Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott

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``But you maintained your post?'' said the Templar.
``We lost the outwork on our part.''

``That is a shrewd loss,'' said De Bracy; ``the
knaves will find cover there to assault the castle
more closely, and may, if not well watched, gain
some unguarded corner of a tower, or some forgotten
window, and so break in upon us. Our numbers
are too few for the defence of every point, and
the men complain that they can nowhere show
themselves, but they are the mark for as many arrows
as a parish-butt on a holyday even. Front-de-Buf
is dying too, so we shall receive no more
aid from his bull's head and brutal strength. How
think you, Sir Brian, were we not better make a
virtue of necessity, and compound with the rogues
by delivering up our prisoners?''

``How?'' exclaimed the Templar; ``deliver up
our prisoners, and stand an object alike of ridicule
and execration, as the doughty warriors who dared
by a night-attack to possess themselves of the persons
of a party of defenceless travellers, yet could
not make good a strong castle against a vagabond
troop of outlaws, led by swineherds, jesters, and
the very refuse of mankind?---Shame on thy counsel,
Maurice de Bracy!---The ruins of this castle
shall bury both my body and my shame, ere I consent
to such base and dishonourable composition.''

``Let us to the walls, then,'' said De Bracy, carelessly;
``that man never breathed, be he Turk or
Templar, who held life at lighter rate than I do.
But I trust there is no dishonour in wishing I had
here some two scores of my gallant troop of Free
Companions?---Oh, my brave lances! if ye knew
but how hard your captain were this day bested,
how soon should I see my banner at the head of
your clump of spears! And how short while would
these rabble villains stand to endure your encounter!''

``Wish for whom thou wilt,'' said the Templar,
``but let us make what defence we can with the
soldiers who remain---They are chiefly Front-de-Buf's
followers, hated by the English for a thousand
acts of insolence and oppression.''

``The better,'' said De Bracy; ``the rugged
slaves will defend themselves to the last drop of
their blood, ere they encounter the revenge of the
peasants without. Let us up and be doing, then,
Brian de Bois-Guilbert; and, live or die, thou shalt
see Maurice de Bracy bear himself this day as a
gentleman of blood and lineage.''
``To the walls!'' answered the Templar; and
they both ascended the battlements to do all that
skill could dictate, and manhood accomplish, in defence
of the place. They readily agreed that the
point of greatest danger was that opposite to the
outwork of which the assailants had possessed
themselves. The castle, indeed, was divided from
that barbican by the moat, and it was impossible
that the besiegers could assail the postern-door,
with which the outwork corresponded, without surmounting
that obstacle; but it was the opinion both
of the Templar and De Bracy, that the besiegers,
if governed by the same policy their leader had already
displayed, would endeavour, by a formidable
assault, to draw the chief part of the defenders'
observation to this point, and take measures to avail
themselves of every negligence which might take
place in the defence elsewhere. To guard against
such an evil, their numbers only permitted the
knights to place sentinels from space to space along
the walls in communication with each other, who
might give the alarm whenever danger was threatened.
Meanwhile, they agreed that De Bracy should
command the defence at the postern, and the Templar
should keep with him a score of men or thereabouts
as a body of reserve, ready to hasten to any
other point which might be suddenly threatened.
The loss of the barbican had also this unfortunate
effect, that, notwithstanding the superior height of
the castle walls, the besieged could not see from
them, with the same precision as before, the operations
of the enemy; for some straggling underwood
approached so near the sallyport of the outwork,
that the assailants might introduce into it
whatever force they thought proper, not only under
cover, but even without the knowledge of the
defenders. Utterly uncertain, therefore, upon what
point the storm was to burst, De Bracy and his
companion were under the necessity of providing
against every possible contingency, and their followers,
however brave, experienced the anxious
dejection of mind incident to men enclosed by enemies,
who possessed the power of choosing their
time and mode of attack.

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, stupefying 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-Buf,
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 characterise his associate, when
he said Front-de-Buf 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-Buf 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-Buf 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 tinhouseled!---Tell
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-Buf,'' 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-Buf 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 art 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-Buf,''
replied the voice.

``Let me behold thee then in thy bodily shape,
if thou best 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-Buf,''
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-Buf,
``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-Buf, 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 canonized 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-Buf; ``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-Buf---roll not thine eyes
---clench not thine 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-Buf;
``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-Buf,'' 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-Buf!---Think of my wrongs, Front-de-Buf,
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-Buf,
``that moment shalt thou never witness---Ho!
Giles, Clement, and Eustace! Saint Maur, and
Stephen! seize this damned witch, and hurl her
from the battlements headlong---she has betrayed
us to the Saxon!---Ho! Saint Maur! Clement!
false-hearted, knaves, where tarry ye?''

``Call on them again, valiant Baron,'' said the
hag, with a smile of grisly mockery; ``summon thy
vassals around thee, doom them that loiter to the
scourge and the dungeon---But know, mighty chief,''
she continued, suddenly changing her tone, ``thou
shalt have neither answer, nor aid, nor obedience
at their hands.---Listen to these horrid sounds,''
for the din of the recommenced assault and defence
now rung fearfully loud from the battlements of
the castle; ``in that war-cry is the downfall of thy
house---The blood-cemented fabric of Front-de-Buf's
power totters to the foundation, and before
the foes he most despised!---The Saxon, Reginald!
---the scorned Saxon assails thy walls!---Why liest
thou here, like a worn-out hind, when the Saxon
storms thy place of strength?''

``Gods and fiends!'' exclaimed the wounded
knight; ``O, for one moment's strength, to drag
myself to the _mle_, and perish as becomes my
name!''

``Think not of it, valiant warrior!'' replied she;
``thou shalt die no soldier's death, but perish like
the fox in his den, when the peasants have set fire
to the cover around it.''

``Hateful hag! thou liest!'' exclaimed Front-de-Buf;
``my followers bear them bravely---my
walls are strong and high---my comrades in arms
fear not a whole host of Saxons, were they headed
by Hengist and Horsa!---The war-cry of the Templar
and of the Free Companions rises high over
the conflict! And by mine honour, when we kindle
the blazing beacon, for joy of our defence, it shall
consume thee, body and bones; and I shall live to
hear thou art gone from earthly fires to those of
that hell, which never sent forth an incarnate fiend
more utterly diabolical!''

``Hold thy belief,'' replied Ulrica, ``till the
proof reach thee---But, no!'' she said, interrupting
herself, ``thou shalt know, even now, the doom,
which all thy power, strength, and courage, is unable
to avoid, though it is prepared for thee by this
feeble band. Markest thou the smouldering and
suffocating vapour which already eddies in sable
folds through the chamber?---Didst thou think it
was but the darkening of thy bursting eyes---the
difficulty of thy cumbered breathing?---No! Front-de-Buf,
there is another cause---Rememberest
thou the magazine of fuel that is stored beneath
these apartments?''

``Woman!'' he exclaimed with fury, ``thou hast
not set fire to it?---By heaven, thou hast, and the
castle is in flames!''

``They are fast rising at least,'' said Ulrica, with
frightful composure; ``and a signal shall soon wave
to warn the besiegers to press hard upon those
who would extinguish them.---Farewell, Front-de-Buf!
---May Mista, Skogula, and Zernebock,
gods of the ancient Saxons---fiends, as the priests
now call them---supply the place of comforters at
your dying bed, which Ulrica now relinquishes!---
But know, if it will give thee comfort to know it,
that Ulrica is bound to the same dark coast with
thyself, the companion of thy punishment as the
companion of thy guilt.---And now, parricide, farewell
for ever!---May each stone of this vaulted roof
find a tongue to echo that title into thine ear!''

So saying, she left the apartment; and Front-de-Buf
could hear the crash of the ponderous key,
as she locked and double-locked the door behind
her, thus cutting off the most slender chance of
escape. In the extremity of agony he shouted upon
his servants and allies--``Stephen and Saint Maur!
---Clement and Giles!---I burn here unaided!---
To the rescue---to the rescue, brave Bois-Guilbert,
valiant De Bracy!---It is Front-de-Buf who calls!
---It is your master, ye traitor squires!---Your ally
---your brother in arms, ye perjured and faithless
knights!---all the curses due to traitors upon your
recreant heads, do you abandon me to perish thus
miserably!---They hear me not---they cannot hear
me---my voice is lost in the din of battle.---The
smoke rolls thicker and thicker---the fire has caught
upon the floor below---O, for one drought of the
air of heaven, were it to be purchased by instant
annihilation!'' And in the mad frenzy of despair,
the wretch now shouted with the shouts of the
fighters, now muttered curses on himself, on mankind,
and on Heaven itself.---``The red fire flashes
through the thick smoke!'' he exclaimed; ``the
demon marches against me under the banner of his
own element---Foul spirit, avoid!---I go not with
thee without my comrades---all, all are thine, that
garrison these walls---Thinkest thou Front-de-Buf
will be singled out to go alone?---No---the
infidel Templar---the licentious De Bracy---Ulrica,
the foul murdering strumpet---the men who
aided my enterprises---the dog Saxons and accursed
Jews, who are my prisoners---all, all shall attend
me---a goodly fellowship as ever took the
downward road---Ha, ha, ha!'' and he laughed in
his frenzy till the vaulted roof rang again. ``Who
laughed there?'' exclaimed Front-de-Buf, in altered
mood, for the noise of the conflict did not
prevent the echoes of his own mad laughter from
returning upon his ear---``who laughed there?---
Ulrica, was it thou?---Speak, witch, and I forgive
thee---for, only thou or the fiend of hell himself
could have laughed at such a moment. Avaunt---avaunt!------''

But it were impious to trace any farther the
picture of the blasphemer and parricide's deathbed.

CHAPTER XXXI

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or, close the wall up with our English dead.
--------------- And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture---let us swear
That you are worth your breeding.
_King Henry V._

Cedric, although not greatly confident in Ulrica's
message, omitted not to communicate her
promise to the Black Knight and Locksley. They
were well pleased to find they had a friend within
the place, who might, in the moment of need, be
able to facilitate their entrance, and readily agreed
with the Saxon that a storm, under whatever disadvantages,
ought to be attempted, as the only means
of liberating the prisoners now in the hands of the
cruel Front-de-Buf.

``The royal blood of Alfred is endangered,'' said
Cedric.

``The honour of a noble lady is in peril,'' said
the Black Knight.

``And, by the Saint Christopher at my baldric,''
said the good yeoman, ``were there no other cause
than the safety of that poor faithful knave, Wamba,
I would jeopard a joint ere a hair of his head were
hurt.''

``And so would I,'' said the Friar; ``what, sirs!
I trust well that a fool---I mean, d'ye see me, sirs,
a fool that is free of his guild and master of his
craft, and can give as much relish and flavour to a
cup of wine as ever a flitch of bacon can---I say,
brethren, such a fool shall never want a wise clerk
to pray for or fight for him at a strait, while I can
say a mass or flourish a partisan.''
And with that he made his heavy halberd to play
around his head as a shepherd boy flourishes his
light crook.

``True, Holy Clerk,'' said the Black Knight,
``true as if Saint Dunstan himself had said it.---
And now, good Locksley, were it not well that
noble Cedric should assume the direction of this
assault?''

``Not a jot I,'' returned Cedric; ``I have never
been wont to study either how to take or how to
hold out those abodes of tyrannic power, which the
Normans have erected in this groaning land. I will
fight among the foremost; but my honest neighbours
well know I am not a trained soldier in the
discipline of wars, or the attack of strongholds.''

``Since it stands thus with noble Cedric,'' said
Locksley, ``I am most willing to take on me the
direction of the archery; and ye shall hang me up
on my own Trysting-tree, an the defenders be permitted
to show themselves over the walls without
being stuck with as many shafts as there are cloves
in a gammon of bacon at Christmas.''

``Well said, stout yeoman,'' answered the Black
Knight; ``and if I be thought worthy to have a
charge in these matters, and can find among these
brave men as many as are willing to follow a true
English knight, for so I may surely call myself, I
am ready, with such skill as my experience has
taught me, to lead them to the attack of these walls.''

The parts being thus distributed to the leaders,
they commenced the first assault, of which the
reader has already heard the issue.

When the barbican was carried, the Sable Knight
sent notice of the happy event to Locksley, requesting
him at the same time, to keep such a strict
observation on the castle as might prevent the defenders
from combining their force for a sudden
sally, and recovering the outwork which they had
lost. This the knight was chiefly desirous of avoiding,
conscious that the men whom he led, being
hasty and untrained volunteers, imperfectly armed
and unaccustomed to discipline, must, upon any sudden
attack, fight at great disadvantage with the
veteran soldiers of the Norman knights, who were
well provided with arms both defensive and offensive;
and who, to match the zeal and high spirit
of the besiegers, had all the confidence which arises
from perfect discipline and the habitual use of weapons.

The knight employed the interval in causing to
be constructed a sort of floating bridge, or long raft,
by means of which he hoped to cross the moat in
despite of the resistance of the enemy. This was
a work of some time, which the leaders the less regretted,
as it gave Ulrica leisure to execute her plan
of diversion in their favour, whatever that might be.

When the raft was completed, the Black Knight
addressed the besiegers:---``It avails not waiting
here longer, my friends; the sun is descending to
the west---and I have that upon my hands which
will not permit me to tarry with you another day.
Besides, it will be a marvel if the horsemen come
not upon us from York, unless we speedily accomplish
our purpose. Wherefore, one of ye go to
Locksley, and bid him commence a discharge of
arrows on the opposite side of the castle, and move
forward as if about to assault it; and you, true
English hearts, stand by me, and be ready to thrust
the raft endlong over the moat whenever the postern
on our side is thrown open. Follow me boldly
across, and aid me to burst yon sallyport in the
main wall of the castle. As many of you as like
not this service, or are but ill armed to meet it, do
you man the top of the outwork, draw your bow-strings
to your ears, and mind you quell with your
shot whatever shall appear to man the rampart---
Noble Cedric, wilt thou take the direction of those
which remain?''

``Not so, by the soul of Hereward!'' said the
Saxon; ``lead I cannot; but may posterity curse
me in my grave, if I follow not with the foremost
wherever thou shalt point the way---The quarrel is
mine, and well it becomes me to be in the van of
the battle.''

``Yet, bethink thee, noble Saxon,'' said the
knight, ``thou hast neither hauberk, nor corslet, nor
aught but that light helmet, target, and sword.''

``The better!'' answered Cedric; ``I shall be
the lighter to climb these walls. And,---forgive the
boast, Sir Knight,---thou shalt this day see the
naked breast of a Saxon as boldly presented to the
battle as ever ye beheld the steel corslet of a Norman.''

``In the name of God, then,'' said the knight,
``fling open the door, and launch the floating bridge.''

The portal, which led from the inner-wall of the
barbican to the moat, and which corresponded with
a sallyport in the main wall of the castle, was now
suddenly opened; the temporary bridge was then
thrust forward, and soon flashed in the waters, extending
its length between the castle and outwork,
and forming a slippery and precarious passage for
two men abreast to cross the moat. Well aware of
the importance of taking the foe by surprise, the
Black Knight, closely followed by Cedric, threw
himself upon the bridge, and reached the opposite
side. Here he began to thunder with his axe upon
the gate of the castle, protected in part from the
shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins
of the former drawbridge, which the Templar had
demolished in his retreat from the barbican, leaving
the counterpoise still attached to the upper part
of the portal. The followers of the knight had no
such shelter; two were instantly shot with cross-bow
bolts, and two more fell into the moat; the
others retreated back into the barbican.

The situation of Cedric and of the Black Knight
was now truly dangerous, and would have been still
more so, but for the constancy of the archers in the
barbican, who ceased not to shower their arrows
upon the battlements, distracting the attention of
those by whom they were manned, and thus affording
a respite to their two chiefs from the storm of
missiles which must otherwise have overwhelmed
them. But their situation was eminently perilous,
and was becoming more so with every moment.