The Wolfe of Badenoch again—The Burning of Elgin Cathedral.
The Franciscan left the Lady Beatrice with the nuns of the
establishment, and hastened to present himself before the Bishop of
Moray, who was then at his Palace of Spynie, at some distance from the
town. He found the good man in deep conference with some of his canons,
and he received him joyfully.
“Blessed be St. Francis that thou art arrived, Friar John,” said the
Bishop aloud, after they had whispered together apart. “Thou comest
right seasonably, seeing we do discuss the endless theme of the Wolfe
of Badenoch.”
“What! my Lord Bishop of Moray,” cried the Franciscan, “hath that
destroying angel been again let loose, to invade the holy territory of
the Church?—to burn and to devastate?”
“Nay, nay, Friar John,” replied the Bishop, “for this time the news we
have to tell thee are good. The King hath sent a body of troops to
dispossess his sacrilegious son from our Badenoch lands, and they are
now again in the hands of the tenants of the Church. What sayest thou
to this?”
“Um,” replied the Franciscan, doubtfully shaking his head—“and do the
King’s troops tarry in Badenoch, to guard the possessions of the
Church?”
“Nay, that I do not believe,” replied the Bishop, “but methinks he will
hardly try so daring an attempt again.”
“Hast thou brought down his proud spirit, then, to entreat on his knees
for the removal of thine anathema?” demanded the Friar.
“Nay, as well hope to make the eagle stoop to the earth, and quail
before me,” replied the Bishop.
“In truth, then, my Lord Bishop,” said the Franciscan, “thou mayest as
well hope to reclaim the eagle, so that he shall sit on thy wrist like
a falcon, as look for a peace from the Wolfe of Badenoch.”
“Dost thou indeed think so?” demanded the Bishop. “Methought that after
his Royal father’s reproof, and this his late signal interference
against him, we might have looked for peace. Something must be tried,
then. To thee, Friar John, we shall look for counsel, and the sooner we
do have it the better. So shall we straightway ride with thee to Elgin,
and summon a Chapter, that we may consider of this weighty matter.”
The Franciscan accordingly returned to the town with the Bishop and his
attendants, and such of the canons as were within call were immediately
summoned. The Bishop then occupied his stall within the Chapter-House,
supported by his Dean, Archdean, Chancellor, and Chanter; and the other
members having taken their places, they remained some hours in council.
When the Chapter broke up, the Bishop held some private conference with
the Franciscan, and then permitted him to go to his lodging in the
Maison Dieu, whither he was happy to retire, being overpowered by
exhaustion from his late fatigues, and glad to be at last allowed to
seek the needful refreshment of a few hours’ rest.
The vesper hymn had died away through the lengthened aisles of the
venerable Cathedral; every note of labour or of mirth was silenced
within the town. The weary burghers were sunk in sleep, and even the
members of the various holy fraternities had retired to their repose.
No eye was awake, save those of a few individuals among the religious,
who, having habits of more than ordinary severity of discipline, had
doomed themselves to wear the hard pavement with their bare knees, and
the hours in endless repetition of penitential prayers before the
shrine of the Virgin, or the image of some favourite saint. Not even a
dog was heard to stir in the streets. They were as dark, too, as they
were silent; for, with the exception of a feeble lamp or two, that
burned in niches, before the little figures set up here and there for
Popish worship, there was nothing to interrupt the deep obscurity that
prevailed.
Suddenly the sound of a large body of horsemen was heard entering the
town from the west. The dreams of the burghers were broken, and they
were roused from their slumbers; the casements were opened, one after
another, as the band passed along, and many a curious head was thrust
out. They moved on alertly, without talking; but although they uttered
no sounds, and were but dimly seen, the clank of their weapons, and of
their steel harness, told well enough that they were no band of vulgar,
peace-loving merchants, but a troop of stirring men-at-arms; and many
was the cheek that blenched, and many was the ejaculation that escaped
the shuddering lips of the timid burghers, as they shrunk within their
houses at the alarming conviction. They crossed and blessed themselves
after the warriors had passed by, and each again sought his bed.
But the repose of the inhabitants was for that night doomed to be
short. Distant shrieks of despair, mingled with shouts of exultation,
began to arise in the neighbourhood of the Cathedral and the College,
in which all the houses of the canons were clustered; and soon the town
was alarmed from its centre to its suburbs by the confused cries of
half-naked fugitives, who hurried along into the country, as if rushing
from some dreadful danger.
“Fire, fire!—murder!—fire, fire!—the Wolfe of Badenoch!”
The terrible name of the fell Earl of Buchan was enough, of itself, to
have spread universal panic through the town, even in the midst of
broad sunshine. But darkness now magnified their fears. Every one
hastened to huddle on what garments might be at hand, and to seize what
things were most valuable and portable; and all, without exception—men,
women, and children—hurried out into the streets, to seek immediate
safety in flight. As the crowd pressed onwards, scarcely daring to look
behind them, they beheld the intense darkness of the night invaded by
flames that began to shoot upwards in fitful jets. The screams and the
shouts rang in their ears, and they quickened their trembling speed;
their voices subdued by fear, as they went, into indistinct whispers of
horror. No one dared to stop; but, urging on his own steps, he dragged
after him those of his feeble parents, or tottering wife, or helpless
children.
Those who were most timorous, halted not until they had hid themselves
in the neighbouring woods; but those whose curiosity was in some degree
an equipoise to their fears, stopped to look behind them whenever a
view of the town could be obtained, that they might judge of, and
lament over, the devastation that was going forward. Already they could
see that the College, the Church of St. Giles, and the Hospital of the
Maison Dieu, were burning; but these were all forgotten, as they beheld
the dire spectacle of the Cathedral, illuminated throughout all the
rich tracery of its Gothic windows by a furious fire, that was already
raging high within it. Groans and lamentations burst from their hearts,
and loud curses were poured out on the impious heads of those whose
fury had led them to destroy so glorious a fabric, an edifice which
they had been taught to venerate from their earliest infancy, and to
which they were attached by every association, divine and human, that
could possibly bind the heart of man. In the midst of their wailings,
the pitchy vault of heaven began to be reddened by the glare of the
spreading conflagration; and the loud and triumphant shouts that now
arose, unmingled with those cries of terror which had at first blended
with them, too plainly told that the power of the destroyer was
resistless.
As the Lady Beatrice and the Franciscan were the last comers among the
crowd of pilgrims and travellers who that night filled the charitable
caravansera of the Maison Dieu, they had been put to lodge in the very
uppermost storey of the antique and straggling building. The lady
occupied a chamber at the extremity of a long passage, running through
one wing that was dedicated to the use of the few sisters who inhabited
the Hospital, and their female guests. The Franciscan was thrust into a
little turret room that hung from one angle of a gable at the very
opposite end of the edifice, being connected with the garrets that lay
over that wing occupied by the preaching brethren and the guests of
their own sex. There was no direct communication between the opposite
parts of the building where the lady and the friar were lodged. The
main stair, that opened from the doorway of the Hospital, arose within
the body of the house, and several narrow passages branched off from
it, having separate stairs leading to the different parts of the higher
regions.
The brethren and sisters of the institution, as well as the numerous
temporary inmates of its various chambers, were alarmed by the shrieks
that arose when the firebrands were at first applied to the Cathedral,
and the houses of the clergy connected with it. Neither the permanent
nor the accidental tenants of the house had much personal property to
remove, and what they had was instantly carried out by a general rush
into the courtyard, whence they hastily escaped, each prompted by a
desire of self-preservation. Not so the Lady Beatrice and the
Franciscan. Both of them had suffered so much from want of natural
rest, and the monk especially had undergone fatigue of body so
lengthened and so severe during the protracted storm they had lately
had to struggle with, that they lay as unconscious of the noise as if
their senses had been locked up by the influence of some powerful
opiate. The Lady Beatrice, indeed, was half awakened by the din
occasioned by the escape of those who were in the house. But she had
been dreaming of the ship and of the sea, and the hurry of the
retreating steps and the confused voice of alarm having speedily
subsided within the Hospital, she turned again to enjoy a more profound
repose, believing it was her fancy that had made her imagine she had
heard the sound of the waves and the winds, and the bustling tread of
the mariners.
Again a noise came that increased and jarred in her ears, and a vivid
light arose that flickered through the casement into the place where
she lay, and falling strongly on her face, her silken eyelashes were
gradually opened, and, terror seizing upon her, she sprang at once from
her couch to the window. Then it was that she beheld the court of the
Hospital below filled with mounted men-at-arms, together with numbers
on foot, who seemed to be active agents in kindling combustibles, by
the employment of which the whole main body of the building was already
in flames—as she could easily guess from the suffocating smoke that
arose, and the red glare that was thrown over the features of those
who, with their faces turned upwards, were watching the progress of the
devouring element with a fiendish expression of satisfaction.
Half-dead with fear, the Lady Beatrice began to hurry on her garments,
doubtful, in the state of distraction she was thrown into, whether she
might or ought to hope to escape from the fire, since she could not
possibly do so without exposing herself to the fury of a savage band,
whose present occupation was enough to proclaim them enemies of the
most reckless description. She was bewildered, and knew not what to do.
The towers and spires of the Cathedral were blazing like gigantic
torches. The darkness of night seemed to be put to flight, and distant
yells arising from time to time, proclaimed the multitude who were
actors in this scene of ruin.
But the more pressing danger brought her at last to recollection, and
she rushed from her chamber to make an effort to escape. Already were
the narrow passages filled with a stifling smoke, which she made some
faint efforts to penetrate; but finding it impossible to proceed, she
returned to her chamber, and, throwing herself upon her knees, grew
faint from despair. Recovering herself in some degree, she grasped her
croslet, and began offering up her prayers for that mercy in the next
world of which she believed she had now no hope in this; and, as she
was so employed, she thought she felt the very boards heating beneath
her. She sprang to her feet, and again approached the open casement,
that she might breathe more freely. At that moment a loud murmur,
rather than a cry, arose in the court below.
“He cometh—’tis he—’tis he himself.—The Earl—the Earl of Buchan—the
Wolfe of Badenoch!—Hush!”—And their clamour was instantly silenced.
“Out o’ my way,” cried the Wolfe of Badenoch, as, armed cap-a-pie, and
with his vizor up, he came galloping furiously in at the Gothic
gateway, followed by his four younger sons, and some forty or fifty
mounted spearmen and axemen. The pavement rattled under the clatter of
their iron shod hooves, and their polished mail flashed back the blaze
of the flaming edifice.
“Ha, ha, ha! by all the fiends, but the mischief doth work well here
too,” shouted he laughing wildly as he reined up his steed, with a
check that threw him backwards on his haunches; “yet this is but baby’s
work compared to the blazing towers yonder—ha, ha, ha! The haughty pile
on the which the pride of that scurvy Priest-Bishop hath heretofore
been so loftily perched, will soon be prostrate amidst its own dust and
ashes. Ha! by the beard of my grandfather, but it is a glorious
vengeance. What was the brenning of Forres to this?—ha, ha, ha! Not a
hole shall these corbies have to hide their heads in. Every nest
polluted by these stinking carrions shall be levelled. Such be the fate
of those who dare to contend with the Wolfe of Badenoch! But have all
escaped from this burning house? I would not have the hair of a human
head singed—not a hair of a head, I tell ye. Didst thou see all escape
them hence?”
“I did, my noble Lord,” replied one of his esquires, who had
superintended the execution of this part of his commands; “with our own
eyes did we see them, as we arrived, scour from the walls, like an army
of mice from a hollow cheese.”
“Ha! by my faith, but thou liest, villain,” cried the Wolfe, turning
hastily round, and levelling the speaker to the earth with one blow of
his truncheon; “thou dost lie black as hell. By all that is unlucky, I
did even now behold a female form at yonder window. Nay, now the smoke
doth hide it; but—see, see—ha! why hath it been so, knaves? Did I not
warn ye all that not a life should be tint?”
“Help, help, Lord Badenoch,” cried the Lady Beatrice—“help, help, or I
perish! The boards burn.—Help, help, for the love of mercy—for the love
of the blessed Virgin, save me, save me!”
“By the holy mass, I should know that voice,” cried the Wolfe of
Badenoch; “nay, ’tis she indeed, or ’tis her wraith I do behold.”
“’Tis some evil spirit, father,” said Sir Andrew Stewart, who had
accompanied his father in this expedition, not willingly, but because
the Wolfe of Badenoch had resolved that he should have a share in it.
“Evil spirit!” cried the Wolfe, turning angrily around on him; “ha!
’tis thou who art the evil spirit, son Andrew. Thou darest not to look
on her whom thou wouldst have injured. But, by this hand, thou shalt.
The damsel shall not perish, if I can help her. I will go rescue her,
and thou, son Andrew, shalt follow me.”
“Nay, try not anything so rash, father,” exclaimed Sir Andrew Stewart,
dreadfully alarmed to find that he was expected to participate in an
attempt so desperate; “the whole body of the house is in flames.”
“What, villain,” cried the Wolfe indignantly; “so, thou couldst love
the damsel to do her violence, and yet art base enow to shrink from the
glorious achievement of saving her life, or perishing in the attempt.
Unworthy whelp of the Wolfe of Badenoch! Dastard, dismount and in with
me, or, by the blood of the Bruce, the spears of my men-at-arms shall
goad thee to it.” And saying so, he sprang from his horse, while Sir
Andrew Stewart, though half-dead with fear, was compelled to follow him
with all the alertness that might have befitted a hero well stomached
for the desperate undertaking.
“What, Andrew going thither!” cried Walter Stewart, leaping from his
horse; “by this hand, but I shall in too, then.”
“And so shall I,” cried James, following his brother’s example.
“And by my beard that is to grow,” cried the boy Duncan, “but I shall
not be left behind.”
“Nay, stay, Sir Duncan,” cried an esquire. “By the mass, but he is in
after the others; and what will my Lord say if anything doth befall
him? He loveth the boy more than all the rest put together. I’ll in
after him.” Upon which the man rushed in, followed by a crowd of the
others, who were equally afraid of the rage that might fall upon their
heads for having permitted the boy to escape from them.
And now a terrible scene ensued. The crowd who entered soon wedged
themselves in the narrow passages just within the doorway, so that they
could neither advance nor retreat. The smoke accumulated about them
from the stoppage of its vent. They struggled and crushed, and poured
out half-choked curses. Some fell, and were trampled under foot; and at
length the voice of the Wolfe was heard from within—
“Ha! clear the passage, or I am suffocated; clear the passage,
villains, or I will murder ye all.”
The fear of their violent master did for them what they could not
before accomplish. An unusual exertion on the part of those who were
outermost extricated them from the doorway, and the passage being now
less wedged, the force from within sent them all out headlong into the
court, and out rushed the Wolfe, nearly spent by the continued
suffocation he had endured.
“By all that is miraculous, I do believe that it was a spirit after
all,” said the Wolfe, half in soliloquy, as soon as he had gathered
breath to speak; “I did make my way to the chamber where she did
appear, and she was not there; nor was she anywhere else to be seen.
Such tricks of fancy are often played by sprites. And how, after all,
could she have been there—she who must be even now in Norham? But, ha!”
cried he aloud, “what figure is that I do now behold in yonder hanging
towernet that doth blaze so fiercely?”
All eyes were now directed towards the spot he had indicated, and
there, to the astonishment of every one, appeared the form of the
Franciscan, brightly illumined by the jets of flame that surrounded it.
“Holy Virgin!” cried his followers, crossing themselves, “’tis a
sprite—’tis a devil. Mercy on us, ’tis no monk, but something unholy,”
cried half-a-dozen voices.
The teeth of the stern Wolfe himself were heard to chatter as he gazed
on his old enemy, of the reality of whose present appearance he almost
doubted. The keen eyes and strongly expressive countenance of the Friar
were now wildly distorted by the alarm which had seized him, on
suddenly awaking from the deep sleep he had been plunged in, and
finding himself surrounded by all the horrors of the most dreadful of
deaths. A red and unearthly light was thrown on his features, and
broadly illumined his tonsure, giving him a most terrific and ghastly
look. It was, therefore, little to be wondered that even the
hardy-minded Wolfe of Badenoch should have for an instant believed that
it was the Devil he beheld.
“By all the fiends of hell, ’tis wonderful!” cried he, as he stood
fixed in a kind of stupor.
“Help, help!” cried the Franciscan.
“Ha!” cried the Wolfe, recovering himself, “if thou be’st in very deed
the chough Friar, bren, bren, and welcome. But if thou be’st the Devil,
thou mayest well enow help thyself.”
“Help, in mercy help!” cried the Franciscan; “a ladder, a ladder.”
“A ladder!” cried the Wolfe, now sufficiently reassured, and becoming
convinced that it really was the very Franciscan in true flesh who had
so bearded him at Lochyndorbe, and no phantom nor demon. “Ha! prating
chough, is it thee, in troth? A ladder, saidst thou? Thou couldst have
lacked a ladder but for thy hanging, and now thou needst it not, seeing
thou art in the way of dying a better death.”
“Help, help!” cried the unfortunate wretch, who seemed hardly to have
yet gained a knowledge of those who were below.
“Help!” repeated the Wolfe; “by my trusty burlybrand, but I shall hew
down the first villain who doth but move to give thee help. What, did I
say that no hair of life should be touched? By the blessed bones of
mine ancestors, but there lacked only this accident to make my revenge
complete. Ha, ha, ha! did I not swear, thou grey-hooded crow, that as
thou didst escape from the pit of water, thou shouldst be tried next by
the fire? By my head, I did little imagine that I should thus so soon
see thee bren before mine eyes; and bren thou shalt, for no man of mine
shall risk the singeing of his beard to pluck thee from the destruction
thine atrocious tongue has so well merited.”
The monk disappeared for some moments, and soon afterwards, to the
astonishment of all, was seen making his way along the roof through
volumes of flame and smoke. Every eye in the court below was turned
towards him. It seemed impossible that anything but a demon could have
clambered where he went. Again he was lost to their eyes, and anon he
appeared in the very room which had been lately occupied by the Lady
Beatrice. He shrieked out her name; was again invisible; and then,
again, was seen in all the upper apartments, one after another. At last
they saw him no longer.
“He is either the Devil himself, or he is brent by this time,”
whispered some of the awe-stricken followers of the Wolfe.
In an instant he again appeared on the top of the turret in which he
had been first seen; the flames arose everywhere around him; terrible
was his aspect, and an involuntary shudder crept through the silent
crowd.
“Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, and Lord of Badenoch,” cried he
with an appalling voice, whilst he threw his arms abroad, in an
attitude befitting the denunciation he was about to pour out—“the red
hand of thine iniquity hath again lifted the firebrand of destruction,
but as thou hast kindled these holy piles dedicated to God, so shall
the wrath of the Almighty be kindled against thee. The measure of thine
iniquity is now full, and yonder flaming heavens do bear witness to thy
crimes. Seest thou yonder fiery cloud that doth now float over thy
devoted head? There sitteth the Angel of Vengeance, ready to descend on
thee and thine. Prepare—for instant and direful punishment doth await
thee.”
The monk again disappeared. The Wolfe of Badenoch looked upwards to the
sky, and beheld the fiery cloud that hung as it were over him. Fancy
depicted in it a countenance that looked down upon him in terrible ire.
He gnashed his teeth, and his features blackened. At that moment
shrieks arose from the higher chambers of the building.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha!—let him die,” cried the Wolfe, clenching his fists and
laughing wildly; “let the villain die, I say.”
The shrieks came again, and louder.
“Ha! what voice was that?” exclaimed the Wolfe, in an altered tone, and
in considerable agitation.
“Help, help!” cried a voice, and a figure appeared at an upper window,
in the midst of the flames.
“Oh God!” cried the Wolfe, in an agony, “my son, my son!—my dearest
boy, Duncan? Save him, save him—save my child!”
With the fury of a maniac he rushed fearlessly towards the burning
building. His people sprang after him. He had already reached the
doorway, when the central stair fell with a tremendous crash within;
and had not his followers dragged him back the instant before, he must
have been crushed beneath the descending ruin.
“Father, father!” cried a piteous voice from the ground.
“Walter,” cried the unhappy Wolfe of Badenoch, running to lift up his
son, “what hath befallen thee?—Speak.”
“I was knocked down and crushed by the men-at-arms as they rushed
outwards,” said the youth faintly; “I do feel as if I had tane some
sore inward bruises.”
“Merciful God!” cried the miserable father, removing his son farther
from the danger. “But where is James?” demanded he, looking wildly
about him.
“He also fell near me,” said Walter.
The attendants now ran forward, and amongst several wounded people who
lay on the pavement they found and raised James Stewart, who was only
known to be alive by his quick breathing. But the distracted father had
little leisure to attend to either of these his wounded sons, and in an
instant they were abandoned to the care of those about him; for the boy
Duncan, his youngest and his darling child, the pride of his heart, was
again heard to shriek from an upper window. The flames were rioting
triumphantly within, and every possible approach to him was cut off.
“Ladders, ladders!” cried he, in a frenzy; and his people set off in a
hopeless search of what he called for.
“Ladders!” cried the Franciscan, with a voice like thunder, as he
unexpectedly appeared behind the boy; “ladders! how dost thou dare to
call for that help which thou didst refuse to yield to others? Now doth
thy fiendish joy begin to be transmewed into mourning, thou accursed
instrument in the hands of an incensed God. Already do two of thy
lawless brood lie on that pavement, to be carried home with thee to
linger and die; and now this child, thy youngest and dearest, shall be
lost to thee by a more speedy fate.” He caught up the boy in his sinewy
arms with a savage laugh of triumph, and held him aloft with a gripe so
powerful, that his puny efforts to escape were utterly hopeless. “Ha,
ha, ha! now may I laugh in my turn,” cried the Franciscan, with a yell
that struck to the heart of the Wolfe of Badenoch, and subdued him at
once.
“Mercy!” cried he, clasping his hands and wringing them together, and
his breath came thick and laborious, so that he could hardly find
utterance, as he looked up with stretched eyeballs, expecting every
instant to behold the horrible spectacle of his best beloved son’s
destruction. “Mercy!—fiend!—ha!—Ladders, ladders!—Oh, mercy, mercy!—Oh,
spare my boy!—Oh, mercy, mercy—mercy on my boy!” He sank down on his
knees, his broad chest heaving to his very cuirass with its labouring
respiration, and his lips moving, even after all power of utterance was
denied him.
“Ha! mercy, saidst thou?” cried the Franciscan, with a contemptuous
smile and a glaring eye; “what, mercy to thee—to thee, who hath no
mercy!—mercy to thee, who hath incurred God’s highest wrath!—mercy to
thee, who hath wrapped all these holy buildings, and these dwellings of
God’s peaceful servants and people, in impious flames!—thou, who wert
but now revelling in the hellish joy of thy daring sacrilege—mercy to
thee!—mercy meanly begged, too, from him whom thou didst but this
moment doom to the most cruel death! Ha, ha, ha! But my life or death
is not in thy weak power to withhold. My life will be preserved by Him
who gave it, that it may yet fulfil the purpose for which He did bestow
it. Thy fate doth hang in my grasp, and the gripe which I do now hold
of this frail fragment of thyself,” continued he, lifting up the
trembling boy in a terrific manner, “is but a symbol of the power which
God hath given me over thee to force thee to repentance.”
“Oh, spare, spare, spare!” cried the miserable Lord of Badenoch, bereft
of all thought but of his son’s fate.
The boy screamed for help, but the ruthless Franciscan laughed
savagely, and then sprang backwards with him through the flames.
The wretched Lord of Badenoch remained fixed on his knees, his face
still turned upwards, and his eyes fastened on the casement so lately
occupied by the figures of the Franciscan and his lost boy. It was now
filled by a sheet of brilliant flame. His lips muttered, and “Mercy—oh,
mercy!” were still the only words that escaped them. His followers
crowded around him in dismay, the whole group being broadly illuminated
by the fire, which had now gained complete mastery over the interior of
the building.