The Scottish Chiefs | Page 5

'I confide this to your care.'
Putting the box under my arm and concealing it with my cloak-'Carry
it,' continued he, 'directly to my castle in Lanarkshire. I will rejoin you
there, in four-and-twenty hours after your arrival. Meanwhile, by your
affection for me and fidelity to your king, breathe not a word of what
has passed.'
"'Look on that, and be faithful!' said Baliol, putting this ruby ring on
my finger. I withdrew, with the haste his look dictated; and as I crossed
the outward hall, was met by Athol. He eyed me sternly, and inquired
whither I was going. I replied, 'To Douglas, to prepare for the coming
of its lord.' The hall was full of armed men in Athol's colors. Not one of
the remnant who had followed my patron from the bloody field of
Dunbar was visible. Athol looked round on his myrmidons: 'Here,'
cried he, 'see that you speed this fellow on his journey. We shall
provide lodgings for his master.' I foresaw danger to Lord Douglas, but

I durst not attempt to warn him of it; and, to secure my charge, which a
return to the room might have hazarded, I hastened into the courtyard,
and being permitted to mount my horse, set off at full speed.
"On arriving at this place, I remembered the secret closet, and carefully
deposited the box within it. A week passed, without any tidings of Lord
Douglas. At last a pilgrim appeared at the gate, and requested to see me
alone; fearing nothing from a man in so sacred a habit, I admitted him.
Presenting me with a packet which had been intrusted to him by Lord
Douglas, he told me my patron had been forcibly carried on board a
vessel at Montrose, to be conveyed with the unhappy Baliol to the
Tower of London. Douglas, on this outrage, sent to the monastery at
Aberbrothick, and under the pretense of making a religious confession
before he sailed, begged a visit from the sub-prior. 'I am that prior,'
continued the pilgrim; 'and having been born on the Douglas lands, he
well knew the claim he had to my fidelity. He gave me this packet, and
conjured me to lose no time in conveying it to you. The task was
difficult; and, as in these calamitous seasons we hardly know whom to
trust, I determined to execute it myself.'
"I inquired whether Lord Douglas had actually sailed. 'Yes,' replied the
father; 'I stood on the beach till the ship disappeared.'"
A half-stifled groan burst from the indignant breast of Wallace. It
interrupted Monteith for an instant, but without noticing it he
proceeded:
"Not only the brave Douglas was then wrested from his country, with
our king, but also that holy pillar of Jacob** which prophets have
declared to be the palladium of Scotland!"
**The tradition respecting this stone is as follows: Hiber, or Iber, the
Phoenician, who came from the Holy Land to inhabit the coast of Spain,
brought this sacred relic along with him. From Spain he transplanted it
with the colony he sent to people the south of Ireland; and from Ireland
it was brought into Scotland by the great Fergus, the son of Ferchard.
He placed it in Argyleshire; but MacAlpine removed it to Scone, and
fixed it in the royal chair in which all the succeeding kings of Scotland

were inaugurated. Edward I. of England caused it to be carried to
Westminster Abbey, where it now stands. The tradition is, that empire
abides where it stays.-(1809.)
"What!" inquired Wallace, with a yet darker frown, "has Baliol robbed
Scotland of that trophy of one of her best kings? Is the sacred gift of
Fergus to be made the spoil of a coward?"
"Baliol is not the robber," rejoined Monteith; "the halloed pillar was
taken from Scone by the command of the King of England, and, with
the sackings of Iona, was carried on board the same vessel with the
betrayed Douglas. The archives of the kingdom have also been torn
from their sanctuary, and were thrown by Edward's own hands into the
fire."
"Tyrant!" murmured Wallace, "thou mayest fill the cup too full."
"His depredations," continued Monteith, "the good monk told me, have
been wide as destructive. He has not left a parchment, either of public
records or of private annals, in any of the monasteries or castles round
Montrose; all have been searched and plundered. And besides, the
faithless Earl of March and Lord Sculis are such parricides of their
country, as to have performed the like robberies, in his name, from the
eastern shores of the Highlands to the furthiest of the Western Isles."
"Do the traitors think," cried Wallace, "that by robbing Scotland of her
annals and of that stone they really deprive her of her