The day after the departure of Helen, Bruce became impatient to take the field; and, to indulge this laudable eagerness, Wallace set forth with him to meet the returning steps of Ruthven and his gathered legions.
Having passed along the borders of Invermay, the friends descended toward the precipitous banks of the Earn, at the foot of the Grampians. In these green labyrinths they wound their way, till Bruce, who had never before been in such mountain wilds, expressed a fear that Wallace had mistaken the track; for this seemed far from any human footstep.
Wallace replied, with a smile. “The path is familiar to me as the garden of Huntingtower.”
The day, which had been cloudy, suddenly turned to wind and rain, which certainly spread an air of desolation over the scene, very dreary to an eye accustomed to the fertile plains and azure skies of the south. The whole of the road was rough, dangerous, and dreadful. The steep and black rocks, towering above their heads, seemed to threaten the precipitation of their impending masses into the path below. But Wallace had told Bruce they were in the right track, and he gaily breasted both the storm and the perils of the road. They ascended a mountain, whose enormous piles of granite, torn by many a winter tempest, projected their barren summits from a surface of moorland, on which lay a deep incrustation of snow. The blast now blew a tempest, and the rain and sleet beat so hard, that Bruce, laughing, declared he believed the witches of his country were in league with Edward, and, hid in shrouds of mist, were all assembled here to drive their lawful prince into the roaring cataracts beneath.
Thus enveloped in a sea of vapors, with torrents of water pouring down the sides of their armor, did the friends descend the western brow of this part of the Grampians until they approached Loch Earn. They had hardly arrived there before the rain ceased, and the clouds, rolling away from the sides of the mountains, discovered the vast and precipitous Ben Vorlich. Its base was covered with huge masses of cliffs, scattered in fragments, like the wreck of some rocky world, and spread abroad in wide and horrid desolation. The mountain itself, the highest in this chain of the Grampians, was in every part marked by deep and black ravines, made by the rushing waters in the time of floods; but where its blue head mingled with the clouds, a stream of brightness issued that seemed to promise the dispersion of its vapors; and consequently a more secure path for Wallace, to lead his friend over its perilous heights.51
51 This description of Ben Vorlich, written ten years before the journey of the author’s brother, Sir. R. K. Porter, into Armenia and Persia, on her reperusing it now, while revising these volumes, reminds her strongly of his account of the appearance of Mount Arafat, as he saw it under a storm, and which he describes with so much, she must be allowed to say, sacred interest, in his travels through those countries. —(1840.)
This appearance did not deceive. The whole mantle of clouds, with which the tops of all the mountains had been obscured, rolled away toward the west, and discovered to the eye of Wallace that this line of light which he had discerned through the mist, was the host of Ruthven descending Ben Vorlich in defiles. From the nature of the path, they were obliged to move in a winding direction, and as the sun now shone full upon their arms, and their lengthened lines gradually extended from the summit of the mountain to its base, no sight could contain more of the sublime, none of truer grandeur to the enraptured mind of Bruce. He forgot his horror of the wastes he had passed over in the joy of beholding so noble an army of his countrymen thus approaching to place him upon the throne of his ancestors. “Wallace,” cried he, “these brave hearts deserve a more cheerful home! My scepter must turn this Scotia desrta into Scotia felix; and so shall I reward the service they this day bring me.”
“They are happy in these wilds,” returned Wallace, “their flocks browse the hills, their herds the valleys. The soil yields sufficient to support its sons; and their luxuries are, a minstrel’s song and the lip of their brides. Their ambition is satisfied with following their chief to the field; and their honor lies in serving their God and maintaining the freedom of their country. Beware, then, my dear prince, of changing the simple habits of those virtuous mountaineers. Introduce the luxurious cultivation of France into these tracts, you will infect them with artificial wants; and, with every want, you put a link to a chain which will fasten them to bondage whenever a tyrant chooses to grasp it. Leave them then their rocks as you find them, and you will ever have a hardy race, ready to perish in their defense, or to meet death for the royal guardian of their liberties.”
Lord Ruthven no sooner reached the banks of Loch Earn, than he espied the prince and Wallace. He joined them; then marshaling his men in a wide tract of land at the head of that vast body of water, placed himself with the two supposed De Longuevilles in the van; and in this array marched through the valleys of Strathmore and Strathallen, into Stirlingshire. The young Earl of Fife held the government of the castle and town of Stirling; and as he had been a zealous supporter of the rebellious Lord Badenoch, Bruce negatized Ruthven’s proposal to send in a messenger for the earl’s division of the troops.
“No, my lord,” said he, “like my friend Wallace, I will have no divided spirits near me; all must be earnest in my cause, or entirely out of the contest. I am content with the brave men around me.”
After rapid marchings and short haltings, they arrived safe at Linlithgow, where Wallace proposed staying a night to refresh the troops, who were now joined by Sir Alexander Ramsay, at the head of a thousand of his clan. While the men took rest, the chiefs waked to think for them. And Wallace, with Bruce and Ruthven, and the brave Ramsay (to whom Wallace had revealed himself, but still kept Bruce unknown), were in deep consultation when Grimsby entered to inform his master that a young knight desired to speak with Sir Guy de Longueville.
“His name?” demanded Wallace.
“He refused to tell it,” replied Grimsby, “and wears his beaver shut.”
Wallace looked around with a glance that inquired whether the stranger should be admitted.
“Certainly,” said Bruce, “but first put on your mask.”
Wallace closed his visor, and the moment after Grimsby reentered, with a knight of elegant mien, habited in a suit of green armor, linked with gold. He wore a close helmet, from which streamed a long feather, of the same hue. Wallace rose at his entrance; the stranger advanced to him.
“You are he whom I seek. I am a Scot, and a man of few words. Accept my services, allow me to attend you in this war, and I will serve you faithfully.”
Wallace replied: “And who is the brave knight to whom Sir Guy de Longueville must owe so great an obligation?”
“My name,” answered the stranger, “shall not be revealed till he who now wears that of the Reaver proclaims his own in the day of victory. I know you, sir, but your secret is as safe with me as in your own breast. Place me to fight by your side, and I am yours forever.”
Wallace was surprised, but not confounded by this speech. “I have only one question to ask you, noble stranger,” replied he, “before I confide a cause dearer to me than life in your integrity. How did you become master of a secret, which I believed out of the power of treachery to betray?”
“No one betrayed your secret to me. I came by my information in an honorable manner, but the means I shall not reveal till I see the time to declare my name, and that, perhaps, may be in the moment when the assumed brother of yon young Frenchman,” added the stranger, turning to Bruce, and lowering his voice, “again appears publicly in Scotland, as Sir William Wallace.”
“I am satisfied,” replied he, well pleased that whoever this knight might be, Bruce yet remained undiscovered; “I grant your request. Yon brave youth, whose name I share, forgives me the success of my sword. I slew the red Reaver, and therefore would restore a brother to Thomas de Longueville, in myself. He fights on my right hand, you shall be stationed at my left.”
“On the side next your heart!” exclaimed the stranger, “let that ever be my post, there to guard the bulwark of Scotland, the life of the bravest of men.”
This enthusiasm did not surprise any present; it was the usual language of all who approached Sir William Wallace; and Bruce, particularly pleased with the heartfelt energy with which it was uttered, forgot his disguise in the amiable fervor of approbation, and half arose to welcome him to his cause; but a look from Wallace (who on being known had uncovered his face), arrested his intention and the prince sat down again, thankful for so timely a check on his precipitancy.
In passing the Pentland Hills, into Mid–Lothian, the chiefs were met by Edwin, who had crossed from the north by the Frith of Forth; and having heard no tidings of the Scottish army in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, he had turned to meet it on the most probably road. Wallace introduced him to the Knight of the Green Plume, for that was the appellation by which the stranger desired to be known — and then made inquiries how Lady Helen had borne the fatigues of her journey to Braemar. “Pretty well there,” replied he, “but much better back again.” He then explained that on his arrival with her, neither Lady Mar nor his mother would consent to remain so far from the spot where Wallace was to contend again for the safety of their country. Helen did not say anything in opposition to their wishes; and at last Edwin yielded to the entreaties and tears of his mother and aunt, to bring them to where they might, at least, not long endure the misery of suspense. Having consented, without an hour’s delay, he set forth with the ladies, to retrace his steps to Huntingtower; and there he left them, under a guard of three hundred men, whom he brought from Braemar for that purpose.
Bruce, whose real name had not been revealed to the other ladies of Ruthven’s family, in a lowered tone, asked Edwin some questions relative to the spirits in which Helen had parted with him. “In losing her,” added he, “my friend and I feel but as part of what we were. Her presence seemed to ameliorate the fierceness of our war-councils, and ever reminded me of the angelic guard by whom Heaven points our way.”
“I left her with looks like the ang............