The morning would have brought annihilation to the countess’ new-fledged hopes, had not Murray been the first to meet her as she came from her chamber.
While walking on the cliffs at some distance from the castle to observe the weather, he met Wallace and Edwin. They had already been across the valley to the haven, and ordered a boat round, to convey them back to Gourock. “Postpone your flight, for pity’s sake!” cried Murray, “if you would not, by discourtesy, destroy what your gallantry has preserved!” He then told them that Lady Mar was preparing a feast in the glen, behind the castle; “and if you do not stay to partake it,” added he, “we may expect all the witches in the isle will be bribed to sink us before we reach the shore.”
After this the general meeting of the morning was not less cordial than the separation of the night before; and when Lady Mar withdrew to give orders for her rural banquet, that time was seized by the earl for the arrangement of matters of more consequence. In a private conversation with Murray the preceding evening he had learned that, just before the party left Dumbarton, a letter had been sent to Helen at St. Filan’s, informing her of the taking of the castle, and of the safety of her friends. This having satisfied the earl he did not advert to her at all in his present discourse with Wallace, but rather avoided encumbering his occupied mind with anything but the one great theme.
While the earl and his friends were marshaling armies, taking towns, and storming castles, the countess, intent on other conquests, was meaning to beguile and destroy that manly spirit by soft delights, which a continuance in war’s rugged scenes, she thought, was too likely to render invulnerable.
When her lord and his guests were summoned to the feast, she met them at the mouth of the glen. Having tried the effect of splendor, she now left all to the power of her natural charms, and appeared simply clad in her favorite green. Moraig, the pretty grandchild of the steward, walked beside her, like the fairy queen of the scene, so gayly was she decorated in all the flowers of spring. “Here is the lady of my elfin revels, holding her little king in her arms!” As the countess spoke, Moraig held up the infant to Lady Mar, dressed like herself, in a tissue gathered from the field. The sweet babe laughed and crowed, and made a spring to leap into Wallace’s arms. The chief took him, and with an affectionate smile, pressed his little cheek to his.
Though he had felt the repugnance of a delicate mind, and the shuddering of a man who held his person consecrated to the memory of the only woman he had ever loved; though he had felt these sentiments mingle into an abhorrence of the countess, when she allowed her head to drop on his breast in the citadel; charging her to himself with anything designedly immodest), he had certainly avoided her; yet since the wreck, the danger she had escaped, the general joy of all meeting again, had wiped away even the remembrance of his former cause of dislike; and he now sat by her as by a sister, fondling her child, although at every sweet caress it reminded him of what might have been his-of hopes lost to him forever.
The repast over, the piper of the adjacent cottages appeared; and, placing himself on a projecting rock, at the carol of his merry instrument the young peasants of both sexes jocundly came forward and began to dance. At this sight Edwin seized the little hand of Moraig, while Lord Andrew called a pretty lass from amongst the rustics, and joined the group. The happy earl, with many a hearty laugh, enjoyed the jollity of his people; and while the steward stood at his lord’s back describing whose sons and daughters passed before him in the reel, Mar remembered their parents-their fathers, once his companions in the chase or on the wave; and their mothers, the pretty maidens he used to pursue over the hills in the merry time of shealing.
Lady Mar watched the countenance of Wallace as he looked upon the joyous group; it was placid, and a soft complacency illumined his eye. How different was the expression in hers, had he marked it! All within her was in tumult, and the characters were but too legibly imprinted on her face. But he did not look on her; for the child, whom the perfume of the flowers overpowered, began to cry. He rose, and having resigned it to the nurse, turned into a narrow vista of trees, where he walked slowly on, unconscious whither he went.
Lady Mar, with an eager, though almost aimless haste, followed him with a light step till she saw him turn out of the vista, and then she lost sight of him. To walk with him undisturbed in so deep a seclusion; to improve the impression which she was sure she had made upon his heart; to teach him which she was sure she had made upon his heart; to teach him to forget his Marion, in the hope of one day possessing her-all these thoughts ran in this vain woman’s head; and, inwardly rejoicing that the shattered health of her husband promised her a ready freedom to become the wife of the man to whom she would gladly belong, in honor or in dishonor, she hastened forward as if the accomplishment of her wishes depended on this meeting. Peeping through the trees, she saw him standing with folded arms, looking intently into the bosom of a large lake; but the place was so thickly surrounded with willows, she could only perceive him at intervals, when the wind tossed aside the branches.
Having stood for some time, he walked on. Several times she essayed to emerge, and join him; but a sudden awe of him, a conviction of that saintly purity which would shrink from the guilty vows she was meditating to pour into his ear, a recollection of the ejaculation with which he had accosted her before hovering figure, when she haunted his footsteps on the banks of the Cart; these thoughts made her pause. He might again mistake her for the same dear object. This image it was not her interest to recall. And to approach near him, to unveil her heat to him, and to be repulsed-there was madness in the idea, and she retreated.
She had no sooner returned to the scene of festivity than she repented of having allowed what she deemed an idle alarm of overstrained delicacy to drive her from the lake. She would have hastened back, had not two or three aged female peasants almost instantly engaged her, in spite of her struggles for extrication, to listen to long stories respecting her lord’s youth. She remained thus an unwilling auditor, and by the side of the dancers for nearly an hour, before Wallace reappeared. But then she sprung toward him as if a spell were broken.
“Where, truant, have you been?”
“In a beautiful solitude,” returned he, “amongst a luxuriant grove of willows.”
“Ah!” cried she, “it is called Glenshealeach, and a sad scene was acted there! About ten years ago, a lady of this island drowned herself in the lake they hang over, because the man she loved despised her.”
“Unhappy woman!” observed Wallace.
“Then you would have pitied her?” rejoined Lady Mar.
“He cannot be a man that would not pity a woman under such circumstances.”
“Then you would not have consigned her to such a fate?”
Wallace was startled by the peculiar tone in which this simple question was asked. It recalled the action in the citadel, and, unconsciously turning a penetrating look on her, his eyes met hers. He need not have heard further to have learned more. She hastily looked down, and colored; and he, wishing to misunderstand a language so disgraceful to herself, so dishonoring to her husband, gave some trifling answer; then making a slight observation about the earl, he advanced to him. Lord Mar was become tired with so gala a scene, and, taking the arm of Wallace, they returned together into the house.
Edwin soon followed with Murray, gladly arriving in time enough to see their little pinnacle draw up under the castle and throw out her moorings. The countess, too, descried its streamers, and hastening into the room where she knew the chiefs were yet assembled, though the wearied earl had retired to repose, inquired the reason of that boat having drawn so near the castle.
“That it may take us from it, fair aunt,” replied Murray.
The countess fixed her eyes with an unequivocal expression upon Wallace. “My gratitude is ever due to your kindness, noble lady,” said he, still wishing to be blind to what he could not perceive, “and that we may ever deserve it, we must keep the enemy from your doors.”
“Yes,” added Murray, “and to keep a more insidious foe from our own! Edwin and I feel it rather dangerous to bask too long in these sunny bowers.”
“But surely your chief is not afraid,” said she, casting a soft glance at Wallace.
“Yet, nevertheless, I must fly,” returned he, bowing to her.
“That you positively shall not,” added she, with a fluttering joy at her heart, thinking she was about to succeed; “you stir not this night, else I shall brand you all as a band of cowards.”
“Call us by every name in the poltroon’s calendar,” cried Murray, seeing by the countenance of Wallace that his resolution was not to be moved; “yet I must gallop off from your black-eyed Judith, as if chased by the ghost of Holofernes himself.”
“So, dear aunt,” rejoined Edwin, smiling, “if you do not mean to play Circe to our Ulysses, give us leave to go!”
Lady Mar started, confused she knew not how, as he innocently uttered these words. The animated boy snatched a kiss from her hand, when he ceased speaking, and darted after Murray, who had disappeared, to give some speeding directions respecting the boat.
Left thus alone with the object of her every wish, in the moment when she thought she was going to lose him, perhaps, forever, she forgot all prudence, all reserve; and laying her hand on her arm, as with a respectful bow he was also moving away, she arrested his steps. She held him fast, but her agitation prevented her speaking; she trembled violently, and weeping, dropped her head upon his shoulder. He was motionless. Her tears redoubled. He felt the embarrassment of his situation; and at last extricating his tongue, which surprise and shame for her had chained, in a gentle voice he inquired the cause of her uneasiness. “If for the safety of your nephews-”
“No, no,” cried she, interrupting him, “read my fate in that of the lady of Glenshealeach!”
Again he was silent; astonished, fearful of too promptly understanding so disgraceful a truth, he found no words in which to answer her, and her emotions became so uncontrolled, that he expected she would swoon in his arms.
“Cruel, cruel Wallace!” at last cried she, clinging to him, for he had once or twice attempted to disengage himself, and reseat her on the bench; “your heart is steeled, or it would understand mine. It would at least pity the wretchedness it has created. But I am despised, and I can yet find the watery grave from which you rescued me.”
To dissemble longer would have been folly. Wallace, now resolutely seating her, though with gentleness, addressed her: “Your husband, Lady Mar, is my friend; had I even a heart to give a woman, not one sigh should arise in it to his dishonor. But I am lost to all warmer affections than that of friendship. I may regard man as my brother, woman as my sister; but never more can I look on female form with love.”
Lady Mar’s tears now flowed in a more tempered current.
“But we............