"He gave to you your homes and your liberty!—grant, then, a grave, the peace of the tomb to him, whom some amongst you repaid with treachery and death!"
At these words a cry, as if they beheld their betrayed chief slain before them, issued from every heart.
The news had spread to the town, and with tears and lamentations a vast crowd collected round the royal troop. Bruce ordered his bards to raise the sad coronach, and the march commenced toward the open tent that canopied the sacred remains. The whole train followed the speechless woe, as if each individual had lost his dearest relative. Having passed the wood, they came in view of the black hearse, which contained all that now remained of him who had so lately crossed these precincts in all the panoply of triumphant war, in all the graciousness of peace, and love to man! The soldiers, the people rushed forward, and precipitating themselves before the bier, implored a pardon for their ungrateful country. They adjured him, by every tender name of father, benefactor, and friend, and in such a sacred presence, forgetting that their king was by, gave way to a grief which, most eloquently, told the young monarch that he who would be respected after William Wallace must not only possess his power and valor, but imitate his virtues.
Scrymgeour, who had well remembered his promise to Wallace on the battlements of Dumbarton, with a holy reference to that vow now laid the standard of Scotland upon the pall. Hambledon placed on it the sword and helmet of the sacrificed hero. Bruce observed all in silence. The sacred burden was raised. Uncovering his royal head, with his kingly purple sweeping in the dust, he walked before the bier, shedding tears, more precious in the eyes of his subjects than the oil which was soon to pour upon his brow. As he thus moved on, he heard acclamations mingle with the voice of sorrow.
"This is our king, worthy to have been the friend of Wallace! worthy to succeed him in the kingdom of our hearts."
At the gates of Cambus-Kenneth, the venerable abbot appeared at the head of his religious brethren; but without uttering the grief that shook his aged frame, he raised the golden crucifix over the head of the bier, and after leaning his face for a few minutes on it, preceded the procession into the church. None but the soldiers entered. The people remained without, and as the doors closed they fell on the pavement, weeping as if the living Wallace had again been torn from them.
On the steps of the altar the bier rested. The bishop of Dunkeld, in his pontifical robes, received the sacred deposit with a cloud of incense, and the pealing organ, answered by the voices of the choristers, breathed the solemn requiem of the dead. The wreathing frankincense parted its vapor, and a wan but beautiful form, clasping an urn to her breast, appeared stretched on a litter, and was borne toward the spot. It was Helen, brought from the adjoining nunnery, where since her return to these once dear shores, now made a desert to her, she had languished in the gradual decay of the fragile bonds which alone fettered her mourning spirit, eager for release.
All night had Isabella watched by her couch, expecting that each succeeding breath would be the last her beloved sister would draw in this calamitous world; but as her tears fell in silence from her cheek upon the cold forehead of Helen, the gentle saint understood their expression, and looking up:
"My Isabella," said she, "fear not. My Wallace is returned. God will grant me life to clasp his blessed remains!"
Full of this hope, she was borne, almost a passing spirit, into the chancel of Cambus-Kenneth. Her veil was open, and discovered her face like one just awakened from the dead; it was ashy pale, but it bore a celestial brightness, which, like the silver luster of the moon, declared its approach to the fountain of its glory. Her eye fell on the bier, and, with a momentary strength, she sprung from the couch on which she had leaned in dying feebleness, and threw herself upon the coffin.