Many chieftains from the north had come to Stirling, to be near intelligence from the borders. They were aware that this meeting between Wallace and Edward must be the crisis of their fate. The few who remained in the citadel, of those who had borne the brunt of the opening of this glorious revolution for their country, were full of sanguine expectations. They had seen the prowess of their leader, they had shared the glory of his destiny, and they feared not that Edward would deprive him of one ray. But they who, at their utmost wilds of Highlands, had only heard his fame; though they had afterward seen him amongst themselves, transforming the mountain-savage into a civilized man and disciplined soldier; though they had felt the effects of his military successes; yet they doubted how his fortunes might stand the shock of Edward’s happy star. The lords whom he had released from the Southron prisons were all of the same apprehensive opinion; for they knew what numbers Edward could bring against the Scottish power, and how hitherto unrivaled was his skill in the field. “Now,” thought Lord Badenoch, “will this brave Scot find the difference between fighting with the officers of a king and a king himself, contending for what he determines shall be a part of his dominions!” Full of this idea, and resolving never to fall into the hands of Edward again (for the conduct of Wallace had made the earl ashamed of his long submission to the usurpation of rights to which he had a claim), he kept a vessel in readiness at the mouth of the Forth, to take him, as soon as the news of the regent’s defeat should arrive, far from the sad consequences, to a quiet asylum in France.
The meditations of Athol, Buchan, and March, were of a different tendency. It was their design, on the earliest intimation of such intelligence, to set forth, and be the first to throw themselves at the feet of Edward, and acknowledge him their sovereign. Thus, with various projects in their heads (which none but the three last breathed to each other), were several hundred expecting chiefs assembled round the Earl of Mar; when Edwin Ruthven, glowing with all the effulgence of his general’s glory, and his own, rushed into the hall; and throwing the royal standard of England on the ground, exclaimed, “There lies the supremacy of King Edward!”
Every man started to his feet. “You do not mean,” cried Athol, “that King Edward has been beaten?”
“He has been beaten, and driven off the field!” returned Edwin. “These dispatches,” added he, laying them on the table before his uncle, “will relate every particular. A hard battle our regent fought, for our enemies were numberless; but a thousand good angels were his allies, and Edward himself fled. I saw the king, after he had thrice rallied his troops and brought them to the charge, at last turn and fly. It was at that moment I wounded his standard-bearer, and seized this dragon.”
“Thou art worthy of thy general, brave Ruthven!” cried Badenoch to Edwin. “James,” added he, addressing his eldest son, who had just arrived from France, “what is left to us to show ourselves also of Scottish blood? Heaven has given him all!”
Lord Mar, who had stood in speechless gratitude, opened the dispatches; and finding a circumstantial narrative of the battle, with accounts of the previous embassies, he read them aloud. Their contents excited a variety of emotions. When the nobles heard that Edward had offered Wallace the crown; when they found that by vanquishing that powerful monarch, he had subdued even the soul of the man who had hitherto held them all in awe; though in the same breath, they read that their regent had refused royalty; and was now, as a servant of the people, preparing to strengthen their borders; yet the most extravagant suspicions awoke in almost every breast. The eagle flight of his glory, seemed to have raised him so far above their heads, so beyond their power to restrain or to elevate him, that an envy, dark as Erebus — a jealousy which at once annihilated every grateful sentiment, every personal regard — passed like electricity from heart to heart. The eye, turning from one to the other, explained what no lip dared utter. A dead silence reigned, while the demon of hatred was taking possession of almost every beast; and none but the Lords Mar, Badenoch, and Loch-awe, escaped the black contagion.
When the meeting broke up, Lord Mar placed himself at the head of the officers of the garrison, and with a herald holding the banner of Edward beneath the colors of Scotland, rode forth to proclaim to the country the decisive victory of its regent. Badenoch and Loch-awe left the hall, to hasten with the tidings to Snawdoun. The rest of the chiefs dispersed. But as if actuated by one spirit, they were seen wandering about the outskirts of the town, where they soon drew together in groups, and whispered among themselves these and similar statements: “He refused the crown offered to him in the field by the people; he rejected it from Edward, because he would reign uncontrolled. He will now seize it as a conqueror, and we shall have an upstart’s foot upon our necks. If we are to be slaves, let us have a tyrant of our own choosing.”
As the trumpets before Lord Mar blew the loud acclaim of triumph, Athol said to Buchan, “Cousin, that is but the forerunner of what we shall hear to announce the usurpation of this Wallace. And shall we sit tamely by, and have our birthright wrested from us by a man of yesterday? No; if the race of Alexander be not to occupy the throne, let us not hesitate between the monarch of a mighty nation and a low-born tyrant, between him who will at least gild our chains with chivalric honors, and an upstart, whose domination must be as stern as debasing!”
Murmurings such as these, passing from chief to chief, descended to the minor chieftains, who held lands in fee of those more sovereign lords. Petty interests extinguished gratitude for general benefits; and by secret meetings, at the heads of which were Athol, Buchan, and March, a conspiracy was formed to overset the power of Wallace. They were to invite Edward once more to take possession of the kingdom; and meanwhile, to accomplish this with certainty, each chief was to assume a pre-eminent zeal for the regent. March was to persuade Wallace to send him to Dunbar as governor of the Lothiaus, to hold the refractory Soulis in check; and to divide the public cares of Lord Dundaff; who, indeed, found Berwick a sufficient charge for his age and comparative inactivity. “Then,” cried the false Cospatrick,40 “when I am fixed at Dunbar, Edward may come round from Newcastle to that port; and, by your management, he must march unmolested to Stirling, and seize the usurper on his throne.”
40 The name by which Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, was familiarly called.
Such suggestions met with full approval from these dark incendiaries; and as their meetings were usually held at night, they walked forth in the day with cheerful countenances, and joined the general rejoicing.
They feared to hint even a word of their intentions to Lord Badenoch; for, on Buchan having expressed some discontent to him, at the homage that was paid to a man so much their inferior, his answer was, “Had we acted worthy of our birth, Sir William Wallace never could have had the opportunity to rise upon our disgrace. But as it is, we must submit, or bow to treachery instead of virtue.” This reply determined them to keep their proceedings secret from him, and also from Lady Mar; for both Lord Buchan and Lord Athol had, at different times, listened to the fond dreams of her love and ambition. They had flattered her with entering into her designs. Athol gloomily affected acquiescence, that he might render himself master of all that was in her mind, and, perhaps, in that of her lover; for he did not doubt that Wallace was as guilty as her wishes would have made him. And Buchan, ever ready to yield to the persuasions of woman, was not likely to refuse, when his fair cousin promised to reward him with all the pleasures of the gayest court in Europe. For, indeed, both lords had conceived, from the evident failing state of her veteran husband, in consequence of the unhealing condition of one of his wounds, that it might not be long before this visionary game would be thrown into her hands.
Thus were they situated, when the news of Wallace’s decisive victory, distancing all their means to raise him who was now at the pinnacle of power, determined the dubious to become at once his mortal enemies. Lord Badenoch had listened with a different temper to the first breathings of Lady Mar on her favorite subject. He told her, if the nation chose to make their benefactor king, he should not oppose it; because he thought that none of the blood royal deserved to wear the crown which they had all consented to hold in fee of Edward; yet he would never promote by intrigue an election which must rob his own posterity of their inheritance. But when she gave hints of her becoming one day the wife of Wallace, he turned on her with a frown. “Cousin,” said he, “beware how you allow so guilty an idea to take possession of your heart! It is the parent of dishonor and death. And did I think that Sir William Wallace were capable of sharing your wishes, I would be the first to abandon his standard. But I believe him too virtuous to look on a married woman with the eyes of passion; and that he holds the houses of Mar and Cummin in too high a respect to breathe an illicit sigh in the ear of my kinswoman.”
Despairing of making the impression she desired on the mind of this severe relative, Lady Mar spoke to him no more on the subject. And Lord Badenoch, ignorant that she had imparted her criminal project to his brother and cousin, believed that his reproof had performed her cure. Thus flattering himself, he made no hesitations to be the first who should go to Snawdoun, to communicate to her the brilliant dispatches of the regent, and to declare the freedom of Scotland to be now almost secured. He and Lord Loch-awe set forth; but they had been some time preceded by Edwin.
The moment the countess heard the name of her nephew announced, she made a sign for her ladies to withdraw, and starting forward at his entrance, “Speak!” cried she; “tell me, Edwin, is the regent still a conqueror?”
“Where are my mother and Helen,” replied he, “to share my tidings?”
“Then they are good!” exclaimed lady mar, with one of her bewitching smiles. “Ah! you sly one, like your chief, you know your power!”
“And like him I exercise it,” replied he, gayly; “therefore, to keep your ladyship no longer in suspense, here is a letter from the regent himself.” He presented it as he spoke, and she, catching it from him, turned round, and pressing it rapturously to her lips (it being the first she had ever received from him), eagerly ran over its brief contents. While reperusing it — for she could not tear her eyes from the beloved characters — Lady Ruthven and Helen entered the room. The former hastened forward, the latter trembled as she moved, for she did not yet know the information which her cousin brought. But the first glance of his face told her all was safe, and as he broke from his mother’s embrace, to clasp Helen in his arms, she fell upon his neck, and, with a shower of tears, whispered, “Wallace lives? Is well?”
“As you would wish him,” rewhispered he, “and with Edward at his feet.”
“Thank God, thank God!”
While she spoke, Lady Ruthven exclaimed: “But how is our regent? Speak, Edwin! How is the delight of all hearts?”
“Still the Lord of Scotland,” answered he; “the invincible dictator of her enemies! The puissant Edward has acknowledged the power of Sir William Wallace, and after being beaten on the plain of Stanmore, is now making the best of his way toward his own capital.”
Lady Mar again and again pressed the cold letter of Wallace to her burning bosom. “The regent does not mention these matters in his letter to me,” said she, casting an exulting glance over the glowing face of Helen. But Helen did not notice it; she was listening to Edwin, who, with joyous animation, related every particular that had befallen Wallace from the time of his rejoining him to that very moment. The countess heard all with complacency, till he mentioned the issue of the conference with Edward’s first embassadors. “Fool!” exclaimed she to herself, “to throw away the golden opportunity, that may never return!” Not observing her disturbance, Edwin went on with his narrative; ev............