Chapter LV.
Church of Falkirk.
No eye closed that night in the monastery of Falkirk. The Earl of Mar awaked about the twelfth hour, and sent to call Lord Ruthven, Sir William Wallace, and his nephews, to attend him. As they approached, the priests, who had just anointed his dying head with the sacred unction, drew back. The countess and Lady Ruthven supported his pillow. He smiled as he heard the advancing steps of those so dear to him. "I send for you," said he, "to give you the blessing of a true Scot and a Christian! May all who are here in thy blessed presence, Redeemer of mankind!" cried he, looking up with a supernatural brightness in his eye, "die as I do, rather than survive to see Scotland enslaved! But oh! may they rather long live under that liberty, perpetuated, which Wallace has again given to his country; peaceful will then be their last moments on earth, and full of joy their entrance into heaven!" His eyes closed as the concluding word died upon his tongue. Lady Ruthven looked intently on him; she bent her face to his, but he breathed no more; and, with a feeble cry, she fell back in a swoon.
The soul of the veteran earl was indeed fled. The countess was taken, shrieking, out of the apartment; but Wallace, Edwin, and Murray remained, kneeling over the body, and when they concluded, the priests throwing over it a cloud of incense, the mourners withdrew, and separated to their chambers.
By daybreak, Wallace met Murray by appointment in the cloisters. The remains of his beloved father had been brought from Dunipacis to the convent, and Murray now prepare to take them to Bothwell Castle, there to be interred in the cemetery of his ancestors. Wallace, who had approved his design, entered with him into the solitary court-yard, where the war-carriage stood which was to convey the deceased earl to Clydesdale. Four soldiers of his clan brought the corpse of their Lord from a cell, and laid him on his martial bier. His bed was the sweet heather of Falkirk, spread by the hands of his son. As Wallace laid the venerable chief's sword and helmet on his bier, he covered the whole with the flag he had torn from the standard of England in the last victory. "None other shroud is worthy of thy virtues!" cried he. "Dying for Scotland, thus let the memorial of her glory be the witness of thine!"
"Oh! my friend," answered Murray, looking on his chief with a smile, which beamed the fairer shining through sorrow, "thy gracious spirit can divest even death of its gloom. My father yet lives in his fame!"
"And in a better existence, too!" gently replied Wallace; "else the earth's fame were an empty shroud—it could not comfort."
The solemn procession, with Murray at its head, departed toward the valleys of Clydesdale, and Wallace returned to his chamber. Two hours before noon he was summoned by the tolling of the chapel bell. The Earl of Bute and his dearer friend were to be laid in their last bed. With a spirit that did not murmur, he saw the earth closed over both graves; but at Graham's he lingered; and when the funeral stone shut even the sod that covered him from his eyes, with his sword's point he drew on the surface these memorable words:
"Mente manuque potens, et Walli fidus Achates.
Conditus hic Gramus, bello interfectus ab Anglis."**
**These lines may be translated thus: