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 forth with thy
blessing on my path, and ill and woe can come not near me. Speak to thy
son!" The undaunted boy flung himself on his knee before the countess as
he spoke. There was a dark and fearfully troubled expression on her
noble features. She had clasped her hands together, as if to still or
hide their unwonted trembling; but when she looked on those bright and
glowing features, there came a dark, dread vision of blood, and the axe
and cord, and she folded her arms around his neck, and sobbed in all a
mother's irrepressible agony.
"My own, my beautiful, to what have I doomed thee!" she cried. "To
death, to woe! aye, perchance, to that heaviest woe--a father's curse!
exposing thee to death, to the ills of all who dare to strike for
freedom. Alan, Alan, how can I bid thee forth to death? and yet it is I
have taught thee to love it better than the safety of a slave; longed,
prayed for this moment--deemed that for my country I could even give my
child--and now, now--oh God of mercy, give me strength!"
She bent down her head on his, clasping him to her heart, as thus to
still the tempest which had whelmed it. There is something terrible in
that strong emotion which sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly overpowers
the calmest and most controlled natures. It speaks of an agony so
measureless, so beyond the relief of sympathy, that it falls like an
electric spell on the hearts of all witnesses, sweeping all minor
passions
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