Sir Scott - Ivanhoe

Meanwhile, the lord of the beleaguered and endangered castle lay upon a bed of bodily pain and mental agony. He had not the usual resource of bigots in that superstitious period, most of whom were wont to atone for the crimes they were guilty of by liberality to the church, stupifying by this means their terrors by the idea of atonement and forgiveness; and although the refuge which success thus purchased was no more like to the peace of mind which follows on sincere repentance than the turbid stupefaction procured by opium resembles healthy and natural slumbers, it was still a state of mind preferable to the agonies of awakened remorse. But among the vices of Front-de-Bœuf, a hard and griping man, avarice was predominant; and he preferred setting church and churchmen at defiance to purchasing from them pardon and absolution at the price of treasure and of manors. Nor did the Templar, an infidel of another stamp, justly characterize his associate when he said Front-de-Bœuf could assign no cause for his unbelief and contempt for the established faith; for the baron would have alleged that the church sold her wares too dear, that the spiritual freedom which she put up to sale was only to be bought, like that of the chief captain of Jerusalem, “with a great sum,” and Front-de-Bœuf preferred denying the virtue of the medicine to paying the expense of the physician.

But the moment had now arrived when earth and all his treasures were gliding from before his eyes, and when the savage baron’s heart, though hard as a nether millstone, became appalled as he gazed forward into the waste darkness of futurity. The fever of his body aided the impatience and agony of his mind, and his death-bed exhibited a mixture of the newly-awakened feelings of horror combating with the fixed and inveterate obstinacy of his disposition—a fearful state of mind, only to be equalled in those tremendous regions where there are complaints without hope, remorse without repentance, a dreadful sense of present agony, and a presentiment that it cannot cease or be diminished!

“Where be these dog-priests now,” growled the baron, “who set such price on their ghostly mummery?—where be all those unshod Carmelites, for whom old Front-de-Bœuf founded the convent of St. Anne, robbing his heir of many a fair rood of meadow, and many a fat field and close—where be the greedy hounds now? Swilling, I warrant me, at the ale, or playing their juggling tricks at the bedside of some miserly churl. Me, the heir of their founder—me, whom their foundation binds them to pray for—me—ungrateful villains as they are!—they suffer to die like the houseless dog on yonder common, unshriven and unhouseled! ecTell the Templar to come hither; he is a priest, and may do something. But no! as well confess myself to the devil as to Brian de Bois-Guilbert, who recks neither of Heaven nor of Hell. I have heard old men talk of prayer—prayer by their own voice—such need not to court or to bribe the false priest. But I—I dare not!”

“Lives Reginald Front-de-Bœuf,” said a broken and shrill voice close by his bedside, “to say there is that which he dares not?”

The evil conscience and the shaken nerves of Front-de-Bœuf heard, in this strange interruption to his soliloquy, the voice of one of those demons who, as the superstition of the times believed, beset the beds of dying men, to distract their thoughts, and turn them from the meditations which concerned their eternal welfare. He shuddered and drew himself together; but, instantly summoning up his wonted resolution, he exclaimed, “Who is there? what are thou, that darest to echo my words in a tone like that of the night-raven? Come before my couch that I may see thee.”

“I am thine evil angel, Reginald Front-de-Bœuf,” replied the voice.

“Let me behold thee then in thy bodily shape, if thou be’st indeed a fiend,” replied the dying knight; “think not that I will blench from thee. By the eternal dungeon, could I but grapple with these horrors that hover round me as I have done with mortal dangers, Heaven or Hell should never say that I shrunk from the conflict!”

“Think on thy sins, Reginald Front-de-Bœuf,” said the almost unearthly voice—“on rebellion, on rapine, on murder! Who stirred up the licentious John to war against his grey-headed father—against his generous brother?”

“Be thou fiend, priest, or devil,” replied Front-de-Bœuf, “thou liest in thy throat! Not I stirred John to rebellion—not I alone; there were fifty knights and barons, the flower of the midland counties, better men never laid lance in rest. And must I answer for the fault done by fifty? False fiend, I defy thee! Depart, and haunt my couch no more. Let me die in peace if thou be mortal; if thou be a demon, thy time is not yet come.”

“In peace thou shalt NOT die,” repeated the voice; “even in death shalt thou think on thy murders—on the groans which this castle has echoed—on the blood that is engrained in its floors!”

“Thou canst not shake me by thy petty malice,” answered Front-de-Bœuf, with a ghastly and constrained laugh. “The infidel Jew—it was merit with Heaven to deal with him as I did, else wherefore are men canonised who dip their hands in the blood of Saracens? The Saxon porkers whom I have slain—they were the foes of my country, and of my lineage, and of my liege lord. Ho! ho! thou seest there is no crevice in my coat of plate. Art thou fled? art thou silenced?”

“No, foul parricide!” replied the voice; “think of thy father!— think of his death!—think of his banquet-room flooded with his gore, and that poured forth by the hand of a son!”

“Ha!” answered the Baron, after a long pause, “an thou knowest that, thou art indeed the Author of Evil, and as omniscient as the monks call thee! That secret I deemed locked in my own breast, and in that of one besides—the temptress, the partaker of my guilt. Go, leave me, fiend! and seek the Saxon witch Ulrica, who alone could tell thee what she and I alone witnessed. Go, I say, to her, who washed the wounds, and straighted the corpse, and gave to the slain man the outward show of one parted in time and in the course of nature. Go to her; she was my temptress, the foul provoker, the more foul rewarder, of the deed; let her, as well as I, taste of the tortures which anticipate Hell!”

“She already tastes them,” said Ulrica, stepping before the couch of Front-de-Bœuf; “she hath long drunken of this cup, and its bitterness is now sweetened to see that thou dost partake it. Grind not thy teeth, Front-de-Bœuf-roll not thine eyes—clench not thy hand, nor shake it at me with that gesture of menace! The hand which, like that of thy renowned ancestor who gained thy name, could have broken with one stroke the skull of a mountain-bull, is now unnerved and powerless as mine own!”

“Vile, murderous hag!” replied Front-de-Bœuf—“detestable screech-owl! it is then thou who art come to exult over the ruins thou hast assisted to lay low?”

“Ay, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf,” answered she, “it is Ulrica!—it is the daughter of the murdered Torquil Wolfganger!—it is the sister of his slaughtered sons! it is she who demands of thee, and of thy father’s house, father and kindred, name and fame—all that she has lost by the name of Front-de-Bœuf! Think of my wrongs, Front-de-Bœuf, and answer me if I speak not truth. Thou hast been my evil angel, and I will be thine: I will dog thee till the very instant of dissolution!”

“Detestable fury!” exclaimed Front-de-Bœuf, “that moment shalt thou never witness. Ho! Giles, Clement, and Eustace! St. Maur and Stephen! seize this damned witch, and hurl her from the battlements headlong; she has betrayed us to the Saxon! Ho! St. Maur! Clement! false-hearted knaves, where tarry ye?”