At noon next day Murray received a message from Wallace, desiring him to acquaint the Earl of Mar that he was coming to the citadel to offer the palace of Snawdoun to the ladies of Mar, and to request the earl to take charge of the illustrous prisoners he was bringing to the castle.
Each member of the family hastened to prepare for an interview which excited different expectations in each different breast. Lady Mar, well satisfied that Helen and Wallace had never met, and clinging to the vague words of Murray, that he had sent to give her liberty, called forth every art of the tiringroom to embellish her still fine person. Lady Ruthven, with the respectable eagerness of a chaste matron, in prospect of seeing the man who had so often been the preserver of her brother, and who had so lately delivered her husband from a loathsome dungeon, was the first who joined the earl in the great gallery. Lady Mar soon after entered like Juno, in all her plumage of majesty and beauty.
But the trumpet of Wallace had sounded in the gates before the trembling Helen could leave her apartment. It was the herald of his approach, and she sunk breathless into a seat. She was now going to see for the first time the man for whose woes she had so often wept; the man who had incurred them all for objects dear to her. He whom she had mourned as one stricken in sorrows, and feared for, as an outlaw doomed to suffering and to death, was now to appear before her, not in the garb of woe, which excuses the sympathy its wearer excites, but arrayed as a conqueror, as the champion of Scotland, giving laws to her oppressors, and entering in triumph, over fields of their slain!
Awful as this picture was to the timidity of her gentle nature, it alone did not occasion that inexpressible sensation which seemed to check the pulses of her heart. Was she, or was she not, to recognize in his train the young and noble Bruce? Was she to be assured that he still existed? Or, by seeking him everywhere in vain, ascertain that he, who could not break his word, had perished, lonely and unknown?
While these ideas thronged into her mind, the platform below was filling with the triumphant Scots; and, her door suddenly opening, Edwin entered in delighted haste. “Come, cousin!” cried he, “Sir William Wallace has almost finished his business in the great hall. He has made my uncle governor of this place, and has committed nearly a thousand prisoners of rank to his care. If you be not expeditious, you will allow him to enter the gallery before you.”
Hardly observing her face, from the happy emotions which dazzled his own eyes, he seized her hand, and hurried her to the gallery.
Only her aunt and step-mother were yet there. Lady Ruthven sat composedly, on a tapestried bench, awaiting the arrival of the company. But Lady Mar was near the door, listening impatiently to the voices beneath. At sight of Helen, she drew back; but she smiled exultingly when she saw that all the splendour of beauty she had so lately beheld and dreaded was flown. Her unadorned garments gave no particular attraction to the simple lines of her form; the effulgence of her complexion was gone; her cheek was pale, and the tremulous motion of her step deprived her of the elastic grace which was usually the charm of her nymph-like figure.
Triumph now sat in the eyes of the countess; and, with an air of authority, she waved Helen to take a seat beside Lady Ruthven. But Helen, fearful of what might be her emotion when the train should enter, had just placed herself behind her aunt, when the steps of many a mailed foot sounded upon the oaken floor of the outward gallery. The next moment the great doors of the huge screen opened, and a crowd of knights in armor flashed upon her eyes. A strange dimness overspread her faculties, and nothing appeared to her but an indistinct throng approaching. She would have given worlds to have been removed from the spot, but was unable to stir; and on recovering her senses, she beheld Lady Mar (who, exclaiming, “Ever my preserver!” had hastened forward), now leaning on the bosom of one of the chiefs: his head was bent as if answering her in a low voice. By the golden locks, which hung down upon the jeweled tresses of the countess, and obscured his face, she judged it must indeed be the deliverer of her father, the knight of her dream. But where was he, who had delivered herself from a worse fate than death? Where was the dweller of her daily thoughts, the bright apparition of her unslumbering pillow?
Helen’s sight, now clearing to as keen a vision as before it had been dulled and indistinct, with a timid and anxious gaze glanced from face to face of the chieftains around; but all were strange. Then withdrawing her eyes with a sad conviction that their search was indeed in vain; in the very moment of that despair, they were arrested by a glimpse of the features of Wallace. He had raised his head; he shook back his clustering hair, and her secret was revealed. In that god-like countenance she recognized the object of her devoted wishes! and with a gasp of overwhelming surprise, she must have fallen from her seat, had not Lady Ruthven, hearing a sound like the sigh of death, turned round, and caught her in her arms. The cry of her aunt drew every eye to the spot. Wallace immediately relinquished the countess to her husband, and moved toward the beautiful and senseless form that lay on the bosom of Lady Ruthven. The earl and his agitated wife followed.
“What ails my Helen?” asked the affectionate father.
“I know not,” replied his sister; “she sat behind me, and I knew nothing of her disorder till she fell as you see.”
Murray instantly supposed that she had discovered the unknown knight; and looking from countenance to countenance, amongst the train, to try if he could discern the envied cause of such emotions, he read in no face an answering feeling with that of Helen’s; and turning away from his unavailing scrutiny, on hearing her draw a deep sigh, his eyes fixed themselves on her, as if they would have read her soul. Wallace, who, in the pale form before him, saw, not only the woman whom he had preserved with a brother’s care, but the compassionate saint, who had given a hallowed grave to the remains of an angel, pure as herself, now hung over her with anxiety so eloquent in every feature that the countess would willingly at that moment have stabbed her in every vein.
Lady Ruthven had sprinkled her niece with water; and as she began to revive, Wallace motioned to his chieftains to withdraw; her eyes opened slowly; but recollection returning with every reawakened sense, she dimly perceived a press of people around her, and fearful of again encountering that face, which declared the Bruce of her secret meditations and the Wallace of her declared veneration were one, she buried her blushes in the bosom of her father. In that short point of time, images of past, present, and to come, rushed before her; and without confessing to herself why she thought it necessary to make the vow, her soul seemed to swear on the sacred altar of a parent’s heart, never more to think on either idea. Separate, it was sweet to muse on her own deliverer; it was delightful to dwell on the virtues of her father’s preserver. But when she saw both characters blended in one, her feelings seemed sacrilege; and she wished even to bury her gratitude, where no eye but Heaven’s could see its depth and fervor.
Trembling at what might be the consequences of this scene, Lady mar determined to hint to Wallace that Helen loved some unknown knight; and bending to her daughter, said in a low voice, yet loud enough for him to hear, “Retire, my child; you will be better in your own room, whether pleasure or disappointment about the person you wished to discover in Sir William’s train have occasioned these emotions.”
Helen recovered herself at this indelicate remark; and raising her head with that modest dignity which only belongs to the purest mind, gently but firmly said, “I obey you, madam; and he whom I have seen will be too generous, not to pardon the effects of so unexpected a weight of gratitude.” As she spoke, her turning eye met the fixed gaze of Wallace. His countenance became agitated, and dropping on his knee beside her; “Gracious lady;” cried he, “mine is the right of gratitude; but it is dear land precious to me; a debt that my life will not be able to repay. I was ignorant of all your goodness, when we parted in the hermit’s cave. But the spirit of an angel like yourself, Lady Helen, will whisper to you all her widowed husband’s thanks.” He pressed her hand fervently between his, and rising, left the room.
Helen looked on with an immovable eye, in which the heroic vow of her soul spoke in every beam; but as he arose, even then she felt its frailty, for her spirit seemed leaving her; and as he disappeared from the door, her world seemed shut from her eyes. Not to think of him was impossible; how to think of him was in her own power. Her heart felt as if suddenly made a desert. But heroism was there. She had looked upon the Heaven-dedicated Wallace; on the widowed mourner of Marion; the saint and the hero; the being of another world! and as such she would regard him, till in the realms of purity she might acknowledge the brother of her soul!
A sacred inspiration seemed to illuminate her features, and to brace with the vigor of immortality those limbs which before had sunk under her. She forgot she was still of earth, while a holy love, like that of the dove in Paradise, sat brooding on her heart.
Lady Mar gazed on her without understanding the ethereal meaning of those looks. Judging from her own impassioned feelings, she could only resolve the resplendent beauty which shone from the now animated face and form of Helen into the rapture of finding herself beloved. Had she not heard Wallace declare himself to be the unknown knight who had rescued Helen? She had heard him devote his life to her, and was not his heart included in that dedication? She had then heard that love vowed to another, which she would have sacrificed her soul to win!
Murray too was confounded; but his reflections were far different from those of Lady Mar. He saw his newly self-discerned passion smothered in its first breath. At the moment in which he found that he loved his cousin above all of women’s mold, an una............