Produced by Carrie
The Scottish Chiefsby Miss Jane Porter
Scotland.
Bright was the summer of 1296. The war which had desolated Scotlandwas then at an end. Ambition seemed satiated; and the vanquished,after having passed under the yoke of their enemy, concluded they mightwear their chains in peace. Such were the hopes of those Scottishnoblemen who, early in the preceding spring, had signed the bond ofsubmission to a ruthless conqueror, purchasing life at the price of allthat makes life estimable-liberty and honor.
Prior to this act of vassalage, Edward I., King of England, had enteredScotland at the head of an immense army. He seized Berwick bystratagem; laid the country in ashes; and, on the field of Dunbar,forced the Scottish king and his nobles to acknowledge him their liegelord.
But while the courts of Edward, or of his representatives, were crowdedby the humbled Scots, the spirit of one brave man remained unsubdued.Disgusted alike at the facility with which the sovereign of a warlikenation could resign his people and his crown into the hands of atreacherous invader, and at the pusillanimity of the nobles who hadratified the sacrifice, William Wallace retired to the glen ofEllerslie. Withdrawn from the world, he hoped to avoid the sight ofoppressions he could not redress, and the endurance of injuries beyondhis power to avenge.
Thus checked at the opening of life in the career of glory that was hispassion-secluded in the bloom of manhood from the social haunts ofmen—he repressed the eager aspirations of his mind, and strove toacquire that resignation to inevitable evils which alone couldreconcile him to forego the promises of his youth, and enable him toview with patience a humiliation of Scotland, which blighted her honor,menaced her existence, and consigned her sons to degradation orobscurity. The latter was the choice of Wallace. Too noble to bendhis spirit to the usurper, too honest to affect submission, he resignedhimself to the only way left of maintaining the independence of a trueScot; and giving up the world at once, all the ambitions of youthbecame extinguished in his breast, since nothing was preserved in hiscountry to sanctify their fires. Scotland seemed proud of her chains.Not to share in such debasement, appeared all that was now in hispower; and within the shades of Ellerslie he found a retreat and ahome, whose sweets beguiling him of every care, made him sometimesforget the wrongs of his country in the tranquil enjoyments of weddedlove.
During the happy mouths of the preceding autumn, while Scotland was yetfree, and the path of honorable distinction still open before her youngnobility, Wallace married Marion Braidfoot, the beautiful heiress ofLammington. Nearly of the same age, and brought up from childhoodtogether, reciprocal affection had grown with their growth; andsympathy of tastes and virtues, and mutual tenderness, made them soentirely one, that when at the age of twenty-two the enraptured loverwas allowed to pledge that faith publicly at the altar, which he had sooften vowed in secret to his Marion, he clasped her to his heart, andsoftly whispered: "Dearer than life! part of my being! blessed is thisunion, that mingles thy soul with mine, now, and forever!"
Edward's invasion of Scotland broke in upon their innocent joys.Wallace threw aside the wedding garment for the cuirass and the sword.But he was not permitted long to use either—Scotland submitted to herenemies; and he had no alternative but to bow to her oppressors, or tobecome an exile from man, amid the deep glens of his country.