Wallace, having planted an adequate force in charge of the prisoners, went to the two Southron commanders to pay them the courtesy he thought due to their bravery and rank, before he retired with his victorious followers toward Roslyn Castle. He entered their tent alone. At sight of the warrior who had given them so signal a defeat, the generals rose. Neville, who had received a slight wound in one of his arms, stretched out the other to Wallace. “Sir William Wallace,” said he, “that you were obliged to declare a name so deservedly renowned, before the troops I led, could be made to relinquish one step of their hard-earned advantage, was an acknowledgment in their favor almost equivalent to a victory.”
Sir John Segrave, who stood leaning on his sword with a disturbed countenance, interrupted him. “The fate of this day cannot be attributed to any earthly name or hand. I believe my sovereign will allow the zeal with which I have served him; and yet thirty thousand as brave men as ever crossed the marshes, have fallen before a handful of Scots. Three victories, won over Edward’s troops in one day, are not events of a commonplace nature. God alone has been our vanquisher.”
“I acknowledge it,” cried Wallace; “and that He is on the side of justice, let the return of St. Matthias’ Day ever remind your countrymen!”
When Segrave gave the victory to the Lord of Hosts, he did it more from jealousy of what might be Edward’s opinion of his conduct, when compared with Neville’s, than from any intention to imply that the cause of Scotland was justly Heaven-defended. Such are the impious inconsistencies of unprincipled men! He frowned at the reply of Wallace, and turned gloomily away. Neville returned a respectful answer, and their conqueror soon after left them.
Edwin, with the Knight of the Green Plume (who had indeed approved his valor by many a brave deed performed at his commander’s side), awaited Wallace’s return from his prisoners’ tent. Ruthven came up with Wallace before he joined them, and told him that Bruce was safe under the care of the sage of Ercildown, and that the regent, who had been wounded in the beginning of the day, was also in Roslyn Castle. Wallace then called Edwin to him, giving him orders that all of the survivors who had suffered in these three desperate battles, should be collected from amongst the slain, and carried into the neighboring castles of Hawthorndean, Brunston, and Dalkeith. The rest of the soldiers were commanded to take their refreshment still under arms. These duties performed, Wallace turned with the eagerness of friendship and loyalty to see how Bruce fared.
The moon shone brightly as his party rode forward. Wallace ascended the steep acclivity on which Roslyn Castle stands. In crossing the drawbridge which divides its rocky peninsula from the main land, he looked around and sighed. The scene reminded him of Ellerslie. A deep shadow lay on the woods beneath; and the pensile branches of the now leafless trees bending to meet the flood, seemed mourning the deaths which now polluted its stream. The water lay in profound repose at the base of these beautiful craigs, as if peace longed to become an inhabitant of so lovely a scene.
At the gate of the castle its aged master, the Lord Sinclair, met Wallace, to bid him welcome.
“Blessed be the saint of this day,” exclaimed he, “for thus bringing our best defender, even as by a miracle, to snatch us as a brand from the fire! My gates, like my heart, open to receive the true Regent of Scotland.”
“I have only done a Scotchman’s duty, venerable Sinclair,” replied Wallace, “and must not arrogate a title which Scotland has transferred to other hands.”
“Not Scotland, but rebellion,” replied the old chief. “It was rebellion against the just gratitude of the nation that invested the Black Cummin with the regency; and only some similar infatuation has bestowed the same title on his brother. What did he not lose till you, Scotland’s true champion, have reappeared to rescue her again from bondage?”
“The present Lord Badenoch is an honest and a brave man,” replied Wallace; “and as I obey the power which gave him his authority, I am ready, by fidelity to him, to serve Scotland with as vigorous a zeal as ever; so, noble Sinclair, when our rulers cast not trammels on our virtue, we must obey them as the vicegerents of Heaven.”
Wallace then asked to be conducted to his wounded friend, Sir Thomas de Longueville, for Sinclair was ignorant of the real rank of his guest. Eager to oblige him, his noble host immediately led the way through a gallery, and opening the door of an apartment, discovered to him Bruce, lying on a couch; and a venerable figure, whose silver beard and sweeping robes, announced him to be the sage of Ercildown, was bathing the wounded chief’s temples with balsams. A young creature, beautiful as a ministering seraph, also hung over the prostrate chief. She held a golden casket in her hand, out of which the sage drew the unctions he applied.
At the sound of Wallace’s voice, who spoke in a suppressed tone to Ruthven while entering the chamber, the wounded prince started on his arm to greet his friend; but he as instantly fell back. Wallace hastened forward. When Bruce recovered from the swoon into which the suddenness of his attempt to rise had thrown him, he felt a hand grasping his; he guessed to whom it belonged, and gently pressed it, smiled; a moment afterward he opened his eyes, and in a low voice, articulated from his wounded lips:
“My dear Wallace, you are victorious?”
“Completely so, my prince and king,” returned he, in the same tone; “all is now plain before you; speak but the word, and render Scotland happy!”
“Not yet; oh, not yet!” whispered he. “My more than brother, allow Bruce to be himself again before he is known in the land of his fathers! This cruel wound in my head must heal first, and then I may again share your dangers and your glory! Oh, Wallace, not a Southron must taint our native lands when my name is proclaimed in Scotland!”53
53 It is a curious circumstance, that when the body of Bruce was discovered a few years ago in the abbey of Dunfermline, his head retained all its teeth excepting two in front, evidently originally injured by a stroke of violence. Beside this, the evidence remained in the bone of the chest of the fact of its having been cut open after his death, for the heart to be taken out, according to his dying command, to be sent to the Holy Land.
Wallace saw that his prince was not in a state to bear argument, and as all had retired far from the couch when he approached it, in gratitude for this propriety (for it had left him and his friend free to converse unobserved), he turned toward the other inmates of the chamber. The sage advanced to him, and recognizing in Wallace’s now manly form the fine youth he had seen with Sir Ronald Crawford at the claiming of the crown, he saluted him with a paternal affection, tempering the su............