The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter (classic books for 11 year olds txt) 📗

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 you, 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—that 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