"I will not interrupt his introduction now," said Helen, with a faint smile; "a few days' retirement will strengthen me, and then I shall see our protector as I ought."
"I will stay with you," cried Edwin, "and I dare say Sir William Wallace will have no objection to be speedily joined by my mother; for, as I came along, I met my aunt Mar hastening through the gallery; and, between ourselves, my sweet coz, I do not think my noble friend quite likes a private conference with your fair stepmother."
Lady Ruthven had withdrawn before he made this observation.
"Why, Edwin?-surely she would not do anything ungracious to one to whom she owes so great a weight of obligations?" When Helen asked this, she remembered the spleen Lady Mar once cherished against Wallace; and she feared it might now be revived.
"Ungracious! O, no! the reverse of that; but her gratitude is full of absurdity. I will not repeat the fooleries with which she sought to detain him at Bute. And that some new fancy respecting him is now about to menace his patience. I am convinced; for, on my way hither, I met her hurrying along, and as she passed me she exclaimed, 'Is Lord Buchan arrived?' I answered. 'Yes.' 'Ah, then he proclaimed him king?' cried she; and into the great gallery she darted."
"You do not mean to say," demanded Helen, turning her eyes with an expression which seemed confident of his answer, "that Sir William Wallace has accepted the crown of Scotland?"
"Certainly not," replied Edwin; "but as certainly it has been offered to him, and he has refused it."
"I could have sworn it!" returned Helen, rising from her chair; "all is loyal, all is great and consistent there, Edwin!"
"He is, indeed, the perfect exemplar of all nobleness," rejoined the youth; "and I believe I shall even love you better, my dear cousin, because you seem to have so clear an apprehension of his real character." He then proceeded, with all the animation of the most zealous affection, to narrate to Helen the particulars of the late scene on the Carse of Stirling. And while he deepened still more the profound impression the virtues of Wallace had made on her heart, he reopened its more tender sympathies by repeating, with even minuter accuracy than he had done to his mother, details of those hours which he passed with him in retirement. He spoke of the beacon-hill; of moonlight walks in the camp, when all but the sentinels and his general and himself were sunk in sleep.
These were the seasons when the suppressed feelings of Wallace would by fits break from his lips, and at last pour themselves out, unrestrainedly, to the ear of sympathy. As the young narrator described all the endearing qualities of his friend, the cheerful heroism with which he quelled every tender remembrance to do his duty in the day-"for it is only in the night," said Edwin, "that my general remembers Ellerslie"—Helen's tears again stole silently down her cheeks. Edwin perceived them, and throwing his arms gently around her. "Weep not, my sweet cousin," said he; "for, with all his sorrow, I never saw true happiness till I beheld it in the eyes and heard it in the voice of Sir William Wallace. He has talked to me of the joy he should experience in giving liberty to Scotland, and establishing her peace, till his enthusiastic soul, grasping hope, as if it were possession, he has looked on me with a consciousness of enjoyment which seemed to say that all bliss was summed up in a patriot's breast.