At these words, a peal of thunder burst on his ear, and seemed to roll over his tent, till, passing off toward the west, it died away in long and solemn reverberation. Wallace rose from his knee, on which he had sunk at this awful response to his Heaven-directed adjuration. "Thou callest me, my Father!" cried he, with a holy confidence dilating his soul. "I go from the world to Thee! I come, and before Thy altars know no human weakness."
In a paroxysm of sacred enthusiasm he rushed from the tent, and, reckless whither he went, struck into the depths of Roslyn woods. With the steps of the wind he pierced their remotest thickets. He reached their boundary—it was traversed by a rapid stream, but that did not stop his course; he sprung over it, and, ascending its moonlight bank, was startled by the sound of his name. Grimsby, attended by a youth, stood before him. The veteran expressed amazement at meeting his master alone at this hour, unhelmeted and unarmed, and in so dangerous a direction. "The road," said he, "between this and Stirling is beset with your enemies." Instead of noticing this information, Wallace inquired what news he brought from Huntingtower. "The worst," said he. "By this time the royal Bruce is no more!" Wallace gasped convulsively, and fell against a tree. Grimsby paused. In a few minutes the heart-struck chief was able to speak. "Listen not to my groans for unhappy Scotland!" cried he; "show me all that is in this last vial of wrath."
Grimsby informed him that Bruce being so far recovered as to have left his sick chamber for the family apartment, while he was sitting with the ladies, a letter was brought to Lady Helen. She opened it, read a few lines, and fell senseless into the arms of her sister. Bruce snatched the packet, but not a word did he speak till he had perused it to the end. It was from the Countess Strathearn, written in the triumph of revenge, cruelly exulting in what she termed the demonstration of Wallace's guilt; congratulating herself on having been the primary means of discovering it, and boasting that his once adored Scotland now held him in such detestation as to have doomed him to die. It was this denunciation which had struck to the soul of Helen; and while the anxious Lady Ruthven removed her inanimate form into another room, Bruce read the barbarous triumphs of this disappointed woman. "No power on earth can save him now," continued she; "your doting heart must yield him, Helen, to another rest than your bridal chamber. His iron breast has met with others as adamantine as his own. A hypcrite! he feels not pity; he knows no beat of human sympathies; and like a rock, he falls, unpitied, undeplored—undeplored by all but you, lost, self-deluded girl! My noble lord, the princely De Warenne, informs me that William Wallace would be burned as a double traitor in England, and a price is now set upon his head in Scotland! hence, there is safety for him no more. Those his base-born heart has outraged shall be avenged; and his cries for mercy, who will answer? No voice on earth! None dare support the man whom friends and enemies abandon to destruction!"
"Yes," cried Bruce, starting from his seat, "I will support him, thou damned traitress! Bruce will declare himself! Bruce will throw himself before his friend, and in his breast receive every arrow meant for that godlike heart! Yes," cried he, glancing on the terrified looks of Isabella, who believed that his delirium was returned. "I would snatch him in these arms, from their murderous flames, did all the fiends of hell guard their infernal fire!" Not a word more did he utter, but darting from the apartment, was soon seen before the barbican-gate, armed from head to foot. Grimsby stood there, to whom he called to bring him a horse, "for that the Light of Scotland was in danger." Grimsby, who understood by that term, his beloved master was in peril, instantly obeyed; and Bruce, as instantly mourning, struck his rowels into the horse, and was out of sight ere Grimsby could reach his stirrup to follow.
But that faithful soldier speeded after him like the win, and came in view of Bruce just as he was leaping a chasm in the mountain path. The horse struck his heel against a loose stone, and it giving way, he fell headlong into the deep ravine. At the moment of his disappearance, Grimsby rushed toward the spot, and saw the animal struggling in the agonies of death at the bottom. Bruce lay insensible, amongst some bushes which grew nearer the top. With difficulty the honest Englishman got him dragged to the surface of the hill; and finding all attempts to recover him ineffectual, he laid him on his own beast, and so carried him slowly back to the castle. The assiduities of the sage of Ercildown restored him to life, but not to recollection. "The fever returned on him, with a delirium, so hopeless of recovery," continued Grimsby, "that the Lady Helen, who again seems like an inspired angel amongst us, has sent me with this youth to implore you to come to Huntingtower, and there embattle yourself against your own and your prince's enemies."
"Send me," cried Walter Hay, grasping Wallace's hand, "send me back to Lady Helen, and let me tell her that our benefactor, the best guardian of our country, will not abandon us! Should you depart, Scotland's genius will go with you! again she must sink, again she will be in ruins. De Valence will regain possession of my dear lady, and you will not be near to save her."
"Grimsby, Walter, my friends!" cried Wallace, in an agitated voice, "I do not abandon Scotland; she drives me from her. Would she have allowed me, I would have borne her in my arms until my latest gasp; but it must not be so. I resign her into the Almighty hands, to which I commit myself; they will also preserve the Lady Helen from violence. I cannot forego my trust, for the Bruce also! If he live, he will protect her for my sake; and should he died, Bothwell and Ruthven will cherish her for their own."
"But you will return with us to Huntingtower," cried Grimsby. "Disguised in these peasant's garments, which we have brought for the purpose, you may pass through the legions of the regent with perfect security."
"Let me implore you, if not for your own sake, for ours! Pity our desolation, and save yourself for them who can know no safety when you are gone!"
Walter clung to his arm while uttering this supplication. Wallace looked tenderly upon him.