Читать книгу Mediaeval Tales - Various - Страница 12

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Of the false Executor.

But the judgment inflicted on a false executor deserves to be recorded, as a warning to those who unjustly pervert the alms of the deceased. When the King's army lay at Bayonne, a certain soldier, called Romaricus, was taken grievously ill, and, being at the point of death, received the eucharist and absolution from a priest, bequeathing his horse to a certain kinsman, in trust, to dispose of for the benefit of the priest and the poor. But when he was dead his kinsman sold it for a hundred pence, and spent the money in debauchery. But how soon does punishment follow guilt! Thirty days had scarcely elapsed when the apparition of the deceased appeared to him in his sleep, uttering these words: "How is it you have so unjustly misapplied the alms entrusted to you for the redemption of my soul? Do you not know they would have procured the pardon of my sins from God? I have been punished for your neglect thirty days in fire; to-morrow you shall be plunged in the same place of torment, but I shall be received into Paradise." The apparition then vanished, and his kinsman awoke in extreme terror.

On the morrow, as he was relating the story to his companions, and the whole army was conversing about it, on a sudden a strange uncommon clamour, like the roaring of lions, wolves, and calves, was heard in the air, and immediately a troop of demons seized him in their talons, and bore him away alive. What further? Horse and foot sought him four days together in the adjacent mountains and valleys to no purpose; but the twelfth day after, as the army was marching through a desert part of Navarre, his body was found lifeless, and dashed to pieces, on the summit of some rocks, a league above the sea, about four days' journey from the city. There the demons left the body, bearing the soul away to hell. Let this be a warning, then, to all that follow his example to their eternal perdition.