While he gave these orders, other nobles thronged in, and Helen, being severally thanked by them all, became so agitated, that stretching out her hand to Wallace, who was nearest to her, she softly whispered, "Take me hence." He read in her blushing face, the oppression her modesty sustained in such a scene, and with her faltering steps she leaned upon his arm as he conducted her to an interior chamber. Overcome by her former fears and the emotions of the last hour, she sunk into a chair and burst into tears. Wallace stood near her, and as he looked on her, he thought, "If aught on earth ever resembled the beloved of my soul, it is Helen Mar!" And all the tenderness which memory gave to his almost adored wife, and all the grateful complacency with which he regarded Helen, beamed at once from his eyes. She raised her head—she felt that look—it thrilled to her soul. For a moment every former thought seemed lost in the one perception, that he then gazed on her as he had never looked on any woman since his Marion. Was she then beloved?
The impression was evanescent: "No, no!" said she to herself; and waving her hand gently to him with her head bent down; "Leave me, Sir William Wallace. Forgive me—but I am exhausted; my frame is weaker than my mind." She spoke this at intervals, and Wallace respectfully touching the hand she extended, pressed it to his breast.
"I obey you, dear Lady Helen, and when next we meet, it will, I hope, be to dispel every fear in that gentle bosom." She bowed her head without looking up, and Wallace left the room.
CHAPTER LIII.
Falkirk.
Before the sun rose, every brave Scot within a few hours' march of Stirling, was on the Carse; and Lord Andrew Murray and his veteran Clydesdale men were already resting on their arms in view of the city walls. The messengers of Wallace had hastened with the speed of the winds, east and west; and the noon of the day saw him at the head of thirty thousand men determined to fight or to die for their country.
The surrounding landscape shone in the brightness of midsummer; for it was the eve of St. Magdalen; and sky and earth bore witness to the luxuriant month of July. The heavens were clear, the waters of the Forth danced in the sunbeams, and the flower-enameled green of the extended plain stretched its beautiful borders to the deepening woods. All nature smiled; all seemed in harmony and peace but the breast of man. He who was made lord of this paradise awoke to disturb its repose, to disfigure its loveliness! As the thronging legions poured upon the plain, the sheep which had been feeding there, fled scared to the hills; the plover and heath-fowl which nestled in the brakes, rose affrighted from their infant broods, and flew in screaming multitudes far over the receding valleys. The peace of Scotland was again broken, and its flocks and herds were to share its misery.
When the conspiring lords appeared on the Carse, and Mar communicated to them the lately discovered treason, they so well affected surprise at the contents of the scroll, that Wallace might not have suspected their connection with it, had not Lord Athol declared it altogether a forgery of some wanton persons, and then added with bitterness, "to gather an army on such authority is ridiculous." While he spoke, Wallace regarded him with a look which pierced him to the center; and the blood rushing into his guilty heart, for once in his life he trembled before the eye of man. "Whoever be the degenerate Scot, to whom this writing is addressed," said Wallace, "his baseness cannot betray us further. The troops of Scotland are ready to meet the enemy; and woe to the man who that day deserts his country!" "Amen!" cried Lord Mar. "Amen!" sounded from every lip; for when the conscience embraces treason against its earthly rulers, allegiance to its heavenly King is abandoned with ease; and the words and oaths of the traitor are equally unstable.
Badenoch's eye followed that of Wallace, and his suspicions fixed where the regent's fell. For the honor of his blood, he forbore to accuse the earl; but for the same reason he determined to watch his proceedings. However, the hypocrisy of Athol baffled even the penetration of his brother, and on his retiring from the ground to call forth his men for the expedition, in an affected chafe he complained to Badenoch of the stigma cast upon their house by the regent's implied charge.
"But," said he, "he shall see the honor of the Cummin, emblazoned in blood on the sands of the Forth! His towering pride heeds not where it strikes; and this comes of raising men of low estate to rule over princes!"