Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 18

by Unknown

"I will deal with him right knightly," said the Governor. "Yield thee, Sir Thomas of Chartres," he continued, bending over the prisoner, and holding up a dagger to his face—"yield thee true hostage for the good conduct of thy fleet—or shall I call the confessor?"

"I yield me true hostage," said the fallen man. "But who art thou, terrible warrior, that o'ermasterest De Longoville of France as if he were a stripling of twelve summers? Art Wallace, the Scottish Champion!"

"Thou yieldest, De Longoville," said the Governor, "to Sir William Wallace of Elderslie. But how is it that I meet, in the infamous Thomas of Chartres, that true soldier of the Cross, De Longoville? I have heard minstrels sing of thy deeds against the Saracen, Sir Knight, while I was yet a boy; and yet here art thou now, the dread of the wandering sailor and the merchant—a chief among thieves and pirates."

"Alas! noble Wallace, thou sayest too truly," said Sir Thomas; "but yet wouldst thou deem me as worthy of pity as of censure, didst thou but know all, and the remorse I even now endure. For a full year have I determined to quit this wild, unknightly mode of life, and go a pilgrim as of old; not to fight for the sepulchre—for the battles of the Cross are over—not to fight, but to die for it. But I accept, noble champion, this my first defeat on sea, as a message from heaven. Accept of me as true soldier under thee, and I will fight for thee in thy country's quarrel, to the death."

"Most willingly, brave De Longoville," said the Governor, as he raised him from the deck; "Scotland needs sorely the use of such swords as thine."

"And deem not her cause less holy," said the monk—for monk he was, the well-known Chaplain Blair—"deem not her cause less holy than that of the sepulchre itself; nor think that thou shalt eradicate the stain of past dishonour less surely in her battles. The cause of justice, De Longoville, is the cause of God, contend for it where we may."

Wallace returned to De Longoville the sword of which he had so lately disarmed him; and the pirate admiral, on learning that the champion was bound for Rochelle, issued orders to his fleet, which, now that the mist rose, was found to consist of six large vessels, to follow close in their wake. The breeze blew steadily from the north-west, and the ships went careering along, each in her own long furrow of white, towards the port of their destination; the pirate vessels keeping aloof full two bowshots from the Scotsman—for so De Longoville had ordered, to prevent suspicion of treachery. He had set aside his armour, and now appeared to his new associates as a man of noble and knightly bearing, tall and stalwart as any warrior aboard, save the Governor; and, though his hair was blanched around his temples, and indicated the approach of age, the light step and quick sparkling eye gave evidence that his vigour of frame still remained undiminished. He sat apart, with the Governor and his two kinsmen, Clelland and Crawford, in the cabin under the poop. It was a rude, unornamented apartment, as might be expected, from the general appearance of the vessel; but the profusion of arms and pieces of armour which hung from the sides, glittering to the light that found entrance through a casement in the deck, bestowed on the place an air of higher pretension. A table with food and wine was placed before the warriors.

"It is now twenty-six years, or thereby," said De Longoville, "since I quitted Palestine for France, with the good Louis. I had fought by his side on the disastrous field of Massouna, and did all that a man of mould might to rescue him from the Saracens, when he fell into their hands, exhausted by his wounds and his sore sickness. But that day was written a day of defeat and disaster to the soldiers of the Cross. Nor need I say how I took my stand, with the best of my countrymen, on the walls of Damietta, and maintained them for the good cause, despite of the assembled forces of the Moslem, until we had bought back our king from captivity, by yielding up the city we defended for his ransom. It is enough for a disgraced man and a captive to say that my services were not overlooked by those whose notice was most an honour; and that, ere I embarked for France, I received the badge of knighthood from the hand of the good Louis himself.

"You all know of how different a character Charles of Anjou was from his brother the king. I had returned from the crusade rich, only in honour, and found the lady of my affections under close thrall by her parents, who had resolved that she should marry Loithaire, Lord of Languedoc. I knew that her heart was all my own; but I knew, besides, that I must become wealthy ere I could hope to compete for her with a rival such as Loithaire; and the good Pope Nicholas having made over the crown of the Two Sicilies to Charles of Anjou, in an evil hour I entered the army with which Charles was to wrest it from the bastard Manfred—having certain assurance, from the tyrant himself, that, if he succeeded, I should become one of the nobles of Sicily. We encountered Manfred at Beneventura, and the bastard was defeated and slain. But I must blush, as a knight, for the honour of knighthood—as a Frenchman, for the fair fame of my country—when I think of the cruelties which followed. Not the worst tyrants of old Rome could have surpassed Charles of Anjou in his butcheries. The blood plashed under the hoofs of his charger as he passed through the cities of his future kingdom; and, when he had borne down all opposition, 'twould seem as if, in his eagerness to destroy all who might resist, he had also determined to extirpate all who could obey. But his policy proved as unsound as 'twas cruel and unjust, as the terrible Eve of the Vespers has since shown. The Princes of Germany, headed by the chivalrous Conradine of Swabia, united against us in the cause of the people. But the arms of France were again triumphant; the confederacy was broken, and the gallant Conradine fell into the hands of Charles. It was I, warriors of Scotland! to whom he surrendered; and I had granted him, as became a knight, an assurance of knightly protection. But would that my arms had been hewn off at the shoulders when I first beat down his sword, and intercepted his retreat! The infamous Charles treated my knightly assurance with scorn; and—can you credit such baseness, noble Wallace!—he ordered Conradine of Swabia—a true knight, and an independent prince—for instant execution, as if he were a common malefactor. My blood boils, even now, when I recall that terrible scene of injustice and cruelty. The soldiers of France crowded round the scaffold; and I was among them, burning with shame and rage. Ere Conradine bent him to the executioner, he took off his glove, and throwing it amongst us, adjured us, if we were not all as dead to honour as our leader, to bear it to some of his kinsmen, who would receive it as a pledge of investiture in his rights, and as beqeathing the obligation to revenge his death. Will you blame me, noble Wallace! that, Frenchman as I was, I seized the glove of Conradine, and fled the army of Charles; and that, ere I returned to France, I delivered it up to Pedro of Arragon, the near kinsman of the last Prince of Swabia?

"My king and friend, the good Louis, had sailed from France for Palestine, on his last hapless voyage, ere I had executed my mission. On my return to France, however, I found a galley of Toulon on the eve of quitting port, to join with his fleet, then on the coast of Africa, and, snatching a hurried interview with the lady of my affections, maugre the vigilance of her relatives, I embarked to fight under Louis, as of old, for the blessed sepulchre. We landed near Tunis, and saw the tents of France glittering to the sun. But all was silent as midnight, and the royal standard hung reversed over the pavilion of the good Louis. He had died that morning of the plague; and his base and cruel brother, the false Charles of Anjou, sat beside the corpse. I felt that I had fallen among my enemies; for though the young King was there, he was weak and inexperienced, and open to the influence of his uncle. The first knight I met, as I entered the camp, was Loithaire of Languedoc—now the wily friend and counsellor of Charles. There were lying witnesses suborned against me, who accused me of the most incredible and unheard-of practices; and of these Loithaire was the chief. 'Twas in vain I demanded the combat, as a test of my innocence. The combat was denied me; my sword was broken before the assembled chivalry of France; my shield reversed; and sentence was passed that I should be burnt at a stake, and my ashes scattered to the four winds of heaven. But it was not written that I should perish so. Scarce an hour before the opening of the day appointed for my execution, I broke from prison, assisted by a brother soldier, whose life I had saved in Palestine, and escaped to France.