At these words, which Helen thought were meant to reprove her for not having revealed herself, she blushed; but fearful of breathing a name under the interdict of the English governors, and which had already spread devastation over all with whom it had been connected; fearful of involving her preserver's safety, by making him aware of the persecuted creature he had rescued; she paused for a moment, and then, with the color heightening on her cheeks, replied: "For your humanity, brave sir, shown this night to a friendless woman, I must be ever grateful; but not even to the hermit may I reveal my name. It is fraught with danger to every honest Scot who should know that he protects one who bears it; and therefore, least of all, noble stranger, would I breathe it to you." She averted her face, to conceal the emotions she could not subdue.
The knight looked at her intensely, and profoundly sighed. Half her unbraided locks lay upon her bosom, which now heaved with suppressed feelings; and the fast-falling tears, gliding through her long eyelashes dropped upon his hand; he sighed again, and tore his eyes from her countenance. "I ask not, madam, to know what you think proper to conceal; but danger has no alarms for me, when, by incurring it, I serve those who need a protector."
A sudden thought flashed across her mind; might it not be possible that this tender guardian of her safety, this heroic profferer of service, was the noble Wallace? But the vain idea fled. He was pent up amidst the beleaguered defiles of Cartland Craigs, sworn to extricate the helpless families of his followers, or to perish with them. This knight was accompanied by none but men; and his kind eyes shone in too serene a luster to be the mirrors of the disturbed soul of the suffering chief of Ellerslie. "Ah! then," murmured she to herself, "are there two men in Scotland who will speak thus?" She looked up in his face. The plumes of his bonnet shaded his features; but she saw they were paler than on his entrance, and a strange expression of distraction agitated their before composed lines. His eyes were bent to the ground as he proceeded:
"I am the servant of my fellow-creatures—command me and my few faithful followers; and if it be in the power of such small means to succor you or yours, I am ready to answer for their obedience. If the villain from whom I had the happiness to release you be yet more deeply implicated in your sorrows, tell me how they can be relieved, and I will attempt it. I shall make no new enemies by the deed, for the Southrons and I are at eternal enmity."
Helen could not withdraw her eyes from his varying countenance, which, from underneath his dark plumes, seemed like a portentous cloud, at intervals to emit the rays of the cheering sun, or the lightning of threatening thunder. "Alas!" replied she, "ill should I repay such nobleness were I to involve it in the calamities of my house. No, generous stranger, I must remain unknown. Leave me with the hermit; and from his cell I will send to some relation to take me thence."
"I urge you no more, gentle lady," replied the knight, rising; "were I at the head of an army, instead of a handful of men, I might then have a better argument for offering my services; but as it is, I feel my weakness, and seek to know no further."
Helen trembled with unaccountable emotion. "Were you at the head of an army, I might then dare to reveal the full weight of my anxieties; but Heaven has already been sufficiently gracious to me by your hands, in redeeming me from my cruelest enemy; and for the rest, I put my trust in the same overruling Providence." At this moment a man entered and told the knight the vehicle was finished, the morning fine, and his men ready to march. He turned toward Helen: "May I conduct you to the rude carriage we have prepared?"
Helen gathered her mantle about her; and the knight, throwing his scarf over her head—it had no other covering—she gave him her hand, and he led her out on the hut to the side of the bier. It was overlaid with the men's plaids. The knight placed her on it; and the carriers raising it on their shoulders, her deliverer led the way, and they took their course down the mountain.
Chapter XVI.
The Glen of Stones.