus-Kenneth!"

The strength of the Scottish army did not amount to more than thirty thousand men against this host of Southrons. But the relics of Wallace were there! His spirit glowed in the heart of Bruce. The young monarch lost not the advantage of choosing his ground first, and therefore, as his power was deficient in cavalry, he so took his field as to compel the enemy to make it a battle of infantry alone.

To protect his exposed flank from the innumerable squadrons of Edward, he dug deep and wide pits near to Bannockburn, and having overlaid their mouths with turf and brushwood, proceeded to marshal his little phalanx on the shore of that brook till his front stretched to St. Ninan's Monastery.

The center was led by Lord Ruthven and Walter Stewart; the right owned by the valiant leading of Douglas and Ramsay, supported by the brave young Gordon with all his clan; and the left was put in charge of Lennox, with Sir Thomas Randolph, a crusade chieftain, who, like Lindsay and others, had lately returned from distant lands, and now zealously embraced the cause of his country.

Bruce stationed himself at the head of the reserve; with him were the veterans Loch-awe, and Kirkpatrick, and Lord Bothwell with the true De Longueville, and the men of Lanark, all determined to make this division the stay of their little army, or the last sacrifice for Scottish liberty and its martyred champion's corpse. There stood the sable hearse of Wallace, rather than yield the ground which he had rendered doubly precious by having made it the scene and the guerdon of his invincible deeds! When Kirkpatrick approached the side of his dead chief, he burst into tears, and his sobs alone proclaimed his participation in the solemnity. The vow spread to the surrounding legions, and was echoed, with mingled cries and acclamations, from the furthest ranks.

"My leader, in death as in life!" exclaimed Bruce, clasping his friend's sable shroud to his heart; "thy pale corpse shall again redeem the country which cast thee, living, amongst devouring lions! Its presence shall fight and conquer for thy friend and king!"

Before the chiefs turned to resume their martial stations, the abbot of Inchaffray drew near with the mysterious iron box, which Douglas had caused to be brought from St. Fillan's Priory. On presenting it to the young monarch, he repeated the prohibition which had been given with it, and added, "Since, then, these canonized relics (for none can doubt they are so) have found protection under the no less holy arm of St. Fillan, he now delivers them to your youthful majesty, to penetrate their secrets, and to nerve your mind with redoubled trust in the saintly host."

"The saints are to be honored, reverend father, and on that principle I shall not invade their mysteries till the God in whom alone I trust, marks me with more than the name of king; till, by a decisive victory, he establishes me the approved champion of my country—the worthy successor of him before whose mortal body and immortal spirit I now emulate his deeds. But as a memorial that the host of heaven do indeed learn from the bright abodes to wish well to this day, let these holy relics repose with those of the brave till the issue of the battle."

Bruce, having placed his array, disposed the supernumeraries of his army, the families of his soldiers, and other apparently useless followers of the camp, in the rear of an adjoining hill.

By daybreak the whole of the Southron army came in view. The van, consisting of archers and men-at-arms, displayed the banner of Earl de Warenne; the main body was led on by Edward himself, supported by a train of his most redoubted generals. As they approached, the bishop of Dunkeld stood on the face of the opposite hill between the abbots of Cambus-Keneth and Inchaffray, celebrating mass in the sight of the opposing armies. He passed along in front of the Scottish lines barefoot, with the crucifix in his hand, and in few but forcible words exhorted them by every sacred hope, to fight with an unreceding step for their rights, their king, and the corpse of William Wallace! At this abjuration, which seemed the call of Heaven itself, the Scots fell on their knees, to confirm their resolution with a vow. The sudden humiliation of their posture excited an instant triumph in the haughty mind of Edward, and spurring forward, he shouted aloud, "They yield! They cry for mercy!"

"They cry for mercy!" returned Percy, trying to withhold his majesty, "but not from us. On that ground on which they kneel, they will be victorious or find their graves."

The king contemned this opinion of the earl, and inwardly believing that, now Wallace was dead, he need fear no other opponent (for he knew not that even his cold remains were risen in array against him), he ordered his men to charge. The horsemen, to the number of thirty thousand, obeyed; and, rushing forward, with the hope of overwhelming the Scots ere they could rise from their knees, met a different destiny. They found destruction amid the trenches and on the pikes in the way, and with broken ranks and fearful confusion, fell or fled under the missive weapons which poured on them from a neighboring hill. De Valence was overthrown and severely wounded, and being carried off the field, filled the rear ranks with dismay; while the king's division was struck with consternation at so disastrous a commencement of an action in which they had promised themselves so easy a victory. Bruce seized the moment of confusion, and seeing his little army distressed by the arrows of the English, he sent Bothwell round with a resolute body of men to drive those destroying archers from the heights which they occupied. This was effected; and Bruce coming up with his reserve, the battle in the center became close, obstinate, and decisive. Many fell before the determined arm of the youthful king; but it was the fortune of Bothwell to encounter the false Monteith in the train of Edward. The Scottish earl was then at the head of his intrepid Lanarkmen.

"Fiend of the most damned treason," cried he, "vengeance is come!" and with an iron grasp, throwing the traitor into the midst of the faithful clan, they dragged him to the hearse of their chief, and there, on the skirts of its pall, the wretched villain breathed out his treacherous breath, under the strokes of a hundred swords.

"So," cried the veteran Ireland, "perish the murderers of William Wallace!"

"So," shouted the rest, "perish the enemies of the bravest, the most loyal of Scots, the benefactor of his country!"

At this crisis the women and followers of the Scottish camp, hearing such triumphant exclamations from their friends, impatiently quitted their station behind the hill, and ran to the summit, waving their scarfs and plaids in exultation of the supposed victory. The English, mistaking these people for a new army, had not the power to recover from the increasing confusion which had seized them on King Edward himself receiving a wound, and panic-struck with the sight of their generals falling around them, they flung down their arms and fled. The king narrowly escaped; but being mounted on a stout and fleet horse, he put him to the speed and reached Dunbar, whence the young Earl of March, being as much attached to the cause of England as his father had been, instantly gave him a passage to England.

The Southron camp, with all its riches, fell into the hands of Bruce. But while his chieftains pursued their gallant chase, he turned his steps from warlike triumph, to pay his heart's honors to the remains of the hero whose blood had so often bathed Scotland's fields of victory. His vigils were again beneath that sacred pall—for so long had been the conflict, that night closed in before the last squadrons left the banks of Bannockburn.

At the dewy hour of morn Bruce reappeared upon the field. His helmet was royally plumed, and the golden lion of Scotland gleamed from under his sable surcoat. Bothwell rode at his side. The troops he had retained from the pursuit were drawn out in array. In a brief address he unfolded to them the solemn duty to which he had called them—to see the bosom of their native land receive the remains of Sir William Wallace.

"He gave to you your homes and your liberty!—grant, then, a grave, the peace of the tomb to him, whom some amongst you repaid with treachery and death!"

At these words a cry, as if they beheld their betrayed chief slain before them, issued from every heart.

The news had spread to the town, and with tears and lamentations a vast crowd collected round the royal troop. Bruce ordered his bards to raise the sad coronach, and the march commenced toward the open tent that canopied the sacred remains. The whole train followed the speechless woe, as if each individual had lost his dearest relative. Having passed the wood, they came in view of the black hearse, which contained all that now remained of him who had so lately crossed these precincts in all the panoply of triumphant war, in all the graciousness of peace, and love to man! The soldiers, the people rushed forward, and precipitating themselves before the bier, implored a pardon for their ungrateful country. They adjured him, by every tender name of father, benefactor, and friend, and in such a sacred presence, forgetting that their king was by, gave way to a grief which, most eloquently, told the young monarch that he who would be respected after William Wallace must not only possess his power and valor, but imitate his virtues.

Scrymgeour, who had well remembered his promise to Wallace on the battlements of Dumbarton, with a holy reference to that vow now laid the standard of Scotland upon the pall. Hambledon placed on it the sword and helmet of the sacrificed hero. Bruce observed all in silence. The sacred burden was raised. Uncovering his royal head, with his kingly purple sweeping in the dust, he walked before the bier, shedding tears, more precious in the eyes of his subjects than the oil which was soon to pour upon his brow. As he thus moved on, he heard acclamations mingle with the voice of sorrow.

"This is our king, worthy to have been the friend of Wallace! worthy to succeed him in the kingdom of our hearts."

At the gates of Cambus-Kenneth, the venerable abbot appeared at the head of his religious brethren; but without uttering the grief that shook his aged frame, he raised the golden crucifix over the head of the bier, and after leaning his face for a few minutes on it, preceded the procession into the church. None but the soldiers entered. The people remained without, and as the doors closed they fell on the pavement, weeping as if the living Wallace had again been torn from them.

On the steps of the altar the bier rested. The bishop of Dunkeld, in his pontifical robes, received the sacred deposit with a cloud of incense, and the pealing organ, answered by the voices of the choristers, breathed the solemn requiem of the dead. The wreathing frankincense parted its vapor, and a wan but beautiful form, clasping an urn to her breast, appeared stretched on a litter, and was borne toward the spot. It was Helen, brought from the adjoining nunnery, where since her return to these once dear shores, now made a desert to her, she had languished in the gradual decay of the fragile bonds which alone fettered her mourning spirit, eager for release.

All night had Isabella watched by her couch, expecting that each succeeding breath would be the last her beloved sister would draw in this calamitous world; but as her tears fell in silence from her cheek upon the cold forehead of Helen, the gentle saint understood their expression, and looking up:

"My Isabella," said she, "fear not. My Wallace is returned. God will grant me life to clasp his blessed remains!"

Full of this hope, she was borne, almost a passing spirit, into the chancel of Cambus-Kenneth. Her veil was open, and discovered her face like one just awakened from the dead; it was ashy pale, but it bore a celestial brightness, which, like the silver luster of the moon, declared its approach to the fountain of its glory. Her eye fell on the bier, and, with a momentary strength, she sprung from the couch on which she had leaned in dying feebleness, and threw herself upon the coffin.

There was an awful pause while Helen seemed to weep. But so was not her sorrow to be shed. It was locked within the flood-gates of her heart.

In that suspension of the soul, when Bothwell knelt on one side of the bier and Ruthven bent his knee on the other, Bruce stretched out his hand to the weeping Isabella; "Come hither, my youthful bride, and let thy first duty be paid to the shrine of thy benefactor and mine! So may we live, sweet excellence; and so may we die, if the like may be our meed of heavenly glory!"

Isabella threw herself into his arms and wept aloud. Helen, slowly raising her head at these words, regarded her sister with a look of awful tenderness, then turning her eyes back upon the coffin, gazed on it as if they would have pierced its confines, and clasping the urn earnestly to her heart, she exclaimed, "'Tis come! the promise—Thy bridal bed shall be William Wallace's grave!"

Bruce and Isabella, not aware that she repeated words which Wallace had said to her, turned to her with portentous emotion. She understood the terrified glance of her sister, and with a smile which bespoke her kindred to the soul she was panting to rejoin, she answered, "I speak of my own espousals. But ere that moment is—and I feel it near—let my Wallace's hallowed presence bless your nuptials! Thou wilt breathe thy benediction through my lips," added she, laying her hand on the coffin, and looking down on it as if she were conversing with its inhabitant.

"O, no, no" returned Isabella, throwing herself on her knees before the almost unembodied aspect of her sister; "let me ever be the sharer of your cell, or take me with you to the kingdom of Heaven!"

"It is thy sister's spirit that speaks," cried Dunkeld, observing the awe which not only shook the tender frame of Isabella, but had communicated itself to Bruce, who stood in heart-struck veneration before the yet unascended angel, "holy inspiration," continued the bishop, "beams from her eyes, and as ye hope for further blessings, obey its dictates!"

Isabella bowed her head in acquiescence. As Bruce approached to take his part in the sacred rite, he raised the hand which lay on the pall to his lips. The ceremony began—was finished! As the bridal notes resounded from the organ, and the royal pair rose from their knees, Helen held her trembling hands over them. She gasped for breath, and would have sunk without a word, had not Bothwell supported her shadowy form upon his breast. She looked round on him with a grateful though languid smile, and with a strong effort spoke:

"Be you blessed in all things as Wallace would have blessed you! From his side I pour out my soul upon you, my sister—my being—and, with its inward-breathed prayers to the Giver of all good for your eternal happiness, I turn, in holy faith—to my long looked-for rest!"

Bruce and Isabella wept in each other's arms. Helen slid gently from the boom of Bothwell prostrate on the coffin, and uttering, in a low tone:

"I waited only for this! We have met—I unite thy noble heart to thee again—I claim my brother—at our Father's hands—in mercy!—in love—by his all-blessed Son!"

Her voice gradually faded away as she murmured these broken sentences, which none but the close and attentive ear of Bothwell heard. But he caught not the triumphant exclamation of her soul, which spoke, though her lips ceased to move, and cried to the attending angels:

"Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory?"

In this awful moment the Abbot of Inchaffray, believing the dying saint was prostrate in prayer, laid his hand on the iron box, which stood at the foot of Wallace's bier. "Before the sacred remains of the once champion of Scotland, and in the presence of his royal successor," exclaimed the abbot, "let this mysterious coffer of St. Fillan's be opened, to reward the deliverer of Scotland, according to its intent!"

"If it were to contain the relics of St. Fillan himself," returned the king, "they could not meet a holier bosom than this!" and resting the box on the coffin, he unclasped the lock, and the regalia of Scotland was discovered! At this sight, Bruce exclaimed, in an agony of grateful emotion, "Thus did this truest of human beings protect my rights, even while the people I had deserted, and whom he had saved, knelt to him to wear them all!"

"And thus Wallace crowns thee!" said Dunkeld, taking the diadem from its coffer, and setting it on Bruce's head.

"My husband, and my king!" gently exclaimed Isabella, sinking on her knee before him, and clasping his hand to her lips.

"Hearest thou that, my beloved Helen?" cried Bothwell, touching the clasped hands which rested on the coffin. He turned pale, and looked on Bruce. Bruce, in the glad moment of his joy at this happy consummation of so many years of blood, observed not his glance, but in exulting accents exclaimed, "Look up, my sister; and let thy soul, discoursing with our Wallace, tell him that Scotland is free, and Bruce's king indeed!"

She spoke not, she moved not. Bothwell raised her clay-cold face. "That soul has fled, my lord!" said he; "but from yon eternal sphere, they now together look upon your joys. Here let their bodies rest; for 'they loved in their lives, and in their deaths they shall not be divided!"

Before the renewing of the moon, whose waning light witnessed their solemn obsequies, the aim of Wallace's life, the object of Helen's prayers, was accomplished. Peace reigned in Scotland. The discomfited King Edward died of chagrin in Carlisle; and his humbled son and successor sent to offer such honorable terms of pacification, that Bruce gave them acceptance, and a lasting tranquility spread prosperity and happiness throughout the land.



***

APPENDIX.



NOTE RESPECTING THE PERSONAL CONFORMATION OF SIR WILLIAM WALLACE AND KING ROBERT BRUCE.



The extraordinary bodily, as well as mental superiority which Wallace and Bruce possessed over their contemporaries, is thus recorded by Hector Boetius:

"About the latter end of the year 1430, King James I. (of Scotland), on returning to Perth from St. Andrews, found his curiosity excited to visit a very old lady of the house of Erskine, who resided in the Castle of Kinnoul. In consequence of her extreme old age she had lost her sight, but all her other senses were entire, and her body was yet firm and active. She had seen William Wallace and Robert Bruce in her earliest youth and frequently told particulars of them. The king, who entertained a love and veneration for great men, resolved to visit the old lady, that he might hear her describe the manners and strength of the two heroes. He therefore sent a message acquainting her that he would come to her the next day. When she was told that the king was approaching, she went down into the hall of her castle, attended by a train of matrons, many of whom were her own descendants. She advanced to meet his majesty so easily and gracefully that he doubted her being blind! At his desire she embraced and kissed him. He took her by the hand and made her sit down on the seat next to him, and then, in a long conference, he interrogated her on ancient matters. Among others he asked her to tell him what sort of a man William Wallace was; what was his personal figure; what his bearing, and with what degree of strength he was endowed. He put the same comparing question to her concerning Robert Bruce. 'Robert,' said she, 'was a man beautiful, and of fine appearance. His strength was so great that he could easily have overcome any mortal man of his time, save one—Sir William Wallace! But in so far as he excelled other men, he was excelled by Wallace, both in stature and in bodily strength! For in wrestling, Wallace could have overthrown two such men as Robert. And he was comely as well as strong, and full of the beauty of wisdom.'"

I might have thought, had I known the above record in my young days, when I heard my old friend Luckie Forbes describe the Scottish heroes, that she must have been one of those matrons of honor to Lady Kinnoul, and had "seen baith the stalwarth chiefs" in her also venerable life. But the description of my humble historiographer was the work of her own heart, suggested there by tradition, and a holy reverence of even the name of William Wallace to help it out; and so my pen, moved by the same impulse, has attempted to copy the picture she presented.



NOTE CONCERNING JOANNA OF MAR AND STRATHEARN.



This unhappy and wicked woman's descendance, as daughter of a Princess of the Orkneys, and her husband, Mellis, Earl of Strathearn, is given in all the old Scottish genealogical words, and her marriage with Earl de Warenne, followed up by her most unnatural treasons against her native country, are not less faithfully recorded. But it is something curious that while revising this volume a few years ago, I met a paragraph in the Morning Post newspaper, relative to this very lady—now dead upward of five hundred years—and dated August 26th, 1831; almost the very anniversary-day of Sir William Wallace's death! It was an extract from the Perth Courier, and runs thus:

"In preparing the foundation of the classical monument which Lady Baird is about to erect on Tom-a-Chastel, to the memory of Sir David, the workmen discovered the remains of an extensive edifice, intermixed with a blackish mold, in which human bones frequently occur, with stirrups, buckles, and other decayed fragments of ancient armor. In an excavation were found a quantity of black earth, the debris of animal matter, some human bones, a bracelet, and a considerable portion of charcoal, from which it may be concluded that the individuals whose remains were discovered, had perished during a conflagration of the castle. The tradition of the country is, that—Three ladies had been there burned to death. And as it is known that the Lady of Strathearn, a daughter of the Earl of Orkney, involved herself in the quarrels between Bruce and Baliol, and was, after the ascendency of the former, in a parliament held at Scone in 1329, doomed to perpetual imprisonment for the crime of laesoe majestatis, it is no violent stretch of conjecture to come to the conclusion that this very lady may have been one of the unhappy victims whose remains have been thus accidentally brought to light. The excavation undoubtedly (being the most probably supposition) was that usually found in the base of the dungeon-keep of the castle. Tom-a-Chastel, on the summit of which Sir David Baird's monument is to be placed, overlooks the whole strath, and is even visible from Dundee." So far the note from the Perth, newspaper (which was first appended to this "almost veritable romance-biography of Sir William Wallace," in the edition of 1831); and on comparing the circumstances and dates of the period referred to, it does not seem improbable that such might have been the fearful end of that ambitious and cruelly impassioned woman. Earl de Warenne was not a man to burden himself with cares for such a partner, after her treasons had become abortive, in the secret continuance of which, most likely, she had been discovered in some of her territorial permitted visits to her inherited lands in Scotland. And the relics of the other two female forms found in the ashes, may reasonably be supposed to have been those of her personal attendants, sharing her captivity.

The above coincidence of recollections between the far past, and the present nearly but passing events, may be regarded as rather remarkable, for the hill of Tom-a-Chastel may now be looked upon as an object recalling to memory of two heroes. One Scotland's noblest son, of full five hundred ages gone! The other, her boast on the plains of India, within our own remembrance. While the same summit brings two of her daughters likewise to eminent recollection. One that disgraced her sex in every relation of life; the other, who honors it, in all. The hand of the first would have destroyed her country's greatest hero; the hand of the second raised a tumulus, to maintain the memory and the example of such true sons of her country in a perpetual existence.



THE SCARF OF JAMES THE FIFTH OF SCOTLAND, IN THE POSSESSION OF DR. JEFFERSON, OF WEST LODGE, CLAPHAM.



This scarf belonged to, and was worn by the truly royal, but something romantically adventurous King of Scotland, James the Fifth. He was fond of roaming about in his dominions, like the celebrated Haroun Al Rashid, in various disguises, to see and to observe; and to make acquaintance with his people of all degrees, without being known by them. In one of these incognito wanderings, about the year 1533, he was hospitably entertained for a night, by an ancestor of Dr. Jefferson's lady, a man of liberal name in the country; and who unwittingly had given most courteous bed and board to his sovereign (then personally unknown to him), when he thought he was entertaining a person not much above the rank of the commonest degree, it being the monarch's humor generally to assume the most ordinary garb outwardly; and it therefore depended on the tact of the entertainer, from his own inherent nobleness, to discern the real quality of the mind and manners of his transitory guest. The host in question did not discern that it was his sovereign he was then treating like a prince; but he felt it was a visitant, be he whom he may, that was worthy his utmost respect; and the monarch, highly pleased with his night's lodging, and previous gracious welcome, on his departure next morning, presented to the lady of the mansion a grateful tribute to her good care, in the form of a small parcel rolled up, which, when opened, they found to be a splendid scarf, indorsed to herself and lord, in the name of the Gudemon o' Ballangeich. All then knew it was the "generous and pleasant King of Scotland" who had been their guest.

The Scottish Chief on whom this beautiful memorial of received hospitality had been bestowed, was John Baird, of Burntisland, in Fifeshire, from whom the writer of this note literally traces the present inheritance of the scarf. John Burgh had an only daughter, who married John Balfour, K. N., who also had an only daughter, and she married Gilbert Blair, brother to Blair of Ard-Blair. Their only son, James Blair, married Jane Morrison, daughter of — Morrison, Esq., and an heiress of the brave house of Ramsay, by which marriage the ancient and honorable families of Burgh, Blair, and Ramsay, were woven into one branch; and from this branch, indeed, from the first set-off of its united stem was born of this marriage, Margaret Blair, who dying in the year 1836, bequeathed the long-cherished scarf to Dr. Jefferson, the worthy husband of her beloved kinswoman—direct in the line of John Burgh, to whom it had originally been given.

The scarf was composed of a rich and brilliant tissue of gold and silver threads, interwoven with silk-embroidered flowers in their natural colors. They are chiefly pansies, the emblems of remembrance; thistles, the old insignia of Scotland; and the field daisy, the favorite symbol of King James' mother, the beautiful Queen Margaret. The flowers, entwined together, run in stripes down the splendid web of the scarf, which terminates at each end with what has been a magnificent fringe of similar hues and brightness. The scarf is seven feet in length, by one foot nine inches in width.

This interesting bequest was still further enriched to Dr. Jefferson by the addition of a cap and gloves, which, tradition says, the worthy chief of Burntisland wore on his nuptial day. There was also a smaller pair of gloves, of a more delicate size and texture, appropriated by the same testimony to the fair bride. But these articles are supposed to have been of earlier fabric than that of the scarf—probably the year 1500—and they are of less exquisite manufacture; the former appearing to be from the fine looms of France, and the latter wrought in the less practiced machinery of our then ruder northern isle. The cap is of a pale red silk, with gold cord and embroidery down the seams, it being formed to fit the head, and therefore in compartments; broad where they are inserted into the rich fillet-band round the head, and narrowing to the closely-fitting top. It looked something like an Albanian cap. The gloves, which are said to have been those of the chief, were of a brownish fine leather, with embroidered gauntlet tops. The lady's are of a lighter hue, still softer leather, with gay fringe of varied-colored silk and gold, and tassels at the wrists. Both these pairs of gloves were well shaped and most neatly sewed.

On these relics of antiquity, and of ancestorial memorials devolving on Dr. Jefferson, he sought for a place of deposit for them, suitable to their dignity, their character, and their times. He had in his possession a curious old table, of the era of Henry the Eighth, which he soon adapted to the purpose. Its large oaken slab was of sufficient dimensions to admit of the royal gift being spread in graceful folds over the dark surface of the wood, which the better displayed the tissue's interchanging tints, and also gave room for the disposal of the cap and gloves, which were placed in a kind of armorial crest between its gauntlets, at the head of the scarf, and at its foot was added a beautifully written inscription in old emblazoned characters, historic of the interesting relics above. The whole is secured from dust or other injury by a covering of plate-glass, extending over the entire surface of the table, which, having a raised carved oak parapet-border of about four inches high along all its sides, forms a sort of castellated sanctuary that completely defends from accident the glass and the treasure beneath it; which is distinctly seen through the lucid medium.

The shape of the table is like that we call a sofa-table, but very long, being five feet by two and a half. The depth of its frieze altogether is eight inches, for it extends four inches below the four-inch parapet above, and this lower portion is worked into a foliage enwreathing the sides. The whole height of the table from the feet of its four-clawed pedestal, is three feet two inches. This pedestal, or rather branching stem of polished oak—being of the sturdy contour of its original growth, with its superb ramifications supporting the precious slab above—shows an elaborate design in its carvings, far beyond my power to describe, so luxuriant, so various, so intricate, one might almost suppose that the matchless tool of the famous Benevanta Cellini had traced its wild and graceful grotesque. The four claws, which are like roots from the stem of the pedestal, partake of the same rich arabesque in their design, and terminate in the form of lion's paws.



The End.