The Wolfe of Badenoch: A Historical Romance of the Fourteenth Century

by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder

“Unroof his den,” cried he again; and two or three of the stoutest mounted forthwith on the flags of the roof, and by means of the crows and pick-axes began to tear them up with so much expedition, that they very soon laid the wood bare, and following up their work of devastation with the same energy, speedily and entirely demolished the roof, letting in the little light that yet remained of day upon the combatants.

The ancient Fenwick was now discovered lying on his back, his jaws wide open, his huge tusks displayed, and his mouth covered with foam, while his opponents were clustered over him like ants employed in overpowering a huge beetle. All their efforts to drag him out at the door had been quite unavailing. Though there were no weapons of edge or point among the combatants, many severe wounds and blows had been given and received, and blood flowed on the pavement in abundance. The Ancient’s teeth seemed to have done him good service after his arms had been mastered and rendered ineffectual to him, for many of his assailants bore deep and lasting impressions of his jaws on their hands and faces.

“In on the savage wizard now, overwhelm and bind him,” cried the Franciscan, with a devilish laugh of triumph.

At his word they scaled the roofless walls, and jumped down on the miserable wretch in such numbers that the place was literally packed. But the more that came on him the more furiously the Ancient defended himself, kicking, and heaving, and tossing some of them, till one of their number, laying his hand on a huge folio, made use of his code of necromancy against himself, and gave him a knock on the head that stunned him, and rendered him for some time insensible. Taking advantage of this circumstance, cords were hastily employed to bind his arms behind him; and a set of ropes being passed under him, he was with great difficulty hoisted from his den, and laid out at [[131]]length upon the platform of the keep. There he lay, breathing, to be sure, but in a temporary state of perfect insensibility.

Availing themselves of the swoon into which he had fallen, the assailants began to hold counsel how they were to get his unwieldy and unmanageable carcase down to the court-yard. To have attempted to carry it by the stairs would have been hopeless; a week would have hardly sufficed to have manœuvred it through their narrow intricacies. The only possible mode, therefore, was to let him down by means of ropes, over the outside walls of the keep. Accordingly strong loops were passed around his legs and under his arm-pits; and by the united exertions of some dozen of men, he was lifted up and projected over the battlements.

As they were lowering him down slowly and with great care, the wretched Ancient, recovering from his swoon, found himself dreadfully suspended between sky and earth; and looking upwards, and beholding the grim faces of the men who managed the ropes scowling over the battlements, strongly illuminated by the light of the torches they held, he was more than ever convinced that they were demons, nor did he doubt that he was already in the very commencement of those torments of the nether world which he had been condemned to undergo for his iniquity. He shrieked and kicked, and made such exertions, that the very ropes cracked, so that he ran imminent risk of breaking them, and of tumbling headlong to the bottom. Afraid of this, the people above began to lower him away more quickly, and the darkness below not permitting them to see the ground, so as to know when he had nearly reached it, his head came so rudely in contact with it that he was again thrown into a state of insensibility.

The whole men of the garrison, both within and without the keep, having now assembled around him, a white sheet was brought out by order of the Franciscan, and he was clothed in it as with a loose robe. A black cross was then painted on the breast, and another on the back of it, from the charitable motive of saving his soul from the hands of the Devil, after it should be purified from its sins by the fire his body was destined to undergo. A parchment cap of considerable altitude, and also ornamented with crosses, was next tied upon his head; and two long flambeaux were bound firmly, one on each side, above his ears. He was then carried to the pile of wood, and extended at length upon the top of it. The torches attached to his head were lighted, and the Franciscan, approaching the pile with a variety of ceremonies, set fire to it with much solemnity[[132]]—a grim smile of inward satisfaction lighting up his dark and stern features as he did so.

“Thus,” said he, “let all wizards and sorcerers perish, and thus let their cruel enchantments end with them.”

The anticipation of the horrific scene which was to ensue operated so powerfully on the vulgar crowd around, that a dead silence prevailed; and even those who, a few minutes before had shouted loudest and fought most furiously against the Ancient, now that they beheld the wretched victim laid upon the pile, and the fire slowly gaining strength, and rising more and more towards him—already hearing in fancy the piercing agony of his screams, and beholding in idea the horrible spectacle of his half-consumed limbs writhing with the torture of the flames—stood aloof, and, folding their sinewy arms and knitting their brows, half averted their eyes from the painful spectacle.

Up rose the curling smoke, until the whole summit of the broad and lofty keep was enveloped in its murky folds; while the flames, shooting in all directions through the crackling wood, began already to produce an intolerable heat under the wretched and devoted man, though they had not yet mounted so high as to catch the sheet he was wrapt in. Life began again to return to him. He stretched himself, and turned his head round first to the right, and then to the left; and, beholding the dense group of soldiers on all sides of him, their eyes glaring red on him, from the reflection of the flame that was bursting from beneath him, and being now sensible of the intolerable heat, and half suffocated with the gusts of smoke that blew about him, his belief that he was in the hands of demons, and that his eternal fiery punishment was begun, was more than ever confirmed. He bellowed, writhed, and struggled; and his bodily strength, which was at all times enormous, being now increased tenfold by the horrors that beset him, he made one furious exertion, and, snapping the cords which bound his arms behind, and which, fortunately for him, had been weaker than they otherwise would have been, had those who tied them not believed that he was already nearly exanimate, he sprang to his feet and rent open the front of the white robe they had put round him. Down came the immense and loosely-constructed pile of faggots, by the sheer force of his weight alone, and onward he rushed, with the force and fury of an enraged elephant, overturning all who ventured to oppose him, or who could not get out of his way, the flambeaux blazing at his head, and his long white robe streaming behind him, and exposing the close black frieze dress he usually wore. The guards and sentinels at the first gate, [[133]]aware of what was going on, and conceiving it impossible for human power to escape, after the precautions which had been taken, when they saw the terrible figure advancing towards them, with what appeared to them to be a couple of fiery horns on his head, abandoned their posts and fled in terror. Those at the outer gate were no less frightened, and retreated with equal expedition. But the drawbridge was up. Luckily for the Ancient, however, he, like many other fortunate men, was on the right side for his own interest on this occasion. Without hesitation he put the enormous sole of one foot against it—down it rattled in an instant, chains and all, and he thundered along it.