Bruce hastened to Wallace, who had just completed his disguise. He briefly related what had passed, and received for answer, that he would not leave his prince to the revenge of the tyrant. But Bruce, urging that the escape of the one could alone secure that of the other, implored him not to persist in refusing his offered safety, but to make direct for Normandy.
"I will join you at Rouen; and thence we can proceed to Guienne," added he. "The hour the court leaves Durham is that of my escape; and when free, what shall divide me from you and our enterprise!"
Wallace had hardly assented, when a tumultuous noise broke the silence of the courtyard; the great iron doors of the keep were thrown back on their hinges, and the clangor of arms, with many voices, resounded in the hall. Thinking all was lost, with a cry of despair, Bruce drew his sword, and threw himself before his friend. At that instant Gloucester entered the room. "They are quicker than I thought!" cried he; "but follow me. Bruce, remain where you are: sheathe your sword—be bold; deny you know anything of the minstrel, and all will be well." As he spoke, the feet of them who were come to seize Wallace already sounded in the adjoining apartment. Gloucester grasped the Scottish hero by the hand, turned into a short gallery, and, plucking the broad shaft of a cedar pilaster from under its capital, let himself and his companion into a passage within the wall of the building. The ponderous beam closed after them into its former situation; and the silent pair descended, by a long flight of stone steps, to a square dungeon without any visible outlet; but the earl found one, by raising a flat stone marked by an elevated cross; and again they penetrated lower into the bosom of the earth by a gradually declining path till they stopped on a subterranean level ground. "This vaulted passage," said Gloucester, "reaches, in a direct line, to Fincklay Abbey.** A particular circumstance constrained my uncle, the then abbot of that monastery, to discover it to me, ten years ago. He told me, that to none but the bishops of Durham and the abbots of Fincklay was the secret of its existence revealed. Since my coming hither this time (which was to escort the young queen—not to bear arms against Scotland), I one day took it into my head to revisit this recess; and, happily for the gratitude I owe to you, I found all as I had left it in my uncle's lifetime. But, for the sake of my honor with Edward, whose wrath would fall upon me in most fearful shapes should he ever know that I delivered his vanquisher out of his hands, I must enjoin you to secrecy. Though the enemy of my king's ambition, you are the friend of mankind. You were my benefactor, noble Wallace; and I should deserve the rack, could I suffer one hair of your head to fall with violence to the ground."
**The remains of this curious subterranean passage are yet to be seen; but parts of them are now broken in upon by water, and therefore the communication between Durham and Fincklay is now cut off.
With answering frankness, Wallace declared his sense of the earl's generosity; and earnestly commended the young Bruce to his watchful friendship. "The brave impetuosity of his mind," continued he, "at times may overthrow his prudence, and leave him exposed to dangers which a little virtuous caution might avoid. Dissimulation is a baseness I should shudder at seeing him practice; but when the flood of indignation swells his bosom, then tell him, that I conjure him, on the life of his dearest wishes, to be silent! The storm which threatens must blow over, and the power which guides through perils those who trust in it, will ordain that we shall meet again!"
Gloucester replied, "What you say I will repeat to Bruce. I am too sensible that my royal father-in-law has trampled on his rights; and should I ever see him restored to the throne of his ancestors, I could not but acknowledge the hand of Heaven in the event. Far would it have been from me to have bound him to remain a prisoner during Edward's sojourn at Durham, had I not been certain that your escape and his together would now give birth to a plausible argument in the minds of my enemies; and, grounding their suspicions on my acknowledged attachment to Bruce, the king might have been persuaded to believe me unfaithful to his interests. The result would be my disgrace, and a broken heart to her who has raised me by her generous love from the humbler ranks of nobility to that of a prince, and her husband."
Gloucester then informed Wallace that about two hours before he came to alarm Bruce for his safety on this occasion, he was summoned by Edward to attend him immediately. When he obeyed, he found Soulis standing by the royal couch, and his majesty talking with vehemence. At sight of Gloucester he beckoned him to advance, and striking his hand fiercely on a letter he held, he exclaimed:
"Here, my son, behold the record of your father's shame!—of a King of
England dishonored by a slave!"
As he spoke he dashed it from him. Soulis answered, smiling:
"Not a slave, my lord and king! can you not see, through the ill adapted disguise, the figure and mien of nobility? He is some foreign lover of your bride, come—"