by Jane Porter
Chapter XXXI.
Berwick and the Tweed.
In the course of an hour Murray returned from having seen the departingSouthrons beyond the barriers of the township. But he did not comealone; he was accompanied by Lord Auchinleck, the son of one of thebetrayed barons who had fallen in the palace of Ayr. This youngchieftain, at the head of his vassals, hastened to support the manwhose dauntless hand had thus satisfied his revenge; and when he metMurray at the north gate of the town, and recognized in his flyingbanners a friend of Scotland, he was happy to make himself known to anofficer of Wallace, and to be conducted to that chief.
While Lord Andrew and his new colleague were making the range of thesuburbs, the glad progress of the victor Scots had turned the wholeaspect of that gloomy city. Doors and windows, so recently closed indeep mourning, for the sanguinary deeds done in the palace, now openedteeming with smiling inhabitants. The general joy penetrated to themost remote recesses. Mothers now threw their fond arms around thenecks of the children whom just before they had regarded with theaverted eyes of despair; in the one sex, they then beheld the victimsof, perhaps, the next requisition for blood; and in the other, thehapless prey of passions, more felt than the horrid rage of the beastof the field. But now all was secure again. These terrific tyrantswere driven hence; and the happy parent, embracing her offspring as ifrestored from the grave, implored a thousand blessings on the head ofWallace, 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 thevaliant troops in the streets. Widowed wives and fatherless daughtersalmost forgot they had been bereaved of their natural protectors, whenthey saw Scotland rescued from her enemies, and her armed sons, oncemore walking in the broad day, masters of themselves and of theircountry's liberties.
Thus, then, with every heart rejoicing, every house teeming withnumbers to swell the ranks of Wallace, did he, the day after he hadentered Ayr, see all arranged for its peaceful establishment. But erehe bade that town adieu, in which he had been educated, and wherealmost every man, remembering its preserver's boyish years, throngedround him with recollections of former days, one duty yet demanded hisstay: to pay funeral honors to the remains of his beloved grandfather.
Accordingly, the time was fixed; and with every solemnity due to hisvirtues and his rank, Sir Ronald Crawford was buried in the chapel ofthe citadel. It was not a scene of mere ceremonious mourning. As hehad been the father of the fatherless, he was followed to the grave bymany an orphan's tears; and as he had been the protector of thedistressed of every degree, a procession, long and full of lamentation,conducted his shrouded corpse to its earthly rest. The mourningfamilies of the chiefs who had fallen in the same bloody theater withhimself, closed the sad retinue; and while the holy rites committed hisbody to the ground, the sacred mass was extended to those who had beenplunged into the weltering element.
While Wallace confided the aged Elspa and her sister to the care of SirReginald Crawford, to whom he also resigned the lands of hisgrandfather; "Cousin," said he, "you are a valiant and a humane man! Ileave you to be the representative of your venerable uncle; to cherishthese poor women whom he loved; to be the protector of his people andthe defender of the town. The citadel is under the command of theBaron of Auchinleck; he, with his brave followers, being the first tohail the burning of the accursed Barns of Ayr."
After this solemnity, and these dispositions, Wallace called a reviewof his troops; and found that he could leave five hundred men at Ayr,and march an army of at least two thousand out of it.
His present design was to take his course to Berwick; and, by seizingevery castle of strength in his way, form a chain of works across thecountry, which would not only bulwark Scotland against any furtherinroads from its enemies, but render the subjugation of the interiorSouthron garrisons more certain and easy.
On the third morning after the conflagration of the palace, Wallacequitted Ayr; and marching over its far-stretching hills, manned everywatch-tower on their summits. For now, whithersoever he moved, hefound his victories had preceded him; and all, from hall to hovel,turned out to greet and offer him their services. Thus, heralded byfame, the panic-struck Southron governors fled at the distant view ofhis standards; the flames of Ayr seemed to menace them all, and castleand fortalice, from Muirkirk to the walls of Berwick, opened theirgates before him.
Arrived under those blood-stained towers which had so often been theobjects of dispute between the powers of England and of Scotland, heprepared for their immediate attack. Berwick being a valuable fortressto the enemy, not only as a key to the invaded kingdom, but a pointwhence by their ships they commanded the whole of the eastern coast ofScotland, Wallace expected that a desperate stand would be made here tostop the progress of his arms. But being aware that the mostexpeditious mode of warfare was the best adapted to promote his cause,he first took the town by assault; and then, having driven the garrisoninto the citadel, assailed it by a vigorous seige.
After ten days hard duty before the walls, Wallace devised a plan toobtain possession of the English ships which commanded the harbor. Hefound among his own troops many men who had been used to a seafaringlife; these he disguised as fugitive Southrons from the late defeats,and sent in boats to the enemy's vessels which lay in the roads. Thefeint took; and by these means getting possession of those nearest thetown, he manned them with his own people; and going out with themhimself, in three days made himself master of every ship on the coast.
By this maneuver the situation of the beseiged was rendered sohopeless, that no mode of escape was left but by desperate sallies.They made them, but without other effect than weakening their strengthand increasing their miseries. Wallace was for them to do in theirsituation, he needed no better spy over their actions than his ownjudgment.
Foiled in every attempt, as their opponent, guessing their intentions,was prepared at every point to meet their different essays, and losingmen at every rencounter, their governor stood without resource.Without provisions, without aid of any kind for his wounded men, andhourly annoyed by the victorious Scots, who continued day and night tothrow showers of arrows, and other missile weapons, from the towers andspringalls with which they had overtopped the walls, the unhappy Earlof Gloucester seemed ready to rush on death, to avoid the disgrace ofsurrendering the fortress. Every soul in the garrison was reduced tosimilar despair. Wallace even found means to dam up the spring whichhad supplied the citadel with water. The common men, famished withhunger, smarting with wounds, and now perishing with inextinguishablethirst, threw themselves at the feet of their officers, imploring themto represent to their royal governor that if he held out longer, hemust defend the place alone, for they could not exist another day undertheir present sufferings.
The earl indeed repented the rashness with which he had thrown himselfunprovisioned into the citadel. He now saw that expectation was noapology for want of precaution. When his first division had beenoverpowered in the assault on the town, his evil genius then suggestedthat it was best to take the second unbroken into the citadel, andthere await the arrival of a reinforcement by sea. But he thencebeheld the ships which had defended the harbor seized by Wallace beforehis eyes. Hope was then crushed, and nothing but death or dishonorseemed to be his alternatives. Cut to the soul at the consequences ofhis want of judgment, he determined to retrieve his fame by washing outthat error with his blood. To fall under the ruins of Berwick Castlewas his resolution. Such was the state of his mind when his officersappeared with the petition from his men. In proportion as they feltthe extremities into which they were driven, the offense he hadcommitted glared with tenfold enormity in his eyes; and, in a wilddespair, he told them "they might do as they would, but for his part,the moment they opened the gates to the enemy, that moment should bethe last of his life. He, that was the son-in-law of King Edward,would never yield his sword to a Scottish rebel."
Terrified
at these threats on himself, the soldiers, who loved theirgeneral, declared themselves willing to die with him; and, as a lasteffort, proposed making a mine under the principal tower of the Scots;and by setting fire to it, at least destroy the means by which theyfeared their enemies might storm the citadel.
As Wallace gave his orders from this commanding station, he observedthe besieged passing in numbers behind a mound, in the direction of thetower where he stood: he concluded what was their design; and orderinga countermine to be made, what he anticipated happened; and Murray, atthe head of his miners, encountered those of the castle at the verymoment they would have set fire to the combustibles laid to consume thetower. The instant struggle was violent, but short; for the impetuousScots drove their amazed and enfeebled adversaries through theaperture, back into the citadel. At this crisis, Wallace, with a bandof resolute men, sprung from the tower upon the wall; and it beingalmost deserted by its late guards (who had quitted their post toassist in repelling the foe below), he leaped into the midst of theconflict and the battle became general. It was decisive; for beholdingthe undaunted resolution with which the weakened and dying weresupporting the cause their governor was determined to defend to thelast, Wallace found his admiration and his pity alike excited; and evenwhile his followers seemed to have each his foe's life in his hands,when one instant more would make him the undisputed master of thecastle (for not a Southron would then breathe to dispute it), heresolved to stop the carnage. At the moment when a gallant officer,who, having assaulted him with the vehemence of despair, now laydisarmed under him; at that moment when the discomfited knightexclaimed, "In mercy strike, and redeem the honor of Ralph deMonthermer!"** Wallace raised his bugle and sounded the note of peace.Every sword was arrested, and the universal clangor of battle washushed in expecting silence.
**Ralph de Monthermer, a noble knight who married Jane of Acre, thedaughter of King Edward I. He was created Earl of Gloucester on hismarriage with that princess.-(1809.)
"Rise, brave earl," cried Wallace, to the governor; "I revere virtuetoo sincerely to take an unworthy advantage of my fortune. The valorof this garrison commands my respect; and, as a proof of my sincerity,I grant to it what I have never yet done to any: that yourself andthese dauntless men march out with the honors of war, and without anybonds on your future conduct toward us. We leave it to your own heartsto decide whether you will ever be again made instruments to enchain afree and brave people."
While he was speaking, De Monthermer leaned gloomily on the sword hehad returned to him, with his eyes fixed on his men. They answered hisglance with looks that said they understood him: and passing a fewwords in whispers to each other, one at last spoke aloud: "Decide forus, earl. We are as ready to die as to live; so that in neither we maybe divided from you."
At this generous declaration the proud despair of De Monthermer gaveway to nobler feelings; and while a big tear stood in each eye, heturned to Wallace, and stretching out his hand to him. "Noble Scot,"said he, "your unexampled generosity, and the invincible fidelity ofthese heroic men, have compelled me to accept the life I had resolvedto lose under these walls, rather than resign them. But virtue isresistless, and to it do I surrender that pride of soul which madeexistence insufferable under the consciousness of having erred. When Ibecame the husband of King Edward's daughter, I believed myself pledgedto victories or to death. But there is a conquest, and I feel it,greater than over hosts in the field; and here taught to make it, thehusband of the princess of England, the proud Earl of Gloucester,consents to live to be a monument of Scottish nobleness, and of theinflexible fidelity of English soldiers."
"You live, illustrious and virtuous Englishmen," returned Wallace, "toredeem that honor of which too many rapacious sons of England haverobbed their country. Go forth, therefore, as my conqueror, for youhave on this spot extinguished that burning antipathy with which theoutraged heart of William Wallace had vowed to extirpate every Southronfrom off this ravaged land. Honor, brave earl, makes all men brethren;and, as a brother, I open these gates for you, to repass into yourcountry. When there, if you ever remember William Wallace, let it beas a man who fights, not for conquest or renown, but to restoreScotland to her rights, and then resign his sword to peace."
"I shall remember you, Sir William Wallace!" returned De Monthermer;"and, as a pledge of it, you shall never see me again in this countrytill I come an embassador of that peace for which you fight. Butmeanwhile, in the moment of hot contention for the rights which youbelieve wrested from you, do you remember that they have not been somuch the spoil of my royal father's ambition as the traffic of your ownvenal nobles. Had I not believed that Scotland was unworthy offreedom, I should never have appeared upon her borders; but now that Isee that she has brave hearts within her, who not only resistoppression, but know how to wield power, I detest the zeal with which Ivolunteered to rivet her chains. And I repeat, that never again shallmy hostile foot impress this land."
These sentiments were answered in the same spirit by his soldiers; andthe Scots, following the example of their leader, treated them withevery kindness. After dispensing amongst them provisions, andappointing means to convey the wounded in comfort, Wallace bade acordial farewell to the Earl of Gloucester, and his men conducted theirreconciled enemies over the Tweed. There they parted. The Englishbent their course toward London, and the Scots returned to theirvictorious general.