The Scottish Chiefs

by Jane Porter

He and they, being the first to mount, fixed and held the tops of the scaling-ladders, while Kirkpatrick and Scrymgeour, with their men, gradually ascended, and gained the bottom of the wall. Here, planting themselves in the crannies of the rock, under the impenetrable darkness of the night (for the moon had not only set, but the stars were obscured by clouds), they awaited the signal for the final ascent.

Meanwhile, Edwin led Lord Andrew with his followers, and the Fraser men, round by the western side to mount the watchtower rock, and seize the few soldiers who kept the beacon. As a signal of having succeeded, they were to smother the flame on the top of the tower, and thence descend toward the garrison to meet Wallace before the prison of the Earl of Mar.

While the men of Lanark, with their eyes fixed on the burning beacon, in deadly stillness watched the appointed signal for the attack, Wallace, by the aid of his dagger, which he struck into the firm soil that occupied the cracks in the rock, drew himself up almost parallel with the top of the great wall, which clasped the bases of the two hills. He listened; not a voice was to be heard in the garrison of all the legions he had so lately seen glittering on its battlements. It was an awful pause.

Now was the moment when Scotland was to make her first essay for freedom! Should it fail, ten thousand bolts of iron would be added to her chains! Should it succeed, liberty and happiness were the almost certain consequences.

He looked up, and fixing his eyes on the beacon-flame, thought he saw the figures of men pass before it—the next moment all was darkness. He sprung on the walls, and feeling by the touch of hands about his feet that his brave followers had already mounted their ladders, he grasped his sword firmly, and leaped down on the ground within. In that moment he struck against the sentinel, who was just passing, and by the violence of the shock struck him to the earth; but the man, as he fell, catching Wallace round the waist, dragged him after him, and with a vociferous cry, shouted "Treason!"

Several sentinels ran with leveled pikes to the spot, the adjacent turrets emptied themselves of their armed inhabitants, and all assaulted Wallace, just as he had extricated himself from the grasp of the prostrate soldier.

"Who are you?" demanded they.

"Your enemy;" and the speaker fell at his feet with one stroke of his sword.

"Alarm!-treason!" resounded from the rest as they aimed their random strokes at the conquering chief. But he was now assisted by the vigorous army of Ker, and of several Lanarkmen, who, having cleared the wall, were dealing about blows in the darkness, which filled the air with groans, and strewed the ground with the dying and the dead.

One or two Southrons, whose courage was not equal to their caution, fled to arouse the garrison, and just as the whole of Wallace's men leaped the wall and rallied to his support, the inner ballium gate burst open, and a legion of foes, bearing torches, issued to the contest. With horrible threatenings, they came on, and by a rapid movement surrounded Wallace and his little company. But his soul brightened in danger, and his men warmed with the same spirit, stood firm with fixed pikes, receiving without injury the assault. Their weapons being longer than their enemy's, the Southrons, not aware of the circumstance, rushed upon their points, incurring the death they meant to give. Seeing their consequent disorder, Wallace ordered the pikes to be dropped, and his men to charge sword in hand. Terrible was now the havoc, for the desperate Scots, grapling each to his foe with a fatal hold, let not go till the piercing shriek, or the agonized groan, convinced him that death had seized its victim. Wallace fought in front, making a dreadful passage through the falling ranks, while the tremendous sweep of his sword, flashing in the intermitting light, warned the survivors where the avenging blade would next descend. A horrid vacuity was made in the lately thronged spot; it seemed not the slaughter of a mortal arm, but as if the destroying angel himself were there, and with one blast of his desolating brand, had laid all in ruin. The platform was cleared, and the fallen torches, some half-extinguished, and other flaming on the ground by the sides of the dead, showed, in their uncertain gleams, a few terrified wretches seeking safely in flight. The same lurid rays, casting a transitory light on the iron gratings of the great tower, informed Wallace that the heat of conflict had drawn him to the prison of the earl.