The Scottish Chiefs

by Jane Porter

Speaking, she rose, and presenting a jeweled ring to the mistrel, left the apartment.

The lords crowded out after her, and the musicians coming down from the gallery, seated themselves with much rude jollity to regale on the remnants of the feast. Wallace, who had discovered the senachie of Brue by the escutcheon of Annandale suspended at his neck, gladly saw him approach. He came to invite the stranger minstrel to partake of their fare. Wallace did not appear to decline it, and as the court bard seemed rather devoted to the pleasures of wine, he found it not difficult to draw from him what he wanted to know. He learned that young Bruce was still in the castle under arrest, "and," added the senachie, "I shall feel no little mortification in being obliged, in the course of half an hour, to relinquish these festivities for the gloomy duties of his apartment."

This was precisely the point to which Wallace had wished to lead him; and pleading disrelish of wine, he offered to supply his place in the earl's chamber. The half-intoxicated bard accepted the proposition with eagerness; and as the shades of nigh had long closed in, he conducted his illustrious substitute to the large round tower of the castle, informing him as they went along, that he must continue playing in a recess adjoining Bruce's room till the last vesper bell from the abbey in the neighborhood should give the signal for his laying aside the harp. At that time the earl would be fallen asleep, and he might then lie down on a pallet he would find in the recess.

All this Wallace promised punctually to obey; and being conducted by the senachie up a spiral staircase, was left in the little anteroom. The chief drew the cowl of his minstrel cloak over his face and set his harp before him in order to play. He could see through its strings that a group of knights were in earnest conversation at the further end of the apartment; but they spoke so low he could not distinguish what was said. One of the party turned round, and the light of a suspended lamp discovered him to be the brave Earl Gloucester, whom Wallace had taken, and released at Berwick. The same ray showed another to be Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Wallace found the strangeness of his situation. He, the conqueror of Edward, to have been singing as a mendicant in his halls; and having given laws to the two great men before him, he now sat in their view unobserved and unfeared! Their figures concealed that of Bruce, but at last when all rose together, he heard Gloucester say, in rather an elevated voice, "Keep up your spirits. This envy of your base countrymen must recoil upon themselves. It cannot be long before King Edward discovers the motives of their accusations, and his noble nature will acquit you accordingly."

"My acquittal," replied Bruce, in a firm tone, "cannot restore what Edward's injustice has rifled from me. I abide by the test of my own actions, and by it will open the door of my freedom. Your king may depend on it," added he, with a sarcastic smile, "that I am not a man to be influenced against the right. Where I owe duty I will pay it to the uttermost farthing."

Not apprehending the true meaning of this speech, Percy immediately answered, "I believe you, and so must all that world; for did you not give brave proofs of it that fearful night on the Carron, in bearing arms against the triumphant Wallace?"

"I did indeed give proofs of it," returned Bruce, "which I hope the world will one day know, by bearing arms against the usurper of my country's rights! and in defiance of injustice and of treason, before men and angels I swear," cried he, "to perform my duty to the end—to retrieve, to honor the insulted, the degraded name of Bruce!"

The two earls fell back before the vehement action which accompanied this burst from the soul of Bruce; and Wallace caught a glimpse of his youthful form, which stood pre-eminent in patriotic virtue between the Southron lords: his fine countenance glowed, and his brave spirit seemed to emanate in light from every part of his body. "My prince and brother!" exclaimed Wallace to himself, ready to rush forward and throw himself at his feet, or into his arms.

Gloucester, as little as Northumberland, comprehending Bruce's ambiguous declaration, replied, "Let not your heart, my brave friend, burn too hotly against the king for this arrest. He will be the more urgent to obliterate by kindness this injustice when he understands the aims of the Cummins. I have myself felt his misplaced wrath; and who now is more favored by Edward than Ralph de Monthermer? My case will be yours. Good night, Bruce. May propitious dreams repeat the augury of your true friends!" Percy shook hands with the young earl, and the two English lords left the room.

Wallace could now take a more leisurely survey of Bruce. He no longer wore gay embroidered hacqueton; his tunic was black velvet, and all the rest of his garments accorded with the same mourning hue. Soon after the lords had quitted him, the buoyant elasticity of his figure, which before seemed ready to rise from the earth, so was his soul elevated by his sublime resolves, gave way to melancholy retrospections, and he threw himself into a chair with his hands clasped upon his knee and his eyes fixed in musing gaze upon the floor. It was now that Wallace touched the strings of his harp. "The Death of Cathullin" wailed from the sounding notes; but Bruce heard as though he heard them not; they sooth his mood without his perceiving what it was that calmed, yet deepened, the saddening thoughts which possessed him. His posture remained the same; and sigh after sigh gave the only response to the strains of the bard.