The Days of Bruce | Page 6

in very truth, marvellous tidings, Sir
Knight; an' thou canst call up one to unite such names, and worthy of
them, he shall not call on me in vain."
"Is he not worthy, Alan of Buchan, who thus flings down the gauntlet,
who thus dares the fury of a mighty sovereign, and with a handful of
brave men prepares to follow in the steps of Wallace, to the throne or to
the scaffold?"
"Heed not my reckless boy, Sir Robert," said the countess, earnestly, as
the eyes of her son fell beneath the knight's glance of fiery reproach;
"no heart is truer to his country, no arm more eager to rise in her
defence."
"The king! the king!" gasped Nigel, some strange over-mastering
emotion checking his utterance. "Who is it that has thus dared, thus--"
"And canst thou too ask, young sir?" returned the knight, with a smile
of peculiar meaning. "Is thy sovereign's name unknown to thee? Is
Robert Bruce a name unknown, unheard, unloved, that thou, too,
breathest it not?"
"My brother, my brave, my noble brother!--I saw it, I knew it! Thou
wert no changeling, no slavish neutral; but even as I felt, thou art, thou
wilt be! My brother, my brother, I may live and die for thee!" and the
young enthusiast raised his clasped hands above his head, as in
speechless thanksgiving for these strange, exciting news; his flushed
cheek, his quivering lip, his moistened eye betraying an emotion which
seemed for the space of a moment to sink on the hearts of all who
witnessed it, and hush each feeling into silence. A shout from the court
below broke that momentary pause.
"God save King Robert! then, say I," vociferated Alan, eagerly
grasping the knight's hand. "Sit, sit, Sir Knight; and for the love of

heaven, speak more of this most wondrous tale. Erewhile, we hear of
this goodly Earl of Carrick at Edward's court, doing him homage,
serving him as his own English knight, and now in Scotland--aye, and
Scotland's king. How may we reconcile these contradictions?"
"Rather how did he vanish from the tyrant's hundred eyes, and leave the
court of England?" inquired Nigel, at the same instant as the Countess
of Buchan demanded, somewhat anxiously--
"And Sir John Comyn, recognizes he our sovereign's claim? Is he
amongst the Bruce's slender train?"
A dark cloud gathered on the noble brow of the knight, replacing the
chivalric courtesy with which he had hitherto responded to his
interrogators. He paused ere he answered, in a stern, deep voice--
"Sir John Comyn lived and died a traitor, lady. He hath received the
meed of his base treachery; his traitorous design for the renewed
slavery of his country--the imprisonment and death of the only one that
stood forth in her need."
"And by whom did the traitor die?" fiercely demanded the young heir
of Buchan. "Mother, thy cheek is blanched; yet wherefore? Comyn as I
am, shall we claim kindred with a traitor, and turn away from the good
cause, because, forsooth, a traitorous Comyn dies? No; were the
Bruce's own right hand red with the recreant's blood--he only is the
Comyn's king."
"Thou hast said it, youthful lord," said the knight, impressively. "Alan
of Buchan, bear that bold heart and patriot sword unto the Bruce's
throne, and Comyn's traitorous name shall be forgotten in the scion of
Macduff. Thy mother's loyal blood runs reddest in thy veins, young sir;
too pure for Comyn's base alloy. Know, then, the Bruce's hand is red
with the traitor's blood, and yet, fearless and firm in the holy justice of
his cause, he calls on his nobles and their vassals for their homage and
their aid--he calls on them to awake from their long sleep, and shake
off the iron yoke from their necks; to prove that Scotland--the free, the
dauntless, the unconquered soil, which once spurned the Roman power,

to which all other kingdoms bowed--is free, undaunted, and
unconquered still. He calls aloud, aye, even on ye, wife and son of
Comyn of Buchan, to snap the link that binds ye to a traitor's house,
and prove--though darkly, basely flows the blood of Macduff in one
descendant's veins, that the Earl of Fife refuses homage and allegiance
to his sovereign--in ye it rushes free, and bold, and loyal still."
"And he shall find it so. Mother, why do ye not speak? You, from
whose lips my heart first learnt to beat for Scotland my lips to pray that
one might come to save her from the yoke of tyranny. You, who taught
me to forget all private feud, to merge all feeling, every claim, in the
one great hope of Scotland's freedom. Now that the time is come,
wherefore art thou thus? Mother, my own noble mother, let me go