"Now, then, is our time to strike!" cried Wallace; and ordering detachments of his men to take possession of the avenues to the town, he set forth with others, to reach the front of the castle gates, by a less frequented path than the main street. The darkness being so great that no object could be distinctly seen, they had not gone far, before Macdougal, who had undertaken to be their guide, discovered by the projection of a hill on the right, that he had lost the road.

"Our swords will find one!" exclaimed Kirkpatrick.

Unwilling to miss any advantage, in a situation where so much was at stake, Wallace gladly hailed a twinkling light, which gleamed from what he supposed the window of a distant cottage. Kirkpatrick, with Macdougal, offered to go forward, and explore what it might be. In a few minutes they arrived at a thatched building; from which, to their surprise, issued the wailing strains of the coronach. Kirkpatrick paused. Its melancholy notes were sung by female voices. Hence, there being no danger in applying to such harmless inhabitants, to learn the way to the citadel, he proceeded to the door; when, intending to knock, the weight of his mailed arm burst open its slender latch, and discovered two poor women, in an inner apartment, wringing their hands over a shrouded corpse. While the chief entered his friends came up.

Murray and Graham, struck with sounds never breathed over the vulgar dead, lingered at the porch wondering what n.o.ble Scot could be the subject of lamentation in so lowly an abode. The stopping of these two chieftains impeded the steps of Wallace, who was pressing forward, without eye or ear for anything but the object of his search.

Kirkpatrick at that moment appeared on the threshold, and without a word, putting forth his hand, seized the arm of his commander, and pulled him into the cottage. Before Wallace could ask the reason of this, he saw a woman run forward with a light in her hand; the beams of which falling on the face of the knight of Ellerslie, with a shriek of joy she rushed toward him, and threw herself upon his neck.

He instantly recognized Elspa, his nurse; the faithful attendant on his grandfather's declining years! the happy matron who had decked the bridal bed of his Marion! and with an anguish of recollections that almost unmanned him, he returned her affectionate embrace.

"Here he lies!" cried the old woman, drawing him toward the rushy bier; and before he had time to demand, "Who?" she pulled down the shroud and disclosed the body of Sir Ronald Crawford. Wallace gazed on it, with a look of such dreadful import that Edwin, whose anxious eyes then sought his countenance, trembled with a nameless horror. "Oh," thought he, "to what is this n.o.ble soul reserved! Is he alone doomed to extirpate the enemies of Scotland, that every ill falls direct upon his head!"

"Sorry, sorry bier, for the good Lord Ronald!" cried the old woman; "a poor wake to mourn the loss of him who was the benefactor of all the country round! But had I not brought him here, the salt sea must have been his grave." Here sobs prevented her utterance; but after a short pause, with many vehement lamentations over the virtues of the dead, and imprecations on his murderers, she related that as soon as the woful tidings were brought to Monktown kirk (and brought too by the Southron, who was to take it in possession!) she and the clan's-folk who would not swear fidelity to the new lord, were driven from the house. She hastened to the b.l.o.o.d.y theater of ma.s.sacre; and there beheld the bodies of the murdered chiefs drawn on sledges to the seash.o.r.e. Elspa knew that of her master, by the scar on his breast, which he had received in the battle of Largs. When she saw corpse after corpse thrown, with a careless hand, into the waves, and the man approached who was to cast the honored chief of Monktown, to the same unhallowed burial, she threw herself frantically on the body, and so moved the man's compa.s.sion, that, taking advantage of the time when his comrades were out of sight, he permitted her to wrap the dead Sir Ronald in her plaid, and so carry him away between her sister and herself. But ere she had raised her sacred burden, the man directed her to seek the venerable head from amongst the others, which lay mingled in a sack; drawing it forth, she placed it beside the body, and then hastily retired with both, to the hovel where Wallace had found her. It was a shepherd's hut, from which the desolation of the times having long ago driven away its former inhabitant, she had hoped that in so lonely an obscurity, she might have performed without notice, a chieftain's rites, to the remains of the murdered lord of the very lands on which she wept him. These over, she meant he should be interred in secret by the fathers of a neighboring church, which he had once richly endowed. With these intentions, she and her sister were chanting over him the sad dirge of their country, when Sir Roger Kirkpatrick burst open the door. "Ah!" cried she, as she closed the dismal narrative; "though two lonely women were all they had left of the lately thronged household of Sir Ronald Crawford, to raise the last lament over his revered body, yet in that and midnight hour, our earthly voices were not alone; the wakeful spirits of his daughters, hovered in the air, and joined the deep coronach!"

Wallace sighed heavily as he looked on the animated face of the aged mourner. Attachment to the venerable dead seemed to have inspired her with thoughts beyond her station; but the heart is an able teacher, and he saw that true affection speaks but one language.

As her ardent eyes withdrew from their heavenward gaze, they fell upon the shrouded face of her master. A napkin concealed the wound of decapitation. "Chiefs," cried she, in a burst of recollection, "ye have not seen all the cruelty of these murderers!" At these words she suddenly withdrew the linen, and lifting up the pale head, held it wofully toward Wallace. "Here," cried she, "once more kiss these lips!

They have often kissed yours, when you were a babe; and as insensible to his love, as he is now to your sorrow."

Wallace received the head in his arms; the long silver beard, thick with gouts of blood, hung over his hands. He gazed on it, intently, for some minutes. An awful silence pervaded the room; every eye was riveted upon him.

Looking round on his friends, with a countenance whose deadly hue gave a sepulchral fire to the gloomy denunciation of his eyes; "Was it necessary," said he, "to turn my heart to iron, that I was brought to see this sight?" All the tremendous purpose of his soul was read in his face, while he laid the head back upon the bier. His lips again moved, but none heard what he said. He rushed from the hut, and with rapid strides, proceeded in profound silence toward the palace.

He well knew that no honest Scot could be under that roof. The building, though magnificent, was altogether a structure of wood; to fire it, then, was his determination. TO destroy all, at once, in the theater of their cruelty; to make an execution, not engage in a warfare of man to man, was his resolution; for they were not soldiers hew as seeking, but a.s.sa.s.sins; and to pitch his brave Scots in the open field against such unmanly wretches would be to dishonor his men, to give criminals a chance for the lives they had forfeited.

All being quiet in the streets through which he pa.s.sed, and having set strong bodies of men at the mouth of every sallyport of the citadel, he made a bold attack upon the guard at the barbican-gate; and, ere they could give the alarm, all being slain, he and his chosen troop entered the portal, and made direct to the palace. The lights which blazed through the windows of the banqueting hall showed him to the spot; and, having detached Graham and Edwin to storm the keep, where their fathers were confined, he took the half-intoxicated sentinels at the palace-gates by surprise, and striking them into a sleep from which they would wake no more, he fastened the doors upon the a.s.sa.s.sins. His men surrounded the building with hurdles filled with combustibles, which they had prepared according to his directions; and, when all was ready, Wallace, with the mighty spirit of retribution nerving every limb, mounted to the roof, and tearing off the shingles, with a flaming brand in his hand, showed himself to the affrighted revelers beneath; and, as he threw it blazing among them, he cried aloud, "The blood of the murdered calls for vengeance, and it comes."

At that instant the matches were put to the f.a.gots which surrounded the building; and the party within, springing from their seats, hastened toward the doors. All were fastened on them; and retreating into the midst of the room, they fearfully looked toward the tremendous figure above, which, like a supernatural being, seemed indeed come to rain fire upon their guilty heads. Some shook with superst.i.tious dread; others, driven to atheistical despair, with horrible execrations, again strove to force a pa.s.sage through the doors. A second glance told De Valence whose was the hand which had launched the thunderbolt at his feet; and, turning to Sir Richard Arnuf, he cried, in a voice of horror, "My arch-enemy is there!"

Thick smoke rising from within and without the building now obscured his terrific form. The shouts of the Scots as the fire covered its walls, and the streaming flames licking the windows, and pouring into every opening of the building, raised such a terror in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the wretches within, that, with the most horrible cries, they again and again flew to the doors to escape. Not an avenue appeared; almost suffocated with smoke, and scorched by the blazing rafters which fell from the burning roof, they at last made a desperate attempt to break a pa.s.sage through the great portal. Arnuf was at their head, and sunk to abjectness by his despair, in a voice which terror rendered piercing, he called aloud for mercy. The words reached the ear of Sir Roger Kirkpatrick, who stood neared to the door. In a voice of thunder he replied, "That ye gave, ye shall receive. Where was mercy when our fathers and our brothers fell beneath your murderous axes!"

Aymer de Valence came up at this moment with a wooden pillar, which he and his strongest men in the company had torn from under the gallery that surrounded the room, and with all their strength dashing it against the great door, they at last drove it from its bolts. But now a wall of men opposed them. Desperate at the sight, and with a burning furnace in their rear, it was not the might of man that could prevent their escape, and with the determination of despair, rushing forward, the foremost rank of Scots fell. But ere the exulting Southrons could press out into the open s.p.a.ce, Wallace himself had closed upon them, and Arnuf, the merciless Arnuf, whose voice had p.r.o.nounced the sentence of death upon Sir Ronald Crawford, died beneath his hand.

Wallace was not aware that he had killed the Governor of Ayr till the terror-struck exclamations of his enemies informed him that the ruthless instigator of the ma.s.sacre was slain. This event was welcome news to the Scots; and hoping that the next death would be that of De Valence, they pressed on with redoubled energy.

Aroused by so extraordinary a noise, and alarmed by the flames of the palace, the soldiers quartered near hastened half armed to the spot.

But their presence rather added to the confusion than gave a.s.sistance to the besieged. They were without leaders, and not daring to put themselves to action, for fear of being afterward punished (in the case of a mischance) for having presumed to move without their officers, they stood dismayed and irresolute, while those very officers, who had been all at the banquet, were falling in heaps under the swords of the exterminating Scots.

Meanwhile, the men who guarded the prisoners in the keep, having their commanders with them, made a stout resistance there; and one of the officers, seeing a possible advantage, stole out, and, gathering a company of the scattered garrison, suddenly taking Graham in flank, made no inconsiderable havoc amongst that part of his division. Edwin blew the signal for a.s.sistance. Wallace heard the blast; and seeing the day was won at the palace, he left the finishing of the affair to Kirkpatrick and Murray; and, drawing off a small party to reinforce Graham, he took the Southron officer by surprise. The enemy's ranks fell around him like corn beneath the sickle; and, grasping a huge battering ram which his men had found, he burst open the door of the keep. Graham and Edwin rushed in; and Wallace, sounding his own bugle with the notes of victory, his reserves (whom he had placed at the ends of the streets) entered in every direction, and received the flying soldiers of De Valence upon their pikes.

Dreadful was now the carnage; for the Southrons, forgetting all discipline, fought every man for his life; which the furious Scots driving them into the far-spreading flames, what escaped the sword would have perished in the fire, had not the relenting heart of Wallace pleaded for bleeding humanity, and he ordered the trumpet to sound a parley. He was obeyed; and, standing on an adjacent mound, in an awful voice he proclaimed that "whoever had not been accomplices in the horrible ma.s.sacre of the Scottish chiefs, if they would ground their arms, and take an oath never to serve again against Scotland, their lives should be spared."

Hundreds of swords fell to the ground; and their late holders, kneeling at his feet, took the oath perscribed. At the head of those who surrendered appeared the captain who had commanded at the prison. He was the only officer of all the late garrison who survived, all else had fallen in the conflict or perished in the flames; and when he saw that not one of his late numerous companions existed to go through the same humiliating ceremony, with an aghast countenance he said to Wallace, as he presented his sword, "Then I must believe that, with this weapon, I am surrendering to Sir William Wallace the possession of this castle and the government of Ayr. I see not one of my late commanders--all must be slain; and for me to hold out longer would be to sacrifice my men, not to redeem that which has been so completely wrested from us. But I serve severe exactors, and I hope that your testimony, my conqueror, will a.s.sure my king that I fought as became his standard."

Wallace gave him a gracious answer; and committing him to the generous care of Murray, he turned to give orders to Ker respecting the surrendered and the slain. During these momentous events, Graham had deemed it prudent that, exhausted by anxiety and privations, the n.o.ble captives should not come forth to join in the battle; and not until the sound of victory echoed through the arches of their dungeons, would he suffer the eager Dundaff to see and thank his deliverer. Meanwhile, the young Edwin appeared before the eyes of his father, like the angel who opened the prison gates to Peter. After embracing him with all a son's fondness, in which for the moment he lost the repressing idea, that he might have offended by his truancy; after recounting, in a few hasty sentences, the events which had brought him to be a companion of Sir William Wallace; and to avenge the injuries of Scotland in Ayr, he knocked off the chains of his amazed father. Eager to perform the like service to all who had suffered in like manner, and accompanied by the happy Lord Ruthven (who gazed with delight on his son, treading so early the path of glory), he hastened around to the other dungeons; and gladly proclaimed to the astonished inmates, freedom and safety.

Having rid them of their shackles, he had just entered with his n.o.ble company into the vaulted chamber, which contained the released Lord Dundaff, when the peaceful clarion sounded. At the joyful tidings, Graham started on his feet: "Now, my father, you shall see the bravest of men!"

Chapter x.x.x.

The Barns of Ayr.

Morning was spreading in pale light over the heavens, and condensing with its cold breath the lurid smoke which still ascended in volumes from the burning ruins, when Wallace, turning round at the glad voice of Edwin, beheld the released n.o.bles. This was the first time he had ever seen the Lords Dundaff and Ruthven; but several of the others he remembered having met at the fatal decision of the crown; and, while welcoming to his friendship those to whom his valor had given freedom, how great was his surprise to see, in the person of a prisoner suddenly brought before him, Sir John Monteith; the young chieftain whom he had parted with a few months ago at Douglas; and from whose fatal invitation to that castle he might date the ruin of his dearest happiness, and all the succeeding catastrophe!

"We found Sir John Monteith amongst the slain before the palace," said Ker; "he, of the whole party, alone breathed; I knew him instantly.

How he came there I know not; but I have brought him hither to explain it himself." Ker withdrew, to finish the interment of the dead.

Monteith, still leaning on the arm of a soldier, grasped Wallace's hand. "My brave friend!" cried he, "to owe my liberty to you is a twofold pleasure; for," added he, in a lowered voice, "I see before me the man who is to verify the words of Baliol; and be not only the guardian, but the possessor of the treasure he committed to our care!"

Wallace, who had never thought on the coffer, since he knew it was under the protection of St. Fillan, shook his head. "A far different need do I seek, my friend!" said he; "to behold these happy countenances of my liberated countrymen is greater reward to me than would be the development of all the splendid mysteries which the head of Baliol could devise."

"Ay!" cried Dundaff, who overheard this part of the conversation, "we invited the usurpation of a tyrant by the docility with which we submitted to his minion. Had we rejected Baliol, we had never been ridden by Edward. But the rowel has gored the flanks of us all! and who amongst us will not lay himself and fortune at the foot of him who plucks away the tyrant's heel?"

"It all held our cause in the light that you do," returned Wallace, "the blood which these Southrons have sown would rise up in ten thousand legions to overwhelm the murderers!"

"But how," inquired he, turning to Monteith, "did you happen to be in Ayr at this period? and how, above all, amongst the slaughtered Southrons at the palace?"

Sir John Monteith readily replied: "My adverse fate accounts for all."

He then proceeded to inform Wallace, that on the very night in which they parted at Douglas, Sir Arthur Heselrigge was told the story of the box: and accordingly sent to have Monteith brought prisoner to Lanark.

He lay in the dungeons of its citadel at the very time Wallace entered that town and destroyed the governor. Though the Scots did not pursue the advantage offered by the transient panic into which the retribution threw their enemies, care was immediately taken by the English lieutenant to prevent a repet.i.tion of the same disasters; and, in consequence, every suspected person was seized, and those already in confinement loaded with chains. Monteith being known as a friend of Wallace, was sent under a strong guard toward Stirling, there to stand his trial before Cressingham and the English Justiciary, Ormsby. "By a lucky chance," said he, "I made my escape; but I was soon retaken by another party, and conveyed to Ayr, where the Lieutenant-governor Arnuf, discovering my talents for music, compelled me to sing at his entertainments."

"For this purpose, he last night confined me in the banqueting-room at the palace, and thus, when the flames surrounded that building, I found myself exposed to die the death of a traitor, though then as much oppressed as any other Scot. s.n.a.t.c.hing up a sword, and striving to join my brave countrymen, the Southrons impeded my pa.s.sage, and I fell under their arms."

Happy to have rescued his old acquaintance from further indignities, Wallace committed him to Edwin to lead into the citadel. Then taking the colors of Edward from the ground (where the Southron officer had laid them), he gave them to Sir Alexander Scrymgeour, with orders to fill their former station on the citadel with the standard of Scotland.

This action he considered as the seal of each victory; as the beacon which, seen from afar, would show the desolate Scots where to find a protector, and from what ground to start when courage should prompt them to a.s.sert their rights.

The standard was no sooner raised than the proud clarion of triumph was blown from every warlike instrument in the garrison and the Southron captain, placing himself at the head of his disarmed troops, under the escort of Murray, marched out of the castle. He announced his design to proceed immediately to Newcastle, and thence embark with his men to join their king at Flanders. Not more than two hundred followed their officer in this expedition, for not more were English; the rest, to nearly double that number, being, like the garrison of Dumbarton, Irish and Welsh, were glad to escape enforced servitude. Some parted off in divisions to return to their respective countries, while a few, whose energetic spirits preferred a life of warfare in the cause of a country struggling for freedom, before returning to submit to the oppressors of their own, enlisted under the banners of Wallace.

Some other necessary regulations being then made, he dismissed his gallant Scots, to find refreshment in the well-stored barracks of the dispersed Southrons, and retired himself to join his friends in the citadel.

Chapter x.x.xI.

Berwick and the Tweed.

In the course of an hour Murray returned from having seen the departing Southrons beyond the barriers of the township. But he did not come alone; he was accompanied by Lord Auchinleck, the son of one of the betrayed barons who had fallen in the palace of Ayr. This young chieftain, at the head of his va.s.sals, hastened to support the man whose dauntless hand had thus satisfied his revenge; and when he met Murray at the north gate of the town, and recognized in his flying banners a friend of Scotland, he was happy to make himself known to an officer of Wallace, and to be conducted to that chief.

While Lord Andrew and his new colleague were making the range of the suburbs, the glad progress of the victor Scots had turned the whole aspect of that gloomy city. Doors and windows, so recently closed in deep mourning, for the sanguinary deeds done in the palace, now opened teeming with smiling inhabitants. The general joy penetrated to the most remote recesses. Mothers now threw their fond arms around the necks of the children whom just before they had regarded with the averted eyes of despair; in the one s.e.x, they then beheld the victims of, perhaps, the next requisition for blood; and in the other, the hapless prey of pa.s.sions, more felt than the horrid rage of the beast of the field. But now all was secure again. These terrific tyrants were driven hence; and the happy parent, embracing her offspring as if restored from the grave, implored a thousand blessings on the head of Wallace, the gifted agent of all this good.

Sons who in secret had lamented the treacherous death of their fathers, and brothers of their brothers, now opened their gates, and joined the valiant troops in the streets. Widowed wives and fatherless daughters almost forgot they had been bereaved of their natural protectors, when they saw Scotland rescued from her enemies, and her armed sons, once more walking in the broad day, masters of themselves and of their country's liberties.

Thus, then, with every heart rejoicing, every house teeming with numbers to swell the ranks of Wallace, did he, the day after he had entered Ayr, see all arranged for its peaceful establishment. But ere he bade that town adieu, in which he had been educated, and where almost every man, remembering its preserver's boyish years, thronged round him with recollections of former days, one duty yet demanded his stay: to pay funeral honors to the remains of his beloved grandfather.