WALLACE AND FAWDON.
Reading edition
BY LEIGH HUNT.
This ballad was suggested by one of the notes to the Lay of the Last Minstrel. Wallace, the great Scottish patriot, had been defeated in a sharp encounter with the English. He was forced to retreat with only sixteen followers, the English pursued him with a bloodhound and his sole chance of escape from that tremendous investigator was either in baffling the scent altogether (which was impossible, unless fugitives could take to the water, and continue there for some distance), or in confusing it by the spilling of blood. For the latter purpose, a captive was sometimes sacrificed; in which case the hound stopped upon the body.
The supernatural part of the story of Fawdon is treated by its first relater, Harry the Minstrel, as a mere legend, and that not a very credible one; but as a mere legend it is very fine, and quite sufficient for poetical purposes; nor should the old poet's philosophy have thought proper to gainsay it. Nevertheless, as the mysteries of the conscience are more awful things than any merely gratuitous terror (besides leaving optical phenomena quite as real as the latter may find them), even the supernatural part of the story becomes probable when we consider the agitations which the noble mind of Wallace may have undergone during such trying physical circumstances, and such extremes of moral responsibility. It seems clear, that however necessary the death of Fawdon may have been to his companions, or to Scotland, his slayer regretted it; I have suggested the kind of reason which he would most likely have had for the regret; and, upon the whole, it is my opinion, that Wallace actually saw the visions, and that the legend originated in the fact. I do not mean to imply that Fawdon became present, embodied or disembodied, whatever may have been the case with his spectre. I only say that what the legend reports Wallace to have seen, was actually in the hero's eyes. The remainder of the question I leave to the psychologist.
PART THE FIRST.
Wallace with his sixteen men Is on his weary way; They have hasting been all night, And hasting been all day; And now, to lose their only hope, They hear the bloodhound bay. The bloodhound's bay comes down the wind, Right upon the road; Town and tower are yet to pass, With not a friend's abode. Wallace neither turn'd nor spake; Closer drew the men; Little had they said that day, But most went cursing then. Oh! to meet twice sixteen foes Coming from English ground, And leave their bodies on the track, To cheat King Edward's hound Oh! to overtake one wretch That left them in the fight, And leave him cloven to the ribs, To mock the bloody spite. Suddenly dark Fawdon stopp'd, As they near'd a town; He stumbled with a desperate oath, And cast him fiercely down. He said, "The leech took all my strength, My body is unblest; Come dog, come devil, or English rack, Here must Fawdon rest." Fawdon was an Irishman, Had join'd them in the war; Four orphan children waited him Down by Eden Scawr. But Wallace hated Fawdon's ways, That were both fierce and shy; And at his words he turn'd, and said, "That's a traitor's lie. "No thought is thine of lingering here, A captive for the hound; Thine eye is bright; thy lucky flesh Hath not a single wound: The moment we depart, the lane Will see thee from the ground." Fawdon would not speak nor stir, Speak as any might; Scorn'd or sooth'd, he sat and lour'd As though in angry spite. Wallace drew a little back, And waved his men apart; And Fawdon half leap'd up, and cried, "Thou wilt not have the heart!" Wallace with his dreadful sword, Without further speech, Clean cut off dark Fawdon's head, Through its stifled screech: Through its stifled screech, and through The arm that fenc'd his brow; And Fawdon, as he leap'd, fell dead, And safe is Wallace now. Safe is Wallace with his men, And silent is the hound; And on their way to Castle Gask They quit the sullen ground.
PART THE SECOND.
Wallace lies in Castle Gask, Resting with his men; Not a soul has come, three days, Within the warder's ken. Resting with his men is Wallace, Yet he fareth ill There are tumults in his blood, And pangs upon his will. It was night, and all were housed, Talking long and late; Who is this that blows the horn At the castle-gate? Who is this that blows a horn Which none but Wallace hears? Loud and louder grows the blast In his frenzied ears. He sends by twos, he sends by threes, He sends them all to learn; He stands upon the stairs, and calls But none of them return. Wallace flung him forth down stairs; And there the moonlight fell Across the yard upon a sight, That makes him seem in hell Fawdon's headless trunk he sees, With an arm in air, Brandishing his bloody head By the swinging hair. Wallace with a stifled screech Turn'd and fled amain, Up the stairs, and through the bowers, With a burning brain: From a window Wallace leap'd Fifteen feet to ground, And never stopp'd till fast within A nunnery's holy bound. And then he turn'd, in gasping doubt, To see the fiend retire, And saw him not at hand, but saw Castle Gask on fire. All on fire was Castle Gask; And on its top, endued With the bulk of half a tower, Headless Fawdon stood. Wide he held a burning beam, And blackly fill'd the light; His body seem'd, by some black art, To look at Wallace, heart to heart, Threatening through the night. Wallace that day week arose From a feeble bed; And gentle though he was before, Yet now to orphans evermore He gentlier bow'd his head.