The Days of Bruce: A Story from Scottish History. Vol. 1 by Grace Aguilar (digital ebook reader TXT) 📗

that they were betrayed, that resistance was in vain, for heavier and louder grew the tramp of horse and man, and the narrow passage, discernible through the open door, was filled with steel-clad forms, their drawn swords glancing in the torchlight, their dark brows gleaming in ill-concealed triumph. Alan was still a boy in years, despite his experience as a warrior, and in the first agony of this discovery, the first dream of chains and captivity, when his young spirit revelled in the thought of freedom, and joyed as a bird in the fresh air of mount and stream, weaving bright hopes, not exile or wandering could remove, his impulse had been to dash his useless sword in anguish to the earth, and weep; but the sight of his mother checked that internal weakness. He felt her convulsive clasp; he beheld the expression on her features,—how unlike their wont—terror, suffering, whose entire cause he vainly endeavored to define, and he roused himself for her. And she, did she see more than her son? She knew that face, and as she gazed, she felt hope had departed; she beheld naught but a long, endless vista of anguish; yet she felt not for herself, she thought but of her child. And the earl, can we define his exulting mood?—it was the malice, the triumph of a fiend.

"Who and what art thou?" demanded Alan, fiercely, laying his right hand on his sword, and with the left firmly clasping his mother's waist. "What bold knight and honorable chevalier art thou, thus seeking by stealth the retreat of a wanderer, and overpowering by numbers and treachery men, who on the field thou and such as thou had never dared to meet?"

The earl laughed; that bitter, biting laugh of contempt and triumph so difficult to bear.

"Thou hast a worthy tongue, my pretty springald," said he; "canst thou use thy sword as bravely? Who and what am I? ask of the lady thou hast so caressingly encircled with thine arm, perchance she can give thee information."

Alan started, a cold thrill passed through his frame, as the real cause of his mother's terror flashed on his mind; her lips, parched and quivering, parted as to speak, but there was no sound.

"Mother," he said, "mother, speak to thy son. Why, why[Pg 149] art thou thus? it is not the dread of imprisonment, of death. No, no; they have no terrors for such as thee. Who is this man?"

Engrossed in his own agitation, Alan had not heard the muttered exclamation which burst from Buchan's lips with his first words, for great was the earl's surprise as he looked on his son; the impression he was still a child had remained on his mind despite all reports to the contrary, but no softer feeling obtained dominion.

"Who and what am I?" he continued, after a brief pause. "Wouldst thou know, Alan of Buchan? Even a faithful knight, soldier, and subject of his Royal Highness Edward, king of England and Scotland, and consequently thy foe; the insulted and dishonored husband of the woman thou callest mother, and consequently thy father, young man. Ha! have I spoken home? Thy sword, thy sword; acknowledge thy disloyalty to thy father and king, and for thee all may yet be well."

"Never!" answered Alan, proudly, the earl's concluding words rousing the spirit which the knowledge of beholding his father and the emotion of his mother seemed to have crushed. "Never, Lord of Buchan! for father I cannot call thee. Thou mayest force me to resign my sword, thou mayest bring me to the block, but acknowledge allegiance to a foreign tyrant, who hath no claims on Scotland or her sons, save those of hate and detestation, that thou canst never do, even if thy sword be pointed at my heart."

"Boy!" burst from the earl's lips, in accents of irrepressible rage, but he checked himself; "thou hast learned a goodly lesson of disobedience and daring, of a truth, and I should tender grateful thanks to thy most worthy, most efficient and virtuous teacher," he added, in his own bitterly sarcastic tone. "The Lady Isabella deems, perchance, she has done her duty to her husband in placing a crown on the head of his hereditary and hated foe, and leading his son in the same path of rebellion and disloyalty, and giving his service to the murderer of his kinsman."

"Earl of Buchan, I have done my duty alike to my country and my son," replied the countess, her high spirit roused by the taunts of her husband. "According to the dictates of my conscience, mine honor as a Scottish woman, the mother of a Scottish warrior, I have done my duty, and neither imprison[Pg 150]ment, nor torture, nor death will bid me retract those principles, or waver in my acknowledgment of Scotland and her king. Pardon me, my lord; but there is no rebellion in resisting the infringement of a tyrant, no disloyalty in raising the standard against Edward, for there is no treason when there is no lawful authority; and by what right is Edward of England king of Scotland? Lord of Buchan, I have done my duty. As my father taught me I have taught my child!"

"Regarding, of course, madam, all which that child's father would have taught him, particularly that most Christian virtue returning good for evil, as in the fact of revenging the death of a kinsman with the gift of a crown. Oh! thou hast done well, most intrinsically well."

"I own no relationship with a traitor," burst impetuously from Alan. "Sir John Comyn was honored in his death, for the sword of the Bruce was too worthy a weapon for the black heart of a traitor. Lord of Buchan, we are in thy power, it is enough. Hadst thou wished thy son to imbibe thy peculiar principles, to forget his country and her lights, it had been better perchance hadst thou remembered thou hadst a child—a son. Had the duty of a father been performed, perchance I had not now forgotten mine as a son! As it is, we stand as strangers and as foes. Against thee in truth I will not raise my sword; but further, we are severed and forever!" He crossed his arms proudly on his bosom, and returned the dark, scowling glance of his father with a flashing eye, and a mien as firm and nobler than his own.

"It is well, young man; I thank you for my freedom," returned the earl, between his teeth. "As my son, I might stand between thee and Edward's wrath; as a stranger and my foe, why, whatever his sentence be—the axe and block without doubt—let it work, it will move me little."

"Heed not his rash words, in mercy, heed them not!" exclaimed the countess, her voice of agony contrasting strangely with its former proud reserve. "Neglected, forgotten him as thou hast, yet, Lord of Buchan, he is still thy son. Oh, in mercy, expose him not to the deadly wrath of Edward! thou canst save him, thou canst give him freedom. It is I—I who am the attainted traitor, not my child. Give me up to Edward, and he will heed not, ask not for thy son. It is I who have offended him and thee, not my child. Art thou not a Scottish[Pg 151] noble, descendant of a house as purely loyal and devoted to their country as mine own—art thou not indeed this man, and yet hath Edward, the deadly foe of thy race, thy land, thy countrymen, more exalted claims than thine own blood? No, no, it cannot be! thou wilt relent, thou wilt have mercy; let him be but free, and do with me even what thou wilt!"

"Free! go free!" repeated the earl, with a hoarse laugh, ere Alan could interfere. "Let him go free, forsooth, when he tells me he is my foe, and will go hence and join my bitterest enemies the moment he is free. Go free! and who art thou who askest this boon? Hast thou such claims upon me, that for thy pleasure I should give freedom to thy son?"

"My lord, my lord, 'tis for thine own sake, for his, thy child as well as mine, I do beseech, implore thy mercy? draw not the curse of heaven on thy heart by exposing him to death. Thou wilt know and feel him as indeed thy child when he lies bleeding before thee, when thine own hand hath forged the death-bolt, and then, then it will be too late; thou wilt yearn for his voice in vain. Oh! is it not sufficient triumph to have in thy power the wife who hath dared thy authority, who hath joined the patriot band, and so drawn down on her the vengeance of Edward? The price of a traitor is set upon her head. My lord, my lord, is not one victim enough—will not my capture insure thee reward and honor in the court of Edward? Then do with me what thou wilt—chains, torture, death; but my child, my brave boy—oh, if thou hast one spark of mercy in thy heart, let him go!"

"Mother," hoarsely murmured Alan, as he strove to raise her from her suppliant posture, "mother, this shall not be! look upon that face and know thou pleadest in vain. I will not accept my freedom at such a price; thy knee, thy supplications unto a heart of stone, for me! No, no; mother, dear mother, we will die together!"

"Thou shalt not, thou shalt not, my beloved, my beautiful! thy death will be on my head, though it come from a father's hand. I will plead, I will be heard! My lord, my lord," she continued, wrought to a pitch of agonized feeling, no heart save that to which she pleaded could have heard unmoved, "I ask but his freedom, the freedom of a boy, a child—and of whom do I ask it?—of his father, his own father! Speak to me, answer me; thou canst not be so lost to the voice, the feelings[Pg 152] of nature. For the sake of the mother who loved, the father who blessed thee, whose blessing hallowed our union and smiled on our infant boy, have mercy on me, on thyself—let him, oh, let him be free!"

"Mercy on thee, thou false and perjured woman!" the earl burst forth, the cold sarcastic expression with which he had at first listened to her impassioned entreaties giving way to the fearful index of ungoverned rage; "on thee, thou false traitress, not alone to thy husband's principles but to his honor! Do I not know thee, minion—do I not know the motives of thy conduct in leaving thy husband's castle for the court of Bruce? Patriotism, forsooth—patriotism, ha! the patriotism that had vent in giving and receiving love from him; it was so easy to do homage to him in public as thy king. Oh, most rare and immaculate specimen of female loyalty and virtue, I know thee well!"

"Man!" answered the countess, springing from her knee, and standing before him with a mien and countenance of such majestic dignity, that for a brief moment it awed even him, and her bewildered son gazed at her with emotions of awe, struggling with surprise.

"Ha! faithless minion, thou bravest it well," continued Buchan, determined on evincing no faltering in his purpose, "but thou bravest it in vain; dishonored thou art, and hast been, aye, from the time thy minion Robert visited thee in Buchan Tower, and lingered with thee the months he had disappeared from Edward's court. Would Isabella of Buchan have rendered homage to any other bold usurper, save her minion Robert? Would the murder of a Comyn have passed unavenged by her had the murderer been other than her gallant Bruce? Would Isabella of Buchan be here, the only female in the Bruce's train—for I know that he is with thee—were loyalty and patriotism her only motive? Woman, I know thee! I know that thou didst love him, ere that false hand and falser heart were given to me; thy lips spoke perfidy when they vowed allegiance at the altar; and shall I have mercy on thy son, for such as thee? Mercy! ha, have I silenced thy eloquence now?"

"Silenced, false, blasphemous villain!" vociferated Alan, every other feeling lost in the whirlwind of passion, and springing on the earl, with his drawn sword. "'Tis thou who art[Pg 153] the false and faithless—thou who art lost to every feeling of honor and of truth. Thy words are false as hell, from whence they spring!"

"Alan, by the love thou bearest me, I charge thee put up thy sword—it is thy father!" exclaimed, the countess, commandingly, and speaking the last word in a tone that thrilled to the boy's heart. He checked himself in his full career; he snapped his