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diff --git a/7387-0.txt b/7387-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a81a23 --- /dev/null +++ b/7387-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7153 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Grisly Grisell, by Charlotte M. Yonge + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Grisly Grisell + or, the Laidly Lady of Whitburn + A Tale of the Wars of the Roses + +Author: Charlotte M. Yonge + + + +Release Date: November 10, 2014 [eBook #7387] +[This file was first posted on April 24, 2003] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRISLY GRISELL*** + + +Transcribed from the 1906 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + + + GRISLY GRISELL + OR + THE LAIDLY LADY OF WHITBURN + + + A TALE OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES + + * * * * * + + BY + CHARLOTTE M. YONGE + AUTHOR OF ‘THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE’, ETC. ETC. + + * * * * * + + London + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + 1906 + + _All rights reserved_ + + * * * * * + + Copyright, 1893, + BY MACMILLAN & CO. + + * * * * * + + Men speak of Job, and for his humblesse, + And clerkes when hem list can well endite, + Namely of men, but as in stedfastnese + Though clerkes preisin women but a lite, + There can no man in humblesse him acquite + As women can, nor can be half so trewe + As women ben. + + CHAUCER, _The Clerke’s Tale_. + + * * * * * + + _First Edition_ (2 _Vols. Crown_ 8_vo_) 1893 + _Second Edition_ (1 _Vol. Crown_ 8_vo_) 1894, 1906. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. AN EXPLOSION 1 + II. THE BROKEN MATCH 12 + III. THE MIRROR 26 + IV. PARTING 36 + V. SISTER AVICE 46 + VI. THE PROCTOR 57 + VII. THE PILGRIM OF SALISBURY 68 + VIII. OLD PLAYFELLOWS 80 + IX. THE KING-MAKER 87 + X. COLD WELCOME 101 + XI. BERNARD 112 + XII. WORD FROM THE WARS 127 + XIII. A KNOT 137 + XIV. THE LONELY BRIDE 150 + XV. WAKEFIELD BRIDGE 159 + XVI. A NEW MASTER 169 + XVII. STRANGE GUESTS 177 + XVIII. WITCHERY 185 + XIX. A MARCH HARE 195 + XX. A BLIGHT ON THE WHITE ROSE 205 + XXI. THE WOUNDED KNIGHT 213 + XXII. THE CITY OF BRIDGES 222 + XXIII. THE CANKERED OAK GALL 231 + XXIV. GRISELL’S PATIENCE 244 + XXV. THE OLD DUCHESS 253 + XXVI. THE DUKE’S DEATH 260 + XXVII. FORGET ME NOT 268 + XXVIII. THE PAGEANT 274 + XXIX. DUCHESS MARGARET 285 + XXX. THE WEDDING CHIMES 295 + + + + +CHAPTER I +AN EXPLOSION + + + It was a great pity, so it was, this villanous saltpetre should be + digg’d out of the bowels of the harmless earth. + + SHAKESPEARE, _King Henry IV._, Part I. + +A TERRIBLE shriek rang through the great Manor-house of Amesbury. It was +preceded by a loud explosion, and there was agony as well as terror in +the cry. Then followed more shrieks and screams, some of pain, some of +fright, others of anger and recrimination. Every one in the house ran +together to the spot whence the cries proceeded, namely, the lower court, +where the armourer and blacksmith had their workshops. + +There was a group of children, the young people who were confided to the +great Earl Richard and Countess Alice of Salisbury for education and +training. Boys and girls were alike there, some of the latter crying and +sobbing, others mingling with the lads in the hot dispute as to “who did +it.” + +By the time the gentle but stately Countess had reached the place, all +the grown-up persons of the establishment—knights, squires, grooms, +scullions, and females of every degree—had thronged round them, but +parted at her approach, though one of the knights said, “Nay, Lady +Countess, ’tis no sight for you. The poor little maid is dead, or nigh +upon it.” + +“But who is it? What is it?” asked the Countess, still advancing. + +A confused medley of voices replied, “The Lord of Whitburn’s little +wench—Leonard Copeland—gunpowder.” + +“And no marvel,” said a sturdy, begrimed figure, “if the malapert young +gentles be let to run all over the courts, and handle that with which +they have no concern, lads and wenches alike.” + +“Nay, how can I stop it when my lady will not have the maidens kept ever +at their distaffs and needles in seemly fashion,” cried a small but stout +and self-assertive dame, known as “Mother of the Maidens,” then starting, +“Oh! my lady, I crave your pardon, I knew not you were in this coil! And +if the men-at-arms be let to have their perilous goods strewn all over +the place, no wonder at any mishap.” + +“Do not wrangle about the cause,” said the Countess. “Who is hurt? How +much?” + +The crowd parted enough for her to make way to where a girl of about ten +was lying prostrate and bleeding with her head on a woman’s lap. + +“Poor maid,” was the cry, “poor maid! ’Tis all over with her. It will +go ill with young Leonard Copeland.” + +“Worse with Hodge Smith for letting him touch his irons.” + +“Nay, what call had Dick Jenner to lay his foul, burning gunpowder—a +device of Satan—in this yard? A mercy we are not all blown to the +winds.” + +The Countess, again ordering peace, reached the girl, whose moans showed +that she was still alive, and between the barber-surgeon and the porter’s +wife she was lifted up, and carried to a bed, the Countess Alice keeping +close to her, though the “Mother of the Maidens,” who was a somewhat +helpless personage, hung back, declaring that the sight of the wounds +made her swoon. There were terrible wounds upon the face and neck, which +seemed to be almost bared of skin. The lady, who had been bred to some +knowledge of surgical skill, together with the barber-surgeon, did their +best to allay the agony with applications of sweet oil. Perhaps if they +had had more of what was then considered skill, it might have been worse +for her. + +The Countess remained anxiously trying all that could allay the suffering +of the poor little semi-conscious patient, who kept moaning for “nurse.” +She was Grisell Dacre, the daughter of the Baron of Whitburn, and had +been placed, young as she was, in the household of the Countess of +Salisbury on her mother being made one of the ladies attending on the +young Queen Margaret of Anjou, lately married to King Henry VI. + +Attendance on the patient had prevented the Countess from hearing the +history of the accident, but presently the clatter of horses’ feet showed +that her lord was returning, and, committing the girl to her old nurse, +she went down to the hall to receive him. + +The grave, grizzled warrior had taken his seat on his cross-legged, +round-backed chair, and a boy of some twelve years old stood before him, +in a sullen attitude, one foot over the other, and his shoulder held fast +by a squire, while the motley crowd of retainers stood behind. + +There was a move at the entrance of the lady, and her husband rose, came +forward, and as he gave her the courteous kiss of greeting, demanded, +“What is all this coil? Is the little wench dead?” + +“Nay, but I fear me she cannot live,” was the answer. + +“Will Dacre of Whitburn’s maid? That’s ill, poor child! How fell it +out?” + +“That I know as little as you,” was the answer. “I have been seeing to +the poor little maid’s hurts.” + +Lord Salisbury placed her in the chair like his own. In point of fact, +she was Countess in her own right; he, Richard Nevil, had been created +Earl of Salisbury in her right on the death of her father, the staunch +warrior of Henry V. in the siege of Orleans. + +“Speak out, Leonard Copeland,” said the Earl. “What hast thou done?” + +The boy only growled, “I never meant to hurt the maid.” + +“Speak to the point, sir,” said Lord Salisbury sternly; “give yourself at +least the grace of truth.” + +Leonard grew more silent under the show of displeasure, and only hung his +head at the repeated calls to him to speak. The Earl turned to those who +were only too eager to accuse him. + +“He took a bar of iron from the forge, so please you, my lord, and put it +to the barrel of powder.” + +“Is this true, Leonard?” demanded the Earl again, amazed at the frantic +proceeding, and Leonard muttered “Aye,” vouchsafing no more, and looking +black as thunder at a fair, handsome boy who pressed to his side and +said, “Uncle,” doffing his cap, “so please you, my lord, the barrels had +just been brought in upon Hob Carter’s wain, and Leonard said they ought +to have the Lord Earl’s arms on them. So he took a bar of hot iron from +the forge to mark the saltire on them, and thereupon there was this burst +of smoke and flame, and the maid, who was leaning over, prying into his +doings, had the brunt thereof.” + +“Thanks to the saints that no further harm was done,” ejaculated the lady +shuddering, while her lord proceeded—“It was not malice, but malapert +meddling, then. Master Leonard Copeland, thou must be scourged to make +thee keep thine hands off where they be not needed. For the rest, thou +must await what my Lord of Whitburn may require. Take him away, John +Ellerby, chastise him, and keep him in ward till we see the issue.” + +Leonard, with his head on high, marched out of the hall, not uttering a +word, but shaking his shoulder as if to get rid of the squire’s grasp, +but only thereby causing himself to be gripped the faster. + +Next, Lord Salisbury’s severity fell upon Hob the carter and Hodge the +smith, for leaving such perilous wares unwatched in the court-yard. +Servants were not dismissed for carelessness in those days, but soundly +flogged, a punishment considered suitable to the “blackguard” at any age, +even under the mildest rule. The gunner, being somewhat higher in +position, and not in charge at the moment, was not called to account, but +the next question was, how the “Mother of the Maids”—the gouvernante in +charge of the numerous damsels who formed the train of the Lady of +Salisbury, and were under education and training—could have permitted her +maidens to stray into the regions appropriated to the yeomen and archers, +and others of the meiné, where they certainly had no business. + +It appeared that the good and portly lady had last seen the girls in the +gardens “a playing at the ball” with some of the pages, and that there, +on a sunny garden seat, slumber had prevented her from discovering the +absence of the younger part of the bevy. The demure elder damsels +deposed that, at the sound of wains coming into the court, the boys had +rushed off, and the younger girls had followed them, whether with or +without warning was not made clear. Poor little Grisell’s condition +might have been considered a sufficient warning, nevertheless the two +companions in her misdemeanour were condemned to a whipping, to enforce +on them a lesson of maidenliness; and though the Mother of the Maids +could not partake of the flagellation, she remained under her lord’s and +lady’s grave displeasure, and probably would have to submit to a severe +penance from the priest for her carelessness. Yet, as she observed, +Mistress Grisell was a North Country maid, never couthly or conformable, +but like a boy, who would moreover always be after Leonard Copeland, +whether he would or no. + +It was the more unfortunate, as Lord Salisbury lamented to his wife, +because the Copelands were devoted to the Somerset faction; and the King +had been labouring to reconcile them to the Dacres, and to bring about a +contract of marriage between these two unfortunate children, but he +feared that whatever he could do, there would only be additional feud and +bitterness, though it was clear that the mishap was accidental. The Lord +of Whitburn himself was in Ireland with the Duke of York, while his lady +was in attendance on the young Queen, and it was judged right and seemly +to despatch to her a courier with the tidings of her daughter’s disaster, +although in point of fact, where a house could number sons, damsels were +not thought of great value, except as the means of being allied with +other houses. A message was also sent to Sir William Copeland that his +son had been the death of the daughter of Whitburn; for poor little +Grisell lay moaning in a state of much fever and great suffering, so that +the Lady Salisbury could not look at her, nor hear her sighs and sobs +without tears, and the barber-surgeon, unaccustomed to the effects of +gunpowder, had little or no hope of her life. + +Leonard Copeland’s mood was sullen, not to say surly. He submitted to +the chastisement without a word or cry, for blows were the lot of boys of +all ranks, and were dealt out without much respect to justice; and he +also had to endure a sort of captivity, in a dismal little circular room +in a turret of the manorial house, with merely a narrow loophole to look +out from, and this was only accessible by climbing up a steep broken +slope of brick-work in the thickness of the wall. + +Here, however, he was visited by his chief friend and comrade, Edmund +Plantagenet of York, who found him lying on the floor, building up +fragments of stone and mortar into the plan of a castle. + +“How dost thou, Leonard?” he asked. “Did old Hal strike very hard?” + +“I reck not,” growled Leonard. + +“How long will my uncle keep thee here?” asked Edmund sympathisingly. + +“Till my father comes, unless the foolish wench should go and die. She +brought it on me, the peevish girl. She is always after me when I want +her least.” + +“Yea, is not she contracted to thee?” + +“So they say; but at least this puts a stop to my being plagued with +her—do what they may to me. There’s an end to it, if I hang for it.” + +“They would never hang thee.” + +“None knows what you traitor folk of Nevil would do to a loyal house,” +growled Leonard. + +“Traitor, saidst thou,” cried Edmund, clenching his fists. “’Tis thy +base Somerset crew that be the traitors.” + +“I’ll brook no such word from thee,” burst forth Leonard, flying at him. + +“Ha! ha!” laughed Edmund even as they grappled. “Who is the traitor +forsooth? Why, ’tis my father who should be King. ’Tis white-faced +Harry and his Beauforts—” + +The words were cut short by a blow from Leonard, and the warder presently +found the two boys rolling on the floor together in hot contest. + +And meanwhile poor Grisell was trying to frame with her torn and flayed +cheeks and lips, “O lady, lady, visit it not on him! Let not Leonard be +punished. It was my fault for getting into his way when I should have +been in the garden. Dear Madge, canst thou speak for him?” + +Madge was Edmund’s sister, Margaret of York, who stood trembling and +crying by Grisell’s bed. + + + + +CHAPTER II +THE BROKEN MATCH + + + The Earl of Salisbury, called Prudence. + + _Contemporary Poem_. + +LITTLE Grisell Dacre did not die, though day after day she lay in a +suffering condition, tenderly watched over by the Countess Alice. Her +mother had been summoned from attendance on the Queen, but at first there +only was returned a message that if the maid was dead she should be +embalmed and sent north to be buried in the family vault, when her father +would be at all charges. Moreover, that the boy should be called to +account for his crime, his father being, as the Lady of Whitburn caused +to be written, an evil-minded minion and fosterer of the house of +Somerset, the very bane of the King and the enemies of the noble Duke of +York and Earl of Warwick. + +The story will be clearer if it is understood that the Earl of Salisbury +was Richard Nevil, one of the large family of Nevil of Raby Castle in +Westmoreland, and had obtained his title by marriage with Alice Montagu, +heiress of that earldom. His youngest sister had married Richard +Plantagenet, Duke of York, who being descended from Lionel, Duke of +Clarence, was considered to have a better right to the throne than the +house of Lancaster, though this had never been put forward since the +earlier years of Henry V. + +Salisbury had several sons. The eldest had married Anne Beauchamp, and +was in her right Earl of Warwick, and had estates larger even than those +of his father. He had not, however, as yet come forward, and the +disputes at Court were running high between the friends of the Duke of +Somerset and those of the Duke of York. + +The King and Queen both were known to prefer the house of Somerset, who +were the more nearly related to Henry, and the more inclined to uphold +royalty, while York was considered as the champion of the people. The +gentle King and the Beauforts wished for peace with France; the nation, +and with them York, thought this was giving up honour, land, and plunder, +and suspected the Queen, as a Frenchwoman, of truckling to the enemy. +Jack Cade’s rising and the murder of the Duke of Suffolk had been the +outcome of this feeling. Indeed, Lord Salisbury’s messenger reported the +Country about London to be in so disturbed a state that it was no wonder +that the Lady of Whitburn did not make the journey. She was not, as the +Countess suspected, a very tender mother. Grisell’s moans were far more +frequently for her nurse than for her, but after some space they ceased. +The child became capable of opening first one eye, then the other, and +both barber and lady perceived that she was really unscathed in any vital +part, and was on the way to recovery, though apparently with hopelessly +injured features. + +Leonard Copeland had already been released from restraint, and allowed to +resume his usual place among the Earl’s pages; when the warder announced +that he saw two parties approaching from opposite sides of the down, one +as if from Salisbury, the other from the north; and presently he reported +that the former wore the family badge, a white rosette, the latter none +at all, whence it was perceived that the latter were adherents of the +Beauforts of Somerset, for though the “Rose of Snow” had been already +adopted by York, Somerset had in point of fact not plucked the Red Rose +in the Temple gardens, nor was it as yet the badge of Lancaster. + +Presently it was further reported that the Lady of Whitburn was in the +fore front of the party, and the Lord of Salisbury hastened to receive +her at the gates, his suite being rapidly put into some order. + +She was a tall, rugged-faced North Country dame, not very smooth of +speech, and she returned his salute with somewhat rough courtesy, +demanding as she sprang off her horse with little aid, “Lives my wench +still?” + +“Yes, madam, she lives, and the leech trusts that she will yet be +healed.” + +“Ah! Methought you would have sent to me if aught further had befallen +her. Be that as it may, no doubt you have given the malapert boy his +deserts.” + +“I hope I have, madam,” began the Earl. “I kept him in close ward while +she was in peril of death, but—” A fresh bugle blast interrupted him, as +there clattered through the resounding gate the other troop, at sight of +whom the Lady of Whitburn drew herself up, redoubling her grim dignity, +and turning it into indignation as a young page rushed forward to meet +the newcomers, with a cry of “Father! Lord Father, come at last;” then +composing himself, doffed his cap and held the stirrup, then bent a knee +for his father’s blessing. + +“You told me, Lord Earl, the mischievous, murderous fellow was in safe +hold,” said the lady, bending her dark brows. + +“While the maid was in peril,” hastily answered Salisbury. “Pardon me, +madam, my Countess will attend you.” + +The Countess’s high rank and great power were impressive to the Baroness +of Whitburn, who bent in salutation, but almost her first words were, +“Madam, you at least will not let the murderous traitors of Somerset and +the Queen prevail over the loyal friends of York and the nation.” + +“There is happily no murder in the case. Praise be to the saints,” said +Countess Alice, “your little maid—” + +“Aye, that’s what they said as to the poor good Duke Humfrey,” returned +the irate lady; “but that you, madam, the good-sister of the noble York, +should stand up for the enemies of him, and the friends of France, is +more than a plain North Country woman like me can understand. And +there—there, turning round upon the steep steps, there is my Lord Earl +hand and glove with that minion fellow of Somerset, who was no doubt at +the bottom of the plot! None would believe it at Raby.” + +“None at Raby would believe that my lord could be lacking in courtesy to +a guest,” returned Lady Salisbury with dignity, “nor that a North Country +dame could expect it of him. Those who are under his roof must respect +it by fitting demeanour towards one another.” + +The Lady of Whitburn was quenched for the time, and the Countess asked +whether she did not wish to see her daughter, leading the way to a +chamber hung with tapestry, and with a great curtained bed nearly filling +it up, for the patient had been installed in one of the best +guest-chambers of the Castle. Lady Whitburn was surprised, but was too +proud to show herself gratified by what she thought was the due of the +dignity of the Dacres. An old woman in a hood sat by the bed, where +there was a heap of clothes, and a dark-haired little girl stood by the +window, whence she had been describing the arrivals in the Castle court. + +“Here is your mother, my poor child,” began the Lady of Salisbury, but +there was no token of joy. Grisell gave a little gasp, and tried to say +“Lady Mother, pardon—” but the Lady of Whitburn, at sight of the reddened +half of the face which alone was as yet visible, gave a cry, “She will be +a fright! You evil little baggage, thus to get yourself scarred and made +hideous! Running where you ought not, I warrant!” and she put out her +hand as if to shake the patient, but the Countess interposed, and her +niece Margaret gave a little cry. “Grisell is still very weak and +feeble! She cannot bear much; we have only just by Heaven’s grace +brought her round.” + +“As well she were dead as like this,” cried this untender parent. “Who +is to find her a husband now? and as to a nunnery, where is one to take +her without a dower such as is hard to find, with two sons to be fitly +provided? I looked that in a household like this, better rule should be +kept.” + +“None can mourn it more than myself and the Earl,” said the gentle +Countess; “but young folks can scarce be watched hour by hour.” + +“The rod is all that is good for them, and I trusted to you to give it +them, madam,” said Lady Whitburn. “Now, the least that can be done is to +force yonder malapert lad and his father into keeping his contract to +her, since he has spoilt the market for any other.” + +“Is he contracted to her?” asked the Countess. + +“Not fully; but as you know yourself, lady, your lord, and the King, and +all the rest, thought to heal the breach between the houses by planning a +contract between their son and my daughter. He shall keep it now, at his +peril.” + +Grisell was cowering among her pillows, and no one knew how much she +heard or understood. The Countess was glad to get Lady Whitburn out of +the room, but both she and her Earl had a very trying evening, in trying +to keep the peace between the two parents. Sir William Copeland was +devoted to the Somerset family, of whom he held his manor; and had had a +furious quarrel with the Baron of Whitburn, when both were serving in +France. + +The gentle King had tried to bring about a reconciliation, and had +induced the two fathers to consent to a contract for the future marriage +of Leonard, Copeland’s second son, to Grisell Dacre, then the only child +of the Lord of Whitburn. He had also obtained that the two children +should be bred up in the household of the Earl of Salisbury, by way of +letting them grow up together. On the same principle the Lady of +Whitburn had been made one of the attendants of Queen Margaret—but +neither arrangement had been more successful than most of those of poor +King Henry. + +Grisell indeed considered Leonard as a sort of property of hers, but she +beset him in the manner that boys are apt to resent from younger girls, +and when he was thirteen, and she ten years old, there was very little +affection on his side. Moreover, the birth of two brothers had rendered +Grisell’s hand a far less desirable prize in the eyes of the Copelands. + +To attend on the Court was penance to the North Country dame, used to a +hardy rough life in her sea-side tower, with absolute rule, and no hand +over her save her husband’s; while the young and outspoken Queen, bred up +in the graceful, poetical Court of Aix or Nancy, looked on her as no +better than a barbarian, and if she did not show this openly, reporters +were not wanting to tell her that the Queen called her the great northern +hag, or that her rugged unwilling curtsey was said to look as if she were +stooping to draw water at a well. Her husband had kept her in some +restraint, but when be had gone to Ireland with the Duke of York, +offences seemed to multiply upon her. The last had been that when she +had tripped on her train, dropped the salver wherewith she was serving +the Queen, and broken out with a loud “Lawk a daisy!” all the ladies, and +Margaret herself, had gone into fits of uncontrollable laughter, and the +Queen had begged her to render her exclamation into good French for her +benefit. + +“Madam,” she had exclaimed, “if a plain woman’s plain English be not good +enough for you, she can have no call here!” And without further ceremony +she had flown out of the royal presence. + +Margaret of Anjou, naturally offended, and never politic, had sent her a +message, that her attendance was no longer required. So here she was +going out of her way to make a casual inquiry, from the Court at +Winchester, whether that very unimportant article, her only daughter, +were dead or alive. + +The Earl absolutely prohibited all conversation on affairs in debate +during the supper which was spread in the hall, with quite as much state +as, and even greater profusion and splendour, than was to be found at +Windsor, Winchester, or Westminster. All the high born sat on the dais, +raised on two steps with gorgeous tapestry behind, and a canopy overhead; +the Earl and Countess on chairs in the centre of the long narrow table. +Lady Whitburn sat beside the Earl, Sir William Copeland by the Countess, +watching with pleasure how deftly his son ran about among the pages, +carrying the trenchers of food, and the cups. He entered on a +conversation with the Countess, telling her of the King’s interest and +delight in his beautiful freshly-founded Colleges at Eton and Cambridge, +how the King rode down whenever he could to see the boys, listen to them +at their tasks in the cloisters, watch them at their sports in the +playing fields, and join in their devotions in the Chapel—a most holy +example for them. + +“Ay, for such as seek to be monks and shavelings,” broke in the North +Country voice sarcastically. + +“There are others—sons of gentlemen and esquires—lodged in houses +around,” said Sir William, “who are not meant for cowl or for +mass-priests.” + +“Yea, forsooth,” called Lady Whitburn across the Earl and the Countess, +“what for but to make them as feckless as the priests, unfit to handle +lance or sword!” + +“So, lady, you think that the same hand cannot wield pen and lance,” said +the Earl. + +“I should like to see one of your clerks on a Border foray,” laughed the +Dame of Dacre. “’Tis all a device of the Frenchwoman!” + +“Verily?” said the Earl, in an interrogative tone. + +“Ay, to take away the strength and might of Englishmen with this clerkly +lore, so that her folk may have the better of them in France; and the +poor, witless King gives in to her. And so while the Beauforts rule the +roast—” + +Salisbury caught her up. “Ay, the roast. Will you partake of these +roast partridges, madam?” + +They were brought round skewered on a long spit, held by a page for the +guest to help herself. Whether by her awkwardness or that of the boy, it +so chanced that the bird made a sudden leap from the impalement, and +deposited itself in the lap of Lady Whitburn’s scarlet kirtle! The fact +was proclaimed by her loud rude cry, “A murrain on thee, thou +ne’er-do-weel lad,” together with a sounding box on the ear. + +“’Tis thine own greed, who dost not—” + +“Leonard, be still—know thy manners,” cried both at once the Earl and Sir +William, for, unfortunately, the offender was no other than Leonard +Copeland, and, contrary to all the laws of pagedom, he was too angry not +to argue the point. “’Twas no doing of mine! She knew not how to cut +the bird.” + +Answering again was a far greater fault than the first, and his father +only treated it as his just desert when he was ordered off under the +squire in charge to be soundly scourged, all the more sharply for his +continuing to mutter, “It was her fault.” + +And sore and furrowed as was his back, he continued to exclaim, when his +friend Edmund of York came to condole with him as usual in all his +scrapes, “’Tis she that should have been scourged for clumsiness! A +foul, uncouth Border dame! Well, one blessing at least is that now I +shall never be wedded to her daughter—let the wench live or die as she +lists!” + +That was not by any means the opinion of the Lady of Whitburn, and no +sooner was the meal ended than, in the midst of the hall, the debate +began, the Lady declaring that in all honour Sir William Copeland was +bound to affiance his son instantly to her poor daughter, all the more +since the injuries he had inflicted to her face could never be done away +with. On the other hand, Sir William Copeland was naturally far less +likely to accept such a daughter-in-law, since her chances of being an +heiress had ceased, and he contended that he had never absolutely +accepted the contract, and that there had been no betrothal of the +children. + +The Earl of Salisbury could not but think that a strictly honourable man +would have felt poor Grisell’s disaster inflicted by his son’s hands all +the more reason for holding to the former understanding; but the loud +clamours and rude language of Lady Whitburn were enough to set any one in +opposition to her, and moreover, the words he said in favour of her side +of the question appeared to Copeland merely spoken out of the general +enmity of the Nevils to the Beauforts and all their following. + +Thus, all the evening Lady Whitburn raged, and appealed to the Earl, +whose support she thought cool and unfriendly, while Copeland stood +sullen and silent, but determined. + +“My lord,” she said, “were you a true friend to York and Raby, you would +deal with this scowling fellow as we should on the Border.” + +“We are not on the Border, madam,” quietly said Salisbury. + +“But you are in your own Castle, and can force him to keep faith. No +contract, forsooth! I hate your mincing South Country forms of law.” +Then perhaps irritated by a little ironical smile which Salisbury could +not suppress. “Is this your castle, or is it not? Then bring him and +his lad to my poor wench’s side, and see their troth plighted, or lay him +by the heels in the lowest cell in your dungeon. Then will you do good +service to the King and the Duke of York, whom you talk of loving in your +shilly-shally fashion.” + +“Madam,” said the Earl, his grave tones coming in contrast to the shrill +notes of the angry woman, “I counsel you, in the south at least, to have +some respect to these same forms of law. I bid you a fair good-night. +The chamberlain will marshal you.” + + + + +CHAPTER III +THE MIRROR + + + “Of all the maids, the foulest maid + From Teviot unto Dee. + Ah!” sighing said that lady then, + “Can ne’er young Harden’s be.” + + SCOTT, _The Reiver’s Wedding_. + +“THEY are gone,” said Margaret of York, standing half dressed at the +deep-set window of the chamber where Grisell lay in state in her big bed. + +“Who are gone?” asked Grisell, turning as well as she could under the +great heraldically-embroidered covering. + +“Leonard Copeland and his father. Did’st not hear the horses’ tramp in +the court?” + +“I thought it was only my lord’s horses going to the water.” + +“It was the Copelands going off without breaking their fast or taking a +stirrup cup, like discourteous rogues as they be,” said Margaret, in no +measured language. + +“And are they gone? And wherefore?” asked Grisell. + +“Wherefore? but for fear my noble uncle of Salisbury should hold them to +their contract. Sir William sat as surly as a bear just about to be +baited, while thy mother rated and raved at him like a very sleuth-hound +on the chase. And Leonard—what think’st thou he saith? “That he would +as soon wed the loathly lady as thee,” the cruel Somerset villain as he +is; and yet my brother Edmund is fain to love him. So off they are gone, +like recreant curs as they are, lest my uncle should make them hear +reason.” + +“But Lady Madge, dear Lady Madge, am I so very loathly?” asked poor +Grisell. + +“Mine aunt of Salisbury bade that none should tell thee,” responded +Margaret, in some confusion. + +“Ah me! I must know sooner or later! My mother, she shrieked at sight +of me!” + +“I would not have your mother,” said the outspoken daughter of “proud +Cis.” “My Lady Duchess mother is stern enough if we do not bridle our +heads, and if we make ourselves too friendly with the meiné, but she +never frets nor rates us, and does not heed so long as we do not demean +ourselves unlike our royal blood. She is no termagant like yours.” + +It was not polite, but Grisell had not seen enough of her mother to be +very sensitive on her account. In fact, she was chiefly occupied with +what she had heard about her own appearance—a matter which had not +occurred to her before in all her suffering. She returned again to +entreat Margaret to tell her whether she was so foully ill-favoured that +no one could look at her, and the damsel of York, adhering to the letter +rather young than the spirit of the cautions which she had received, +pursed up her lips and reiterated that she had been commanded not to +mention the subject. + +“Then,” entreated Grisell, “do—do, dear Madge—only bring me the little +hand mirror out of my Lady Countess’s chamber.” + +“I know not that I can or may.” + +“Only for the space of one Ave,” reiterated Grisell. + +“My lady aunt would never—” + +“There—hark—there’s the bell for mass. Thou canst run into her chamber +when she and the tirewomen are gone down.” + +“But I must be there.” + +“Thou canst catch them up after. They will only think thee a slug-a-bed. +Madge, dear Madge, prithee, I cannot rest without. Weeping will be worse +for me.” + +She was crying, and caressing Margaret so vehemently that she gained her +point. Indeed the other girl was afraid of her sobs being heard, and +inquired into, and therefore promised to make the attempt, keeping a +watch out of sight till she had seen the Lady of Salisbury in her padded +head-gear of gold net, and long purple train, sweep down the stair, +followed by her tirewomen and maidens of every degree. Then darting into +the chamber, she bore away from a stage where lay the articles of the +toilette, a little silver-backed and handled Venetian mirror, with +beautiful tracery in silvered glass diminishing the very small oval left +for personal reflection and inspection. That, however, was quite enough +and too much for poor Grisell when Lady Margaret had thrown it to her on +her bed, and rushed down the stair so as to come in the rear of the +household just in time. + +A glance at the mirror disclosed, not the fair rosy face, set in light +yellow curls, that Grisell had now and then peeped at in a bucket of +water or a polished breast-plate, but a piteous sight. One half, as she +expected, was hidden by bandages, but the other was fiery red, except +that from the corner of the eye to the ear there was a purple scar; the +upper lip was distorted, the hair, eyebrows, and lashes were all gone! +The poor child was found in an agony of sobbing when, after the service, +the old woman who acted as her nurse came stumping up in her wooden clogs +to set the chamber and bed in order for Lady Whitburn’s visit. + +The dame was in hot haste to get home. Rumours were rife as to Scottish +invasions, and her tower was not too far south not to need to be on its +guard. Her plan was to pack Grisell on a small litter slung to a sumpter +mule, and she snorted a kind of defiant contempt when the Countess, +backed by the household barber-surgeon, declared the proceeding barbarous +and impossible. Indeed she had probably forgotten that Grisell was far +too tall to be made up into the bundle she intended; but she then +declared that the wench might ride pillion behind old Diccon, and she +would not be convinced till she was taken up to the sick chamber. There +the first sound that greeted them was a choking agony of sobs and moans, +while the tirewoman stood over the bed, exclaiming, “Aye, no wonder; it +serves thee right, thou evil wench, filching my Lady Countess’s mirror +from her very chamber, when it might have been broken for all thanks to +thee. The Venice glass that the merchant gave her! Thou art not so fair +a sight, I trow, as to be in haste to see thyself. At the bottom of all +the scathe in the Castle! We shall be well rid of thee.” + +So loud was the objurgation of the tirewoman that she did not hear the +approach of her mistress, nor indeed the first words of the Countess, +“Hush, Maudlin, the poor child is not to be thus rated! Silence!” + +“See, my lady, what she has done to your ladyship’s Venice glass, which +she never should have touched. She must have run to your chamber while +you were at mass. All false her feigning to be so sick and feeble.” + +“Ay,” replied Lady Whitburn, “she must up—don her clothes, and away with +me.” + +“Hush, I pray you, madam. How, how, Grisell, my poor child. Call Master +Miles, Maudlin! Give me that water.” The Countess was raising the poor +child in her arms, and against her bosom, for the shock of that glance in +the mirror, followed by the maid’s harsh reproaches, and fright at the +arrival of the two ladies, had brought on a choking, hysterical sort of +convulsive fit, and the poor girl writhed and gasped on Lady Salisbury’s +breast, while her mother exclaimed, “Heed her not, Lady; it is all put on +to hinder me from taking her home. If she could go stealing to your +room—” + +“No, no,” broke out a weeping, frightened voice. “It was I, Lady Aunt. +You bade me never tell her how her poor face looked, and when she begged +and prayed me, I did not say, but I fetched the mirror. Oh! oh! It has +not been the death of her.” + +“Nay, nay, by God’s blessing! Take away the glass, Margaret. Go and +tell thy beads, child; thou hast done much scathe unwittingly! Ah, +Master Miles, come to the poor maid’s aid. Canst do aught for her?” + +“These humours must be drawn off, my lady,” said the barber-surgeon, who +advanced to the bed, and felt the pulse of the poor little patient. “I +must let her blood.” + +Maudlin, whose charge she was, came to his help, and Countess Alice still +held her up, while, after the practice of those days, he bled the already +almost unconscious child, till she fainted and was laid down again on her +pillows, under the keeping of Maudlin, while the clanging of the great +bell called the family down to the meal which broke fast, whether to be +called breakfast or dinner. + +It was plain that Grisell was in no state to be taken on a journey, and +her mother went grumbling down the stair at the unchancy bairn always +doing scathe. + +Lord Salisbury, beside whom she sat, courteously, though perhaps hardly +willingly, invited her to remain till her daughter was ready to move. + +“Nay, my Lord, I am beholden to you, but I may scarce do that. I be +sorely needed at Whitburn Tower. The knaves go all agee when both my +lord and myself have our backs turned, and my lad bairns—worth a dozen of +yon whining maid—should no longer be left to old Cuthbert Ridley and +Nurse. Now the Queen and Somerset have their way ’tis all misrule, and +who knows what the Scots may do?” + +“There are Nevils and Dacres enough between Whitburn and the Border,” +observed the Earl gravely. However, the visitor was not such an +agreeable one as to make him anxious to press her stay beyond what +hospitality demanded, and his wife could not bear to think of giving over +her poor little patient to such usage as she would have met with on the +journey. + +Lady Whitburn was overheard saying that those who had mauled the maid +might mend her, if they could; and accordingly she acquiesced, not too +graciously, when the Countess promised to tend the child like her own, +and send her by and by to Whitburn under a safe escort; and as Middleham +Castle lay on the way to Whitburn, it was likely that means would be +found of bringing or sending her. + +This settled, Lady Whitburn was restless to depart, so as to reach a +hostel before night. + +She donned her camlet cloak and hood, and looked once more in upon +Grisell, who after her loss of blood, had, on reviving, been made to +swallow a draught of which an infusion of poppy heads formed a great +part, so that she lay, breathing heavily, in a deep sleep, moaning now +and then. Her mother did not scruple to try to rouse her with calls of +“Grizzy! Look up, wench!” but could elicit nothing but a half turn on +the pillow, and a little louder moan, and Master Miles, who was still +watching, absolutely refused to let his patient be touched or shaken. + +“Well a day!” said Lady Whitburn, softened for a moment, “what the Saints +will must be, I trow; but it is hard, and I shall let St. Cuthbert of +Durham know it, that after all the candles I have given him, he should +have let my poor maid be so mauled and marred, and then forsaken by the +rascal who did it, so that she will never be aught but a dead weight on +my two fair sons! The least he can do for me now is to give me my +revenge upon that lurdane runaway knight and his son. But he hath no +care for lassies. Mayhap St. Hilda may serve me better.” + +Wherewith the Lady of Whitburn tramped down stairs. It may be feared +that in the ignorance in which northern valleys were left she was very +little more enlightened in her ideas of what would please the Saints, or +what they could do for her, than were the old heathen of some unknown +antiquity who used to worship in the mysterious circles of stones which +lay on the downs of Amesbury. + + + + +CHAPTER IV +PARTING + + + There in the holy house at Almesbury + Weeping, none with her save a little maid. + + TENNYSON, _Idylls of the King_. + +THE agitations of that day had made Grisell so much worse that her mind +hardly awoke again to anything but present suffering from fever, and in +consequence the aggravation of the wounds on her neck and cheek. She +used to moan now and then “Don’t take me away!” or cower in terror, “She +is coming!” being her cry, or sometimes “So foul and loathly.” She hung +again between life and death, and most of those around thought death +would be far better for the poor child, but the Countess and the Chaplain +still held to the faith that she must be reserved for some great purpose +if she survived so much. + +Great families with all their train used to move from one castle or manor +to another so soon as they had eaten up all the produce of one place, and +the time had come when the Nevils must perforce quit Amesbury. Grisell +was in no state for a long journey; she was exceedingly weak, and as fast +as one wound in her face and neck healed another began to break out, so +that often she could hardly eat, and whether she would ever have the use +of her left eye was doubtful. + +Master Miles was at his wits’ end, Maudlin was weary of waiting on her, +and so in truth was every one except the good Countess, and she could not +always be with the sufferer, nor could she carry such a patient to +London, whither her lord was summoned to support his brother-in-law, the +Duke of York, against the Duke of Somerset. + +The only delay was caused by the having to receive the newly-appointed +Bishop, Richard Beauchamp, who had been translated from his former see at +Hereford on the murder of his predecessor, William Ayscough, by some of +Jack Cade’s party. + +In full splendour he came, with a train of chaplains and cross-bearers, +and the clergy of Salisbury sent a deputation to meet him, and to arrange +with him for his reception and installation. It was then that the +Countess heard that there was a nun at Wilton Abbey so skilled in the +treatment of wounds and sores that she was thought to work miracles, +being likewise a very holy woman. + +The Earl and Countess would accompany the new bishop to be present at his +enthronement and the ensuing banquet, and the lady made this an +opportunity of riding to the convent on her way back, consulting the +Abbess, whom she had long known, and likewise seeing Sister Avice, and +requesting that her poor little guest might be received and treated +there. + +There was no chance of a refusal, for the great nobles were sovereigns in +their own domains; the Countess owned half Wiltshire, and was much loved +and honoured in all the religious houses for her devotion and +beneficence. + +The nuns were only too happy to undertake to receive the demoiselle +Grisell Dacre of Whitburn, or any other whom my Lady Countess would +entrust to them, and the Abbess had no doubt that Sister Avice could +effect a cure. + +Lady Salisbury dreaded that Grisell should lie awake all night crying, so +she said nothing till her whirlicote, as the carriage of those days was +called, was actually being prepared, and then she went to the chamber +where the poor child had spent five months, and where she was now sitting +dressed, but propped up on a sort of settle, and with half her face still +bandaged. + +“My little maid, this is well,” said the Countess. “Come with me. I am +going to take thee to a kind and holy dame who will, I trust, with the +blessing of Heaven, be able to heal thee better than we have done.” + +“Oh, lady, lady, do not send me away!” cried Grisell; “not from you and +Madge.” + +“My child, I must do so; I am going away myself, with my lord, and Madge +is to go back with her brother to her father the Duke. Thou couldst not +brook the journey, and I will take thee myself to the good Sister Avice.” + +“A nun, a nunnery,” sighed Grisell. “Oh! I shall be mewed up there and +never come forth again! Do not, I pray, do not, good my lady, send me +thither!” + +Perhaps my lady thought that to remain for life in a convent might be the +fate, and perhaps the happiest, of the poor blighted girl, but she only +told her that there was no reason she should not leave Wilton, as she was +not put there to take the vows, but only to be cured. + +Long nursing had made Grisell unreasonable, and she cried as much as she +dared over the order; but no child ventured to make much resistance to +elders in those days, and especially not to the Countess, so Grisell, a +very poor little wasted being, was carried down, and only delayed in the +hall for an affectionate kiss from Margaret of York. + +“And here is a keepsake, Grisell,” she said. “Mine own beauteous pouncet +box, with the forget-me-nots in turquoises round each little hole.” + +“I will keep it for ever,” said Grisell, and they parted, but not as +girls part who hope to meet again, and can write letters constantly, but +with tearful eyes and clinging hands, as little like to meet again, or +even to hear more of one another. + +The whirlicote was not much better than an ornamental waggon, and Lady +Salisbury, with the Mother of the Maids, did their best to lessen the +force of the jolts as by six stout horses it was dragged over the chalk +road over the downs, passing the wonderful stones of Amesbury—a wider +circle than even Stonehenge, though without the triliths, _i.e._ the +stones laid one over the tops of the other two like a doorway. Grisell +heard some thing murmured about Merlin and Arthur and Guinevere, but she +did not heed, and she was quite worn out with fatigue by the time they +reached the descent into the long smooth valley where Wilton Abbey stood, +and the spire of the Cathedral could be seen rising tall and beautiful. + +The convent lay low, among meadows all shut in with fine elm trees, and +the cows belonging to the sisters were being driven home, their bells +tinkling. There was an outer court, within an arched gate kept by a +stout porter, and thus far came the whirlicote and the Countess’s +attendants; but a lay porteress, in a cap and veil and black dress, came +out to receive her as the door of the carriage was opened, and held out +her arms to receive the muffled figure of the little visitor. “Ah, poor +maid,” she said, “but Sister Avice will soon heal her.” + +At the deeply ornamented round archway of the inner gate to the +cloistered court stood the Lady Abbess, at the head of all her sisters, +drawn up in double line to receive the Countess, whom they took to their +refectory and to their chapel. + +Of this, however, Grisell saw nothing, for she had been taken into the +arms of a tall nun in a black veil. At first she shuddered and would +have screamed if she had been a little stronger and less tired, for +illness and weakness had brought back the babyish horror of anything +black; but she felt soothed by the sweet voice and tender words, “Poor +little one! she is fore spent. She shall lie down on a soft bed, and +have some sweet milk anon.” + +Still a deadly feeling of faintness came upon her before she had been +carried to the little bed which had been made ready for her. When she +opened her eyes, while a spoon was held to her lips, the first thing she +saw was the sweetest, calmest, most motherly of faces bent over her, one +arm round her, the other giving her the spoon of some cordial. She +looked up and even smiled, though it was a sad contorted smile, which +brought a tear into the good sister’s eyes; but then she fell asleep, and +only half awoke when the Countess came up to see her for the last time, +and bade her farewell with a kiss on her forehead, and a charge to Sister +Avice to watch her well, and be tender with her. Indeed no one could +look at Sister Avice’s gentle face and think there was much need of the +charge. + +Sister Avice was one of the women who seem to be especially born for the +gentlest tasks of womanhood. She might have been an excellent wife and +mother, but from the very hour of her birth she had been vowed to be a +nun in gratitude on her mother’s part for her father’s safety at +Agincourt. She had been placed at Wilton when almost a baby, and had +never gone farther from it than on very rare occasions to the Cathedral +at Salisbury; but she had grown up with a wonderful instinct for nursing +and healing, and had a curious insight into the properties of herbs, as +well as a soft deft hand and touch, so that for some years she had been +sister infirmarer, and moreover the sick were often brought to the gates +for her counsel, treatment, or, as some believed, even her healing touch. + +When Grisell awoke she was alone in the long, large, low room, which was +really built over the Norman cloister. The walls were of pale creamy +stone, but at the end where she lay there were hangings of faded +tapestry. At one end there was a window, through the thick glass of +which could be dimly seen, as Grisell raised herself a little, beautiful +trees, and the splendid spire of the Cathedral rising, as she dreamily +thought, like a finger pointing upwards. Nearer were several more narrow +windows along the side of the room, and that beside her bed had the +lattice open, so that she saw a sloping green bank, with a river at the +foot; and there was a trim garden between. Opposite to her there seemed +to be another window with a curtain drawn across it, through which came +what perhaps had wakened her, a low, clear murmuring tone, pausing and +broken by the full, sweet, if rather shrill response in women’s voices. +Beneath that window was a little altar, with a crucifix and two +candlesticks, a holy-water stoup by the side, and there was above the +little deep window a carving of the Blessed Virgin with the Holy Child, +on either side a niche, one with a figure of a nun holding a taper, the +other of a bishop with a book. + +Grisell might have begun crying again at finding herself alone, but the +sweet chanting lulled her, and she lay back on her pillows, half dozing +but quite content, except that the wound on her neck felt stiff and dry; +and by and by when the chanting ceased, the kind nun, with a lay sister, +came back again carrying water and other appliances, at sight of which +Grisell shuddered, for Master Miles never touched her without putting her +to pain. + +“_Benedicite_, my little maid, thou art awake,” said Sister Avice. “I +thought thou wouldst sleep till the vespers were ended. Now let us dress +these sad wounds of thine, and thou shalt sleep again.” + +Grisell submitted, as she knew she must, but to her surprise Sister +Avice’s touch was as soft and soothing as were her words, and the +ointment she applied was fragrant and delicious and did not burn or hurt +her. + +She looked up gratefully, and murmured her thanks, and then the evening +meal was brought in, and she sat up to partake of it on the seat of the +window looking out on the Cathedral spire. It was a milk posset far more +nicely flavoured than what she had been used to at Amesbury, where, in +spite of the Countess’s kindness, the master cook had grown tired of any +special service for the Dacre wench; and unless Margaret of York secured +fruit for her, she was apt to be regaled with only the scraps that +Maudlin managed to cater for her after the meals were over. + +After that, Sister Avice gently undressed her, took care that she said +her prayers, and sat by her till she fell asleep, herself telling her +that she should sleep beside her, and that she would hear the voices of +the sisters singing in the chapel their matins and lauds. Grisell did +hear them, as in a dream, but she had not slept so well since her +disaster as she slept on that night. + + + + +CHAPTER V +SISTER AVICE + + + Love, to her ear, was but a name + Combined with vanity and shame; + Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were all + Bounded within the cloister wall. + + SCOTT, _Marmion_. + +SISTER AVICE sat in the infirmary, diligently picking the leaves off a +large mass of wood-sorrel which had been brought to her by the children +around, to make therewith a conserve. + +Grisell lay on her couch. She had been dressed, and had knelt at the +window, where the curtain was drawn back while mass was said by the +Chaplain, the nuns kneeling in their order and making their responses. +It was a low-browed chapel of Norman or even older days, with circular +arches and heavy round piers, and so dark that the gleam of the candles +was needed to light it. + +Grisell watched, till tired with kneeling she went back to her couch, +slept a little, and then wondered to see Sister Avice still compounding +her simples. + +She moved wearily, and sighed for Madge to come in and tell her all the +news of Amesbury—who was riding at the ring, or who had shot the best +bolt, or who had had her work picked out as not neat or well shaded +enough. + +Sister Avice came and shook up her pillow, and gave her a dried plum and +a little milk, and began to talk to her. + +“You will soon be better,” she said, “and then you will be able to play +in the garden.” + +“Is there any playfellow for me?” asked Grisell. + +“There is a little maid from Bemerton, who comes daily to learn her +hornbook and her sampler. Mayhap she will stay and play with you.” + +“I had Madge at Amesbury; I shall love no one as well as Madge! See what +she gave me.” + +Grisell displayed her pouncet box, which was duly admired, and then she +asked wearily whether she should always have to stay in the convent. + +“Oh no, not of need,” said the sister. “Many a maiden who has been here +for a time has gone out into the world, but some love this home the best, +as I have done.” + +“Did yonder nun on the wall?” asked Grisell. + +“Yea, truly. She was bred here, and never left it, though she was a +King’s daughter. Edith was her name, and two days after Holy Cross day +we shall keep her feast. Shall I tell you her story?” + +“Prithee, prithee!” exclaimed Grisell. “I love a tale dearly.” + +Sister Avice told the legend, how St. Edith grew in love and tenderness +at Wilton, and how she loved the gliding river and the flowers in the +garden, and how all loved her, her young playmates especially. She +promised one who went away to be wedded that she would be godmother to +her first little daughter, but ere the daughter was born the saintly +Edith had died. The babe was carried to be christened in the font at +Winchester Cathedral, and by a great and holy man, no other than +Alphegius, who was then Bishop of Winchester, but was made Archbishop of +Canterbury, and died a holy martyr. + +“Then,” said Sister Avice, “there was a great marvel, for among the +sponsors around the square black font there stood another figure in the +dress of our Mother Abbess, and as the Bishop spake and said, “Bear this +taper, in token that thy lamp shall be alight when the Bridegroom +cometh,” the form held the torch, shining bright, clear, and like no +candle or light on earth ever shone, and the face was the face of the +holy Edith. It is even said that she held the babe, but that I know not, +being a spirit without a body, but she spake the name, her own name +Edith. And when the holy rite was over, she had vanished away.” + +“And that is she, with the lamp in her hand? Oh, I should have been +afraid!” cried Grisell. + +“Not of the holy soul?” said the sister. + +“Oh! I hope she will never come in here, by the little window into the +church,” cried Grisell trembling. + +Indeed, for some time, in spite of all Sister Avice could say, Grisell +could not at night be free from the fear of a visit from St. Edith, who, +as she was told, slept her long sleep in the church below. It may be +feared that one chief reliance was on the fact that she could not be holy +enough for a vision of the Saint, but this was not so valuable to her as +the touch of Sister Avice’s kind hand, or the very knowing her present. + +That story was the prelude to many more. Grisell wanted to hear it over +again, and then who was the Archbishop martyr, and who were the Virgins +in memory of whom the lamps were carried. Both these, and many another +history, parable, or legend were told her by Sister Avice, training her +soul, throughout the long recovery, which was still very slow, but was +becoming more confirmed every day. Grisell could use her eye, turn her +head, and the wounds closed healthily under the sister’s treatment +without showing symptoms of breaking out afresh; and she grew in strength +likewise, first taking a walk in the trim garden and orchard, and by and +by being pronounced able to join the other girl scholars of the convent. +Only here was the first demur. Her looks did not recover with her +health. She remained with a much-seamed neck, and a terrible scar across +each cheek, on one side purple, and her eyebrows were entirely gone. + +She seemed to have forgotten the matter while she was entirely in the +infirmary, with no companion but Sister Avice, and occasionally a lay +sister, who came to help; but the first time she went down the turret +stair into the cloister—a beautiful succession of arches round a green +court—she met a novice and a girl about her own age; the elder gave a +little scream at the sight and ran away. + +The other hung back. “Mary, come hither,” said Sister Avice. “This is +Grisell Dacre, who hath suffered so much. Wilt thou not come and kiss +and welcome her?” + +Mary came forward rather reluctantly, but Grisell drew up her head +within, “Oh, if you had liefer not!” and turned her back on the girl. + +Sister Avice followed as Grisell walked away as fast as her weakness +allowed, and found her sitting breathless at the third step on the +stairs. + +“Oh, no—go away—don’t bring her. Every one will hate me,” sobbed the +poor child. + +Avice could only gather her into her arms, though embraces were against +the strict rule of Benedictine nuns, and soothe and coax her to believe +that by one at least she was not hated. + +“I had forgotten,” said Grisell. “I saw myself once at Amesbury! but my +face was not well then. Let me see again, sister! Where’s a mirror?” + +“Ah! my child, we nuns are not allowed the use of worldly things like +mirrors; I never saw one in my life.” + +“But oh, for pity’s sake, tell me what like am I. Am I so loathly?” + +“Nay, my dear maid, I love thee too well to think of aught save that thou +art mine own little one, given back to us by the will of Heaven. Aye, +and so will others think of thee, if thou art good and loving to them.” + +“Nay, nay, none will ever love me! All will hate and flee from me, as +from a basilisk or cockatrice, or the Loathly Worm of Spindlesheugh,” +sobbed Grisell. + +“Then, my maid, thou must win them back by thy sweet words and kind +deeds. They are better than looks. And here too they shall soon think +only of what thou art, not of what thou look’st.” + +“But know you, sister, how—how I should have been married to Leonard +Copeland, the very youth that did me this despite, and he is fair and +beauteous as a very angel, and I did love him so, and now he and his +father rid away from Amesbury, and left me because I am so foul to see,” +cried Grisell, between her sobs. + +“If they could treat thee thus despiteously, he would surely not have +made thee a good husband,” reasoned the sister. + +“But I shall never have a husband now,” wailed Grisell. + +“Belike not,” said Sister Avice; “but, my sweetheart, there is better +peace and rest and cheer in such a home as this holy house, than in the +toils and labours of the world. When my sisters at Dunbridge and Dinton +come to see me they look old and careworn, and are full of tales of the +turmoil and trouble of husbands, and sons, and dues, and tenants’ fees, +and villeins, and I know not what, that I often think that even in this +world’s sense I am the best off. And far above and beyond that,” she +added, in a low voice, “the virgin hath a hope, a Spouse beyond all human +thought.” + +Grisell did not understand the thought, and still wept bitterly. “Must +she be a nun all her life?” was all she thought of, and the shady +cloister seemed to her like a sort of prison. Sister Avice had to soothe +and comfort her, till her tears were all spent, as so often before, and +she had cried herself so ill that she had to be taken back to her bed and +lie down again. It was some days before she could be coaxed out again to +encounter any companions. + +However, as time went on, health, and with it spirits and life, came back +to Grisell Dacre at Wilton, and she became accustomed to being with the +other inmates of the fine old convent, as they grew too much used to her +appearance to be startled or even to think about it. The absence of +mirrors prevented it from ever being brought before her, and Sister Avice +set herself to teach her how goodness, sweetness, and kindness could +endear any countenance, and indeed Grisell saw for herself how much more +loved was the old and very plain Mother Anne than the very beautiful +young Sister Isabel, who had been forced into the convent by her +tyrannical brother, and wore out her life in fretting and rudeness to all +who came in her way. She declared that the sight of Grisell made her +ill, and insisted that the veiled hood which all the girls wore should be +pulled forward whenever they came near one another, and that Grisell’s +place should be out of her sight in chapel or refectory. + +Every one else, however, was very kind to the poor girl, Sister Avice +especially so, and Grisell soon forgot her disfigurement when she ceased +to suffer from it. She had begun to learn reading, writing, and a little +Latin, besides spinning, stitchery, and a few housewifely arts, in the +Countess of Salisbury’s household, for every lady was supposed to be +educated in these arts, and great establishments were schools for the +damsels there bred up. It was the same with convent life, and each +nunnery had traditional works of its own, either in embroidery, cookery, +or medicine. Some secrets there were not imparted beyond the professed +nuns, and only to the more trustworthy of them, so that each sisterhood +might have its own especial glory in confections, whether in +portrait-worked vestments, in illuminations, in sweetmeats, or in salves +and unguents; but the pensioners were instructed in all those common arts +of bakery, needlework, notability, and surgery which made the lady of a +castle or manor so important, and within the last century in the more +fashionable abbeys Latin of a sort, French “of the school of Stratford le +Bowe,” and the like, were added. Thus Grisell learnt as an apt scholar +these arts, and took especial delight in helping Sister Avice to compound +her simples, and acquired a tender hand with which to apply them. + +Moreover, she learnt not only to say and sing her Breviary, but to know +the signification in English. There were translations of the Lord’s +Prayer and Creed in the hands of all careful and thoughtful people, even +among the poor, if they had a good parish priest, or had come under the +influence of the better sort of friars. In convents where discipline was +kept up the meaning was carefully taught, and there were English primers +in the hands of all the devout, so that the services could be +intelligently followed even by those who did not learn Latin, as did +Grisell. Selections from Scripture history, generally clothed in rhyme, +and versified lives of the Saints, were read aloud at meal-times in the +refectory, and Grisell became so good a reader that she was often chosen +to chant out the sacred story, and her sweet northern voice was much +valued in the singing in the church. She was quite at home there, and +though too young to be admitted as a novice, she wore a black dress and +white hood like theirs, and the annual gifts to the nunnery from the +Countess of Salisbury were held to entitle her to the residence there as +a pensioner. She had fully accepted the idea of spending her life there, +sheltered from the world, among the kind women whom she loved, and who +had learnt to love her, and in devotion to God, and works of mercy to the +sick. + + + + +CHAPTER VI +THE PROCTOR + + + But if a mannes soul were in his purse, + For in his purse he should yfurnished be. + + CHAUCER, _Canterbury Pilgrims_. + +FIVE years had passed since Grisell had been received at Wilton, when the +Abbess died. She had been infirm and confined to her lodging for many +months, and Grisell had hardly seen her, but her death was to change the +whole tenor of the maiden’s life. + +The funeral ceremonies took place in full state. The Bishop himself came +to attend them, and likewise all the neighbouring clergy, and the monks, +friars, and nuns, overflowing the chapel, while peasants and beggars for +whom there was no room in the courts encamped outside the walls, to +receive the dole and pray for the soul of the right reverend Mother +Abbess. + +For nine days constant services were kept up, and the requiem mass was +daily said, the dirges daily sung, and the alms bestowed on the crowd, +who were by no means specially sorrowful or devout, but beguiled the time +by watching _jongleurs_ and mountebanks performing beyond the walls. + +There was the “Month’s Mind” still to come, and then the chapter of nuns +intended to proceed to the election of their new Abbess, unanimously +agreeing that she should be their present Prioress, who had held kindly +rule over them through the slow to-decay of the late Abbess. Before, +however, this could be done a messenger arrived on a mule bearing an +inhibition to the sisters to proceed in the election. + +His holiness Pope Calixtus had reserved to himself the next appointment +to this as well as to certain other wealthy abbeys. + +The nuns in much distress appealed to the Bishop, but he could do nothing +for them. Such reservations had been constant in the subservient days +that followed King John’s homage, and though the great Edwards had +struggled against them, and the yoke had been shaken off during the Great +Schism, no sooner had this been healed than the former claims were +revived, nay, redoubled, and the pious Henry VI. was not the man to +resist them. The sisters therefore waited in suspense, daring only +meekly to recommend their Prioress in a humble letter, written by the +Chaplain, and backed by a recommendation from Bishop Beauchamp. Both +alike were disregarded, as all had expected. + +The new Abbess thus appointed was the Madre Matilda de Borgia, a relation +of Pope Calixtus, very noble, and of Spanish birth, as the Commissioner +assured the nuns; but they had never heard of her before, and were not at +all gratified. They had always elected their Abbess before, and had +quite made up their minds as to the choice of the present Mother Prioress +as Abbess, and of Sister Avice as Prioress. + +However, they had only to submit. To appeal to the King or to their +Bishop would have been quite useless; they could only do as the Pope +commanded, and elect the Mother Matilda, consoling themselves with the +reflection that she was not likely to trouble herself about them, and +their old Prioress would govern them. And so she did so far as regarded +the discipline of the house, but what they had not so entirely understood +was the Mother de Borgia’s desire to squeeze all she could out of the +revenues of the house. + +Her Proctor arrived, a little pinched man in a black gown and square cap, +and desired to see the Mother Prioress and her steward, and to overlook +the income and expenditure of the convent; to know who had duly paid her +dowry to the nunnery, what were the rents, and the like. The sisters had +already raised a considerable gift in silver merks to be sent through +Lombard merchants to their new Abbess, and this requisition was a fresh +blow. + +Presently the Proctor marked out Grisell Dacre, and asked on what terms +she was at the convent. It was explained that she had been brought +thither for her cure by the Lady of Salisbury, and had stayed on, without +fee or payment from her own home in the north, but the ample donations of +the Earl of Salisbury had been held as full compensation, and it had been +contemplated to send to the maiden’s family to obtain permission to enrol +her as a sister after her novitiate—which might soon begin, as she was +fifteen years old. + +The Proctor, however, was much displeased. The nuns had no right to +receive a pensioner without payment, far less to admit a novice as a +sister without a dowry. + +Mistress Grisell must be returned instantly upon the hands either of her +own family or of the Countess of Salisbury, and certainly not readmitted +unless her dowry were paid. He scarcely consented to give time for +communication with the Countess, to consider how to dispose of the poor +child. + +The Prioress sent messengers to Amesbury and to Christ Church, but the +Earl and Countess were not there, nor was it clear where they were likely +to be. Whitburn was too far off to send to in the time allowed by the +Proctor, and Grisell had heard nothing from her home all the time she had +been at Wilton. The only thing that the Prioress could devise, was to +request the Chaplain to seek her out at Salisbury a trustworthy escort, +pilgrim, merchant or other, with whom Grisell might safely travel to +London, and if the Earl and Countess were not there, some responsible +person of theirs, or of their son’s, was sure to be found, who would send +the maiden on. + +The Chaplain mounted his mule and rode over to Salisbury, whence he +returned, bringing with him news of a merchant’s wife who was about to go +on pilgrimage to fulfil a vow at Walsingham, and would feel herself +honoured by acting as the convoy of the Lady Grisell Dacre as far at +least as London. + +There was no further hope of delay or failure. Poor Grisell must be cast +out on the world—the Proctor even spoke of calling the Countess, or her +steward, to account for her maintenance during these five years. + +There was weeping and wailing in the cloisters at the parting, and +Grisell clung to Sister Avice, mourning for her peaceful, holy life. + +“Nay, my child, none can take from thee a holy life.” + +“If I make a vow of virginity none can hinder me.” + +“That was not what I meant. No maid has a right to take such a vow on +herself without consent of her father, nor is it binding otherwise. No! +but no one can take away from a Christian maid the power of holiness. +Bear that for ever in mind, sweetheart. Naught that can be done by man +or by devil to the body can hurt the soul that is fixed on Christ and +does not consent to evil.” + +“The Saints forefend that ever—ever I should consent to evil.” + +“It is the Blessed Spirit alone who can guard thy will, my child. Will +and soul not consenting nor being led astray thou art safe. Nay, the +lack of a fair-favoured face may be thy guard.” + +“All will hate me. Alack! alack!” + +“Not so. See, thou hast won love amongst us. Wherefore shouldst not +thou in like manner win love among thine own people?” + +“My mother hates me already, and my father heeds me not.” + +“Love them, child! Do them good offices! None can hinder thee from +that.” + +“Can I love those who love not me?” + +“Yea, little one. To serve and tend another brings the heart to love. +Even as thou seest a poor dog love the master who beats him, so it is +with us, only with the higher Christian love. Service and prayer open +the heart to love, hoping for nothing again, and full oft that which was +not hoped for is vouchsafed.” + +That was the comfort with which Grisell had to start from her home of +peace, conducted by the Chaplain, and even the Prioress, who would +herself give her into the hands of the good Mistress Hall. + +Very early they heard mass in the convent, and then rode along the bank +of the river, with the downs sloping down on the other side, and the +grand spire ever seeming as it were taller as they came nearer; while the +sound of the bells grew upon them, for there was then a second tower +beyond to hold the bells, whose reverberation would have been dangerous +to the spire, and most sweet was their chime, the sound of which had +indeed often reached Wilton in favourable winds; but it sounded like a +sad farewell to Grisell. + +The Prioress thought she ought to begin her journey by kneeling in the +Cathedral, so they crossed the shaded close and entered by the west door +with the long vista of clustered columns and pointed arches before them. + +Low sounds of mass being said at different altars met their ears, for it +was still early in the day. The Prioress passed the length of nave, and +went beyond the choir to the lady chapel, with its slender supporting +columns and exquisite arches, and there she, with Grisell by her side, +joined in earnest supplications for the child. + +The Chaplain touched her as she rose, and made her aware that the dame +arrayed in a scarlet mantle and hood and dark riding-dress was Mistress +Hall. + +Silence was not observed in cathedrals or churches, especially in the +naves, except when any sacred rite was going on, and no sooner was the +mass finished and “_Ite missa est_” pronounced than the scarlet cloak +rose, and hastened into the south transept, where she waited for the +Chaplain, Prioress, and Grisell. No introduction seemed needed. “The +Holy Mother Prioress,” she began, bending her knee and kissing the lady’s +hand. “Much honoured am I by the charge of this noble little lady.” +Grisell by the by was far taller than the plump little goodwoman Hall, +but that was no matter, and the Prioress had barely space to get in a +word of thanks before she went on: “I will keep her and tend her as the +apple of mine eye. She shall pray with me at all the holy shrines for +the good of her soul and mine. She shall be my bedfellow wherever we +halt, and sit next me, and be cherished as though she were mine own +daughter—ladybird as she is—till I can give her into the hands of the +good Lady Countess. Oh yes—you may trust Joan Hall, dame reverend +mother. She is no new traveller. I have been in my time to all our +shrines—to St. Thomas of Canterbury, to St. Winifred’s Well, aye, and, +moreover, to St. James of Compostella, and St. Martha of Provence, not to +speak of lesser chantries and Saints. Aye, and I crossed the sea to see +the holy coat of Trèves, and St. Ursula’s eleven thousand skulls—and a +gruesome sight they were. Nay, if the Lady Countess be not in London it +would cost me little to go on to the north with her. There’s St. Andrew +of Ely, Hugh, great St. Hugh and little St. Hugh, both of them at +Lincoln, and there’s St. Wilfred of York, and St. John of Beverly, not to +speak of St. Cuthbert of Durham and of St. Hilda of Whitby, who might +take it ill if I pray at none of their altars, when I have been to so +many of their brethren. Oh, you may trust me, reverend mother; I’ll +never have the young lady, bless her sweet face, out of my sight till I +have safe bestowed her with my Lady Countess, our good customer for all +manner of hardware, or else with her own kin.” + +The good woman’s stream of conversation lasted almost without drawing +breath all the way down the nave. It was a most good-humoured hearty +voice, and her plump figure and rosy face beamed with good nature, while +her bright black eyes had a lively glance. + +The Chaplain had inquired about her, and found that she was one of the +good women to whom pilgrimage was an annual dissipation, consecrated and +meritorious as they fondly believed, and gratifying their desire for +change and variety. She was a kindly person of good reputation, +trustworthy, and kind to the poor, and stout John Hall, her husband, +could manage the business alone, and was thought not to regret a little +reprieve from her continual tongue. + +She wanted the Prioress to do her the honour of breaking her fast with +her, but the good nun was in haste to return, after having once seen her +charge in safe hands, and excused herself, while Grisell, blessed by the +Chaplain, and hiding her tears under her veil, was led away to the +substantial smith’s abode, where she was to take a first meal before +starting on her journey on the strong forest pony which the Chaplain’s +care had provided for her. + + + + +CHAPTER VII +THE PILGRIM OF SALISBURY + + + She hadde passed many a strange shrine, + At Rome she had been and at Boleine, + At Galice, at St. James, and at Coleine, + She could moche of wandering by the way. + + CHAUCER, _Canterbury Pilgrims_. + +GRISELL found herself brought into a hall where a stout oak table +occupied the centre, covered with home-spun napery, on which stood +trenchers, wooden bowls, pewter and a few silver cups, and several large +pitchers of ale, small beer, or milk. A pie and a large piece of bacon, +also a loaf of barley bread and a smaller wheaten one, were there. + +Shelves all round the walls shone with pewter and copper dishes, cups, +kettles, and vessels and implements of all household varieties, and +ranged round the floor lay ploughshares, axes, and mattocks, all polished +up. The ring of hammers on the anvil was heard in the court in the rear. +The front of the hall was open for the most part, without windows, but it +could be closed at night. + +Breakfast was never a regular meal, and the household had partaken of it, +so that there was no one in the hall excepting Master Hall, a stout, +brawny, grizzled man, with a good-humoured face, and his son, more slim, +but growing into his likeness, also a young notable-looking +daughter-in-law with a swaddled baby tucked under her arm. + +They seated Grisell at the table, and implored her to eat. The wheaten +bread and the fowl were, it seemed, provided in her honour, and she could +not but take her little knife from the sheath in her girdle, turn back +her nun-like veil, and prepare to try to drive back her sobs, and swallow +the milk of almonds pressed on her. + +“Eh!” cried the daughter-in-law in amaze. “She’s only scarred after +all.” + +“Well, what else should she be, bless her poor heart?” said Mrs. Hall the +elder. + +“Why, wasn’t it thou thyself, good mother, that brought home word that +they had the pig-faced lady at Wilton there?” + +“Bless thee, Agnes, thou should’st know better than to lend an ear to all +the idle tales thy poor old mother may hear at market or fair.” + +“Then should we have enough to do,” muttered her husband. + +“And as thou seest, ’tis a sweet little face, only cruelly marred by the +evil hap.” + +Poor Grisell was crimson at finding all eyes on her, an ordeal she had +never undergone in the convent, and she hastily pulled forward her veil. + +“Nay now, my sweet young lady, take not the idle words in ill part,” +pleaded the good hostess. “We all know how to love thee, and what is a +smooth skin to a true heart? Take a bit more of the pasty, ladybird; +we’ll have far to ride ere we get to Wherwell, where the good sisters +will give us a meal for young St. Edward’s sake and thy Prioress’s. +Aye—I turn out of my way for that; I never yet paid my devotion to poor +young King Edward, and he might take it in dudgeon, being a king, and his +shrine so near at hand.” + +“Ha, ha!” laughed the smith; “trust my dame for being on the right side +of the account with the Saints. Well for me and Jack that we have little +Agnes here to mind the things on earth meanwhile. Nay, nay, dame, I say +nought to hinder thee; I know too well what it means when spring comes, +and thou beginn’st to moan and tell up the tale of the shrines where thou +hast not told thy beads.” + +It was all in good humour, and Master Hall walked out to the city gate to +speed his gad-about or pious wife, whichever he might call her, on her +way, apparently quite content to let her go on her pilgrimages for the +summer quarter. + +She rode a stout mule, and was attended by two sturdy varlets—quite +sufficient guards for pilgrims, who were not supposed to carry any +valuables. Grisell sadly rode her pony, keeping her veil well over her +face, yearning over the last view of the beloved spire, thinking of +Sister Avice ministering to her poor, and with a very definite fear of +her own reception in the world and dread of her welcome at home. Yet +there was a joy in being on horseback once more, for her who had ridden +moorland ponies as soon as she could walk. + +Goodwife Hall talked on, with anecdotes of every hamlet that they passed, +and these were not very many. At each church they dismounted and said +their prayers, and if there were a hostel near, they let their animals +feed the while, and obtained some refreshment themselves. England was +not a very safe place for travellers just then, but the cockle-shells +sewn to the pilgrim’s hat of the dame, and to that of one of her +attendants, and the tall staff and wallet each carried, were passports of +security. Nothing could be kinder than Mistress Hall was to her charge, +of whom she was really proud, and when they halted for the night at the +nunnery of Queen Elfrida at Wherwell, she took care to explain that this +was no burgess’s daughter but the Lady Grisell Dacre of Whitburn, trusted +to _her_ convoy, and thus obtained for her quarters in the guest-chamber +of the refectory instead of in the general hospitium; but on the whole +Grisell had rather not have been exposed to the shock of being shown to +strangers, even kindly ones, for even if they did not exclaim, some one +was sure to start and whisper. + +After another halt for the night the travellers reached London, and +learned at the city gate that the Earl and Countess of Salisbury were +absent, but that their eldest son, the Earl of Warwick, was keeping court +at Warwick House. + +Thither therefore Mistress Hall resolved to conduct Grisell. The way lay +through narrow streets with houses overhanging the roadway, but the house +itself was like a separate castle, walled round, enclosing a huge space, +and with a great arched porter’s lodge, where various men-at-arms +lounged, all adorned on the arm of their red jackets with the bear and +ragged staff. + +They were courteous, however, for the Earl Richard of Warwick insisted on +civility to all comers, and they respected the scallop-shell on the +dame’s hat. They greeted her good-humouredly. + +“Ha, good-day, good pilgrim wife. Art bound for St. Paul’s? Here’s +supper to the fore for all comers!” + +“Thanks, sir porter, but this maid is of other mould; she is the Lady +Grisell Dacre, and is company for my lord and my lady.” + +“Nay, her hood and veil look like company for the Abbess. Come this way, +dame, and we will find the steward to marshal her.” + +Grisell had rather have been left to the guardianship of her kind old +friend, but she was obliged to follow. They dismounted in a fine court +with cloister-like buildings round it, and full of people of all kinds, +for no less than six hundred stout yeomen wore red coats and the bear and +ragged staff. Grisell would fain have clung to her guide, but she was +not allowed to do so. She was marshalled up stone steps into a great +hall, where tables were being laid, covered with white napery and +glittering with silver and pewter. + +The seneschal marched before her all the length of the hall to where +there was a large fireplace with a burning log, summer though it was, and +shut off by handsome tapestried and carved screens sat a half circle of +ladies, with a young-looking lady in a velvet fur-trimmed surcoat in +their midst. A tall man with a keen, resolute face, in long robes and +gold belt and chain, stood by her leaning on her chair. + +The seneschal announced, “Place, place for the Lady Grisell Dacre of +Whitburn,” and Grisell bent low, putting back as much of her veil as she +felt courtesy absolutely to require. The lady rose, the knight held out +his hand to raise the bending figure. He had that power of recollection +and recognition which is so great an element in popularity. “The Lady +Grisell Dacre,” he said. “She who met with so sad a disaster when she +was one of my lady mother’s household?” + +Grisell glowing all over signed acquiescence, and he went on, “Welcome to +my poor house, lady. Let me present you to my wife.” + +The Countess of Warwick was a pale, somewhat inane lady. She was the +heiress of the Beauchamps and De Spensers in consequence of the recent +death of her brother, “the King of the Isle of Wight”—and through her +inheritance her husband had risen to his great power. She was delicate +and feeble, almost apathetic, and she followed her husband’s lead, and +received her guest with fair courtesy; and Grisell ventured in a +trembling voice to explain that she had spent those years at Wilton, but +that the new Abbess’s Proctor would not consent to her remaining there +any longer, not even long enough to send to her parents or to the +Countess of Salisbury. + +“Poor maiden! Such are the ways of his Holiness where the King is not +man enough to stand in his way,” said Warwick. “So, fair maiden, if you +will honour my house for a few days, as my lady’s guest, I will send you +north in more fitting guise than with this white-smith dame.” + +“She hath been very good to me,” Grisell ventured to add to her thanks. + +“She shall have good entertainment here,” said the Earl smiling. “No +doubt she hath already, as Sarum born. See that Goodwife Hall, the white +smith’s wife, and her following have the best of harbouring,” he added to +his silver-chained steward. + +“You are a Dacre of Whitburn,” he added to Grisell. “Your father has not +taken sides with Dacre of Gilsland and the Percies.” Then seeing that +Grisell knew nothing of all this, he laughed and said, “Little convent +birds, you know nought of our worldly strifes.” + +In fact, Grisell had heard nothing from her home for the last five years, +which was the less marvel as neither her father nor her mother could +write if they had cared to do so. Nor did the convent know much of the +state of England, though prayers had been constantly said for the King’s +recovery, and of late there had been thanksgivings for the birth of the +Prince of Wales; but it was as much as she did know that just now the +Duke of York was governing, for the poor King seemed as senseless as a +stone, and the Earl of Salisbury was his Chancellor. Nevertheless +Salisbury was absent in the north, and there was a quarrel going on +between the Nevils and the Percies which Warwick was going to compose, +and thus would be able to take Grisell so far in his company. + +The great household was larger than even what she remembered at the +houses of the Countess of Salisbury before her accident, and, fresh from +the stillness of the convent as she was, the noises were amazing to her +when all sat down to supper. Tables were laid all along the vast hall. +She was placed at the upper one to her relief, beside an old lady, Dame +Gresford, whom she remembered to have seen at Montacute Castle in her +childhood, as one of the attendants on the Countess. She was forced to +put back her veil, and she saw some of the young knights and squires +staring at her, then nudging one another and laughing. + +“Never mind them, sweetheart,” said Dame Gresford kindly; “they are but +unmannerly lurdanes, and the Lord Earl would make them know what is +befitting if his eye fell on them.” + +The good lady must have had a hint from the authorities, for she kept +Grisell under her wing in the huge household, which was like a city in +itself. There was a knight who acted as steward, with innumerable +knights, squires, and pages under him, besides the six hundred red +jacketed yoemen, and servants of all degrees, in the immense court of the +buttery and kitchen, as indeed there had need to be, for six oxen were +daily cooked, with sheep and other meats in proportion, and any friend or +acquaintance of any one in this huge establishment might come in, and not +only eat and drink his fill, but carry off as much meat as he could on +the point of his dagger. + +Goodwife Hall, as coming from Salisbury, stayed there in free quarters, +while she made the round of all the shrines in London, and she was +intensely gratified by the great Earl recollecting, or appearing to +recollect, her and inquiring after her husband, that hearty burgess, +whose pewter was so lasting, and he was sure was still in use among his +black guard. + +When she saw Grisell on finally departing for St. Albans, she was +carrying her head a good deal higher on the strength of “my Lord Earl’s +grace to her.” She hoped that her sweet Lady Grisell would remain here, +as the best hap she could have in the most noble, excellent, and +open-handed house in the world! Grisell’s own wishes were not the same, +for the great household was very bewildering—a strange change from her +quietly-busy convent. The Countess was quiet enough, but dull and +sickly, and chiefly occupied by her ailments. She seemed to be always +thinking about leeches, wise friars, wonderful nuns, or even wizards and +cunning women, and was much concerned that her husband absolutely forbade +her consulting the witch of Spitalfields. + +“Nay, dame,” said he, “an thou didst, the next thing we should hear would +be that thou hadst been sticking pins into King Harry’s waxen image and +roasting him before the fire, and that nothing but roasting thee in life +and limb within a fire would bring him to life and reason.” + +“They would never dare,” cried the lady. + +“Who can tell what the Queen would dare if she gets her will!” demanded +the Earl. “Wouldst like to do penance with sheet and candle, like +Gloucester’s wife?” + +Such a possibility was enough to silence the Lady of Warwick on the score +of witches, and the only time she spoke to Grisell was to ask her about +Sister Avice and her cures. She set herself to persuade her husband to +let her go down to one of his mother’s Wiltshire houses to consult the +nun, but Warwick had business in the north, nor would he allow her to be +separated from him, lest she might be detained as a hostage. + +Dame Gresford continued to be Grisell’s protector, and let the girl sit +and spin or embroider beside her, while the other ladies of the house +played at ball in the court, or watched the exercises of the pages and +squires. The dame’s presence and authority prevented Grisell’s being +beset with uncivil remarks, but she knew she was like a toad among the +butterflies, as she overheard some saucy youth calling her, while a laugh +answered him, and she longed for her convent. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII +OLD PLAYFELLOWS + + + Alone thou goest forth, + Thy face unto the north, + Moor and pleasance all around thee and beneath thee. + + E. BARRETT BROWNING, _A Valediction_. + +ONE great pleasure fell to Grisell’s share, but only too brief. The +family of the Duke of York on their way to Baynard’s Castle halted at +Warwick House, and the Duchess Cecily, tall, fair, and stately, sailed +into the hall, followed by three fair daughters, while Warwick, her +nephew, though nearly of the same age, advanced with his wife to meet and +receive her. + +In the midst of the exchange of affectionate but formal greetings a cry +of joy was heard, “My Grisell! yes, it is my Grisell!” and springing from +the midst of her mother’s suite, Margaret Plantagenet, a tall, lovely, +dark-haired girl, threw her arms round the thin slight maiden with the +scarred face, which excited the scorn and surprise of her two sisters. + +“Margaret! What means this?” demanded the Duchess severely. + +“It is my Grisell Dacre, fair mother, my dear companion at my aunt of +Salisbury’s manor,” said Margaret, trying to lead forward her shrinking +friend. “She who was so cruelly scathed.” + +Grisell curtsied low, but still hung back, and Lord Warwick briefly +explained. “Daughter to Will Dacre of Whitburn, a staunch baron of the +north. My mother bestowed her at Wilton, whence the creature of the +Pope’s intruding Abbess has taken upon him to expel her. So I am about +to take her to Middleham, where my mother may see to her further +bestowal.” + +“We have even now come from Middleham,” said the Duchess. “My Lord Duke +sent for me, but he looks to you, my lord, to compose the strife between +your father and the insolent Percies.” + +The Duke was at Windsor with the poor insane King, and the Earl and the +Duchess plunged into a discussion of the latest news of the northern +counties and of the Court. The elder daughters were languidly +entertained by the Countess, but no one disturbed the interview of +Margaret and Grisell, who, hand in hand, had withdrawn into the embrasure +of a window, and there fondled each other, and exchanged tidings of their +young lives, and Margaret told of friends in the Nevil household. + +All too soon the interview came to an end. The Duchess, after partaking +of a manchet, was ready to proceed to Baynard’s Castle, and the Lady +Margaret was called for. Again, in spite of surprised, not to say +displeased looks, she embraced her dear old playfellow. “Don’t go into a +convent, Grisell,” she entreated. “When I am wedded to some great earl, +you must come and be my lady, mine own, own dear friend. Promise me! +Your pledge, Grisell.” + +There was no time for the pledge. Margaret was peremptorily summoned. +They would not meet again. The Duchess’s intelligence had quickened +Warwick’s departure, and the next day the first start northwards was to +be made. + +It was a mighty cavalcade. The black guard, namely, the kitchen ménage, +with all their pots and pans, kettles and spits, were sent on a day’s +march beforehand, then came the yeomen, the knights and squires, followed +by the more immediate attendants of the Earl and Countess and their +court. She travelled in a whirlicote, and there were others provided for +her elder ladies, the rest riding singly or on pillions according to age +or taste. Grisell did not like to part with her pony, and Dame Gresford +preferred a pillion to the bumps and jolts of the waggon-like conveyances +called chariots, so Grisell rode by her side, the fresh spring breezes +bringing back the sense of being really a northern maid, and she threw +back her veil whenever she was alone with the attendants, who were used +to her, though she drew it closely round when she encountered town or +village. There were resting-places on the way. In great monasteries all +were accommodated, being used to close quarters; in castles there was +room for the “Gentles,” who, if they fared well, heeded little how they +slept, and their attendants found lairs in the kitchens or stables. In +towns there was generally harbour for the noble portion; indeed in some, +Warwick had dwellings of his own, or his father’s, but these, at first, +were at long distances apart, such as would be ridden by horsemen alone, +not encumbered with ladies, and there were intermediate stages, where +some of the party had to be dispersed in hostels. + +It was in one of these, at Dunstable, that Dame Gresford had taken +Grisell, and there were also sundry of the gentlemen of the escort. A +minstrel was esconced under the wide spread of the chimney, and began to +sound his harp and sing long ballads in recitative to the company. +Whether he did it in all innocence and ignorance, or one of the young +squires had mischievously prompted him, there was no knowing; Dame +Gresford suspected the latter, when he began the ballad of “Sir Gawaine’s +Wedding.” She would have silenced it, but feared to draw more attention +on her charge, who had never heard the song, and did not know what was +coming, but listened with increasing eagerness as she heard of King +Arthur, and of the giant, and the secret that the King could not guess, +till as he rode— + + He came to the green forest, + Underneath a green hollen tree, + There sat that lady in red scarlet + That unseemly was to see. + +Some eyes were discourteously turned on the maiden, but she hardly saw +them, and at any rate her nose was not crooked, nor had her eyes and +mouth changed places, as in the case of the “Loathly Lady.” She heard of +the condition on which the lady revealed the secret, and how King Arthur +bound himself to bring a fair young knight to wed the hideous being. +Then when he revealed to his assembled knights— + + Then some took up their hawks, + And some took up their hounds, + And some sware they would not marry her + For cities nor for towns. + +Glances again went towards the scarred visage, but Grisell was heedless +of them, only listening how Sir Gawaine, Arthur’s nephew, felt that his +uncle’s oath must be kept, and offered himself as the bridegroom. + +Then after the marriage, when he looked on the lady, instead of the +loathly hag he beheld a fair damsel! And he was told by her that he +might choose whether she should be foul at night and fair by day, or fair +each evening and frightful in the daylight hours. His choice at first +was that her beauty should be for him alone, in his home, but when she +objected that this would be hard on her, since she could thus never show +her face when other dames ride with their lords— + + Then buke him gentle Gawayne, + Said, “Lady, that’s but a shill; + Because thou art mine own lady + Thou shalt have all thy will.” + +And his courtesy broke the spell of the stepdame, as the lady related— + + “She witched me, being a fair young lady, + To the green forest to dwell, + And there must I walk in woman’s likeness, + Most like a fiend in hell.” + +Thenceforth the enchantment was broken, and Sir Gawaine’s bride was fair +to see. + +Grisell had listened intently, absorbed in the narrative, so losing +personal thought and feeling that it was startling to her to perceive +that Dame Gresford was trying to hush a rude laugh, and one of the young +squires was saying, “Hush, hush! for very shame.” + +Then she saw that they were applying the story to her, and the blood +rushed into her face, but the more courteous youth was trying to turn +away attention by calling on the harper for “The Beggar of Bethnal +Green,” or “Lord Thomas and Fair Annet,” or any merry ballad. So it was +borne in on Grisell that to these young gentlemen she was the lady +unseemly to see. Yet though a few hot tears flowed, indignant and +sorrowful, the sanguine spirit of youth revived. “Sister Avice had told +her how to be not loathly in the sight of those whom she could teach to +love her.” + +There was one bound by a pledge! Ah, he would never fulfil it. If he +should, Grisell felt a resolute purpose within her that though she could +not be transformed, he should not see her loathly in his sight, and in +that hope she slept. + + + + +CHAPTER IX +THE KING-MAKER + + + O where is faith? O where is loyalty? + + SHAKESPEARE, _Henry VI._, _Part II_. + +GRISELL was disappointed in her hopes of seeing her Countess of Salisbury +again, for as she rode into the Castle of York she heard the Earl’s +hearty voice of greeting. “Ha, stout Will of Whitburn, well met! What, +from the north?” + +The Earl stood talking with a tall brawny man, lean and strong, brown and +weather-beaten, in a frayed suit of buff leather stained to all sorts of +colours, in which rust predominated, and a face all brown and red except +for the grizzled eyebrows, hair, and stubbly beard. She had not seen her +father since she was five years old, and she would not have known him. + +“I am from the south now, my lord,” she heard his gruff voice say. “I +have been taking my lad to be bred up in the Duke of York’s house, for +better nurture than can be had in my sea-side tower.” + +“Quite right. Well done in you,” responded Warwick. “The Duke of York +is the man to hold by. We have an exchange for you, a daughter for a +son,” and he was leading the way towards Grisell, who had just dismounted +from her pony, and stood by it, trembling a little, and bending for her +father’s blessing. It was not more than a crossing of her, and he was +talking all the time. + +“Ha! how now! Methought my Lady of Salisbury had bestowed her in the +Abbey—how call you it?” + +“Aye,” returned Warwick; “but since we have not had King or Parliament +with spirit to stand up to the Pope, he thrusts his claw in everywhere, +puts a strange Abbess into Wilton, and what must she do but send down her +Proctor to treat the poor nunnery as it were a sponge, and spite of all +my Lady Mother’s bounties to the place, what lists he do but turn out the +poor maid for lack of a dowry, not so much as giving time for a notice to +be sent.” + +“If we had such a rogue in the North Country we should know how to serve +him,” observed Sir William, and Warwick laughed as befitted a +Westmoreland Nevil, albeit he was used to more civilised ways. + +“Scurvy usage,” he said, “but the Prioress had no choice save to put her +in such keeping as she could, and send her away to my Lady Mother, or +failing her to her home.” + +“Soh! She must e’en jog off with me, though how it is to be with her my +lady may tell, not I, since every groat those villain yeomen and fisher +folk would raise, went to fit out young Rob, and there has not been so +much as a Border raid these four years and more. There are the nuns at +Gateshead, as hard as nails, will not hear of a maid without a dower, and +yonder mansworn fellow Copeland casts her off like an old glove! Let us +look at you, wench! Ha! Face is unsightly enough, but thou wilt not be +a badly-made woman. Take heart, what’s thy name—Grisell? May be there’s +luck for thee still, though it be hard of coming to Whitburn,” he added, +turning to Warwick. “There’s this wench scorched to a cinder, enough to +fright one, and my other lad racked from head to foot with pain and +sores, so as it is a misery to hear the poor child cry out, and even if +he be reared, he will be good for nought save a convent.” + +Grisell would fain have heard more about this poor little brother, but +the ladies were entering the castle, and she had to follow them. She saw +no more of her father except from the far end of the table, but orders +were issued that she should be ready to accompany him on his homeward way +the next morning at six o’clock. Her brother Robert had been sent in +charge of some of the Duke of York’s retainers, to join his household as +a page, though they had missed him on the route, and the Lord of Whitburn +was anxious to get home again, never being quite sure what the Scots, or +the Percies, or his kinsmen of Gilsland, might attempt in his absence. +“Though,” as he said, “my lady was as good as a dozen men-at-arms, but +somehow she had not been the same woman since little Bernard had fallen +sick.” + +There was no one in the company with whom Grisell was very sorry to part, +for though Dame Gresford had been kind to her, it had been merely the +attending to the needs of a charge, not showing her any affection, and +she had shrunk from the eyes of so large a party. + +When she came down early into the hall, her father’s half-dozen retainers +were taking their morning meal at one end of a big board, while a manchet +of bread and a silver cup of ale was ready for each of them at the other, +and her father while swallowing his was in deep conversation over +northern politics with the courteous Earl, who had come down to speed his +guests. As she passed the retainers she heard, “Here comes our Grisly +Grisell,” and a smothered laugh, and in fact “Grisly Grisell” continued +to be her name among the free-spoken people of the north. The Earl broke +off, bowed to her, and saw that she was provided, breaking into his +conversation with the Baron, evidently much to the impatience of the +latter; and again the polite noble came down to the door with her, and +placed her on her palfrey, bidding her a kind farewell ere she rode away +with her father. It would be long before she met with such courtesy +again. Her father called to his side his old, rugged-looking esquire +Cuthbert Ridley, and began discussing with him what Lord Warwick had +said, both wholly absorbed in the subject, and paying no attention to the +girl who rode by the Baron’s side, so that it was well that her old +infantine training in horsemanship had come back to her. + +She remembered Cuthbert Ridley, who had carried her about and petted her +long ago, and, to her surprise, looked no older than he had done in those +days when he had seemed to her infinitely aged. Indeed it was to him, +far more than to her father, that she owed any attention or care taken of +her on the journey. Her father was not unkind, but never seemed to +recollect that she needed any more care than his rough followers, and +once or twice he and all his people rode off headlong over the fell at +sight of a stag roused by one of their great deer-hounds. Then Cuthbert +Ridley kept beside her, and when the ground became too rough for a New +Forest pony and a hand unaccustomed to northern ground, he drew up. She +would probably—if not thrown and injured—have been left behind to feel +herself lost on the moors. She minded the less his somewhat rude +ejaculation, “Ho! Ho! South! South! Forgot how to back a horse on +rough ground. Eh? And what a poor soft-paced beast! Only fit to ride +on my lady’s pilgrimage or in a State procession.” + +(He said Gang, but neither the Old English nor the northern dialect could +be understood by the writer or the reader, and must be taken for +granted.) + +“They are all gone!” responded Grisell, rather frightened. + +“Never guessed you were not among them,” replied Ridley. “Why, my lady +would be among the foremost, in at the death belike, if she did not cut +the throat of the quarry.” + +Grisell could well believe it, but used to gentle nuns, she shuddered a +little as she asked what they were to do next. + +“Turn back to the track, and go softly on till my lord comes up with us,” +answered Ridley. “Or you might be fain to rest under a rock for a +while.” + +The rest was far from unwelcome, and Grisell sat down on a mossy stone +while Ridley gathered bracken for her shelter, and presently even brought +her a branch or two of whortle-berries. She felt that she had a friend, +and was pleased when he began to talk of how he remembered her long ago. + +“Ah! I mind you, a little fat ball of a thing, when you were fetched +home from Herring Dick’s house, how you used to run after the dogs like a +kitten after her tail, and used to crave to be put up on old Black +Durham’s back.” + +“I remember Black Durham! Had he not a white star on his forehead?” + +“A white blaze sure enough.” + +“Is he at the tower still? I did not see him in the plump of spears.” + +“No, no, poor beast. He broke his leg four years ago come Martinmas, in +a rabbit-hole on Berwick Law, last raid that we made, and I tarried to +cut his throat with my dagger—though it went to my heart, for his good +old eyes looked at me like Christians, and my lord told me I was a fool +for my pains, for the Elliots were hard upon us, but I could not leave +him to be a mark for them, and I was up with the rest in time, though I +had to cut down the foremost lad.” + +Certainly “home” would be very unlike the experience of Grisell’s +education. + +Ridley gave her a piece of advice. “Do not be daunted at my lady; her +bark is ever worse than her bite, and what she will not bear with is the +seeming cowed before her. She is all the sharper with her tongue now +that her heart is sore for Master Bernard.” + +“What ails my brother Bernard?” then asked Grisell anxiously. + +“The saints may know, but no man does, unless it was that Crooked Nan of +Strait Glen overlooked the poor child,” returned the esquire. “Ever +since he fell into the red beck he hath done nought but peak and pine, +and be twisted with cramps and aches, with sores breaking out on him; +though there’s a honeycomb-stone from Roker over his bed. My lord took +out all the retainers to lay hold on Crooked Nan, but she got scent of it +no doubt, for Jack of Burhill took his oath that he had seen a muckle +hare run up the glen that morn, and when we got there she was not to be +seen or heard of. We have heard of her in the Gilsland ground, where +they would all the sooner see a the young lad of Whitburn crippled and a +mere misery to see or hear.” + +Grisell was quite as ready to believe in witchcraft as was the old +squire, and to tremble at their capacities for mischief. She asked what +nunneries were near, and was disappointed to find nothing within easy +reach. St. Cuthbert’s diocese had not greatly favoured womankind, and +Whitby was far away. + +By and by her father came back, the thundering tramp of the horses being +heard in time enough for her to spring up and be mounted again before he +came in sight, the yeomen carrying the antlers and best portions of the +deer. + +“Left out, my wench,” he shouted. “We must mount you better. Ho! +Cuthbert, thou a squire of dames? Ha! Ha!” + +“The maid could not be left to lose herself on the fells,” muttered the +squire, rather ashamed of his courtesy. + +“She must get rid of nunnery breeding. We want no trim and dainty +lassies here,” growled her father. “Look you, Ridley, that horse of +Hob’s—” and the rest was lost in a discussion on horseflesh. + +Long rides, which almost exhausted Grisell, and halts in exceedingly +uncomfortable hostels, where she could hardly obtain tolerable seclusion, +brought her at last within reach of home. There was a tall church tower +and some wretched hovels round it. The Lord of Whitburn halted, and blew +his bugle with the peculiar note that signified his own return, then all +rode down to the old peel, the outline of which Grisell saw with a sense +of remembrance, against the gray sea-line, with the little breaking, +glancing waves, which she now knew herself to have unconsciously wanted +and missed for years past. + +Whitburn Tower stood on the south side, on a steep cliff overlooking the +sea. The peel tower itself looked high and strong, but to Grisell, +accustomed to the widespread courts of the great castles and abbeys of +the south, the circuit of outbuildings seemed very narrow and cramped, +for truly there was need to have no more walls than could be helped for +the few defenders to guard. + +All was open now, and under the arched gateway, with the portcullis over +her head, fitly framing her, stood the tall, gaunt figure of the lady, +grayer, thinner, more haggard than when Grisell had last seen her, and +beside her, leaning on a crutch, a white-faced boy, small and stunted for +six years old. + +“Ha, dame! Ha, Bernard; how goes it?” shouted the Baron in his gruff, +hoarse voice. + +“He willed to come down to greet you, though he cannot hold your +stirrup,” said the mother. “You are soon returned. Is all well with +Rob?” + +“O aye, I found Thorslan of Danby and a plump of spears on the way to the +Duke of York at Windsor. They say he will need all his following if the +Beauforts put it about that the King has recovered as much wit as ever he +had. So I e’en sent Rob on with him, and came back so as to be ready in +case there’s a call for me. Soh! Berney; on thy feet again? That’s +well, my lad; but we’ll have thee up the steps.” + +He seemed quite to have forgotten the presence of Grisell, and it was +Cuthbert Ridley who helped her off her horse, but just then little +Bernard in his father’s arms exclaimed— + +“Black nun woman!” + +“By St. Cuthbert!” cried the Baron, “I mind me! Here, wench! I have +brought back the maid in her brother’s stead.” + +And as Grisell, in obedience to his call, threw back her veil, Bernard +screamed, “Ugsome wench, send her away!” threw his arms round his +father’s neck and hid his face with a babyish gesture. + +“Saints have mercy!” cried the mother, “thou hast not mended much since I +saw thee last. They that marred thee had best have kept thee. Whatever +shall we do with the maid?” + +“Send her away, the loathly thing,” reiterated the boy, lifting up his +head from his father’s shoulder for another glimpse, which produced a +puckering of the face in readiness for crying. + +“Nay, nay, Bernard,” said Ridley, feeling for the poor girl and speaking +up for her when no one else would. “She is your sister, and you must be +a fond brother to her, for an ill-nurtured lad spoilt her poor face when +it was as fair as your own. Kiss your sister like a good lad, and— + +“No! no!” shouted Bernard. “Take her away. I hate her.” He began to +cry and kick. + +“Get out of his sight as fast as may be,” commanded the mother, alarmed +by her sickly darling’s paroxysm of passion. + +Grisell, scarce knowing where to go, could only allow herself to be led +away by Ridley, who, seeing her tears, tried to comfort her in his rough +way. “’Tis the petted bairn’s way, you see, mistress—and my lady has no +thought save for him. He will get over it soon enough when he learns +your gentle convent-bred conditions.” + +Still the cry of “Grisly Grisell,” picked up as if by instinct or by some +echo from the rear of the escort, rang in her ears in the angry fretful +voice of the poor little creature towards whom her heart was yearning. +Even the two women-servants there were, no more looked at her askance, as +they took her to a seat in the hall, and consulted where my lady would +have her bestowed. She was wiping away bitter tears as she heard her +only friend Cuthbert settle the matter. “The chamber within the solar is +the place for the noble damsels.” + +“That is full of old armour, and dried herrings, and stockfish.” + +“Move them then! A fair greeting to give to my lord’s daughter.” + +There was some further muttering about a bed, and Grisell sprang up. +“Oh, hush! hush! I can sleep on a cloak; I have done so for many nights. +Only let me be no burthen. Show me where I can go to be an anchoress, +since they will not have me in a convent or anywhere,” and bitterly she +wept. + +“Peace, peace, lady,” said the squire kindly. “I will deal with these +ill-tongued lasses. Shame on them! Go off, and make the chamber ready, +or I’ll find a scourge for you. And as to my lady—she is wrapped up in +the sick bairn, but she has only to get used to you to be friendly +enough.” + +“O what a hope in a mother,” thought poor Grisell. “O that I were at +Wilton or some nunnery, where my looks would be pardoned! Mother Avice, +dear mother, what wouldst thou say to me now!” + +The peel tower had been the original building, and was still as it were +the citadel, but below had been built the very strong but narrow castle +court, containing the stables and the well, and likewise the hall and +kitchen—which were the dwelling and sleeping places of the men of the +household, excepting Cuthbert Ridley, who being of gentle blood, would +sit above the salt, and had his quarters with Rob when at home in the +tower. The solar was a room above the hall, where was the great box-bed +of the lord and lady, and a little bed for Bernard. + +Entered through it, in a small turret, was a chamber designed for the +daughters and maids, and this was rightly appropriated by Ridley to the +Lady Grisell. The two women-servants—Bell and Madge—were wives to the +cook and the castle smith, so the place had been disused and made a +receptacle for drying fish, fruit, and the like. Thus the sudden call +for its use provoked a storm of murmurs in no gentle voices, and Grisell +shrank into a corner of the hall, only wishing she could efface herself. + +And as she looked out on the sea from her narrow window, it seemed to her +dismally gray, moaning, restless, and dreary. + + + + +CHAPTER X +COLD WELCOME + + + Seek not for others to love you, + But seek yourself to love them best, + And you shall find the secret true, + Of love and joy and rest. + + I. WILLIAMS. + +TO lack beauty was a much more serious misfortune in the Middle Ages than +at present. Of course it was probable that there might be a contract of +marriage made entirely irrespective of attractiveness, long before the +development of either of the principal parties concerned; but even then +the rude, open-spoken husband would consider himself absolved from any +attention to an ill-favoured wife, and the free tongues of her +surroundings would not be slack to make her aware of her defects. The +cloister was the refuge of the unmarried woman, if of gentle birth as a +nun, if of a lower grade as a lay-sister; but the fifteenth century was +an age neither of religion nor of chivalry. Dowers were more thought of +than devotion in convents as elsewhere. Whitby being one of the oldest +and grandest foundations was sure to be inaccessible to a high-born but +unportioned girl, and Grisell in her sense of loneliness saw nothing +before her but to become an anchoress, that is to say, a female hermit, +such as generally lived in strict seclusion under shelter of the Church. + +“There at least,” thought poor Grisell, “there would be none to sting me +to the heart with those jeering eyes of theirs. And I might feel in time +that God and His Saints loved me, and not long for my father and mother, +and oh! my poor little brother—yes, and Leonard Copeland, and Sister +Avice, and the rest. But would Sister Avice call this devotion? Nay, +would she not say that these cruel eyes and words are a cross upon me, +and I must bear them and love in spite—at least till I be old enough to +choose for myself?” + +She was summoned to supper, and this increased the sense of dreariness, +for Bernard screamed that the grisly one should not come near him, or he +would not eat, and she had to take her meal of dried fish and barley +bread in the wide chimney corner, where there always was a fire at every +season of the year. + +Her chamber, which Cuthbert Ridley’s exertions had compelled the women to +prepare for her, was—as seen in the light of the long evening—a desolate +place, within a turret, opening from the solar, or chamber of her parents +and Bernard, the loophole window devoid of glass, though a shutter could +be closed in bad weather, the walls circular and of rough, untouched, +unconcealed stone, a pallet bed—the only attempt at furniture, except one +chest—and Grisell’s own mails tumbled down anyhow, and all pervaded by an +ancient and fishy smell. She felt too downhearted even to creep out and +ask for a pitcher of water. She took a long look over the gray, heaving +sea, and tired as she was, it was long before she could pray and cry +herself to sleep, and accustomed as she was to convent beds, this one +appeared to be stuffed with raw apples, and she awoke with aching bones. + +Her request for a pitcher or pail of water was treated as southland +finery, for those who washed at all used the horse trough, but +fortunately for her Cuthbert Ridley heard the request. He had been +enough in the south in attendance on his master to know how young damsels +lived, and what treatment they met with, and he was soon rating the women +in no measured terms for the disrespect they had presumed to show to the +Lady Grisell, encouraged by the neglect of her parents + +The Lord of Whitburn, appearing on the scene at the moment, backed up his +retainer, and made it plain that he intended his daughter to be respected +and obeyed, and the grumbling women had to submit. Nor did he refuse to +acknowledge, on Ridley’s representation, that Grisell ought to have an +attendant of her own, and the lady of the castle, coming down with +Bernard clinging to her skirt with one hand, and leaning on his crutch, +consented. “If the maid was to be here, she must be treated fitly, and +Bell and Madge had enough to do without convent-bred fancies.” + +So Cuthbert descended the steep path to the ravine where dwelt the fisher +folk, and came back with a girl barefooted, bareheaded, with long, +streaming, lint-white locks, and the scantiest of garments, crying +bitterly with fright, and almost struggling to go back. She was the +orphan remnant of a family drowned in the bay, and was a burthen on her +fisher kindred, who were rejoiced thus to dispose of her. + +She sobbed the more at sight of the grisly lady, and almost screamed when +Grisell smiled and tried to take her by the hand. Ridley fairly drove +her upstairs, step by step, and then shut her in with his young lady, +when she sank on the floor and hid her face under all her bleached hair. + +“Poor little thing,” thought Grisell; “it is like having a fresh-caught +sea-gull. She is as forlorn as I am, and more afraid!” + +So she began to speak gently and coaxingly, begging the girl to look up, +and assuring her that she would not be hurt. Grisell had a very soft and +persuasive voice. Her chief misfortune as regarded her appearance was +that the muscles of one cheek had been so drawn that though she smiled +sweetly with one side of her face, the other was contracted and went +awry, so that when the kind tones had made the girl look up for a moment, +the next she cried, “O don’t—don’t! Holy Mary, forbid the spell!” + +“I have no spells, my poor maid; indeed I am only a poor girl, a stranger +here in my own home. Come, and do not fear me.” + +“Madge said you had witches’ marks on your face,” sobbed the child. + +“Only the marks of gunpowder,” said Grisell. “Listen, I will tell thee +what befell me.” + +Gunpowder seemed to be quite beyond all experience of Whitburn nature, +but the history of the catastrophe gained attention, and the girl’s +terror abated, so that Grisell could ask her name, which was Thora, and +learning, too, that she had led a hard life since her granny died, and +her uncle’s wife beat her, and made her carry heavy loads of seaweed when +it froze her hands, besides a hundred other troubles. As to knowing any +kind of feminine art, she was as ignorant as if the rough and extremely +dirty woollen garment she wore, belted round with a strip of leather, had +grown upon her, and though Grisell’s own stock of garments was not +extensive, she was obliged, for very shame, to dress this strange +attendant in what she could best spare, as well as, in spite of sobs and +screams, to wash her face, hands, and feet, and it was wonderful how +great a difference this made in the wild creature by the time the clang +of the castle bell summoned all to the midday meal, when as before, +Bernard professed not to be able to look at his sister, but when she had +retreated he was seen spying at her through his fingers, with great +curiosity. + +Afterwards she went up to her mother to beg for a few necessaries for +herself and for her maid, and to offer to do some spinning. She was not +very graciously answered; but she was allowed an old frayed horse-cloth +on which Thora might sleep, and for the rest she might see what she could +find under the stairs in the turret, or in the chest in the hall window. + +The broken, dilapidated fragments which seemed to Grisell mere rubbish +were treasures and wonders to Thora, and out of them she picked enough to +render her dreary chamber a very few degrees more habitable. Thora would +sleep there, and certainly their relations were reversed, for carrying +water was almost the only office she performed at first, since Grisell +had to dress her, and teach her to keep herself in a tolerable state of +neatness, and likewise how to spin, luring her with the hope of spinning +yarn for a new dress for herself. As to prayers, her mind was a mere +blank, though she said something that sounded like a spell except that it +began with “Pater.” She did not know who made her, and entirely believed +in Niord and Rana, the storm-gods of Norseland. Yet she had always been +to mass every Sunday morning. So went all the family at the castle as a +matter of course, but except when the sacring-bell hushed them, the Baron +freely discussed crops or fish with the tenants, and the lady wrangled +about dues of lambs, eggs, and fish. Grisell’s attention was a new +thing, and the priest’s pronunciation was so defective to her ear that +she could hardly follow. + +That first week Grisell had plenty of occupation in settling her room and +training her uncouth maid, who proved a much more apt scholar than she +had expected, and became devoted to her like a little faithful dog. + +No one else took much notice of either, except that at times Cuthbert +Ridley showed himself to be willing to stand up for her. Her father was +out a great deal, hunting or hawking or holding consultations with +neighbouring knights or the men of Sunderland. Her mother, with the +loudest and most peremptory of voices, ruled over the castle, ordered the +men on their guards and at the stables, and the cook, scullions, and +other servants, but without much good effect as household affairs were +concerned, for the meals were as far removed from the delicate, dainty +serving of the simplest fast-day meal at Wilton as from the sumptuous +plenty and variety of Warwick house, and Bernard often cried and could +not eat. She longed to make up for him one of the many appetising +possets well known at Wilton, but her mother and Ralf the cook both +scouted her first proposal. They wanted no south-bred meddlers over +their fire. + +However, one evening when Bernard had been fretful and in pain, the Baron +had growled out that the child was cockered beyond all bearing, and the +mother had flown out at the unnatural father, and on his half laughing at +her doting ways, had actually rushed across with clenched fist to box his +ears; he had muttered that the pining brat and shrewish dame made the +house no place for him, and wandered out to the society of his horses. +Lady Whitburn, after exhaling her wrath in abuse of him and all around, +carried the child up to his bed. There he was moaning, and she trying to +soothe him, when, darkness having put a stop to Grisell’s spinning, she +went to her chamber with Thora. In passing, the moaning was still heard, +and she even thought her mother was crying. She ventured to approach and +ask, “Fares he no better? If I might rub that poor leg.” + +But Bernard peevishly hid his face and whined, “Go away, Grisly,” and her +mother exclaimed, “Away with you, I have enough to vex me here without +you.” + +She could only retire as fast as possible, and her tears ran down her +face as in the long summer twilight she recited the evening offices, the +same in which Sister Avice was joining in Wilton chapel. Before they +were over she heard her father come up to bed, and in a harsh and angered +voice bid Bernard to be still. There was stillness for some little time, +but by and by the moaning and sobbing began again, and there was a +jangling between the gruff voice and the shrill one, now thinner and +weaker. Grisell felt that she must try again, and crept out. “If I +might rub him a little while, and you rest, Lady Mother. He cannot see +me now.” + +She prevailed, or rather the poor mother’s utter weariness and dejection +did, together with the father’s growl, “Let her bring us peace if she +can.” + +Lady Whitburn let her kneel down by the bed, and guided her hand to the +aching thigh. + +“Soft! Soft! Good! Good!” muttered Bernard presently. “Go on!” + +Grisell had acquired something of that strange almost magical touch of +Sister Avice, and Bernard lay still under her hand. Her mother, who was +quite worn out, moved to her own bed, and fell asleep, while the snores +of the Baron proclaimed him to have been long appeased. The boy, too, +presently was breathing softly, and Grisell’s attitude relaxed, as her +prayers and her dreams mingled together, and by and by, what she thought +was the organ in Wilton chapel, and the light of St. Edith’s taper, +proved to be the musical rush of the incoming tide, and the golden +sunrise over the sea, while all lay sound asleep around her, and she +ventured gently to withdraw into her own room. + +That night was Grisell’s victory, though Bernard still held aloof from +her all the ensuing day, when he was really the better and fresher for +his long sleep, but at bed-time, when as usual the pain came on, he +wailed for her to rub him, and as it was still daylight, and her father +had gone out in one of the boats to fish, she ventured on singing to him, +as she rubbed, to his great delight and still greater boon to her +yearning heart. Even by day, as she sat at work, the little fellow +limped up to her, and said, “Grisly, sing that again,” staring hard in +her face as she did so. + + + + +CHAPTER XI +BERNARD + + + I do remember an apothecary,— + And hereabouts he dwells. + + SHAKESPEARE, _Romeo and Juliet_. + +BERNARD’S affection was as strong as his aversion had been. Poor little +boy, no one had been accustomed enough to sickly children, or indeed to +children at all, to know how to make him happy or even comfortable, and +his life had been sad and suffering ever since the blight that had fallen +on him, through either the evil eye of Nan the witch, or through his fall +into a freezing stream. His brother, a great strong lad, had teased and +bullied him; his father, though not actually unkind except when wearied +by his fretfulness, held him as a miserable failure, scarcely worth +rearing; his mother, though her pride was in her elder son, and the only +softness in her heart for the little one, had been so rugged and violent +a woman all the years of her life, and had so despised all gentler habits +of civilisation, that she really did not know how to be tender to the +child who was really her darling. Her infants had been nursed in the +cottages, and not returned to the castle till they were old enough to +rough it—indeed they were soon sent off to be bred up elsewhere. Some +failure in health, too, made it harder for her to be patient with an +ailing child, and her love was apt to take the form of anger with his +petulance or even with his suffering, or else of fierce battles with her +husband in his defence. + +The comfort would have been in burning Crooked Nan, but that beldame had +disposed of herself out of reach, though Lady Whitburn still cherished +the hope of forcing the Gilsland Dacres or the Percies to yield the woman +up. Failing this, the boy had been shown to a travelling friar, who had +promised cure through the relics he carried about; but Bernard had only +screamed at him, and had been none the better. + +And now the little fellow had got over the first shock, he found that +“Grisly,” as he still called her, but only as an affectionate +abbreviation, was the only person who could relieve his pain, or amuse +him, in the whole castle; and he was incessantly hanging on her. She +must put him to bed and sing lullabies to him, she must rub his limbs +when they ached with rheumatic pains; hers was the only hand which might +touch the sores that continually broke out, and he would sit for long +spaces on her lap, sometimes stroking down the scar and pitying it with +“Poor Grisly; when I am a man, I will throw down my glove, and fight with +that lad, and kill him.” + +“O nay, nay, Bernard; he never meant to do me evil. He is a fair, brave, +good boy.” + +“He scorned and ran away from you. He is mansworn and recreant,” +persisted Bernard. “Rob and I will make him say that you are the fairest +of ladies.” + +“O nay, nay. That he could not.” + +“But you are, you are—on this side—mine own Grisly,” cried Bernard, whose +experiences of fair ladies had not been extensive, and who curled himself +on her lap, giving unspeakable rest and joy to her weary, yearning +spirit, as she pressed him to her breast. “Now, a story, a story,” he +entreated, and she was rich in tales from Scripture history and legends +of the Saints, or she would sing her sweet monastic hymns and chants, as +he nestled in her lap. + +The mother had fits of jealousy at the exclusive preference, and now and +then would rail at Grisell for cosseting the bairn and keeping him a +helpless baby; or at Bernard for leaving his mother for this +ill-favoured, useless sister, and would even snatch away the boy, and +declare that she wanted no one to deal with him save herself; but Bernard +had a will of his own, and screamed for his Grisly, throwing himself +about in such a manner that Lady Whitburn was forced to submit, and quite +to the alarm of her daughter, on one of these occasions she actually +burst into a flood of tears, sobbing loud and without restraint. Indeed, +though she hotly declared that she ailed nothing, there was a lassitude +about her that made it a relief to have the care of Bernard taken off her +hands; and the Baron’s grumbling at disturbed nights made the removal of +Bernard’s bed to his sister’s room generally acceptable. + +Once, when Grisell was found to have taught both him and Thora the +English version of the Lord’s Prayer and Creed, and moreover to be +telling him the story of the Gospel, there came, no one knew from where, +an accusation which made her father tramp up and say, “Mark you, wench, +I’ll have no Lollards here.” + +“Lollards, sir; I never saw a Lollard!” said Grisell trembling. + +“Where, then, didst learn all this, making holy things common?” + +“We all learnt it at Wilton, sir, from the reverend mothers and the holy +father.” + +The Baron was fairly satisfied, and muttered that if the bairn was fit +only for a shaveling, it might be all right. + +Poor child, would he ever be fit for that or any occupation of manhood? +However, Grisell had won permission to compound broths, cakes, and +possets for him, over the hall fire, for the cook and his wife would not +endure her approach to their domain, and with great reluctance allowed +her the materials. Bernard watched her operations with intense delight +and amusement, and tasted with a sense of triumph and appetite, calling +on his mother to taste likewise; and she, on whose palate semi-raw or +over-roasted joints had begun to pall, allowed that the nuns had taught +Grisell something. + +And thus as time went on Grisell led no unhappy life. Every one around +was used to her scars, and took no notice of them, and there was nothing +to bring the thought before her, except now and then when a fishwife’s +baby, brought to her for cure, would scream at her. She never went +beyond the castle except to mass, now and then to visit a sick person, +and to seek some of the herbs of which she had learnt the use, and then +she was always attended by Thora and Ridley, who made a great favour of +going. + +Bernard had given her the greater part of his heart, and she soothed his +pain, made his hours happy, and taught him the knowledge she brought from +the convent. Her affections were with him, and though her mother could +scarcely be said to love her, she tolerated and depended more and more on +the daughter who alone could give her more help or solace. + +That was Grisell’s second victory, when she was actually asked to +compound a warm, relishing, hot bowl for her father when be was caught in +a storm and came in drenched and weary. + +She wanted to try on her little brother the effect of one of Sister +Avice’s ointments, which she thought more likely to be efficacious than +melted mutton fat, mixed with pounded worms, scrapings from the church +bells, and boiled seaweed, but some of her ingredients were out of reach, +unless they were attainable at Sunderland, and she obtained permission to +ride thither under the escort of Cuthbert Ridley, and was provided with a +small purse—the proceeds of the Baron’s dues out of the fishermen’s sales +of herrings. + +She was also to purchase a warm gown and mantle for her mother, and +enough of cloth to afford winter garments for Bernard; and a steady old +pack-horse carried the bundles of yarn to be exchanged for these +commodities, since the Whitburn household possessed no member dexterous +with the old disused loom, and the itinerant weavers did not come that +way—it was whispered because they were afraid of the fisher folk, and got +but sorry cheer from the lady. + +The commissions were important, and Grisell enjoyed the two miles’ ride +along the cliffs of Roker Bay, looking up at the curious caverns in the +rock, and seeking for the very strangely-formed stones supposed to have +magic power, which fell from the rock. In the distance beyond the river +to the southward, Ridley pointed to the tall square tower of Monks +Wearmouth Church dominating the great monastery around it, which had once +held the venerable Bede, though to both Ridley and Grisell he was only a +name of a patron saint. + +The harbour formed by the mouth of the river Wear was a marvel to +Grisell, crowded as it was with low, squarely-rigged and gaily-coloured +vessels of Holland, Friesland, and Flanders, very new sights to one best +acquainted with Noah’s ark or St. Peter’s ship in illuminations. + +“Sunderland is a noted place for shipbuilding,” said Ridley. “Moreover, +these come for wool, salt-fish, and our earth coal, and they bring us +fine cloth, linen, and stout armour. I am glad to see yonder Flemish +ensign. If luck goes well with us, I shall get a fresh pair of gauntlets +for my lord, straight from Gaunt, the place of gloves.” + +“_Gant_ for glove,” said Grisell. + +“How? You speak French. Then you may aid me in chaffering, and I will +straight to the Fleming, with whom I may do better than with Hodge of the +Lamb. How now, here’s a shower coming up fast!” + +It was so indeed; a heavy cloud had risen quickly, and was already +bursting overhead. Ridley hurried on, along a thoroughfare across salt +marshes (nowdocks), but the speed was not enough to prevent their being +drenched by a torrent of rain and hail before they reached the +tall-timbered houses of Wearmouth. + +“In good time!” cried Ridley; “here’s the Poticary’s sign! You had best +halt here at once.” + +In front of a high-roofed house with a projecting upper story, hung a +sign bearing a green serpent on a red ground, over a stall, open to the +street, which the owner was sheltering with a deep canvas awning. + +“Hola, Master Lambert Groats,” called Ridley. “Here’s the young +demoiselle of Whitburn would have some dealings with you.” + +Jumping off his horse, he helped Grisell to dismount just as a small, +keen-faced, elderly man in dark gown came forward, doffing his green +velvet cap, and hoping the young lady would take shelter in his poor +house. + +Grisell, glancing round the little booth, was aware of sundry marvellous +curiosities hanging round, such as a dried crocodile, the shells of +tortoises, of sea-urchins and crabs, all to her eyes most strange and +weird; but Master Lambert was begging her to hasten in at once to his +dwelling-room beyond, and let his wife dry her clothes, and at once there +came forward a plump, smooth, pleasant-looking personage, greatly his +junior, dressed in a tight gold-edged cap over her fair hair, a dark +skirt, black bodice, bright apron, and white sleeves, curtseying low, but +making signs to invite the newcomers to the fire on the hearth. “My +housewife is stone deaf,” explained their host, “and she knows no tongue +save her own, and the unspoken language of courtesy, but she is rejoiced +to welcome the demoiselle. Ah, she is drenched! Ah, if she will honour +my poor house!” + +The wife curtsied low, and by hospitable signs prayed the demoiselle to +come to the fire, and take off her wet mantle. It was a very comfortable +room, with a wide chimney, and deep windows glazed with thick circles of +glass, the spaces between leaded around in diamond panes, through which +vine branches could dimly be seen flapping and beating in the storm. A +table stood under one with various glasses and vessels of curious shapes, +and a big book, and at the other was a distaff, a work-basket, and other +feminine gear. Shelves with pewter dishes, and red, yellow, and striped +crocks, surrounded the walls; there was a savoury cauldron on the open +fire. It was evidently sitting-room and kitchen in one, with offices +beyond, and Grisell was at once installed in a fine carved chair by the +fire—a more comfortable seat than had ever fallen to her share. + +“Look you here, mistress,” said Ridley; “you are in safe quarters here, +and I will leave you awhile, take the horses to the hostel, and do mine +errands across the river—’tis not fit for you—and come back to you when +the shower is over, and you can come and chaffer for your woman’s gear.” + +From the two good hosts the welcome was decided, and Grisell was glad to +have time for consultation. An Apothecary of those days did not rise to +the dignity of a leech, but was more like the present owner of a +chemist’s shop, though a chemist then meant something much more abstruse, +who studied occult sciences, such as alchemy and astrology. + +In fact, Lambert Groot, which was his real name, though English lips had +made it Groats, belonged to one of the prosperous guilds of the great +merchant city of Bruges, but he had offended his family by his +determination to marry the deaf, and almost dumb, portionless orphan +daughter of an old friend and contemporary, and to save her from the +scorn and slights of his relatives—though she was quite as well-born as +themselves—he had migrated to England, where Wearmouth and Sunderland had +a brisk trade with the Low Countries. These cities enjoyed the +cultivation of the period, and this room, daintily clean and fresh, +seemed to Grisell more luxurious than any she had seen since the Countess +of Warwick’s. A silver bowl of warm soup, extracted from the _pot au +feu_, was served to her by the Hausfrau, on a little table, spread with a +fine white cloth edged with embroidery, with an earnest gesture begging +her to partake, and a slender Venice glass of wine was brought to her +with a cake of wheaten bread. Much did Grisell wish she could have +transferred such refreshing fare to Bernard. She ventured to ask “Master +Poticary” whether he sold “Balsam of Egypt.” He was interested at once, +and asked whether it were for her own use. + +“Nay, good master, you are thinking of my face; but that was a burn long +ago healed. It is for my poor little brother.” + +Therewith Grisell and Master Groats entered on a discussions of symptoms, +drugs, ointments, and ingredients, in which she learnt a good deal and +perhaps disclosed more of Sister Avice’s methods than Wilton might have +approved. In the midst the sun broke out gaily after the shower, and +disclosed, beyond the window, a garden where every leaf and spray were +glittering and glorious with their own diamond drops in the sunshine. A +garden of herbs was a needful part of an apothecary’s business, as he +manufactured for himself all of the medicaments which he did not import +from foreign parts, but this had been laid out between its high walls +with all the care, taste, and precision of the Netherlander, and Grisell +exclaimed in perfect ecstasy: “Oh, the garden, the garden! I have seen +nothing so fair and sweet since I left Wilton.” + +Master Lambert was delighted, and led her out. There is no describing +how refreshing was the sight to eyes after the bare, dry walls of the +castle, and the tossing sea which the maiden had not yet learnt to love. +Nor was the garden dull, though meant for use. There was a well in the +centre with roses trained over it, roses of the dark old damask kind and +the dainty musk, used to be distilled for the eyes, some flowers +lingering still; there was the brown dittany or fraxinella, whose dried +blossoms are phosphoric at night; delicate pink centaury, good for ague; +purple mallows, good for wounds; leopard’s bane with yellow blossoms; +many and many more old and dear friends of Grisell, redolent of Wilton +cloister and Sister Avice; and she ran from one to the other quite +transported, and forgetful of all the dignities of the young Lady of +Whitburn, while Lambert was delighted, and hoped she would come again +when his lilies were in bloom. + +So went the time till Ridley returned, and when the price was asked of +the packet of medicaments prepared for her, Lambert answered that the +value was fully balanced by what he had learnt from the lady. This, +however, did not suit the honour of the Dacres, and Grisell, as well as +her squire, who looked offended, insisted on leaving two gold crowns in +payment. The Vrow kissed her hand, putting into it the last sprays of +roses, which Grisell cherished in her bosom. + +She was then conducted to a booth kept by a Dutchman, where she obtained +the warm winter garments that she needed for her mother and brother, and +likewise some linen, for the Lady of Whitburn had never been housewife +enough to keep up a sufficient supply for Bernard, and Grisell was +convinced that the cleanliness which the nuns had taught her would +mitigate his troubles. With Thora to wash for her she hoped to institute +a new order of things. + +Much pleased with her achievements she rode home. She was met there by +more grumbling than satisfaction. Her father had expected more coin to +send to Robert, who, like other absent youths, called for supplies. + +The yeoman who had gone with him returned, bearing a scrap of paper with +the words:— + + “MINE HONOURED LORD AND FATHER—I pray you to send me Black Lightning + and xvj crowns by the hand of Ralf, and so the Saints have you in + their keeping.—Your dutiful sonne, + + “ROBERT DACRE.” + +xvj crowns were a heavy sum in those days, and Lord Whitburn vowed that +he had never so called on his father except when he was knighted, but +those were the good old days when spoil was to be won in France. What +could Rob want of such a sum? + +“Well-a-day, sir, the house of the Duke of York is no place to stint in. +The two young Earls of March and of Rutland, as they call them, walk in +red and blue and gold bravery, and chains of jewels, even like king’s +sons, and none of the squires and pages can be behind them.” + +“Black Lightning too, my best colt, when I deemed the lad fitted out for +years to come. I never sent home the like message to my father under the +last good King Henry, but purveyed myself of a horse on the battlefield +more than once. But those good old days are over, and lads think more of +velvet and broidery than of lances and swords. Forsooth, their +coats-of-arms are good to wear on silk robes instead of helm and shield; +and as to our maids, give them their rein, and they spend more than all +the rest on women’s tawdry gear!” + +Poor Grisell! when she had bought nothing ornamental, and nothing for +herself except a few needles. + +However, in spite of murmurs, the xvj crowns were raised and sent away +with Black Lightning; and as time went on Grisell became more and more a +needful person. Bernard was stronger, and even rode out on a pony, and +the fame of his improvement brought other patients to the Lady Grisell +from the vassals, with whom she dealt as best she might, successfully or +the reverse, while her mother, as her health failed, let fall more and +more the reins of household rule. + + + + +CHAPTER XII +WORD FROM THE WARS + + + Above, below, the Rose of Snow, + Twined with her blushing face we spread. + + GRAY’S _Bard_. + +NEWS did not travel very fast to Whitburn, but one summer’s day a tall, +gallant, fair-faced esquire, in full armour of the cumbrous plate +fashion, rode up to the gate, and blew the family note on his bugle. + +“My son! my son Rob,” cried the lady, starting up from the cushions with +which Grisell had furnished her settle. + +Robert it was, who came clanking in, met by his father at the gate, by +his mother at the door, and by Bernard on his crutch in the rear, while +Grisell, who had never seen this brother, hung back. + +The youth bent his knee, but his outward courtesy did not conceal a good +deal of contempt for the rude northern habits. “How small and dark the +hall is! My lady, how old you have grown! What, Bernard, still fit only +for a shaven friar! Not shorn yet, eh? Ha! is that Grisell? St. +Cuthbert to wit! Copeland has made a hag of her!” + +“’Tis a good maid none the less,” replied her father; the first direct +praise that she had ever had from him, and which made her heart glow. + +“She will ne’er get a husband, with such a visage as that,” observed +Robert, who did not seem to have learnt courtesy or forbearance yet on +his travels; but he was soon telling his father what concerned them far +more than the maiden’s fate. + +“Sir, I have come on the part of the Duke of York to summon you. What, +you have not heard? He needs, as speedily as may be, the arms of every +honest man. How many can you get together?” + +“But what is it? How is it? Your Duke ruled the roast last time I heard +of him.” + +“You know as little as my horse here in the north!” cried Rob. + +“This I did hear last time there was a boat come in, that the Queen, that +mother of mischief, had tried to lay hands on our Lord of Salisbury, and +that he and your Duke of York had soundly beaten her and the men of +Cheshire.” + +“Yea, at Blore Heath; and I thought to win my spurs on the Copeland +banner, but even as I was making my way to it and the recreant that bore +it, I was stricken across my steel cap and dazed.” + +“I’ll warrant it,” muttered his father. + +“When I could look up again all was changed, the banner nowhere in sight, +but I kept my saddle, and cut down half a dozen rascaille after that.” + +“Ha!” half incredulously, for it was a mere boy who boasted. “That’s my +brave lad! And what then? More hopes of the spurs, eh?” + +“Then what does the Queen do, but seeing that no one would willingly stir +a lance against an old witless saint like King Harry, she gets a host +together, dragging the poor man hither and thither with her, at Ludlow. +Nay, we even heard the King was dead, and a mass was said for the repose +of his soul, but with the morning what should we see on the other side of +the river Teme but the royal standard, and who should be under it but +King Harry himself with his meek face and fair locks, twirling his +fingers after his wont. So the men would have it that they had been +gulled, and they fell away one after another, till there was nothing for +it but for the Duke and his sons, and my Lords of Salisbury and Warwick +and a few score more of us, to ride off as best we might, with Sir Andrew +Trollope and his men after us, as hard as might be, so that we had to +break up, and keep few together. I went with the Duke of York and young +Lord Edmund into Wales, and thence in a bit of a fishing-boat across to +Ireland. Ask me to fight in full field with twice the numbers, but never +ask me to put to sea again! There’s nothing like it for taking heart and +soul out of a man!” + +“I have crossed the sea often enow in the good old days, and known +nothing worse than a qualm or two.” + +“That was to France,” said his son. “This Irish Sea is far wider and far +more tossing, I know for my own part. I’d have given a knight’s fee to +any one who would have thrown me overboard. I felt like an empty bag! +But once there, they could not make enough of us. The Duke had got their +hearts before, and odd sort of hearts they are. I was deaf with the wild +kernes shouting round about in their gibberish—such figures, too, as they +are, with their blue cloaks, streaming hair, and long glibbes +(moustaches), and the Lords of the Pale, as they call the English sort, +are nigh about as wild and savage as the mere Irish. It was as much as +my Lord Duke could do to hinder two of them from coming to blows in his +presence; and you should have heard them howl at one another. However, +they are all with him, and a mighty force of them mean to go back with +him to England. My Lord of Warwick came from Calais to hold counsel with +him, and they have sworn to one another to meet with all their forces, +and require the removal of the King’s evil councillors; and my Lord Duke, +with his own mouth, bade me go and summon his trusty Will Dacre of +Whitburn—so he spake, sir—to be with him with all the spears and bowmen +you can raise or call for among the neighbours. And it is my belief, +sir, that he means not to stop at the councillors, but to put forth his +rights. Hurrah for King Richard of the White Rose!” ended Robert, +throwing up his cap. + +“Nay, now,” said his father. “I’d be loth to put down our gallant King +Harry’s only son.” + +“No one breathes a word against King Harry,” returned Robert, “no more +than against a carven saint in a church, and he is about as much of a +king as old stone King Edmund, or King Oswald, or whoever he is, over the +porch. He is welcome to reign as long as he likes or lives, provided he +lets our Duke govern for him, and rids the country of the foreign woman +and her brat, who is no more hers than I am, but a mere babe of +Westminster town carried into the palace when the poor King Harry was +beside himself.” + +“Nay, now, Rob!” cried his mother. + +“So ’tis said!” sturdily persisted Rob. “’Tis well known that the King +never looked at him the first time he was shown the little imp, and next +time, when he was not so distraught, he lifted up his hands and said he +wotted nought of the matter. Hap what hap, King Harry may roam from +Church to shrine, from Abbey to chantry, so long as he lists, but none of +us will brook to be ruled or misruled by the foreign woman and the +Beauforts in his name, nor reigned over by the French dame or the +beggar’s brat, and the traitor coward Beaufort, but be under our own +noble Duke and the White Rose, the only badge that makes the Frenchman +flee.” + +The boy was scarcely fifteen, but his political tone, as of one who knew +the world, made his father laugh and say, “Hark to the cockerel crowing +loud. Spurs forsooth!” + +“The Lords Edward and Edmund are knighted,” grunted Rob, “and there’s but +few years betwixt us.” + +“But a good many earldoms and lands,” said the Baron. “Hadst spoken of +being out of pagedom, ’twere another thing.” + +“You are coming, sir,” cried Rob, willing to put by the subject. “You +are coming to see how I can win honours.” + +“Aye, aye,” said his father. “When Nevil calls, then must Dacre come, +though his old bones might well be at rest now. Salisbury and Warwick +taking to flight like attainted traitors to please the foreign woman, +saidst thou? Then it is the time men were in the saddle.” + +“Well I knew you would say so, and so I told my lord,” exclaimed Robert. + +“Thou didst, quotha? Without doubt the Duke was greatly reassured by thy +testimony,” said his father drily, while the mother, full of pride and +exultation in her goodly firstborn son, could not but exclaim, “Daunt him +not, my lord; he has done well thus to be sent home in charge.” + +“_I_ daunt him?” returned Lord Whitburn, in his teasing mood. “By his +own showing not a troop of Somerset’s best horsemen could do that!” + +Therewith more amicably, father and son fell to calculations of +resources, which they kept up all through supper-time, and all the +evening, till the names of Hobs, Wills, Dicks, and the like rang like a +repeating echo in Grisell’s ears. All through those long days of summer +the father and son were out incessantly, riding from one tenant or +neighbour to another, trying to raise men-at-arms and means to equip them +if raised. All the dues on the herring-boats and the two whalers, on +which Grisell had reckoned for the winter needs, were pledged to +Sunderland merchants for armour and weapons; the colts running wild on +the moors were hastily caught, and reduced to a kind of order by rough +breaking in. The women of the castle and others requisitioned from the +village toiled under the superintendence of the lady and Grisell at +preparing such provision and equipments as were portable, such as dried +fish, salted meat, and barley cakes, as well as linen, and there was a +good deal of tailoring of a rough sort at jerkins, buff coats, and sword +belts, not by any means the gentle work of embroidering pennons or +scarves notable in romance. + +“Besides,” scoffed Robert, “who would wear Grisly Grisell’s scarf!” + +“I would,” manfully shouted Bernard; “I would cram it down the throat of +that recreant Copeland.” + +“Oh! hush, hush, Bernard,” exclaimed Grisell, who was toiling with aching +fingers at the repairs of her father’s greasy old buff coat. “Such +things are, as Robin well says, for noble demoiselles with fair faces and +leisure times like the Lady Margaret. And oh, Robin, you have never told +me of the Lady Margaret, my dear mate at Amesbury.” + +“What should I know of your Lady Margarets and such gear,” growled Robin, +whose chivalry had not reached the point of caring for ladies. + +“The Lady Margaret Plantagenet, the young Lady Margaret of York,” Grisell +explained. + +“Oh! That’s what you mean is it? There’s a whole troop of wenches at +the high table in hall. They came after us with the Duchess as soon as +we were settled in Trim Castle, but they are kept as demure and mim as +may be in my lady’s bower; and there’s a pretty sharp eye kept on them. +Some of the young squires who are fools enough to hanker after a few +maids or look at the fairer ones get their noses wellnigh pinched off by +Proud Cis’s Mother of the Maids.” + +“Then it would not avail to send poor Grisell’s greetings by you.” + +“I should like to see myself delivering them! Besides, we shall meet my +lord in camp, with no cumbrance of woman gear.” + +Lord Whitburn’s own castle was somewhat of a perplexity to him, for +though his lady had once been quite sufficient captain for his scanty +garrison, she was in too uncertain health, and what was worse, too much +broken in spirit and courage, to be fit for the charge. He therefore +decided on leaving Cuthbert Ridley, who, in winter at least, was scarcely +as capable of roughing it as of old, to protect the castle, with a few +old or partly disabled men, who could man the walls to some degree, +therefore it was unlikely that there would be any attack. + +So on a May morning the old, weather-beaten Dacre pennon with its three +crusading scallop-shells, was uplifted in the court, and round it +mustered about thirty men, of whom eighteen had been raised by the baron, +some being his own vassals, and others hired at Sunderland. The rest +were volunteers—gentlemen, their younger sons, and their +attendants—placing themselves under his leadership, either from goodwill +to York and Nevil, or from love of enterprise and hope of plunder. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII +A KNOT + + + I would mine heart had caught that wound + And slept beside him rather! + I think it were a better thing + Than murdered friend and marriage-ring + Forced on my life together. + + E. B. BROWNING, _The Romaunt of the Page_. + +LADIES were accustomed to live for weeks, months, nay, years, without +news of those whom they had sent to the wars, and to live their life +without them. The Lady of Whitburn did not expect to see her husband or +son again till the summer campaign was over, and she was not at all +uneasy about them, for the full armour of a gentleman had arrived at such +a pitch of perfection that it was exceedingly difficult to kill him, and +such was the weight, that his danger in being overthrown was of never +being able to get up, but lying there to be smothered, made prisoner, or +killed, by breaking into his armour. The knights could not have moved at +all under the weight if they had not been trained from infancy, and had +nearly reduced themselves to the condition of great tortoises. + +It was no small surprise when, very late on a July evening, when, though +twilight still prevailed, all save the warder were in bed, and he was +asleep on his post, a bugle-horn rang out the master’s note, at first in +the usual tones, then more loudly and impatiently. Hastening out of bed +to her loophole window, Grisell saw a party beneath the walls, her +father’s scallop-shells dimly seen above them, and a little in the rear, +one who was evidently a prisoner. + +The blasts grew fiercer, the warder and the castle were beginning to be +astir, and when Grisell hurried into the outer room, she found her mother +afoot and hastily dressing. + +“My lord! my lord! it is his note,” she cried. + +“Father come home!” shouted Bernard, just awake. “Grisly! Grisly! help +me don my clothes.” + +Lady Whitburn trembled and shook with haste, and Grisell could not help +her very rapidly in the dark, with Bernard howling rather than calling +for help all the time; and before she, still less Grisell, was fit for +the public, her father’s heavy step was on the stairs, and she heard +fragments of his words. + +“All abed! We must have supper—ridden from Ayton since last baiting. +Aye, got a prisoner—young Copeland—old one slain—great +victory—Northampton. King taken—Buckingham and Egremont killed—Rob +well—proud as a pyet. Ho, Grisell,” as she appeared, “bestir thyself. +We be ready to eat a horse behind the saddle. Serve up as fast as may +be.” + +Grisell durst not stop to ask whether she had heard the word Copeland +aright, and ran downstairs with a throbbing heart, just crossing the +hall, where she thought she saw a figure bowed down, with hands over his +face and elbows on his knees, but she could not pause, and went on to the +kitchen, where the peat fire was never allowed to expire, and it was easy +to stir it into heat. Whatever was cold she handed over to the servants +to appease the hunger of the arrivals, while she broiled steaks, and +heated the great perennial cauldron of broth with all the expedition in +her power, with the help of Thora and the grumbling cook, when he +appeared, angry at being disturbed. + +Morning light was beginning to break before her toils were over for the +dozen hungry men pounced so suddenly in on her, and when she again +crossed the hall, most of them were lying on the straw-bestrewn floor +fast asleep. One she specially noticed, his long limbs stretched out as +he lay on his side, his head on his arm, as if he had fallen asleep from +extreme fatigue in spite of himself. + +His light brown hair was short and curly, his cheeks fair and ruddy, and +all reminded her of Leonard Copeland as he had been those long years ago +before her accident. Save for that, she would have been long ago his +wife, she with her marred face the mate of that nobly fair countenance. +How strange to remember. How she would have loved him, frank and often +kind as she remembered him, though rough and impatient of restraint. +What was that which his fingers had held till sleep had unclasped them? +An ivory chessrook! Such was a favourite token of ladies to their true +loves. What did it mean? Might she pause to pray a prayer over him as +once hers—that all might be well with him, for she knew that in this +unhappy war important captives were not treated as Frenchmen would have +been as prisoners of war, but executed as traitors to their King. + +She paused over him till a low sound and the bright eyes of one of the +dogs warned her that all might in another moment be awake, and she fled +up the stair to the solar, where her parents were both fast asleep, and +across to her own room, where she threw herself on her bed, dressed as +she was, but could not sleep for the multitude of strange thoughts that +crowded over her in the increasing daylight. + +By and by there was a stir, some words passed in the outer room, and then +her mother came in. + +“Wake, Grisly. Busk and bonne for thy wedding-morning instantly. +Copeland is to keep his troth to thee at once. The Earl of Warwick hath +granted his life to thy father on that condition only.” + +“Oh, mother, is he willing?” cried Grisell trembling. + +“What skills that, child? His hand was pledged, and he must fulfil his +promise now that we have him.” + +“Was it troth? I cannot remember it,” said Grisell. + +“That matters not. Your father’s plight is the same thing. His father +was slain in the battle, so ’tis between him and us. Put on thy best +clothes as fast as may be. Thou shalt have my wedding-veil and miniver +mantle. Speed, I say. My lord has to hasten away to join the Earl on +the way to London. He will see the knot tied beyond loosing at once.” + +To dress herself was all poor Grisell could do in her bewilderment. +Remonstrance was vain. The actual marriage without choice was not so +repugnant to all her feelings as to a modern maiden; it was the ordinary +destiny of womanhood, and she had been used in her childhood to look on +Leonard Copeland as her property; but to be forced on the poor youth +instantly on his father’s death, and as an alternative to execution, set +all her maidenly feelings in revolt. Bernard was sitting up in bed, +crying out that he could not lose his Grisly. Her mother was running +backwards and forwards, bringing portions of her own bridal gear, and +directing Thora, who was combing out her young lady’s hair, which was +long, of a beautiful brown, and was to be worn loose and flowing, in the +bridal fashion. Grisell longed to kneel and pray, but her mother hurried +her. “My lord must not be kept waiting, there would be time enough for +prayer in the church.” Then Bernard, clamouring loudly, threw his arms +round the thick old heavy silken gown that had been put on her, and +declared that he would not part with his Grisly, and his mother tore him +away by force, declaring that he need not fear, Copeland would be in no +hurry to take her away, and again when she bent to kiss him he clung +tight round her neck almost strangling her, and rumpling her tresses. + +Ridley had come up to say that my lord was calling for the young lady, +and it was he who took the boy off and held him in his arms, as the +mother, who seemed endued with new strength by the excitement, threw a +large white muffling veil over Grisell’s head and shoulders, and led or +rather dragged her down to the hall. + +The first sounds she there heard were, “Sir, I have given my faith to the +Lady Eleanor of Audley, whom I love.” + +“What is that to me? ’Twas a precontract to my daughter.” + +“Not made by me nor her.” + +“By your parents, with myself. You went near to being her death +outright, marred her face for life, so that none other will wed her. +What say you? Not hurt by your own will? Who said it was? What matters +that?” + +“Sir,” said Leonard, “it is true that by mishap, nay, if you will have it +so, by a child’s inadvertence, I caused this evil chance to befall your +daughter, but I deny, and my father denies likewise, that there was any +troth plight between the maid and me. She will own the same if you ask +her. As I spake before, there was talk of the like kind between you, +sir, and my father, and it was the desire of the good King that thus the +families might be reconciled; but the contract went no farther, as the +holy King himself owned when I gave my faith to the Lord Audley’s +daughter, and with it my heart.” + +“Aye, we know that the Frenchwoman can make the poor fool of a King +believe and avouch anything she choose! This is not the point. No more +words, young man. Here stands my daughter; there is the rope. +Choose—wed or hang.” + +Leonard stood one moment with a look of agonised perplexity over his +face. Then he said, “If I consent, am I at liberty, free at once to +depart?” + +“Aye,” said Whitburn. “So you fulfil your contract, the rest is nought +to me.” + +“I am then at liberty? Free to carry my sword to my Queen and King?” + +“Free.” + +“You swear it, on the holy cross?” + +Lord Whitburn held up the cross hilt of his sword before him, and made +oath on it that when once married to his daughter, Leonard Copeland was +no longer his prisoner. + +Grisell through her veil read on the youthful face a look of grief and +renunciation; he was sacrificing his love to the needs of King and +country, and his words chimed in with her conviction. + +“Sir, I am ready. If it were myself alone, I would die rather than be +false to my love, but my Queen needs good swords and faithful hearts, and +I may not fail her. I am ready!” + +“It is well!” said Lord Whitburn. “Ho, you there! Bring the horses to +the door.” + +Grisell, in all the strange suspense of that decision, had been thinking +of Sir Gawaine, whose lines rang in her head, but that look of grief +roused other feelings. Sir Gawaine had no other love to sacrifice. + +“Sir! sir!” she cried, as her father turned to bid her mount the pillion +behind Ridley. “Can you not let him go free without? I always looked to +a cloister.” + +“That is for you and he to settle, girl. Obey me now, or it will be the +worse for him and you.” + +“One word I would say,” added the mother. “How far hath this matter with +the Audley maid gone? There is no troth plight, I trow?” + +“No, by all that is holy, no. Would the lad not have pleaded it if there +had been? No more dilly-dallying. Up on the horse, Grisly, and have +done with it. We will show the young recreant how promises are kept in +Durham County.” + +He dragged rather than led his daughter to the door, and lifted her +passively to the pillion seat behind Cuthbert Ridley. A fine horse, +Copeland’s own, was waiting for him. He was allowed to ride freely, but +old Whitburn kept close beside him, so that escape would have been +impossible. He was in the armour in which he had fought, dimmed and +dust-stained, but still glancing in the morning sun, which glittered on +the sea, though a heavy western thunder-cloud, purple in the sun, was +rising in front of this strange bridal cavalcade. + +It was overhead by the time the church was reached, and the heavy rain +that began to fall caused the priest to bid the whole party come within +for the part of the ceremony usually performed outside the west door. + +It was very dark within. The windows were small and old, and filled with +dusky glass, and the arches were low browed. Grisell’s mufflings were +thrown aside, and she stood as became a maiden bride, with all her hair +flowing over her shoulders and long tresses over her face, but even +without this, her features would hardly have been visible, as the dense +cloud rolled overhead; and indeed so tall and straight was her figure +that no one would have supposed her other than a fair young spouse. She +trembled a good deal, but was too much terrified and, as it were, stunned +for tears, and she durst not raise her drooping head even to look at her +bridegroom, though such light as came in shone upon his fair hair and was +reflected on his armour, and on one golden spur that still he wore, the +other no doubt lost in the fight. + +All was done regularly. The Lord of Whitburn was determined that no +ceremony that could make the wedlock valid should be omitted. The +priest, a kind old man, but of peasant birth, and entirely subservient to +the Dacres, proceeded to ask each of the pair when they had been +assoiled, namely, absolved. Grisell, as he well knew, had been shriven +only last Friday; Leonard muttered, “Three days since, when I was dubbed +knight, ere the battle.” + +“That suffices,” put in the Baron impatiently. “On with you, Sir Lucas.” + +The thoroughly personal parts of the service were in English, and Grisell +could not but look up anxiously when the solemn charge was given to +mention whether there was any lawful “letting” to their marriage. Her +heart bounded as it were to her throat when Leonard made no answer. + +But then what lay before him if he pleaded his promise! + +It went on—those betrothal vows, dictated while the two cold hands were +linked, his with a kind of limp passiveness, hers, quaking, especially +as, in the old use of York, he took her “for laither for fairer”—laith +being equivalent to loathly—“till death us do part.” And with failing +heart, but still resolute heart, she faltered out her vow to cleave to +him “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness or health, +and to be bonner (debonair or cheerful) and boughsome (obedient) till +that final parting.” + +The troth was plighted, and the silver mark—poor Leonard’s sole available +property at the moment—laid on the priest’s book, as the words were said, +“with worldly cathel I thee endow,” and the ring, an old one of her +mother’s, was held on Grisell’s finger. It was done, though, alas! the +bridegroom could hardly say with truth, “with my body I thee worship.” + +Then followed the procession to the altar, the chilly hands barely +touching one another, and the mass was celebrated, when Latin did not +come home to the pair like English, though both fairly understood it. +Grisell’s feeling was by this time concentrated in the one hope that she +should be dutiful to the poor, unwilling bridegroom, far more to be +pitied than herself, and that she should be guarded by God whatever +befell. + +It was over. Signing of registers was not in those days, but there was +some delay, for the darkness was more dense than ever, the rush of +furious hail was heard without, a great blue flash of intense light +filled every corner of the church, the thunder pealed so sharply and +vehemently overhead that the small company looked at one another and at +the church, to ascertain that no stroke had fallen. Then the Lord of +Whitburn, first recovering himself, cried, “Come, sir knight, kiss your +bride. Ha! where is he? Sir Leonard—here. Who hath seen him? Not +vanished in yon flash! Eh?” + +No, but the men without, cowering under the wall, deposed that Sir +Leonard Copeland had rushed out, shouted to them that he had fulfilled +the conditions and was a free man, taken his horse, and galloped away +through the storm. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV +THE LONELY BRIDE + + + Grace for the callant + If he marries our muckle-mouth Meg. + + BROWNING. + +“THE recreant! Shall we follow him?” was the cry of Lord Whitburn’s +younger squire, Harry Featherstone, with his hand on his horse’s neck, in +spite of the torrents of rain and the fresh flash that set the horses +quivering. + +“No! no!” roared the Baron. “I tell you no! He has fulfilled his +promise; I fulfil mine. He has his freedom. Let him go! For the rest, +we will find the way to make him good husband to you, my wench,” and as +Harry murmured something, “There’s work enow in hand without spending our +horses’ breath and our own in chasing after a runaway groom. A brief +space we will wait till the storm be over.” + +Grisell shrank back to pray at a little side altar, telling her beads, +and repeating the Latin formula, but in her heart all the time giving +thanks that she was going back to Bernard and her mother, whose needs had +been pressing strongly on her, yet that she might do right by this +newly-espoused husband, whose downcast, dejected look had filled her, not +with indignation at the slight to her—she was far past that—but with +yearning compassion for one thus severed from his true love. + +When the storm had subsided enough for these hardy northlanders to ride +home, and Grisell was again perched behind old Cuthbert Ridley, he asked, +“Well, my Dame of Copeland, dost peak and pine for thy runaway +bridegroom?” + +“Nay, I had far rather be going home to my little Bernard than be away +with yonder stranger I ken not whither.” + +“Thou art in the right, my wench. If the lad can break the marriage by +pleading precontract, you may lay your reckoning on it that so he will.” + +When they came home to the attempt at a marriage-feast which Lady +Whitburn had improvised, they found that this was much her opinion. + +“He will get the knot untied,” she said. “So thick as the King and his +crew are with the Pope, it will cost him nothing, but we may, for very +shame, force a dowry out of his young knighthood to get the wench into +Whitby withal!” + +“So he even proffered on his way,” said the Baron. “He is a fair and +knightly youth. ’Tis pity of him that he holds with the Frenchwoman. +Ha, Bernard, ’tis for thy good.” + +For the boy was clinging tight to his sister, and declaring that his +Grisly should never leave him again, not for twenty vile runaway +husbands. + +Grisell returned to all her old habits, and there was no difference in +her position, excepting that she was scrupulously called Dame Grisell +Copeland. Her father was soon called away by the summons to Parliament, +sent forth in the name of King Henry, who was then in the hands of the +Earl of Warwick in London. The Sheriff’s messenger who brought him the +summons plainly said that all the friends of York, Salisbury, and Warwick +were needed for a great change that would dash the hopes of the +Frenchwoman and her son. + +He went with all his train, leaving the defence of the castle to Ridley +and the ladies, and assuring Grisell that she need not be downhearted. +He would yet bring her fine husband, Sir Leonard, to his marrow bones +before her. + +Grisell had not much time to think of Sir Leonard, for as the summer +waned, both her mother and Bernard sickened with low fever. In the +lady’s case it was intermittent, and she spent only the third day in her +bed, the others in crouching over the fire or hanging over the child’s +bed, where he lay constantly tossing and fevered all night, sometimes +craving to be on his sister’s lap, but too restless long to lie there. +Both manifestly became weaker, in spite of all Grisell’s simple +treatment, and at last she wrung from the lady permission to send Ridley +to Wearmouth to try if it was possible to bring out Master Lambert Groot +to give his advice, or if not, to obtain medicaments and counsel from +him. + +The good little man actually came, riding a mule. “Ay, ay,” quoth +Ridley, “I brought him, though he vowed at first it might never be, but +when he heard it concerned you, mistress—I mean Dame Grisell—he was ready +to come to your aid.” + +Good little man, standing trim and neat in his burgher’s dress and little +frill-like ruff, he looked quite out of place in the dark old hall. + +Lady Whitburn seemed to think him a sort of magician, though inferior +enough to be under her orders. “Ha! Is that your Poticary?” she +demanded, when Grisell brought him up to the solar. “Look at my bairn, +Master Dutchman; see to healing him,” she continued imperiously. + +Lambert was too well used to incivility from nobles to heed her manner, +though in point of fact a Flemish noble was far more civilised than this +North Country dame. He looked anxiously at Bernard, who moaned a little +and turned his head away. “Nay, now, Bernard,” entreated his sister; +“look up at the good man, he that sent you the sugar-balls. He is come +to try to make you well.” + +Bernard let her coax him to give his poor little wasted hand to the +leech, and looked with wonder in his heavy eyes at the stranger, who felt +his pulse, and asked to have him lifted up for better examination. There +was at first a dismal little whine at being touched and moved, but when a +pleasantly acid drop was put into his little parched mouth, he smiled +with brief content. His mother evidently expected that both he and she +herself would be relieved on the spot, but the Apothecary durst not be +hopeful, though he gave the child a draught which he called a febrifuge, +and which put him to sleep, and bade the lady take another of the like if +she wished for a good night’s rest. + +He added, however, that the best remedy would be a pilgrimage to +Lindisfarne, which, be it observed, really meant absence from the foul, +close, feverish air of the castle, and all the evil odours of the court. +To the lady he thought it would really be healing, but he doubted whether +the poor little boy was not too far gone for such revival; indeed, he +made no secret that he believed the child was stricken for death. + +“Then what boots all your vaunted chirurgery!” cried the mother +passionately. “You outlandish cheat! you! What did you come here for? +You have not even let him blood!” + +“Let him blood! good madame,” exclaimed Master Lambert. “In his state, +to take away his blood would be to kill him outright!” + +“False fool and pretender,” cried Lady Whitburn; “as if all did not ken +that the first duty of a leech is to take away the infected humours of +the blood! Demented as I was to send for you. Had you been worth but a +pinch of salt, you would have shown me how to lay hands on Nan the +witch-wife, the cause of all the scathe to my poor bairn.” + +Master Lambert could only protest that he laid no claim to the skill of a +witch-finder, whereupon the lady stormed at him as having come on false +pretences, and at her daughter for having brought him, and finally fell +into a paroxysm of violent weeping, during which Grisell was thankful to +convey her guest out of the chamber, and place him under the care of +Ridley, who would take care he had food and rest, and safe convoy back to +Wearmouth when his mule had been rested and baited. + +“Oh, Master Lambert,” she said, “it grieves me that you should have been +thus treated.” + +“Heed not that, sweet lady. It oft falls to our share to brook the like, +and I fear me that yours is a weary lot.” + +“But my brother! my little brother!” she asked. “It is all out of my +mother’s love for him.” + +“Alack, lady, what can I say? The child is sickly, and little enough is +there of peace or joy in this world for such, be he high or low born. +Were it not better that the Saints should take him to their keeping, +while yet a sackless babe?” + +Grisell wrung her hands together. “Ah! he hath been all my joy or bliss +through these years; but I will strive to say it is well, and yield my +will.” + +The crying of the poor little sufferer for his Grisly called her back +before she could say or hear more. Her mother lay still utterly +exhausted on her bed, and hardly noticed her; but all that evening, and +all the ensuing night, Grisell held the boy, sometimes on her lap, +sometimes on the bed, while all the time his moans grew more and more +feeble, his words more indistinct. By and by, as she sat on the bed, +holding him on her breast, he dropped asleep, and perhaps, outwearied as +she was, she slept too. At any rate all was still, till she was roused +by a cry from Thora, “Holy St. Hilda! the bairn has passed!” + +And indeed when Grisell started, the little head and hand that had been +clasped to her fell utterly prone, and there was a strange cold at her +breast. + +Her mother woke with a loud wail. “My bairn! My bairn!” snatching him +to her arms. “This is none other than your Dutchman’s doings, girl. +Have him to the dungeon! Where are the stocks? Oh, my pretty boy! He +breathed, he is living. Give me the wine!” Then as there was no opening +of the pale lips, she fell into another tempest of tears, during which +Grisell rushed to the stair, where on the lowest step she met Lambert and +Ridley. + +“Have him away! Have him away, Cuthbert,” she cried. “Out of the castle +instantly. My mother is distraught with grief; I know not what she may +do to him. O go! Not a word!” + +They could but obey, riding away in the early morning, and leaving the +castle to its sorrow. + +So, tenderly and sadly was little Bernard carried to the vault in the +church, while Grisell knelt as his chief mourner, for her mother, after +her burst of passion subsided, lay still and listless, hardly noticing +anything, as if there had fallen on her some stroke that affected her +brain. Tidings of the Baron were slow to come, and though Grisell sent a +letter by a wandering friar to York, with information of the child’s +death and the mother’s illness, it was very doubtful when or whether they +would ever reach him. + + + + +CHAPTER XV +WAKEFIELD BRIDGE + + + I come to tell you things since then befallen. + After the bloody fray at Wakefield fought, + Where your brave father breathed his latest gasp. + + SHAKESPEARE, _King Henry VI._, Part III. + +CHRISTMAS went by sadly in Whitburn Tower, but the succeeding weeks were +to be sadder still. It was on a long dark evening that a commotion was +heard at the gate, and Lady Whitburn, who had been sitting by the +smouldering fire in her chamber, seemed suddenly startled into life. + +“Tidings,” she cried. “News of my lord and son. Bring them, Grisell, +bring them up.” + +Grisell obeyed, and hurried down to the hall. All the household, men and +maids, were gathered round some one freshly come in, and the first sound +she heard was, “Alack! Alack, my lady!” + +“How—what—how—” she asked breathlessly, just recognising Harry +Featherstone, pale, dusty, blood-stained. + +“It is evil news, dear lady,” said old Ridley, turning towards her with +outstretched hands, and tears flowing down his cheeks. “My knight. Oh! +my knight! And I was not by!” + +“Slain?” almost under her breath, asked Grisell. + +“Even so! At Wakefield Bridge,” began Featherstone, but at that instant, +walking stiff, upright, and rigid, like a figure moved by mechanism, Lady +Whitburn was among them. + +“My lord,” she said, still as if her voice belonged to some one else. +“Slain? And thou, recreant, here to tell the tale!” + +“Madam, he fell before I had time to strike.” She seemed to hear no +word, but again demanded, “My son.” + +He hesitated a moment, but she fiercely reiterated. + +“My son! Speak out, thou coward loon.” + +“Madam, Robert was cut down by the Lord Clifford beside the Earl of +Rutland. ’Tis a lost field! I barely ’scaped with a dozen men. I came +but to bear the tidings, and see whether you needed an arm to hold out +the castle for young Bernard. Or I would be on my way to my own folk on +the Border, for the Queen’s men will anon be everywhere, since the Duke +is slain!” + +“The Duke! The Duke of York!” was the cry, as if a tower were down. + +“What would you. We were caught by Somerset like deer in a buck-stall. +Here! Give me a cup of ale, I can scarce speak for chill.” + +He sank upon the settle as one quite worn out. The ale was brought by +some one, and he drank a long draught, while, at a sign from Ridley, one +of the serving-men began to draw off his heavy boots and greaves, covered +with frosted mud, snow, and blood, all melting together, but all the time +he talked, and the hearers remained stunned and listening to what had +hardly yet penetrated their understanding. Lady Whitburn had collapsed +into her own chair, and was as still as the rest. + +He spoke incoherently, and Ridley now and then asked a question, but his +fragmentary narrative may be thus expanded. + +All had, in Yorkist opinion, gone well in London. Henry was in the power +of the White Rose, and had actually consented that Richard of York should +be his next heir, but in the meantime Queen Margaret had been striving +her utmost to raise the Welsh and the Border lords on behalf of her son. +She had obtained aid from Scotland, and the Percies, the Dacres of +Gilsland, and many more, had followed her standard. The Duke of York and +Earl of Salisbury set forth to repress what they called a riot, probably +unaware of the numbers who were daily joining the Queen. With them went +Lord Whitburn, hoping thence to return home, and his son Robert, still a +squire of the Duke’s household. + +They reached York’s castle of Sendal, and there merrily kept Christmas, +but on St. Thomas of Canterbury’s Day they heard that the foe were close +at hand, many thousands strong, and on the morrow Queen Margaret, with +her boy beside her, and the Duke of Somerset, came before the gate and +called on the Duke to surrender the castle, and his own vaunting claims +with it, or else come out and fight. + +Sir Davy Hall entreated the Duke to remain in the castle till his son +Edward, Earl of March, could bring reinforcements up from Wales, but York +held it to be dishonourable to shut himself up on account of a scolding +woman, and the prudence of the Earl of Salisbury was at fault, since both +presumed on the easy victories they had hitherto gained. Therefore they +sallied out towards Wakefield Bridge, to confront the main body of +Margaret’s army, ignorant or careless that she had two wings in reserve. +These closed in on them, and their fate was certain. + +“My lord fell in the melée among the first,” said Featherstone. “I was +down beside him, trying to lift him up, when a big Scot came with his +bill and struck at my head, and I knew no more till I found my master +lying stark dead and stripped of all his armour. My sword was gone, but +I got off save for this cut” (and he pushed back his hair) “and a horse’s +kick or two, for the whole battle had gone over me, and I heard the +shouting far away. As my lord lay past help, methought I had best shift +myself ere more rascaille came to strip the slain. And as luck or my +good Saint would have it, as I stumbled among the corpses I heard a +whinnying, and saw mine own horse, Brown Weardale, running masterless. +Glad enough was he, poor brute, to have my hand on his rein. + +“The bridge was choked with fighting men, so I was about to put him to +the river, when whom should I see on the bridge but young Master Robin, +and with him young Lord Edmund of Rutland. There, on the other side, +holding parley with them, was the knight Mistress Grisell wedded, and +though he wore the White Rose, he gave his hand to them, and was letting +them go by in safety. I was calling to Master Rob to let me pass as one +of his own, when thundering on came the grim Lord Clifford, roaring like +the wind in Roker caves. I heard him howl at young Copeland for a +traitor, letting go the accursed spoilers of York. Copeland tried to +speak, but Clifford dashed him aside against the wall, and, ah! woe’s me, +lady, when Master Robin threw himself between, the fellow—a murrain on +his name—ran the fair youth through the neck with his sword, and swept +him off into the river. Then he caught hold of Lord Edmund, crying out, +“Thy father slew mine, and so do I thee,” and dashed out his brains with +his mace. For me, I rode along farther, swam my horse over the river in +the twilight, with much ado to keep clear of the dead horses and poor +slaughtered comrades that cumbered the stream, and what was even worse, +some not yet dead, borne along and crying out. A woful day it was to all +who loved the kindly Duke of York, or this same poor house! As luck +would have it, I fell in with Jock of Redesdale and a few more honest +fellows, who had ’scaped. We found none but friends when we were well +past the river. They succoured us at the first abbey we came to. The +rest have sped to their homes, and here am I.” + +Such was the tenor of Featherstone’s doleful history of that +blood-thirsty Lancastrian victory. All had hung in dire suspense on his +words, and not till they were ended did Grisell become conscious that her +mother was sitting like a stone, with fixed, glassy eyes and dropped lip, +in the high-backed chair, quite senseless, and breathing strangely. + +They took her up and carried her upstairs, as one who had received her +death stroke as surely as had her husband and son on the slopes between +Sendal and Wakefield. + +Grisell and Thora did their utmost, but without reviving her, and they +watched by her, hardly conscious of anything else, as they tried their +simple, ineffective remedies one after another, with no thought or +possibility of sending for further help, since the roads would be +impassable in the long January night, and besides, the Lancastrians might +make them doubly perilous. Moreover, this dumb paralysis was accepted as +past cure, and needing not the doctor but the priest. Before the first +streak of dawn on that tardy, northern morning, Ridley’s ponderous step +came up the stair, into the feeble light of the rush candle which the +watchers tried to shelter from the draughts. + +The sad question and answer of “No change” passed, and then Ridley, his +gruff voice unnecessarily hushed, said, “Featherstone would speak with +you, lady. He would know whether it be your pleasure to keep him in your +service to hold out the Tower, or whether he is free to depart.” + +“Mine!” said Grisell bewildered. + +“Yea!” exclaimed Ridley. “You are Lady of Whitburn!” + +“Ah! It is true,” exclaimed Grisell, clasping her hands. “Woe is me +that it should be so! And oh! Cuthbert! my husband, if he lives, is a +Queen’s man! What can I do?” + +“If it were of any boot I would say hold out the Tower. He deserves no +better after the scurvy way he treated you,” said Cuthbert grimly. “He +may be dead, too, though Harry fears he was but stunned.” + +“But oh!” cried Grisell, as if she saw one gleam of light, “did not I +hear something of his trying to save my brother and Lord Edmund?” + +“You had best come down and hear,” said Ridley. “Featherstone cannot go +till he has spoken with you, and he ought to depart betimes, lest the +Gilsland folk and all the rest of them be ravening on their way back.” + +Grisell looked at her mother, who lay in the same state, entirely past +her reach. The hard, stern woman, who had seemed to have no affection to +bestow on her daughter, had been entirely broken down and crushed by the +loss of her sons and husband. + +Probably neither had realised that by forcing Grisell on young Copeland +they might be giving their Tower to their enemy. + +She went down to the hall, where Harry Featherstone, whose night had done +him more good than hers had, came to meet her, looking much freshened, +and with a bandage over his forehead. He bent low before her, and +offered her his services, but, as he told her, he and Ridley had been +talking it over, and they thought it vain to try to hold out the Tower, +even if any stout men did straggle back from the battle, for the country +round was chiefly Lancastrian, and it would be scarcely possible to get +provisions, or to be relieved. Moreover, the Gilsland branch of the +family, who would be the male heirs, were on the side of the King and +Queen, and might drive her out if she resisted. Thus there seemed no +occasion for the squire to remain, and he hoped to reach his own family, +and save himself from the risk of being captured. + +“No, sir, we do not need you,” said Grisell. “If Sir Leonard Copeland +lives and claims this Tower, there is no choice save to yield it to him. +I would not delay you in seeking your own safety, but only thank you for +your true service to my lord and father.” + +She held out her hand, which Featherstone kissed on his knee. + +His horse was terribly jaded, and he thought he could make his way more +safely on foot than in the panoply of an esquire, for in this war, the +poorer sort were hardly touched; the attacks were chiefly made on nobles +and gentlemen. So he prepared to set forth, but Grisell obtained from +him what she had scarcely understood the night before, the entire history +of the fall of her father and brother, and how gallantly Leonard Copeland +had tried to withstand Clifford’s rage. + +“He did his best for them,” she said, as if it were her one drop of hope +and comfort. + +Ridley very decidedly hoped that Clifford’s blow had freed her from her +reluctant husband; and mayhap the marriage would give her claims on the +Copeland property. But Grisell somehow could not join in the wish. She +could only remember the merry boy at Amesbury and the fair face she had +seen sleeping in the hall, and she dwelt on Featherstone’s assurance that +no wound had pierced the knight, and that he would probably be little the +worse for his fall against the parapet of the bridge. Use her as he +might, she could not wish him dead, though it was a worthy death in +defence of his old playfellow and of her own brother. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI +A NEW MASTER + + + In the dark chambère, if the bride was fair, + Ye wis, I could not see. + . . . . + And the bride rose from her knee + And kissed the smile of her mother dead. + + E. B. BROWNING, _The Romaunt of the Page_. + +THE Lady of Whitburn lingered from day to day, sometimes showing signs of +consciousness, and of knowing her daughter, but never really reviving. +At the end of a fortnight she seemed for one day somewhat better, but +that night she had a fresh attack, and was so evidently dying that the +priest, Sir Lucas, was sent for to bring her the last Sacrament. The +passing bell rang out from the church, and the old man, with his little +server before him, came up the stair, and was received by Grisell, Thora, +and one or two other servants on their knees. + +Ridley was not there. For even then, while the priest was crossing the +hall, a party of spearmen, with a young knight at their head, rode to the +gate and demanded entrance. + +The frightened porter hurried to call Master Ridley, who, instead of +escorting the priest with the Host to his dying lady, had to go to the +gate, where he recognised Sir Leonard Copeland, far from dead, in very +different guise from that in which he had been brought to the castle +before. He looked, however, awed, as he said, bending his head— + +“Is it sooth, Master Ridley? Is death beforehand with me?” + +“My old lady is _in extremis_, sir,” replied Ridley. “Poor soul, she +hath never spoken since she heard of my lord’s death and his son’s.” + +“The younger lad? Lives here?” demanded Copeland. “Is it as I have +heard?” + +“Aye, sir. The child passed away on the Eve of St. Luke. I have my +lady’s orders,” he added reluctantly, “to open the castle to you, as of +right.” + +“It is well,” returned Sir Leonard. Then, turning round to the twenty +men who followed him, he said, “Men-at-arms, as you saw and heard, there +is death here. Draw up here in silence. This good esquire will see that +you have food and fodder for the horses. Kemp, Hardcastle,” to his +squires, “see that all is done with honour and respect as to the lady of +the castle and mine. Aught unseemly shall be punished.” + +Wherewith he dismounted, and entered the narrow little court, looking +about him with a keen, critical, soldierly eye, but speaking with low, +grave tones. + +“I may not tarry,” he said to Ridley, “but this place, since it falls to +me and mine, must be held for the King and Queen.” + +“My lady bows to your will, sir,” returned Ridley. + +Copeland continued to survey the walls and very antiquated defences, +observing that there could have been few alarms there. This lasted till +the rites in the sick-room were ended, and the priest came forth. + +“Sir,” he said to Copeland, “you will pardon the young lady. Her mother +is _in articulo mortis_, and she cannot leave her.” + +“I would not disturb her,” said Leonard. “The Saints forbid that I +should vex her. I come but as in duty bound to damn this Tower on behalf +of King Harry, Queen Margaret, and the Prince of Wales against all +traitors. I will not tarry here longer than to put it into hands who +will hold it for them and for me. How say you, Sir Squire?” he added, +turning to Ridley, not discourteously. + +“We ever did hold for King Harry, sir,” returned the old esquire. + +“Yea, but against his true friends, York and Warwick. One is cut off, +ay, and his aider and defender, Salisbury, who should rather have stood +by his King, has suffered a traitor’s end at Pomfret.” + +“My Lord of Salisbury! Ah! that will grieve my poor young lady,” sighed +Ridley. + +“He was a kind lord, save for his treason to the King,” said Leonard. +“We of his household long ago were happy enough, though strangely divided +now. For the rest, till that young wolf cub, Edward of March, and his +mischief-stirring cousin of Warwick be put down, this place must be held +against them and theirs—whosoever bears the White Rose. Wilt do so, +Master Seneschal?” + +“I hold for my lady. That is all I know,” said Ridley, “and she holds +herself bound to you, sir.” + +“Faithful. Ay? You will be her guardian, I see; but I must leave half a +score of fellows for the defence, and will charge them that they show all +respect and honour to the lady, and leave to you, as seneschal, all the +household, and of all save the wardship of the Tower, calling on you +first to make oath of faith to me, and to do nought to the prejudice of +King Henry, the Queen, or Prince, nor to favour the friends of York or +Warwick.” + +“I am willing, sir,” returned Ridley, who cared a great deal more for the +house of Whitburn than for either party, whose cause he by no means +understood, perhaps no more than they had hitherto done themselves. As +long as he was left to protect his lady it was all he asked, and more +than he expected, and the courtesy, not to say delicacy, of the young +knight greatly impressed both him and the priest, though he suspected +that it was a relief to Sir Leonard not to be obliged to see his bride of +a few months. + +The selected garrison were called in. Ridley would rather have seen them +more of the North Country yeoman type than of the regular weather-beaten +men-at-arms whom wars always bred up; but their officer was a slender, +dainty-looking, pale young squire, with his arm in a sling, named Pierce +Hardcastle, selected apparently because his wound rendered rest +desirable. Sir Leonard reiterated his charge that all honour and respect +was to be paid to the Lady of Whitburn, and that she was free to come and +go as she chose, and to be obeyed in every respect, save in what regarded +the defence of the Tower. He himself was going on to Monks Wearmouth, +where he had a kinsman among the monks. + +With an effort, just as he remounted his horse, he said to Ridley, +“Commend me to the lady. Tell her that I am grieved for her sorrow and +to be compelled to trouble her at such a time; but ’tis for my Queen’s +service, and when this troublous times be ended, she shall hear more from +me.” Turning to the priest he added, “I have no coin to spare, but let +all be done that is needed for the souls of the departed lord and lady, +and I will be answerable.” + +Nothing could be more courteous, but as he rode off priest and squire +looked at one another, and Ridley said, “He will untie your knot, Sir +Lucas.” + +“He takes kindly to castle and lands,” was the answer, with a smile; +“they may make the lady to be swallowed.” + +“I trow ’tis for his cause’s sake,” replied Ridley. “Mark you, he never +once said ‘My lady,’ nor ‘My wife.’” + +“May the sweet lady come safely out of it any way,” sighed the priest. +“She would fain give herself and her lands to the Church.” + +“May be ’tis the best that is like to befall her,” said Ridley; “but if +that young featherpate only had the wit to guess it, he would find that +he might seek Christendom over for a better wife.” + +They were interrupted by a servant, who came hurrying down to say that my +lady was even now departing, and to call Sir Lucas to the bedside. + +All was over a few moments after he reached the apartment, and Grisell +was left alone in her desolation. The only real, deep, mutual love had +been between her and poor little Bernard; her elder brother she had +barely seen; her father had been indifferent, chiefly regarding her as a +damaged piece of property, a burthen to the estate; her mother had been a +hard, masculine, untender woman, only softened in her latter days by the +dependence of ill health and her passion for her sickly youngest; but on +her Grisell had experienced Sister Avice’s lesson that ministry to others +begets and fosters love. + +And now she was alone in her house, last of her household, her work for +her mother over, a wife, but loathed and deserted except so far as that +the tie had sanctioned the occupation of her home by a hostile garrison. +Her spirit sank within her, and she bitterly felt the impoverishment of +the always scanty means, which deprived her of the power of laying out +sums of money on those rites which were universally deemed needful for +the repose of souls snatched away in battle. It was a mercenary age +among the clergy, and besides, it was the depth of a northern winter, and +the funeral rites of the Lady of Whitburn would have been poor and maimed +indeed if a whole band of black Benedictine monks had not arrived from +Wearmouth, saying they had been despatched at special request and charge +of Sir Leonard Copeland. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII +STRANGE GUESTS + + + The needle, having nought to do, + Was pleased to let the magnet wheedle, + Till closer still the tempter drew, + And off at length eloped the needle. + + T. MOORE. + +THE nine days of mourning were spent in entire seclusion by Grisell, who +went through every round of devotions prescribed or recommended by the +Church, and felt relief and rest in them. She shrank when Ridley on the +tenth day begged her no longer to seclude herself in the solar, but to +come down to the hall and take her place as Lady of the Castle, otherwise +he said he could not answer for the conduct of Copeland’s men. + +“Master Hardcastle desires it too,” he said. “He is a good lad enough, +but I doubt me whether his hand is strong enough over those fellows! You +need not look for aught save courtesy from him! Come down, lady, or you +will never have your rights.” + +“Ah, Cuthbert, what are my rights?” + +“To be mistress of your own castle,” returned Ridley, “and that you will +never be unless you take the upper hand. Here are all our household +eating with these rogues of Copeland’s, and who is to keep rule if the +lady comes not?” + +“Alack, and how am I to do so?” + +However, the consideration brought her to appear at the very early +dinner, the first meal of the day, which followed on the return from +mass. Pierce Hardcastle met her shyly. He was a tall slender stripling, +looking weak and ill, and he bowed very low as he said, “Greet you well, +lady,” and looked up for a moment as if in fear of what he might +encounter. Grisell indeed was worn down with long watching and grief, +and looked haggard and drawn so as to enhance all her scars and +distortion of feature into more uncomeliness than her wont. She saw him +shudder a little, but his lame arm and wan looks interested her kind +heart. “I fear me you are still feeling your wound, sir,” she said, in +the sweet voice which was evidently a surprise to him. + +“It is my plea for having been a slug-a-bed this morning,” he answered. + +They sat down at the table. Grisell between Ridley and Hardcastle, the +servants and men-at-arms beyond. Porridge and broth and very small ale +were the fare, and salted meat would be for supper, and as Grisell knew +but too well already, her own retainers were grumbling at the voracious +appetites of the men-at-arms as much as did their unwilling guests at the +plainness and niggardliness of the supply. + +Thora had begged for a further allowance of beer for them, or even to +broach a cask of wine. “For,” said she, “they are none such fiends as we +thought, if one knows how to take them courteously.” + +“There is no need that you should have any dealings with them, Thora,” +said her lady, with some displeasure; “Master Ridley sees to their +provision.” + +Thora tossed up her head a little and muttered something about not being +mewed out of sight and speech of all men. And when she attended her lady +to the hall there certainly were glances between her and a slim young +archer. + +The lady’s presence was certainly a restraint on the rude men-at-arms, +though two or three of them seemed to her rough, reckless-looking men. +After the meal all her kindly instincts were aroused to ask what she +could do for the young squire, and he willingly put himself into her +hands, for his hurt had become much more painful within the last day or +two, as indeed it proved to be festering, and in great need of treatment. + +Before the day was over the two had made friends, and Grisell had found +him to be a gentle, scholarly youth, whom the defence of the Queen had +snatched from his studies into the battlefield. He told her a great deal +about the good King, and his encouragement of his beloved scholars at +Eton, and he spoke of Queen Margaret with an enthusiasm new to Grisell, +who had only heard her reviled as the Frenchwoman. Pierce could speak +with the greatest admiration, too, of his own knight, Sir Leonard, whom +he viewed as the pink of chivalry, assuring Lady Copeland, as he called +her, that she need never doubt for a moment of his true honour and +courtesy. Grisell longed to know, but modest pride forbade her to ask, +whether he knew how matters stood with her rival, Lady Eleanor Audley. +Ridley, however, had no such feeling, and he reported to Grisell what he +had discovered. + +Young Hardcastle had only once seen the lady, and had thought her very +beautiful, as she looked from a balcony when King Henry was riding to his +Parliament. Leonard Copeland, then a squire, was standing beside her, +and it had been currently reported that he was to be her bridegroom. + +He had returned from his captivity after the battle of Northampton +exceedingly downcast, but striving vehemently in the cause of Lancaster, +and Hardcastle had heard that the question had been discussed whether the +forced marriage had been valid, or could be dissolved; but since the +bodies of Lord Whitburn and his son had been found on the ground at +Wakefield, this had ceased, and it was believed that Queen Margaret had +commanded Sir Leonard, on his allegiance, to go and take possession of +Whitburn and its vassals in her cause. + +But Pierce Hardcastle had come to Ridley’s opinion, that did his knight +but shut his eyes, the Lady Grisell was as good a mate as man could wish +both in word and deed. + +“I would fain,” said he, “have the Lady Eleanor to look at, but this lady +to dress my hurts, ay, and talk with me. Never met I woman who was so +good company! She might almost be a scholar at Oxford for her wit.” + +However much solace the lady might find in the courtesy of Master +Hardcastle, she was not pleased to find that her hand-maiden Thora +exchanged glances with the young men-at-arms; and in a few days Ridley +spoke to Grisell, and assured her that mischief would ensue if the silly +wench were not checked in her habit of loitering and chattering whenever +she could escape from her lady’s presence in the solar, which Grisell +used as her bower, only descending to the hall at meal-times. + +Grisell accordingly rebuked her the next time she delayed unreasonably +over a message, but the girl pouted and muttered something about young +Ralph Hart helping her with the heavy pitcher up the stair. + +“It is unseemly for a maiden to linger and get help from strange +soldiers,” said Grisell. + +“No more unseemly than for the dame to be ever holding converse with +their captain,” retorted the North Country hand-maiden, free of speech +and with a toss of the head. + +“Whist, Thora! or you must take a buffet,” said Grisell, clenching a fist +unused to striking, and trying to regard chastisement as a duty. “You +know full well that my only speech with Master Hardcastle is as his +hostess.” + +Thora laughed. “Ay, lady; I ken well what the men say. How that poor +youth is spell-bound, and that you are casting your glamour over him as +of old over my poor old lady and little Master Bernard.” + +“For shame, Thora, to bring me such tales!” and Grisell’s hand actually +descended on her maiden’s face, but so slight was the force that it only +caused a contemptuous laugh, which so angered the young mistress as to +give her energy to strike again with all her might. + +“And you’d beat me,” observed her victim, roused to anger. “You are so +ill favoured yourself that you cannot bear a man to look on a fair maid!” + +“What insolence is this?” cried Grisell, utterly amazed. “Go into the +turret room, spin out this hank, and stay there till I call you to +supper. Say your Ave, and recollect what beseems a modest maiden.” + +She spoke with authority, which Thora durst not resist, and withdrew +still pouting and grumbling. + +Grisell was indeed young herself and inexperienced, and knew not that her +wrath with the girl might be perilous to herself, while sympathy might +have evoked wholesome confidence. + +For the maiden, just developing into northern comeliness, was attractive +enough to win the admiration of soldiers in garrison with nothing to do, +and on her side their notice, their rough compliments, and even their +jests, were delightful compared with the dulness of her mistress’s +mourning chamber, and court enough was paid to her completely to turn her +head. If there were love and gratitude lurking in the bottom of her +heart towards the lady who had made a fair and skilful maiden out of the +wild fisher girl, all was smothered in the first strong impulse of love +for this young Ralph Hart, the first to awaken the woman out of the +child. + +The obstacles which Grisell, like other prudent mistresses in all times, +placed in the course of this true love, did but serve to alienate the +girl and place her in opposition. The creature had grown up as wild and +untamed as one of the seals on the shore, and though she had had a little +training and teaching of late years, it was entirely powerless when once +the passion was evoked in her by the new intercourse and rough +compliments of the young archer, and she was for the time at his beck and +call, regarding her lady as her tyrant and enemy. It was the old story +of many a household. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII +WITCHERY + + + The lady has gone to her secret bower, + The bower that was guarded by word and by spell. + + SCOTT, _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_. + +“MASTER SQUIRE,” said the principal man-at-arms of the garrison to Pierce +Hardcastle, “is it known to you what this laidly dame’s practices be?” + +“I know her for a dame worthy of all honour and esteem,” returned the +esquire, turning hastily round in wrath. He much disliked this man, a +regular mercenary of the free lance description, a fellow of French or +Alsatian birth, of middle age, much strength, and on account of a great +gash and sideways twist of his snub nose always known as Tordu, and +strongly suspected that he had been sent as a sort of spy or check on Sir +Leonard Copeland and on himself. The man replied with a growl: + +“Ah ha! Sans doubt she makes her niggard fare seem dainty cakes to those +under her art.” + +In fact the evident pleasure young Hardcastle took in the Lady +Castellane’s society, the great improvement in his wound under her +treatment, and the manner in which the serfs around came to ask her aid +in their maladies, had excited the suspicion of the men-at-arms. They +were older men, hardened and roughened, inclined to despise his youth, +and to resent the orderly discipline of the household, which under Ridley +went on as before, and the murmurs of Thora led to inquiries, answered +after the exaggerated fashion of gossip. + +There were outcries about provisions and wine or ale, and shouts +demanding more, and when Pierce declared that he would not have the lady +insulted, there was a hoarse loud laugh. He was about to order Tordu as +ringleader into custody, but Ridley said to him aside, “Best not, sir; +his fellows will not lay a finger on him, and if we did so, there would +be a brawl, and we might come by the worst.” + +So Pierce could only say, with all the force he could, “Bear in mind that +Sir Leonard Copeland is lord here, and all miscourtesy to his lady is an +offence to himself, which will be visited with his wrath.” + +The sneering laugh came again, and Tordu made answer, “Ay, ay, sir; she +has bewitched you, and we’ll soon have him and you free.” + +Pierce was angered into flying at the man with his sword, but the other +men came between, and Ridley held him back. + +“You are still a maimed man, sir. To be foiled would be worse than to +let it pass.” + +“There, fellow, I’ll spare you, so you ask pardon of me and the lady.” + +Perhaps they thought they had gone too far, for there was a sulky growl +that might pass for an apology, and Ridley’s counsel was decided that +Pierce had better not pursue the matter. + +What had been said, however, alarmed him, and set him on the watch, and +the next evening, when Hardcastle was walking along the cliffs beyond the +castle, the lad who acted as his page came to him, with round, wondering +eyes, “Sir,” said he, after a little hesitation, “is it sooth that the +lady spake a spell over your arm?” + +“Not to my knowledge,” said Pierce smiling. + +“It might be without your knowledge,” said the boy. “They say it healed +as no chirurgeon could have healed it, and by magic arts.” + +“Ha! the lubbard oafs. You know better than to believe them, Dick.” + +“Nay, sir, but ’tis her bower-woman and Madge, the cook’s wife. Both +aver that the lady hath bewitched whoever comes in her way ever since she +crossed the door. She hath wrought strange things with her father, +mother, and brothers. They say she bound them to her; that the little +one could not brook to have her out of sight; yet she worked on him so +that he was crooked and shrivelled. Yet he wept and cried to have her +ever with him, while he peaked and pined and dwindled away. And her +mother, who was once a fine, stately, masterful dame, pined to mere skin +and bone, and lay in lethargy; and now she is winding her charms on you, +sir!” + +Pierce made an exclamation of loathing and contempt. Dick lowered his +voice to a whisper of awe. + +“Nay, sir, but Le Tordu and Ned of the Bludgeon purpose to ride over to +Shields to the wise, and they will deal with her when he has found the +witch’s mark.” + +“The lady!” cried Hardcastle in horror. “You see her what she is! A +holy woman if ever there was one! At mass each morning.” + +“Ay, but the wench Thora told Ralph that ’tis prayers backward she says +there. Thora has oft heard her at night, and ’twas no Ave nor Credo as +they say them here.” + +Pierce burst out laughing. “I should think not. They speak gibberish, +and she, for I have heard her in Church, speaks words with a meaning, as +her priest and nuns taught her.” + +“But her face, sir. There’s the Evil One’s mark. One side says nay to +the other.” + +“The Evil One! Nay, Dick, he is none other than Sir Leonard himself. +’Twas he that all unwittingly, when a boy, fired a barrel of powder close +to her and marred her countenance. You are not fool and ass enough to +give credence to these tales.” + +“I said not that I did, sir,” replied the page; “but it is what the +men-at-arms swear to, having drawn it from the serving-maid.” + +“The adder,” muttered Pierce. + +“Moreover,” continued the boy, “they have found out that there is a wise +man witch-finder at Shields. They mean to be revenged for the scanty +fare and mean providings; and they deem it will be a merry jest in this +weary hold, and that Sir Leonard will be too glad to be quit of his +gruesome dame to call them to account.” + +It was fearful news, for Pierce well knew his own incompetence to +restrain these strong and violent men. He did not know where his knight +was to be found, and, if he had known, it was only too likely that these +terrible intentions might be carried out before any messenger could reach +him. Indeed, the belief in sorcery was universal, and no rank was exempt +from the danger of the accusation. Thora’s treachery was specially +perilous. All that the young man could do was to seek counsel with +Cuthbert Ridley, and even this he was obliged to do in the stable, +bidding Dick keep watch outside. Ridley too had heard a spiteful whisper +or two, but it had seemed too preposterous for him to attend to it. “You +are young, Hardcastle,” he said, with a smile, “or you would know that +there is nothing a grumbler will not say, nor how far men’s tongues lie +from their hands.” + +“Nay, but if their hands _did_ begin to act, how should we save the lady? +There’s nothing Tordu would not do. Could we get her away to some +nunnery?” + +“There is no nunnery nearer at hand than Gateshead, and there the +Prioress is a Musgrove, no friend to my lord. She might give her up, on +such a charge, for holy Church is no guardian in them. My poor bairn! +That ingrate Thora too! I would fain wring her neck! Yet here are our +fisher folk, who love her for her bounty.” + +“Would they hide her?” asked Pierce. + +“That serving-wench—would I had drowned her ere bringing her here—might +turn them, and, were she tracked, I ken not who might not be scared or +tortured into giving her up!” + +Here Dick looked in. “Tordu is crossing the yard,” he said. + +They both became immediately absorbed in studying the condition of +Featherstone’s horse, which had never wholly recovered the flight from +Wakefield. + +After a time Ridley was able to steal away, and visit Grisell in her +apartment. She came to meet him, and he read alarm, incredulous alarm, +in her face. She put her hands in his. “Is it sooth?” she said, in a +strange, awe-stricken voice. + +“You have heard, then, my wench?” + +“Thora speaks in a strange tone, as though evil were brewing against me. +But you, and Master Hardcastle, and Sir Lucas, and the rest would never +let them touch me?” + +“They should only do so through my heart’s blood, dear child; but mine +would be soon shed, and Hardcastle is a weakly lad, whom those fellows +believe to be bewitched. We must find some other way!” + +“Sir Leonard would save me if he knew. Alas! the good Earl of Salisbury +is dead.” + +“’Tis true. If we could hide you till we be rid of these men. But +where?” and he made a despairing gesture. + +Grisell stood stunned and dazed as the horrible prospect rose before her +of being seized by these lawless men, tortured by the savage hands of the +witch-finder, subjected to a cruel death, by fire, or at best by water. +She pressed her hands together, feeling utterly desolate, and prayed her +prayer to the God of the fatherless to save her or brace her to endure. + +Presently Cuthbert exclaimed, “Would Master Groats, the Poticary, shelter +you till this is over-past? His wife is deaf and must perforce keep +counsel.” + +“He would! I verily believe he would,” exclaimed Grisell; “and no +suspicion would light on him. How soon can I go to him, and how?” + +“If it may be, this very night,” said Ridley. “I missed two of the +rogues, and who knows whither they may have gone?” + +“Will there be time?” said the poor girl, looking round in terror. + +“Certes. The nearest witch-finder is at Shields, and they cannot get +there and back under two days. Have you jewels, lady? And hark you, +trust not to Thora. She is the worst traitor of all. Ask me no more, +but be ready to come down when you hear a whistle.” + +That Thora could be a traitress and turn against her—the girl whom she +had taught, trained, and civilised—was too much to believe. She would +almost, in spite of cautions, have asked her if it were possible, and +tried to explain the true character of the services that were so cruelly +misinterpreted; but as she descended the dark winding stair to supper, +she heard the following colloquy: + +“You will not deal hardly with her, good Ralph, dear Ralph?” + +“That thou shalt see, maid! On thy life, not a word to her.” + +“Nay, but she is a white witch! she does no evil.” + +“What! Going back on what thou saidst of her brother and her mother. +Take thou heed, or they will take order with thee.” + +“Thou wilt take care of me, good Ralph. Oh! I have done it for thee.” + +“Never fear, little one; only shut thy pretty little mouth;” and there +was a sound of kissing. + +“What will they do to her?” in a lower voice. + +“Thou wilt see! Sink or swim thou knowst. Ha! ha! She will have enough +of the draught that is so free to us.” + +Grisell, trembling and horror-stricken, could only lean against the wall +hoping that her beating heart did not sound loud enough to betray her, +till a call from the hall put an end to the terrible whispers. + +She hurried upwards lest Thora should come up and perceive how near she +had been, then descended and took her seat at supper, trying to converse +with Pierce as usual, but noting with terror the absence of the two +soldiers. + +How her evasion was to be effected she knew not. The castle keys were +never delivered to her, but always to Hardcastle, and she saw him take +them; but she received from Ridley a look and sign which meant that she +was to be ready, and when she left the hall she made up a bundle of +needments, and in it her precious books and all the jewels she had +inherited. That Thora did not follow her was a boon. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX +A MARCH HARE + + + Yonder is a man in sight— + Yonder is a house—but where? + No, she must not enter there. + To the caves, and to the brooks, + To the clouds of heaven she looks. + + WORDSWORTH, _Feast of Brougham Castle_. + +LONG, long did Grisell kneel in an agony of prayer and terror, as she +seemed already to feel savage hands putting her to the ordeal. + +The castle had long been quiet and dark, so far as she knew, when there +was a faint sound and a low whistle. She sprang to the door and held +Ridley’s hand. + +“Now is the time,” he said, under his breath; “the squire waits. That +treacherous little baggage is safe locked into the cellar, whither I +lured her to find some malvoisie for the rascaille crew. Come.” + +He was without his boots, and silently led the way along the narrow +passage to the postern door, where stood young Hardcastle with the keys. +He let them out and crossed the court with them to the little door +leading to a steep descent of the cliffs by a narrow path. Not till the +sands were reached did any of the three dare to speak, and then Grisell +held out her hands in thanks and farewell. + +“May I not guard you on your way, lady?” said Pierce. + +“Best not, sir,” returned Ridley; “best not know whither she is gone. I +shall be back again before I am missed or your rogues are stirring.” + +“When Sir Leonard knows of their devices, lady,” said Pierce, “then will +Ridley tell him where to find you and bring you back in all honour.” + +Grisell could only sigh, and try to speak her thanks to the young man, +who kissed her hand, and stood watching her and Ridley as the waning moon +lighted them over the glistening sands, till they sought the friendly +shadows of the cliffs. And thus Grisell Dacre parted from the home of +her fathers. + +“Cuthbert,” she said, “should you see Sir Leonard, let him know that +if—if he would be free from any bond to me I will aid in breaking it, and +ask only dowry enough to obtain entrance to a convent, while he weds the +lady he loves.” + +Ridley interrupted her with imprecations on the knight, and exhortations +to her to hold her own, and not abandon her rights. “If he keep the +lands, he should keep the wife,” was his cry. + +“His word and heart—” began Grisell. + +“Folly, my wench. No question but she is bestowed on some one else. You +do not want to be quit of him and be mewed in a nunnery.” + +“I only crave to hide my head and not be the bane of his life.” + +“Pshaw! You have seen for yourself. Once get over the first glance and +you are worth the fairest dame that ever was jousted for in the lists. +Send him at least a message as though it were not your will to cast him +off.” + +“If you will have it so, then,” said Grisell, “tell him that if it be his +desire, I will strive to make him a true, loyal, and loving wife.” + +The last words came with a sob, and Ridley gave a little inward chuckle, +as of one who suspected that the duties of the good and loving wife would +not be unwillingly undertaken. + +Castle-bred ladies were not much given to long walks, and though the +distance was only two miles, it was a good deal for Grisell, and she +plodded on wearily, to the sound of the lap of the sea and the cries of +the gulls. The caverns of the rock looked very black and gloomy, and she +clung to Ridley, almost expecting something to spring out on her; but all +was still, and the pale eastward light began to be seen over the sea +before they turned away from it to ascend to the scattered houses of the +little rising town. + +The bells of the convent had begun to ring for lauds, but it was only +twilight when they reached the wall of Lambert’s garden of herbs, where +there was a little door that yielded to Ridley’s push. The house was +still closed, and hoar frost lay on the leaves, but Grisell proposed to +hide herself in the little shed which served the purpose of tool-house +and summer-house till she could make her entrance. She felt sure of a +welcome, and almost constrained Cuthbert to leave her, so as to return to +the Tower early enough to avert suspicion—an easier matter as the +men-at-arms were given to sleeping as late as they could. He would make +an errand to the Apothecary’s as soon as he could, so as to bring +intelligence. + +There sat Grisell, looking out on the brightening sky, while the +blackbirds and thrushes were bursting into song, and sweet odours rising +from the spring buds of the aromatic plants around, and a morning bell +rang from the great monastery church. With that she saw the house door +open, and Master Lambert in a fur cap and gown turned up with lambs’-wool +come out into the garden, basket in hand, and chirp to the birds to come +down and be fed. + +It was pretty to see how the mavis and the merle, the sparrow, chaffinch, +robin, and tit fluttered round, and Grisell waited a moment to watch them +before she stepped forth and said, “Ah! Master Groot, here is another +poor bird to implore your bounty.” + +“Lady Grisell,” he cried, with a start. + +“Ah! not that name,” she said; “not a word. O Master Lambert, I came by +night; none have seen me, none but good Cuthbert Ridley ken where I am. +There can be no peril to you or yours if you will give shelter for a +little while to a poor maid.” + +“Dear lady, we will do all we can,” returned Lambert. “Fear not. How +pale you are. You have walked all night! Come and rest. None will +follow. You are sore spent! Clemence shall bring you a warm drink! +Condescend, dear lady,” and he made her lean on his arm, and brought her +into his large living room, and placed her in the comfortable +cross-legged chair with straps and cushions as a back, while he went into +some back settlement to inform his wife of her visitor; and presently +they brought her warm water, with some refreshing perfume, in a brass +basin, and he knelt on one knee to hold it to her, while she bathed her +face and hands with a sponge—a rare luxury. She started at every sound, +but Lambert assured her that she was safe, as no one ever came beyond the +booth. His Clemence had no gossips, and the garden could not be +overlooked. While some broth was heated for her she began to explain her +peril, but he exclaimed, “Methinks I know, lady, if it was thereanent +that a great strapping Hollander fellow from your Tower came to ask me +for a charm against gramarie, with hints that ’twas in high places. +’Twas enough to make one laugh to see the big lubber try to whisper +hints, and shiver and shake, as he showed me a knot in his matted locks +and asked if it were not the enemy’s tying. I told him ’twas tied by the +enemy indeed, the deadly sin of sloth, and that a stout Dutchman ought to +be ashamed of himself for carrying such a head within or without. But I +scarce bethought me the impudent Schelm could have thought of you, lady.” + +“Hush again. Forget the word! They are gone to Shields in search of the +witch-finder, to pinch me, and probe me, and drown me, or burn me,” cried +Grisell, clasping her hands. “Oh! take me somewhere if you cannot safely +hide me; I would not bring trouble on you!” + +“You need not fear,” he answered. “None will enter here but by my +goodwill, and I will bar the garden door lest any idle lad should pry in; +but they come not here. The tortoise who crawls about in the summer +fills them with too much terror for them to venture, and is better than +any watch-dog. Now, let me touch your pulse. Ah! I would prescribe +lying down on the bed and resting for the day.” + +She complied, and Clemence took her to the upper floor, where it was the +pride of the Flemish housewife to keep a guest-chamber, absolutely neat, +though very little furnished, and indeed seldom or never used; but she +solicitously stroked the big bed, and signed to Grisell to lie down in +the midst of pillows of down, above and below, taking off her hood, +mantle, and shoes, and smoothing her down with nods and sweet smiles, so +that she fell sound asleep. + +When she awoke the sun was at the meridian, and she came down to the +noontide meal. Master Groot was looking much entertained. + +Wearmouth, he said, was in a commotion. The great Dutch Whitburn +man-at-arms had come in full of the wonderful story. Not only had the +grisly lady vanished, but a cross-bow man had shot an enormous hare on +the moor, a creature with one ear torn off, and a seam on its face, and +Masters Hardcastle and Ridley altogether favoured the belief that it was +the sorceress herself without time to change her shape. Did Mynheer +Groot hold with them? + +For though Dutch and Flemings were not wholly friendly at home, yet in a +strange country they held together, and remembered that they were both +Netherlanders, and Hannekin would fain know what thought the wise man. + +“Depend on it, there was no time for a change,” gravely said Groot. +“Have not Nostradamus, Albertus Magnus, and Rogerus Bacon” (he was +heaping names together as he saw Hannekin’s big gray eyes grow rounder +and rounder) “all averred that the great Diabolus can give his minions +power to change themselves at will into hares, cats, or toads to +transport themselves to the Sabbath on Walpurgs’ night?” + +“You deem it in sooth,” said the Dutchman, “for know you that the parish +priest swears, and so do the more part of the villein fisher folk, that +there’s no sorcery in the matter, but that she is a true and holy maid, +with no powers save what the Saints had given her, and that her cures +were by skill. Yet such was scarce like to a mere Jungvrow.” + +It went sorely against Master Lambert’s feelings, as well as somewhat +against his conscience, to encourage the notion of the death of his guest +as a hare, though it ensured her safety and prevented a search. He +replied that her skill certainly was uncommon in a Jungvrow, beyond +nature, no doubt, and if they were unholy, it was well that the arblaster +had made a riddance of her. + +“By the same token,” added Hannekin, “the elf lock came out of my hair +this very morn, I having, as you bade me, combed it each morn with the +horse’s currycomb.” + +Proof positive, as Lambert was glad to allow him to believe. And the +next day all Sunderland and the two Wearmouths believed that the dead +hare had shrieked in a human voice on being thrown on a fire, and had +actually shown the hands and feet of a woman before it was consumed. + +It was all the safer for Grisell as long as she was not recognised, and +of this there was little danger. She was scarcely known in Wearmouth, +and could go to mass at the Abbey Church in a deep black hood and veil. +Master Lambert sometimes received pilgrims from his own country on their +way to English shrines, and she could easily pass for one of these if her +presence were perceived, but except to mass in very early morning, she +never went beyond the garden, where the spring beauty was enjoyment to +her in the midst of her loneliness and entire doubt as to her future. + +It was a grand old church, too, with low-browed arches, reminding her of +the dear old chapel of Wilton, and with a lofty though undecorated square +tower, entered by an archway adorned with curious twisted snakes with +long beaks, stretching over and under one another. + +The low heavy columns, the round circles, and the small windows, casting +a very dim religious light, gave Grisell a sense of being in the +atmosphere of that best beloved place, Wilton Abbey. She longed after +Sister Avice’s wisdom and tenderness, and wondered whether her lands +would purchase from her knight, power to return thither with dower enough +to satisfy the demands of the Proctor. It was a hope that seemed like an +inlet of light in her loneliness, when no one was faithful save Cuthbert +Ridley, and she felt cut to the heart above all by Thora’s defection and +cruel accusations, not knowing that half was owning to the intoxication +of love, and the other half to a gossiping tongue. + + + + +CHAPTER XX +A BLIGHT ON THE WHITE ROSE + + + Witness Aire’s unhappy water + Where the ruthless Clifford fell, + And when Wharfe ran red with slaughter + On the day of Towton’s field. + Gathering in its guilty flood + The carnage and the ill spilt blood + That forty thousand lives could yield. + + SOUTHEY, _Funeral Song of Princess Charlotte_. + +GRISELL from the first took her part in the Apothecary’s household. +Occupation was a boon to her, and she not only spun and made lace with +Clemence, but showed her new patterns learned in old days at Wilton; and +still more did she enjoy assisting the master of the house in making his +compounds, learning new nostrums herself, and imparting others to him, +showing a delicacy of finger which the old Fleming could not emulate. In +the fabrication of perfumes for the pouncet box, and sweetmeats prepared +with honey and sugar, she proved to have a dainty hand, so that Lambert, +who would not touch her jewels, declared that she was fully earning her +maintenance by the assistance that she gave to him. + +They were not molested by the war, which was decidedly a war of battles, +not of sieges, but they heard far more of tidings than were wont to reach +Whitburn Tower. They knew of the advance of Edward to London; and the +terrible battle of Towton begun, was fought out while the snow fell far +from bloodless, on Palm Sunday; and while the choir boys had been singing +their _Gloria_, _laus et honor_ in the gallery over the church door, +shivering a little at the untimely blast, there had been grim and awful +work, when for miles around the Wharfe and Aire the snow lay mixed with +blood. That the Yorkists had gained was known, and that the Queen and +Prince had fled; but nothing was heard of the fate of individuals, and +Master Lambert was much occupied with tidings from Bruges, whence +information came, in a messenger sent by a notary that his uncle, an old +miser, whose harsh displeasure at his marriage had driven him forth, was +just dead, leaving him heir to a fairly prosperous business and a house +in the city. + +To return thither was of course Lambert’s intention as soon as he could +dispose of his English property. He entreated Grisell to accompany him +and Clemence, assuming her that at the chief city of so great a prince as +Duke Philip of Burgundy, she would have a better hope of hearing tidings +of her husband than in a remote town like Sunderland; and that if she +still wished to dispose of her jewels she would have a far better chance +of so doing. He was arguing the point with her, when there was a voice +in the stall outside which made Grisell start, and Lambert, going out, +brought in Cuthbert Ridley, staggering under the weight of his best suit +of armour, and with a bundle and bag under his mantle. + +Grisell sprang up eagerly to meet him, but as she put her hands into his +he looked sorrowfully at her, and she asked under her breath, “Ah! Sir +Leonard—?” + +“No tidings of the recreant,” growled Ridley, “but ill tidings for both +of you. The Dacres of Gilsland are on us, claiming your castle and lands +as male heirs to your father.” + +“Do they know that I live?” asked Grisell, “or”—unable to control a +little laugh—“do they deem that I was slain in the shape of a hare?” + +“Or better than that,” put in Lambert; “they have it now in the wharves +that the corpse of the hare took the shape and hands of a woman when in +the hall.” + +“I ken not, the long-tongued rogues,” said Ridley; “but if my young lady +were standing living and life-like before them as, thank St. Hilda, I see +her now, they would claim it all the more as male heirs, and this new +King Edward has granted old Sir John seisin, being that she is the wife +of one of King Henry’s men!” + +“Are they there? How did you escape?” + +“I got timely notice,” said Cuthbert. “Twenty strong halted over the +night at Yeoman Kester’s farm on Heather Gill—a fellow that would do +anything for me since we fought side by side on the day of the Herrings. +So he sends out his two grandsons to tell me what they were after, while +they were drinking his good ale to health of their King Edward. So +forewarned, forearmed. We have left them empty walls, get in as they can +or may—unless that traitor Tordu chooses to stay and make terms with +them.” + +“Master Hardcastle! Would he fly? Surely not!” asked Grisell. + +“Master Hardcastle, with Dutch Hannekin and some of the better sort, went +off long since to join their knight’s banner, and the Saints know how the +poor young lad sped in all the bloody work they have had. For my part, I +felt not bound to hold out the castle against my old lord’s side, when +there was no saving it for you, so I put what belonged to me together, +and took poor old Roan, and my young lady’s pony, and made my way hither, +no one letting me. I doubt me much, lady, that there is little hope of +winning back your lands, whatever side may be uppermost, yet there be +true hearts among our villeins, who say they will never pay dues to any +save their lord’s daughter.” + +“Then I am landless and homeless,” sighed Grisell. + +“The greater cause that you should make your home with us, lady,” +returned Lambert Groot; and he went on to lay before Ridley the state of +the case, and his own plans. House and business, possibly a seat in the +city council, were waiting for him at Bruges, and the vessel from Ostend +which had continually brought him supplies for his traffic was daily +expected. He intended, so soon as she had made up her cargo of wool, to +return in her to his native country, and he was urgent that the Lady +Grisell should go with him, representing that all the changes of fortune +in the convulsed kingdom of England were sure to be quickly known there, +and that she was as near the centre of action in Flanders as in Durham, +besides that she would be out of reach of any enemies who might +disbelieve the hare transformation. + +After learning the fate of her castle, Grisell much inclined to the +proposal which kept her with those whom she had learnt to trust and love, +and she knew that she need be no burthen to them, since she had +profitable skill in their own craft, and besides she had her jewels. +Ridley, moreover, gave her hopes of a certain portion of her dues on the +herring-boats and the wool. + +“Will not you come with the lady, sir?” asked Lambert. + +“Oh, come!” cried Grisell. + +“Nay, a squire of dames hath scarce been heard of in a Poticar’s shop,” +said Ridley, and there was an irresistible laugh at the rugged old +gentleman so terming himself; but as Lambert and Grisell were both about +to speak he went on, “I can serve her better elsewhere. I am going first +to my home at Willimoteswick. I have not seen it these forty year, and +whether my brother or my nephew make me welcome or no, I shall have seen +the old moors and mosses. Then methought I would come hither, or to some +of the towns about, and see how it fares with the old Tower and the folk; +and if they be as good as their word, and keep their dues for my lady, I +could gather them, and take or bring them to her, with any other matter +which might concern her nearly.” + +This was thoroughly approved by Grisell’s little council, and Lambert +undertook to make known to the good esquire the best means of +communication, whether in person, or by the transmission of payments, +since all the eastern ports of England had connections with Dutch and +Flemish traffic, which made the payment of monies possible. + +Grisell meantime was asking for Thora. Her uncle, Ridley said, had come +up, laid hands on her, and soundly scourged her for her foul practices. +He had dragged her home, and when Ralph Hart had come after her, had +threatened him with a quarter-staff, called out a mob of fishermen, and +finally had brought him to Sir Lucas, who married them willy-nilly. He +was the runaway son of a currier in York, and had taken her _en croupe_, +and ridden off to his parents at the sign of the Hart, to bespeak their +favour. + +Grisell grieved deeply over Thora’s ingratitude to her, and the two elder +men foreboded no favourable reception for the pair, and hoped that Thora +would sup sorrow. + +Ridley spent the night at the sign of tire Green Serpent, and before he +set out for Willimoteswick, he confided to Master Groot a bag containing +a silver cup or two, and a variety of coins, mostly French. They were, +he said, spoils of his wars under King Harry the Fifth and the two Lord +Salisburys, which he had never had occasion to spend, and he desired that +they might be laid out on the Lady Grisell in case of need, leaving her +to think they were the dues from her faithful tenantry. To the Hausvrow +Clemence it was a great grief to leave the peaceful home of her married +life, and go among kindred who had shown their scorn in neglect and cold +looks; but she kept a cheerful face for her husband, and only shed tears +over the budding roses and other plants she had to leave; and she made +her guest understand how great a comfort and solace was her company. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI +THE WOUNDED KNIGHT + + + Belted Will Howard is marching here, + And hot Lord Dacre with many a spear + + SCOTT, _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_. + +“MASTER GROOT, a word with you.” A lay brother in the coarse, dark robe +of St. Benedict was standing in the booth of the Green Serpent. + +Groot knew him for Brother Christopher of Monks Wearmouth, and touched +his brow in recognition. + +“Have you here any balsam fit for a plaguey shot with an arquebuss, the +like of which our poor peaceful house never looked to harbour?” + +“For whom is it needed, good brother?” + +“Best not ask,” said Brother Christopher, who was, however, an inveterate +gossip, and went on in reply to Lambert’s question as to the place of the +wound. “In the shoulder is the worst, the bullet wound where the Brother +Infirmarer has poured in hot oil. St. Bede! How the poor knight howled, +though he tried to stop it, and brought it down to moaning. His leg is +broken beside, but we could deal with that. His horse went down with +him, you see, when he was overtaken and shot down by the Gilsland folk.” + +“The Gilsland folk!” + +“Even so, poor lad; and he was only on his way to see after his own, or +his wife’s, since all the Whitburn sons are at an end, and the Tower gone +to the spindle side. They say, too, that the damsel he wedded perforce +was given to magic, and fled in form of a hare. But be that as it will, +young Copeland—St. Bede, pardon me! What have I let out?” + +“Reck not of that, brother. The tale is all over the town. How of +Copeland?” + +“As I said even now, he was on his way to the Tower, when the Dacres—Will +and Harry—fell on him, and left him for dead; but by the Saints’ good +providence, his squire and groom put him on a horse, and brought him to +our Abbey at night, knowing that he is kin to our Sub-Prior. And there +he lies, whether for life or death only Heaven knows, but for death it +will be if only King Edward gets a scent of him; so hold your peace, +Master Groats, as to who it be, as you live, or as you would not have his +blood on you.” + +Master Groats promised silence, and gave numerous directions as to the +application of his medicaments, and Brother Kit took his leave, +reiterating assurances that Sir Leonard’s life depended on his secrecy. + +Whatever was said in the booth was plainly audible in the inner room. +Grisell and Clemence were packing linen, and the little shutter of the +wooden partition was open. Thus Lambert found Grisell standing with +clasped hands, and a face of intense attention and suspense. + +“You have heard, lady,” he said. + +“Oh, yea, yea! Alas, poor Leonard!” she cried. + +“The Saints grant him recovery.” + +“Methought you would be glad to hear you were like to be free from such a +yoke. Were you rid of him, you, of a Yorkist house, might win back your +lands, above all, since, as you once told me, you were a playmate of the +King’s sister.” + +“Ah! dear master, speak not so! Think of him! treacherously wounded, and +lying moaning. That gruesome oil! Oh! my poor Leonard!” and she burst +into tears. “So fair, and comely, and young, thus stricken down!” + +“Bah!” exclaimed Lambert. “Such are women! One would think she loved +him, who flouted her!” + +“I cannot brook the thought of his lying there in sore pain and dolour, +he who has had so sad a life, baulked of his true love.” + +Master Lambert could only hold up his hands at the perversity of +womankind, and declare to his Clemence that he verily believed that had +the knight been a true and devoted Tristram himself, ever at her feet, +the lady could not have been so sore troubled. + +The next day brought Brother Kit back with an earnest request from the +Infirmarer and the Sub-Prior that “Master Groats” would come to the +monastery, and give them the benefit of his advice on the wounds and the +fever which was setting in, since gun-shot wounds were beyond the scope +of the monastic surgery. + +To refuse would not have been possible, even without the earnest entreaty +of Grisell; and Lambert, who had that medical instinct which no training +can supply, went on his way with the lay brother. + +He came back after many hours, sorely perturbed by the request that had +been made to him. Sir Leonard, he said, was indeed sick nigh unto death, +grievously hurt, and distraught by the fever, or it might be by the blow +on his head in the fall with his horse, which seemed to have kicked him; +but there was no reason that with good guidance and rest he should not +recover. But, on the other hand, King Edward was known to be on his +progress to Durham, and he was understood to be especially virulent +against Sir Leonard Copeland, under the impression that the young knight +had assisted in Clifford’s slaughter of his brother Edmund of Rutland. +It was true that a monastery was a sanctuary, but if all that was +reported of Edward Plantagenet were true, he might, if he tracked +Copeland to the Abbey, insist on his being yielded up, or might make +Abbot and monks suffer severely for the protection given to his enemy; +and there was much fear that the Dacres might be on the scent. The Abbot +and Father Copeland were anxious to be able to answer that Sir Leonard +was not within their precincts, and, having heard that Master Groats was +about to sail for Flanders, the Sub-Prior made the entreaty that his +nephew might thus be conveyed to the Low Countries, where the fugitives +of each party in turn found a refuge. Father Copeland promised to be at +charges, and, in truth, the scheme was the best hope for Leonard’s +chances of life. Master Groot had hesitated, seeing various difficulties +in the way of such a charge, and being by no means disposed towards Lady +Grisell’s unwilling husband, as such, though in a professional capacity +he was interested in his treatment of his patient, and was likewise +touched by the good mien of the fine, handsome, straight-limbed young +man, who was lying unconscious on his pallet in a narrow cell. + +He had replied that he would answer the next day, when he had consulted +his wife and the ship-master, whose consent was needful; and there was of +course another, whom he did not mention. + +As he told all the colour rose in Grisell’s face, rosy on one side, +purple, alas, on the other. “O master, good master, you will, you will!” + +“Is it your pleasure, then, mistress? I should have held that the +kindness to you would be to rid you of him.” + +“No, no, no! You are mocking me! You know too well what I think! Is +not this my best hope of making him know me, and becoming his true +and—and—” + +A sob cut her short, but she cried, “I will be at all the pains and all +the cost, if only you will consent, dear Master Lambert, good Master +Groot.” + +“Ah, would I knew what is well for her!” said Lambert, turning to his +wife, and making rapid signs with face and fingers in their mutual +language, but Grisell burst in— + +“Good for her,” cried she. “Can it be good for a wife to leave her +husband to be slain by the cruel men of York and Warwick, him who strove +to save the young Lord Edmund? Master, you will suffer no such foul +wrong. O master, if you did, I would stay behind, in some poor hovel on +the shore, where none would track him, and tend him there. I will! I +vow it to St. Mary.” + +“Hush, hush, lady! Cease this strange passion. You could not be more +moved if he were the tenderest spouse who ever breathed.” + +“But you will have pity, sir. You will aid us. You will save us. Give +him the chance for life.” + +“What say you, housewife?” said Groot, turning to the silent Clemence, +whom his signs and their looks had made to perceive the point at issue. +Her reply was to seize Grisell’s two hands, kiss them fervently, clasp +both together, and utter in her deaf voice two Flemish words, “_Goot +Vrow_.” Grisell eagerly embraced her in tears. + +“We have still to see what Skipper Vrowst says. He may not choose to +meddle with English outlaws.” + +“If you cannot win him to take my knight, he will not take me,” said +Grisell. + +There was no more to be said except something about the waywardness of +the affections of women and dogs; but Master Groot was not ill-pleased at +the bottom that both the females of the household took part against him, +and they had a merry supper that night, amid the chests in which their +domestic apparatus and stock-in-trade were packed, with the dried lizard, +who passed for a crocodile, sitting on the settle as if he were one of +the company. Grisell’s spirits rose with an undefined hope that, like +Sir Gawaine’s bride, or her own namesake, Griselda the patient, she +should at last win her lord’s love; and, deprived as she was of all her +own relatives, there arose strongly within her the affection that ten +long years ago had made her haunt the footsteps of the boy at Amesbury +Manor. + +Groot was made to promise to say not a word of her presence in his +family. He was out all day, while Clemence worked hard at her +_démenagement_, and only with scruples accepted the assistance of her +guest, who was glad to work away her anxiety in the folding of curtains +and stuffing of mails. + +At last Lambert returned, having been backwards and forwards many times +between the _Vrow Gudule_ and the Abbey, for Skipper Vrowst drove a hard +bargain, and made the most of the inconvenience and danger of getting +into ill odour with the authorities; and, however anxious Father Copeland +might be to save his nephew, Abbot and bursar demurred at gratifying +extortion, above all when the King might at any time be squeezing them +for contributions hard to come by. + +However, it had been finally fixed that a boat should put in to the Abbey +steps to receive the fleeces of the sheep-shearing of the home grange, +and that, rolled in one of these fleeces, the wounded knight should be +brought on board the _Vrow Gudule_, where Groot and the women would await +him, their freight being already embarked, and all ready to weigh anchor. + +The chief danger was in a King’s officer coming on board to weigh the +fleeces, and obtaining the toll on them. But Sunderland either had no +King, or had two just at that time, and Father Copeland handed Master +Groot a sum which might bribe one or both; while it was to the interest +of the captain to make off without being overhauled by either. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII +THE CITY OF BRIDGES + + + So for long hours sat Enid by her lord, + There in the naked hall, propping his head, + And chafing his pale hands, and calling to him. + And at the last he waken’d from his swoon. + + TENNYSON, _Enid_. + +THE transit was happily effected, and closely hidden in wool, Leonard +Copeland was lifted out the boat, more than half unconscious, and +afterwards transferred to the vessel, and placed in wrappings as softly +and securely as Grisell and Clemence could arrange before King Edward’s +men came to exact their poundage on the freight, but happily did not +concern themselves about the sick man. + +He might almost be congratulated on his semi-insensibility, for though he +suffered, he would not retain the recollection of his suffering, and the +voyage was very miserable to every one, though the weather was far from +unfavourable, as the captain declared. Grisell indeed was so entirely +taken up with ministering to her knight that she seemed impervious to +sickness or discomfort. It was a great relief to enter on the smooth +waters of the great canal from Ostend, and Lambert stood on the deck +recognising old landmarks, and pointing them out with the joy of +homecoming to Clemence, who perhaps felt less delight, since the joys of +her life had only begun when she turned her back on her unkind kinsfolk. + +Nor did her face light up as his did while he pointed out to Grisell the +beauteous belfry, rising on high above the many-peaked gables, though she +did smile when a long-billed, long-legged stork flapped his wings +overhead, and her husband signed that it was in greeting. The greeting +that delighted him she could not hear, the sweet chimes from that same +tower, which floated down the stream, when he doffed his cap, crossed +himself, and clasped his hands in devout thanksgiving. + +It was a wonderful scene of bustle; where vessels of all kinds thronged +together were drawn up to the wharf, the beautiful tall painted ships of +Venice and Genoa pre-eminent among the stoutly-built Netherlanders and +the English traders. Shouts in all languages were heard, and Grisell +looked round in wonder and bewilderment as to how the helpless and +precious charge on the deck was ever to be safely landed. + +Lambert, however, was truly at home and equal to the occasion. He +secured some of the men who came round the vessel in barges clamouring +for employment, and—Grisell scarce knew how—Leonard on his bed was lifted +down, and laid in the bottom of the barge. The big bundles and cases +were committed to the care of another barge, to follow close after +theirs, and on they went under, one after another, the numerous +high-peaked bridges to which Bruges owes its name, while tall +sharp-gabled houses, walls, or sometimes pleasant green gardens, bounded +the margins, with a narrow foot-way between. The houses had often +pavement leading by stone steps to the river, and stone steps up to the +door, which was under the deep projecting eaves running along the front +of the house—a stoop, as the Low Countries called it. At one of +these—not one of the largest or handsomest, but far superior to the old +home at Sunderland—hung the large handsome painted and gilded sign of the +same serpent which Grisell had learnt to know so well, and here the barge +hove to, while two servants, the man in a brown belted jerkin, the old +woman in a narrow, tight, white hood, came out on the steps with +outstretched hands. + +“Mein Herr, my dear Master Lambert. Oh, joy! Greet thee well. Thanks +to our Lady that I have lived to see this day,” was the old woman’s cry. + +“Greet thee well, dear old Mother Abra. Greet thee, trusty Anton. You +had my message? Have you a bed and chamber ready for this gentleman?” + +Such was Lambert’s hasty though still cordial greeting, as he gave his +hand to the man-servant, his cheek to his old nurse, who was mother to +Anton. Clemence in her gentle dumb show shared the welcome, and directed +as Leonard was carried up an outside stone stair to a guest-chamber, and +deposited in a stately bed with fresh, cool, lace-bordered, +lavender-scented sheets, and Grisell put between his lips a spoonful of +the cordial with which Lambert had supplied her. + +More distinctly than before he murmured, “Thanks, sweet Eleanor.” + +The move in the open air had partly revived him, partly made him +feverish, and he continued to murmur complacently his thanks to Eleanor +for tending her “wounded knight,” little knowing whom he wounded by his +thanks. + +On one point this decided Grisell. She looked up at Lambert, and when he +used her title of “Lady,” in begging her to leave old Mother Abra in +charge and to come down to supper, she made a gesture of silence, and as +she came down the broad stair—a refinement scarce known in England—she +entreated him to let her be Grisell still. + +“Unless he accept me as his wife I will never bear his name,” she said. + +“Nay, madame, you are Lady of Whitburn by right.” + +“By right, may be, but not in fact, nor could I be known as mine own self +without cumbering him with my claims. No, let me alone to be Grisell as +ever before, an English orphan, bower-woman to Vrow Clemence if she will +have me.” + +Clemence would not consent to treat her as bower-woman, and it was agreed +that she should remain as one of the many orphans made by the civil war +in England, without precise definition of her rank, and be only called by +her Christian name. She was astonished at the status of Master Groot, +the size and furniture of the house, and the servants who awaited him; +all so unlike his little English establishment, for the refinements and +even luxuries were not only far beyond those of Whitburn, but almost +beyond all that she had seen even in the households of the Earls of +Salisbury and Warwick. He had indeed been bred to all this, for the +burghers of Bruges were some of the most prosperous of all the rich +citizens of Flanders in the golden days of the Dukes of Burgundy; and he +had left it all for the sake of his Clemence, but without forfeiting his +place in his Guild, or his right to his inheritance. + +He was, however, far from being a rich man, on a level with the great +merchants, though he had succeeded to a modest, not unprosperous trade in +spices, drugs, condiments and other delicacies. + +He fetched a skilful Jewish physician to visit Sir Leonard Copeland, but +there was no great difference in the young man’s condition for many days. +Grisell nursed him indefatigably, sitting by him so as to hear the sweet +bells chime again and again, and the storks clatter on the roofs at +sunrise. + +Still, whenever her hand brought him some relief, or she held drink to +his lips, his words and thanks were for Eleanor, and more and more did +the sense sink down upon her like lead that she must give him up to +Eleanor. + +Yes, it was like lead, for, as she watched his face on the pillow her +love went out to him. It might have done so even had he been disfigured +like herself; but his was a beautiful countenance of noble outlines, and +she felt a certain pride in it as hers, while she longed to see it light +up with reason, and glow once more with health. Then she thought she +could rejoice, even if there were no look of love for her. + +The eyes did turn towards her again with the mind looking out of them, +and he knew her for the nurse on whom he depended for comfort and relief. +He thanked her courteously, so that she felt a thrill of pleasure every +time. He even learnt her name of Grisell, and once he asked whether she +were not English, to which she replied simply that she was, and on a +further question she said that she had been at Sunderland with Master +Groot, and that she had lost her home in the course of the wars. + +There for some time it rested—rested at least with the knight. But with +the lady there was far from rest, for every hour she was watching for +some favourable token which might draw them nearer, and give opportunity +for making herself known. Nearer they certainly drew, for he often +smiled at her. He liked her to wait on him, and to beguile the weariness +of his recovery by singing to him, telling some of her store of tales, or +reading to him, for books were more plentiful at Bruges than at +Sunderland, and there were even whispers of a wonderful mode of +multiplying them far more quickly than by the scrivener’s hand. + +How her heart beat every time she thus ministered to him, or heard his +voice call to her, but it was all, as she could plainly see, just as he +would have spoken to Clemence, if she could have heard him, and he +evidently thought her likewise of burgher quality, and much of the same +age as the Vrow Groot. Indeed, the long toil and wear of the past months +had made her thin and haggard, and the traces of her disaster were all +the more apparent, so that no one would have guessed her years to be +eighteen. + +She had taken her wedding-ring from her finger, and wore it on a chain, +within her kirtle, so as to excite no inquiry. But many a night, ere she +lay down, she looked at it, and even kissed it, as she asked herself +whether her knight would ever bid her wear it. Until he did so her +finger should never again be encircled by it. + +Meantime she scarcely ever went beyond the nearest church and the garden, +which amply compensated Clemence for that which she had left at +Sunderland. Indeed, that had been as close an imitation of this one as +Lambert could contrive in a colder climate with smaller means. Here was +a fountain trellised over by a framework rich in roses and our lady’s +bower; here were pinks, gilly-flowers, pansies, lavender, and the new +snowball shrub recently produced at Gueldres, and a little bush shown +with great pride by Anton, the snow-white rose grown in King Réne’s +garden of Provence. + +These served as borders to the green walks dividing the beds of useful +vegetables and fruits and aromatic herbs which the Groots had long been +in the habit of collecting from all parts and experimenting on. Much did +Lambert rejoice to find himself among the familiar plants he had often +needed and could not procure in England, and for some of which he had a +real individual love. The big improved distillery and all the jars and +bottles of his youth were a joy to him, almost as much as the old friends +who accepted him again after a long “wander year.” + +Clemence had her place too, but she shrank from the society she could not +share, and while most of the burghers’ wives spent the summer evening +sitting spinning or knitting on the steps of the stoop, conversing with +their gossips, she preferred to take her distaff or needle among the +roses, sometimes tending them, sometimes beguiling Grisell to come and +take the air in company with her, for they understood one another’s mute +language; and when Lambert Groot was with his old friends they sufficed +for one another—so far as Grisell’s anxious heart could find solace, and +perhaps in none so much as the gentle matron who could caress but could +not talk. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII +THE CANKERED OAK GALL + + + That Walter was no fool, though that him list + To change his wif, for it was for the best; + For she is fairer, so they demen all, + Than his Griselde, and more tendre of age. + + CHAUCER, _The Clerke’s Tale_. + +IT was on an early autumn evening when the belfry stood out beautiful +against the sunset sky, and the storks with their young fledglings were +wheeling homewards to their nest on the roof, that Leonard was lying on +the deep oriel window of the guest-chamber, and Grisell sat opposite to +him with a lace pillow on her lap, weaving after the pattern of Wilton +for a Church vestment. + +“The storks fly home,” he said. “I marvel whether we have still a home +in England, or ever shall have one!” + +“I heard tell that the new King of France is friendly to the Queen and +her son,” said Grisell. + +“He is near of kin to them, but he must keep terms with this old Duke who +sheltered him so long. Still, when he is firm fixed on his throne he may +yet bring home our brave young Prince and set the blessed King on his +throne once more.” + +“Ah! You love the King.” + +“I revere him as a saint, and feel as though I drew my sword in a holy +cause when I fight for him,” said Leonard, raising himself with +glittering eyes. + +“And the Queen?” + +“Queen Margaret! Ah! by my troth she is a dame who makes swords fly out +of their scabbards by her brave stirring words and her noble mien. Her +bright eyes and undaunted courage fire each man’s heart in her cause till +there is nothing he would not do or dare, ay, or give up for her, and +those she loves better than herself, her husband, and her son.” + +“You have done so,” faltered Grisell. + +“Ah! have I not? Mistress, I would that you bore any other name. You +mind me of the bane and grief of my life.” + +“Verily?” uttered Grisell with some difficulty. + +“Yea! Tell me, mistress, have I ever, when my brains were astray, +uttered any name?” + +“By times, even so!” she confessed. + +“I thought so! I deemed at times that she was here! I have never told +you of the deed that marred my life.” + +“Nay,” she said, letting her bobbins fall though she drooped her head, +not daring to look him in the face. + +“I was a mere lad, a page in the Earl of Salisbury’s house. A good man +was he, but the jealousies and hatreds of the nobles had begun long ago, +and the good King hoped, as he ever hoped, to compose them. So he +brought about a compact between my father and the Dacre of Whitburn for a +marriage between their children, and caused us both to be bred up in the +Lady of Salisbury’s household, meaning, I trow, that we should enter into +solemn contract when we were of less tender age; but there never was +betrothal; and before any fit time for it had come, I had the mishap to +have the maid close to me—she was ever besetting and running after +me—when by some prank, unhappily of mine, a barrel of gunpowder blew up +and wellnigh tore her to pieces. My father came, and her mother, an +unnurtured, uncouth woman, who would have forced me to wed her on the +spot, but my father would not hear of it, more especially as there were +then two male heirs, so that I should not have gained her grim old Tower +and bare moorlands. All held that I was not bound to her; the Queen +herself owned it, and that whatever the damsel might be, the mother was a +mere northern she-bear, whose child none would wish to wed, and of the +White Rose besides. So the King had me to his school at Eton, and then I +was a squire of my Lord of Somerset, and there I saw my fairest Eleanor +Audley. The Queen and the Duke of Somerset—rest his soul—would have had +us wedded. On the love day, when all walked together to St. Paul’s, and +the King hoped all was peace, we spoke our vows to one another in the +garden of Westminster. She gave me this rook, I gave her the jewel of my +cap; I read her true love in her eyes, like our limpid northern brooks. +Oh! she was fair, fairer than yonder star in the sunset, but her father, +the Lord Audley, was absent, and we could go no farther; and therewith +came the Queen’s summons to her liegemen to come and arrest Salisbury at +Bloreheath. There never was rest again, as you know. My father was +slain at Northampton, I yielded me to young Falconberg; but I found the +Yorkists had set headsmen to work as though we had been traitors, and I +was begging for a priest to hear my shrift, when who should come into the +foul, wretched barn where we lay awaiting the rope, but old Dacre of +Whitburn. He had craved me from the Duke of York, it seems, and gained +my life on what condition he did not tell me, but he bound my feet +beneath my horse, and thus bore me out of the camp for all the first day. +Then, I own he let me ride as became a knight, on my word of honour not +to escape; but much did I marvel whether it were revenge or ransom that +he wanted; and as to ransom, all our gold had all been riding on +horseback with my poor father. What he had devised I knew not nor +guessed till late at night we were at his rat-hole of a Tower, where I +looked for a taste of the dungeons; but no such thing. The choice that +the old robber—” + +Grisell could not repress a dissentient murmur of indignation. + +“Ah, well, you are from Sunderland, and may know better of him. But any +way the choice he left me was the halter that dangled from the roof and +his grisly daughter!” + +“Did you see her?” Grisell contrived to ask. + +“I thank the Saints, no. To hear of her was enow. They say she has a +face like a cankered oak gall or a rotten apple lying cracked on the +ground among the wasps. Mayhap though you have seen her.” + +Grisell could truly say, in a half-choked voice, “Never since she was a +child,” for no mirror had come in her way since she was at Warwick House. +She was upborne by the thought that it would be a relief to him not to +see anything like a rotten apple. He went on— + +“My first answer and first thought was rather death—and of my word to my +Eleanor. Ah! you marvel to see me here now. I felt as though nothing +would make me a recreant to her. Her sweet smile and shining eyes rose +up before me, and half the night I dreamt of them, and knew that I would +rather die than be given to another and be false to them. Ah! but you +will deem me a recreant. With the waking hours I thought of my King and +Queen. My elder brother died with Lord Shrewsbury in Gascony, and after +me the next heir is a devoted Yorkist who would turn my castle, the key +of Cleveland, against the Queen. I knew the defeat would make faithful +swords more than ever needful to her, and that it was my bounden duty, if +it were possible, to save my life, my sword, and my lands for her. +Mistress, you are a good woman. Did I act as a coward?” + +“You offered up yourself,” said Grisell, looking up. + +“So it was! I gave my consent, on condition that I should be free at +once. We were wedded in the gloom—ere sunrise—a thunderstorm coming up, +which so darkened the church that if she had been a peerless beauty, fair +as Cressid herself, I could not have seen her, and even had she been +beauty itself, nought can to me be such as my Eleanor. So I was free to +gallop off through the storm for Wearmouth when the rite was over, and +none pursued me, for old Whitburn was a man of his word. Mine uncle held +the marriage as nought, but next I made for the Queen at Durham, and, if +aught could comfort my spirit, it was her thanks, and assurances that it +would cost nothing but the dispensation of the Pope to set me free. So +said Dr. Morton, her chaplain, one of the most learned men in England. I +told him all, and he declared that no wedlock was valid without the +heartfelt consent of each party.” + +“Said he so?” Poor Grisell could not repress the inquiry. + +“Yea, and that though no actual troth had passed between me and Lord +Audley’s daughter, yet that the vows we had of our own free will +exchanged would be quite enough to annul my forced marriage.” + +“You think it evil in me, the more that it was I who had defaced that +countenance. I thought of that! I would have endowed her with all I had +if she would set me free. I trusted yet so to do, when, for my +misfortune as well as hers, the day of Wakefield cut off her father and +brother, and a groom was taken who was on his way to Sendal with tidings +of the other brother’s death. Then, what do the Queen and Sir Pierre de +Brezé but command me to ride off instantly to claim Whitburn Tower! In +vain did I refuse; in vain did I plead that if I were about to renounce +the lady it were unknightly to seize on her inheritance. They would not +hear me. They said it would serve as a door to England, and that it must +be secured for the King, or the Dacres would hold it for York. They bade +me on my allegiance, and commanded me to take it in King Henry’s name, as +though it were a mere stranger’s castle, and gave me a crew of hired +men-at-arms, as I verily believe to watch over what I did. But ere I +started I made a vow in Dr. Morton’s hands, to take it only for the King, +and so soon as the troubles be ended to restore it to the lady, when our +marriage is dissolved. As it fell out, I never saw the lady. Her mother +lay a-dying, and there was no summoning her. I bade them show her all +due honour, hoisted my pennon, rode on to my uncle at Wearmouth, and +thence to mine own lands, whence I joined the Queen on her way to London. +As you well know, all was over with our cause at Towton Moor; and it was +on my way northward after the deadly fight that half a dozen of the +men-at-arms brought me tidings, not only that the Gilsland Dacres had, as +had been feared, claimed the castle, but that this same so-called lady of +mine had been shown to deal in sorcery and magic. They sent for a wise +man from Shields, but she found by her arts what they were doing, fled, +and was slain by an arquebuss in the form of a hare! + +“Do you believe it was herself in sooth?” asked Grisell. + +“Ah! you are bred by Master Lambert, who, like his kind, hath little +faith in sorcery, but verily, old women do change into hares. All have +known them.” + +“She was scarce old,” Grisell trusted herself to say. + +“That skills not. They said she made strange cures by no rules of art. +Ay, and said her prayers backward, and had unknown books.” + +“Did your squire tell this, or was it only the men?” + +“My squire! Poor Pierce, I never saw him. He was made captive by a +White Rose party, so far as I could hear, and St. Peter knows where he +may be. But look you, the lady, for all her foul looks, had cast her +spell over him, and held him as bound and entranced as by a true love, so +that he was ready to defend her beauty—her beauty! look you!—against all +the world in the lists. He was neither to have nor to hold if any man +durst utter a word against her! And it was the same with her tirewoman +and her own old squire.” + +“Then, sir, you deem that in slaying the hare, the arquebusier rid you of +your witch wife?” There was a little bitterness, even scorn, in the +tone. + +“I say not so, mistress. I know men-at-arms too well to credit all they +say, and I was on my way to inquire into the matter and learn the truth +when these same Dacres fell on me; and that I lie here is due to you and +good Master Lambert. Many a woman whose face is ill favoured has learnt +to keep up her power by unhallowed arts, and if it be so with her whom in +my boyish prank I have marred, Heaven forgive her and me. If I can ever +return I shall strive to trace her life or death, without which mayhap I +could scarce win my true bride.” + +Grisell could bear no more of this crushing of her hopes. She crept away +murmuring something about the vesper bell at the convent chapel near, for +it was there that she could best kneel, while thoughts and strength and +resolution came to her. + +The one thing clear to her was that Sir Leonard did not view her, or +rather the creature at Whitburn Tower, as his wife, but as a hag, mayhap +a sorceress from whom he desired to be released, and that his love to +Eleanor Audley was as strong as ever. + +Should she make herself known and set him free? Nay, but then what would +become of him? He still needed her care, which he accepted as that of a +nurse, and while he believed himself to be living on the means supplied +by his uncle at Wearmouth to the Apothecary, this had soon been +exhausted, and Grisell had partly supplied what was wanting from Ridley’s +bag, partly from what the old squire had sent her as the fishermen’s +dues; and she was perceiving how to supplement this, or replace it by her +own skill, by her assistance to Lambert in his concoctions, and likewise +by her lace-work, which was of a device learnt at Wilton and not known at +Bruges. There was something strangely delightful to her in thus +supporting Leonard even though he knew it not, and she determined to +persist in her present course till there was some change. Suppose he +heard of Eleanor’s marriage to some one else! Then? But, ah, the +cracked apple face. She must find a glass, or even a pail of water, and +judge! Or the Lancastrian fortunes might revive, he might go home in +triumph, and then would she give him her ring and her renunciation, and +either earn enough to obtain entrance to a convent or perhaps be accepted +for the sake of her handiwork! + +Any way the prospect was dreary, and the affection which grew upon her as +Leonard recovered only made it sadder. To reveal herself would only be +misery to him, and in his present state of mind would deprive him of all +he needed, since he would never be base enough to let her toil for him +and then cast her off. + +She thought it best, or rather she yearned so much for counsel, that at +night, over the fire in the stove, she told what Leonard had said, to +which her host listened with the fatherly sympathy that had grown up +towards her. He was quite determined against her making herself known. +The accusation of sorcery really alarmed him. He said that to be known +as the fugitive heiress of Whitburn who had bewitched the young squire +and many more might bring both her and himself into imminent danger; and +there were Lancastrian exiles who might take up the report. Her only +safety was in being known, to the few who did meet her, as the +convent-bred maiden whose home had been destroyed, and who was content to +gain a livelihood as the assistant whom his wife’s infirmity made +needful. As to Sir Leonard, the knight’s own grace and gratitude had +endeared him, as well as the professional pleasure of curing him, and for +the lady’s sake he should still be made welcome. + +So matters subsided. No one knew Grisell’s story except Master Lambert +and her Father Confessor, and whether he really knew it, through the +medium of her imperfect French, might be doubted. Even Clemence, though +of course aware of her identity, did not know all the details, since no +one who could communicate with her had thought it well to distress her +with the witchcraft story. + +Few came beyond the open booth, which served as shop, though sometimes +there would be admitted to walk in the garden and converse with Master +Groot, a young Englishman who wanted his counsel on giving permanence and +clearness to the ink he was using in that new art of printing which he +was trying to perfect, but which there were some who averred to be a work +of the Evil One, imparted to the magician Dr. Faustus. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV +GRISELL’S PATIENCE + + + When silent were both voice and chords, + The strain seemed doubly dear, + Yet sad as sweet,—for English words + Had fallen upon the ear. + + WORDSWORTH, _Incident at Bruges_. + +MEANWHILE Leonard was recovering and vexing himself as to his future +course, inclining chiefly to making his way back to Wearmouth to +ascertain how matters were going in England. + +One afternoon, however, as he sat close to thine window, while Grisell +sang to him one of her sweet old ballads, a face, attracted by the +English words and voice, was turned up to him. He exclaimed, “By St. +Mary, Philip Scrope,” and starting up, began to feel for the stick which +he still needed. + +A voice was almost at the same moment heard from the outer shop inquiring +in halting French, “Did I see the face of the Beau Sire Leonard +Copeland?” + +By the time Leonard had hobbled to the door into the booth, a tall +perfectly-equipped man-at-arms, in velvet bonnet with the Burgundian +Cross, bright cuirass, rich crimson surcoat, and handsome sword belt, had +advanced, and the two embraced as old friends did embrace in the middle +ages, especially when each had believed the other dead. + +“I deemed thee dead at Towton!” + +“Methought you were slain in the north! You have not come off +scot-free.” + +“Nay, but I had a narrow escape. My honest fellows took me to my uncle +at Wearmouth, and he shipped me off with the good folk here, and cares +for my maintenance. How didst thou ’scape?” + +“Half a dozen of us—Will Percy and a few more—made off from the woful +field under cover of night, and got to the sea-shore, to a village—I know +not the name—and laid hands on a fisher’s smack, which Jock of Hull was +seaman enough to steer with the aid of the lad on board, as far as +Friesland, and thence we made our way as best we could to Utrecht, where +we had the luck to fall in with one of the Duke’s captains, who was glad +enough to meet with a few stout fellows to make up his company of +men-at-arms.” + +“Oh! Methought it was the Cross of Burgundy. How art thou so well +attired, Phil?” + +“We have all been pranked out to guard our Duke to the King of France’s +sacring at Rheims. I promise thee the jewels and gold blazed as we never +saw the like—and as to the rascaille Scots archers, every one of them was +arrayed so as the sight was enough to drive an honest Borderer crazy. +Half their own kingdom’s worth was on their beggarly backs. But do what +they might, our Duke surpassed them all with his largesses and +splendour.” + +“Your Duke!” grumbled Leonard. + +“Aye, mine for the nonce, and a right open-handed lord is he. Better be +under him than under the shrivelled skinflint of France, who wore his +fine robes as though they galled him. Come and take service here when +thou art whole of thine hurt, Leonard.” + +“I thought thy Duke was disinclined to Lancaster.” + +“He may be to the Queen and the poor King, whom the Saints guard, but he +likes English hearts and thews in his pay well enough.” + +“Thou knowst I am a knight, worse luck.” + +“Heed not for thy knighthood. The Duke of Exeter and my Lord of Oxford +have put their honours in their pouch and are serving him. Thy lame leg +is a worse hindrance than the gold spur on it, but I trow that will +pass.” + +The comrades talked on, over the fate of English friends and homes, and +the hopelessness of their cause. It was agreed in this, and in many +subsequent visits from Scrope, that so soon as Leonard should have shaken +off his lameness he should begin service under one of the Duke’s +captains. A man-at-arms in the splendid suite of the Burgundian Dukes +was generally of good birth, and was attended by two grooms and a page +when in the field; his pay was fairly sufficient, and his accoutrements +and arms were required to be such as to do honour to his employer. It +was the refuge sooner or later of many a Lancastrian, and Leonard, who +doubted of the regularity of his uncle’s supplies, decided that he could +do no better for himself while waiting for better times for his Queen, +though Master Lambert told him that he need not distress himself, there +were ample means for him still. + +Grisell spun and sewed for his outfit, with a strange sad pleasure in +working for him, and she was absolutely proud of him when he stood before +her, perfectly recovered, with the glow of health on his cheek and a +light in his eye, his length of limb arrayed in his own armour, furbished +and mended, his bright helmet alone new and of her own providing (out of +her mother’s pearl necklace), his surcoat and silken scarf all her own +embroidering. As he truly said, he made a much finer appearance than he +had done on the morn of his melancholy knighthood, in the +poverty-stricken army of King Henry at Northampton. + +“Thanks,” he said, with a courteous bow, “to his good friends and hosts, +who had a wonderful power over the purse.” He added special thanks to +“Mistress Grisell for her deft stitchery,” and she responded with +downcast face, and a low courtesy, while her heart throbbed high. + +Such a cavalier was sure of enlistment, and Leonard came to take leave of +his host, and announced that he had been sent off with his friend to +garrison Neufchâtel, where the castle, being a border one, was always +carefully watched over. + +His friends at Bruges rejoiced in his absence, since it prevented his +knowledge of the arrival of his beloved Queen Margaret and her son at +Sluys, with only seven attendants, denuded of almost everything, having +lost her last castles, and sometimes having had to exist on a single +herring a day. + +Perhaps Leonard would have laid his single sword at her feet if he had +known of her presence, but tidings travelled slowly, and before they ever +reached Neufchâtel the Duke had bestowed on her wherewithal to continue +her journey to her father’s Court at Bar. + +However, he did not move. Indeed be did not hear of the Queen’s journey +to Scotland and fresh attempt till all had been again lost at Hedgeley +Moor and Hexham. He was so good and efficient a man-at-arms that he rose +in promotion, and attracted the notice of the Count of Charolais, the +eldest son of the Duke, who made him one of his own bodyguard. His time +was chiefly spent in escorting the Count from one castle or city to +another, but whenever Charles the Bold was at Bruges, Leonard came to the +sign of the Green Serpent not only for lodging, nor only to take up the +money that Lambert had in charge for him, but as to a home where he was +sure of a welcome, and of kindly woman’s care of his wardrobe, and where +he grew more and more to look to the sympathy and understanding of his +English and Burgundian interests alike, which he found in the maiden who +sat by the hearth. + +From time to time old Ridley came to see her. He was clad in a pilgrim’s +gown and broad hat, and looked much older. He had had free quarters at +Willimoteswick, but the wild young Borderers had not suited his old age +well, except one clerkly youth, who reminded him of little Bernard, and +who, later, was the patron of his nephew, the famous Nicolas. He had +thus set out on pilgrimage, as the best means of visiting his dear lady. +The first time he came, under his robe he carried a girdle, where was +sewn up a small supply from Father Copeland for his nephew, and another +sum, very meagre, but collected from the faithful retainers of Whitburn +for their lady. He meant to visit the Three Kings at Cologne, and then +to go on to St. Gall, and to the various nearer shrines in France, but to +return again to see Grisell; and from time to time he showed his honest +face, more and more weather-beaten, though a pilgrim was never in want; +but Grisell delighted in preparing new gowns, clean linen, and fresh hats +for him. + +Public events passed while she still lived and worked in the Apothecary’s +house at Bruges. There were wars in which Sir Leonard Copeland had his +share, not very perilous to a knight in full armour, but falling very +heavily on poor citizens. Bruges, however, was at peace and exceedingly +prosperous, with its fifty-two guilds of citizens, and wonderful trade +and wealth. The bells seemed to be always chiming from its many +beautiful steeples, and there was one convent lately founded which began +to have a special interest for Grisell. + +It was the house of the Hospitalier Grey Sisters, which if not actually +founded had been much embellished by Isabel of Portugal, the wife of the +Duke of Burgundy. Philip, though called the Good, from his genial +manners, and bounteous liberality, was a man of violent temper and +terrible severity when offended. He had a fierce quarrel with his only +son, who was equally hot tempered. The Duchess took part with her son, +and fell under such furious displeasure from her husband that she retired +into the house of Grey Sisters. She was first cousin once removed to +Henry VI.—her mother, the admirable Philippa, having been a daughter of +John of Gaunt—and she was the sister of the noble Princes, King Edward of +Portugal, Henry the great voyager, and Ferdinand the Constant Prince; and +she had never been thoroughly at home or happy in Flanders, where her +husband was of a far coarser nature than her own family; and, in her own +words, after many years, she always felt herself a stranger. + +Some of Grisell’s lace had found its way to the convent, and was at once +recognised by her as English, such as her mother had always prized. She +wished to give the Chaplain a set of robes adorned with lace after a +pattern of her own devising, bringing in the five crosses of Portugal, +with appropriate wreaths of flowers and emblems. Being told that the +English maiden in Master Groot’s house could devise her own patterns, she +desired to see her and explain the design in person. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV +THE OLD DUCHESS + + + Temples that rear their stately heads on high, + Canals that intersect the fertile plain, + Wide streets and squares, with many a court and hall, + Spacious and undefined, but ancient all. + + SOUTHEY, _Pilgrimage to Waterloo_. + +THE kind couple of Groots were exceedingly solicitous about Grisell’s +appearance before the Duchess, and much concerned that she could not be +induced to wear the head-gear a foot or more in height, with veils +depending from the peak, which was the fashion of the Netherlands. Her +black robe and hood, permitted but not enjoined in the external or third +Order of St. Francis, were, as usual, her dress, and under it might be +seen a face, with something peculiar on one side, but still full of +sweetness and intelligence; and the years of comfort and quiet had, in +spite of anxiety, done much to obliterate the likeness to a cankered oak +gall. Lambert wanted to drench her with perfumes, but she only submitted +to have a little essence in the pouncet box given her long ago by Lady +Margaret at their parting at Amesbury. Master Groot himself chose to +conduct her on this first great occasion, and they made their way to the +old gateway, sculptured above with figures that still remain, into the +great cloistered court, with its chapel, chapter-house, and splendid +great airy hall, in which the Hospital Sisters received their patients. + +They were seen flitting about, giving a general effect of gray, whence +they were known as Sœurs Grises, though, in fact, their dress was white, +with a black hood and mantle. The Duchess, however, lived in a set of +chambers on one side of the court, which she had built and fitted for +herself. + +A lay sister became Grisell’s guide, and just then, coming down from the +Duchess’s apartments, with a board with a chalk sketch in his hand, +appeared a young man, whom Groot greeted as Master Hans Memling, and who +had been receiving orders, and showing designs to the Duchess for the +ornamentation of the convent, which in later years he so splendidly +carried out. With him Lambert remained. + +There was a broad stone stair, leading to a large apartment hung with +stamped Spanish leather, representing the history of King David, and with +a window, glazed as usual below with circles and lozenges, but the upper +part glowing with coloured glass. At the farther end was a dais with a +sort of throne, like the tester and canopy of a four-post bed, with +curtains looped up at each side. Here the Duchess sat, surrounded by her +ladies, all in the sober dress suitable with monastic life. + +Grisell knew her duty too well not to kneel down when admitted. A +dark-complexioned lady came to lead her forward, and directed her to +kneel twice on her way to the Duchess. She obeyed, and in that +indescribable manner which betrayed something of her breeding, so that +after her second obeisance, the manner of the lady altered visibly from +what it had been at first as to a burgher maiden. The wealth and luxury +of the citizen world of the Low Countries caused the proud and jealous +nobility to treat them with the greater distance of manner. And, as +Grisell afterwards learnt, this was Isabel de Souza, Countess of +Poitiers, a Portuguese lady who had come over with her Infanta; and whose +daughter produced _Les Honneurs de la Cour_, the most wonderful of all +descriptions of the formalities of the Court. + +Grisell remained kneeling on the steps of the dais, while the Duchess +addressed her in much more imperfect Flemish than she could by this time +speak herself. + +“You are the lace weaver, maiden. Can you speak French?” + +“_Oui_, _si madame_, _son Altese le veut_,” replied Grisell, for her +tongue had likewise become accustomed to French in this city of many +tongues. + +“This is English make,” said the Duchess, not with a very good French +accent either, looking at the specimens handed by her lady. “Are you +English?” + +“So please your Highness, I am.” + +“An exile?” the Princess added kindly. + +“Yes, madame. All my family perished in our wars, and I owe shelter to +the good Apothecary, Master Lambert.” + +“Purveyor of drugs to the sisters. Yes, I have heard of him;” and she +then proceeded with her orders, desiring to see the first piece Grisell +should produce in the pattern she wished, which was to be of roses in +honour of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, whom the Peninsular Isabels reckoned +as their namesake and patroness. + +It was a pattern which would require fresh pricking out, and much skill; +but Grisell thought she could accomplish it, and took her leave, kissing +the Duchess’s hand—a great favour to be granted to her—curtseying three +times, and walking backwards, after the old training that seemed to come +back to her with the atmosphere. + +Master Lambert was overjoyed when he heard all. “Now you will find your +way back to your proper station and rank,” he said. + +“It may do more than that,” said Grisell. “If I could plead his cause.” + +Lambert only sighed. “I would fain your way was not won by a base, +mechanical art,” he said. + +“Out on you, my master. The needle and the bobbin are unworthy of none; +and as to the honour of the matter, what did Sir Leonard tell us but that +the Countess of Oxford, as now she is, was maintaining her husband by her +needle?” and Grisell ended with a sigh at thought of the happy woman +whose husband knew of, and was grateful for, her toils. + +The pattern needed much care, and Lambert induced Hans Memling himself, +who drew it so that it could be pricked out for the cushion. In after +times it might have been held a greater honour to work from his pattern +than for the Duchess, who sent to inquire after it more than once, and +finally desired that Mistress Grisell should bring her cushion and show +her progress. + +She was received with all the same ceremonies as before, and even the +small fragment that was finished delighted the Princess, who begged to +see her at work. As it could not well be done kneeling, a footstool, +covered in tapestry with the many Burgundian quarterings, was brought, +and here Grisell was seated, the Duchess bending over her, and asking +questions as her fingers flew, at first about the work, but afterwards, +“Where did you learn this art, maiden?” + +“At Wilton, so please your Highness. The nunnery of St. Edith, near to +Salisbury.” + +“St. Edith! I think my mother, whom the Saints rest, spoke of her; but I +have not heard of her in Portugal nor here. Where did she suffer?” + +“She was not martyred, madame, but she has a fair legend.” + +And on encouragement Grisell related the legend of St. Edith and the +christening. + +“You speak well, maiden,” said the Duchess. “It is easy to perceive that +you are convent trained. Have the wars in England hindered your being +professed?” + +“Nay, madame; it was the Proctor of the Italian Abbess.” + +Therewith the inquiries of the Duchess elicited all Grisell’s early +story, with the exception of her name and whose was the iron that caused +the explosion, and likewise of her marriage, and the accusation of +sorcery. That male heirs of the opposite party should have expelled the +orphan heiress was only too natural an occurrence. Nor did Grisell +conceal her home; but Whitburn was an impossible word to Portuguese lips, +and Dacre they pronounced after its crusading derivation De Acor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI +THE DUKE’S DEATH + + + Wither one Rose, and let the other flourish; + If you contend, a thousand lives must wither. + + SHAKESPEARE, _King Henry VI._, Part III. + +SO time went on, and the rule of the House of York in England seemed +established, while the exiles had settled down in Burgundy, Grisell to +her lace pillow, Leonard to the suite of the Count de Charolais. Indeed +there was reason to think that he had come to acquiesce in the change of +dynasty, or at any rate to think it unwise and cruel to bring on another +desperate civil war. In fact, many of the Red Rose party were making +their peace with Edward IV. Meanwhile the Duchess Isabel became +extremely fond of Grisell, and often summoned her to come and work by her +side, and talk to her; and thus came on the summer of 1467, when Duke +Philip returned from the sack of unhappy Dinant in a weakened state, and +soon after was taken fatally ill. All the city of Bruges watched in +anxiety for tidings, for the kindly Duke was really loved where his hand +did not press. One evening during the suspense when Master Lambert was +gone out to gather tidings, there was the step with clank of spurs which +had grown familiar, and Leonard Copeland strode in hot and dusty, +greeting Vrow Clemence as usual with a touch of the hand and inclination +of the head, and Grisell with hand and courteous voice, as he threw +himself on the settle, heated and weary, and began with tired fingers to +unfasten his heavy steel cap. + +Grisell hastened to help him, Clemence to fetch a cup of cooling Rhine +wine. “There, thanks, mistress. We have ridden all day from Ghent, in +the heat and dust, and after all the Count got before us.” + +“To the Duke?” + +“Ay! He was like one demented at tidings of his father’s sickness. Say +what they will of hot words and fierce passages between them, that father +and son have hearts loving one another truly.” + +“It is well they should agree at the last,” said Grisell, “or the Count +will carry with him the sorest of memories.” + +And indeed Charles the Bold was on his knees beside the bed of his +speechless father in an agony of grief. + +Presently all the bells in Bruges began to clash out their warning that a +soul was passing to the unseen land, and Grisell made signs to Clemence, +while Leonard lifted himself upright, and all breathed the same for the +mighty Prince as for the poorest beggar, the intercession for the dying. +Then the solemn note became a knell, and their prayer changed to the De +Profundis, “Out of the depths.” + +Presently Lambert Groot came in, grave and saddened, with the +intelligence that Philip the Good had departed in peace, with his wife +and son on either side of him, and his little granddaughter kneeling +beside the Duchess. + +There was bitter weeping all over Bruges, and soon all over Flanders and +the other domains united under the Dukedom of Burgundy, for though Philip +had often deeply erred, he had been a fair ruler, balancing discordant +interests justly, and maintaining peace, while all that was splendid or +luxurious prospered and throve under him. There was a certain dread of +the future under his successor. + +“A better man at heart,” said Leonard, who had learnt to love the Count +de Charolais. “He loathes the vices and revelry that have stained the +Court.” + +“That is true,” said Lambert. “Yet he is a man of violence, and with +none of the skill and dexterity with which Duke Philip steered his +course.” + +“A plague on such skill,” muttered Leonard. “Caring solely for his own +gain, not for the right!” + +“Yet your Count has a heavy hand,” said Lambert. “Witness Dinant! +unhappy Dinant.” + +“The rogues insulted his mother,” said Leonard. “He offered them terms +which they would not have in their stubborn pride! But speak not of +that! I never saw the like in England. There we strike at the great, +not at the small. Ah well, with all our wars and troubles England was +the better place to live in. Shall we ever see it more?” + +There was something delightful to Grisell in that “we,” but she made +answer, “So far as I hear, there has been quiet there for the last two +years under King Edward.” + +“Ay, and after all he has the right of blood,” said Leonard. “Our King +Henry is a saint, and Queen Margaret a peerless dame of romance, but +since I have come to years of understanding I have seen that they neither +had true claim of inheritance nor power to rule a realm.” + +“Then would you make your peace with the White Rose?” + +“The _rose en soleil_ that wrought us so much evil at Mortimer’s Cross? +Methinks I would. I never swore allegiance to King Henry. My father was +still living when last I saw that sweet and gracious countenance which I +must defend for love and reverence’ sake.” + +“And he knighted you,” said Grisell. + +“True,” with a sharp glance, as if he wondered how she was aware of the +fact; “but only as my father’s heir. My poor old house and tenants! I +would I knew how they fare; but mine uncle sends me no letters, though he +does supply me.” + +“Then you do not feel bound in honour to Lancaster?” said Grisell. + +“Nay; I did not stir or strive to join the Queen when last she called up +the Scots—the Scots indeed!—to aid her. I could not join them in a foray +on England. I fear me she will move heaven and earth again when her son +is of age to bear arms; but my spirit rises against allies among Scots or +French, and I cannot think it well to bring back bloodshed and +slaughter.” + +“I shall pray for peace,” said Grisell. All this was happiness to her, +as she felt that he was treating her with confidence. Would she ever be +nearer to him? + +He was a graver, more thoughtful man at seven and twenty than he had been +at the time of his hurried marriage, and had conversed with men of real +understanding of the welfare of their country. Such talks as these made +Grisell feel that she could look up to him as most truly her lord and +guide. But how was it with the fair Eleanor, and whither did his heart +incline? An English merchant, who came for spices, had said that the +Lord Audley had changed sides, and it was thus probable that the damsel +was bestowed in marriage to a Yorkist; but there was no knowing, nor did +Grisell dare to feel her way to discovering whether Leonard knew, or felt +himself still bound to constancy, outwardly and in heart. + +Every one was taken up with the funeral solemnities of Duke Philip; he +was to be finally interred with his father and grandfather in the grand +tombs at Dijon, but for the present the body was to be placed in the +Church of St. Donatus at Bruges, at night. + +Sir Leonard rode at a foot’s pace in the troop of men-at-arms, all in +full armour, which glanced in the light of the sixteen hundred torches +which were borne before, behind, and in the midst of the procession, +which escorted the bier. Outside the coffin, arrayed in ducal coronet +and robes, with the Golden Fleece collar round the neck, lay the exact +likeness of the aged Duke, and on shields around the pall, as well as on +banners borne waving aloft, were the armorial bearings of all his +honours, his four dukedoms, seven counties, lordships innumerable, +besides the banners of all the guilds carried to do him honour. + +More than twenty prelates were present, and shared in the mass, which +began in the morning hour, and in the requiem. The heralds of all the +domains broke their white staves and threw them on the bier, proclaiming +that Philip, lord of all these lands, was deceased. Then, as in the case +of royalty, Charles his son was proclaimed; and the organ led an +acclamation of jubilee from all the assembly which filled the church, and +a shout as of thunder arose, “Vivat Carolus.” + +Charles knelt meanwhile with hands clasped over his brow, silent, +immovable. Was he crushed at thought of the whirlwinds of passion that +had raged between him and the father whom he had loved all the time? or +was there on him the weight of a foreboding that he, though free from the +grosser faults of his father, would never win and keep hearts in the same +manner, and that a sad, tumultuous, troubled career and piteous, untimely +end lay before him? + +His mother, Grisell’s Duchess, according to the rule of the Court, lay in +bed for six weeks—at least she was bound to lie there whenever she was +not in entire privacy. The room and bed were hung with black, but a +white covering was over her, and she was fully dressed in the black and +white weeds of royal widowhood. The light of day was excluded, and hosts +of wax candles burnt around. + +Grisell did not see her during this first period of stately mourning, but +she heard that the good lady had spent her time in weeping and praying +for her husband, all the more earnestly that she had little cause +personally to mourn him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII +FORGET ME NOT + + + And added, of her wit, + A border fantasy of branch and flower, + And yellow-throated nestling in the nest. + + TENNYSON, _Elaine_. + +THE Duchess Isabel sent for Grisell as soon as the rules of etiquette +permitted, and her own mind was free, to attend to the suite of lace +hangings, with which much progress had been made in the interval. She +was in the palace now, greatly honoured, for her son loved her with +devoted affection, and Grisell had to pass through tapestry-hung halls +and chambers, one after another, with persons in mourning, all filled +with men-at-arms first, then servants still in black dresses. Next pages +and squires, knights of the lady, and lastly ladies in black velvet, who +sat at their work, with a chaplain reading to them. One of these, the +Countess of Poitiers, whom Grisell had known at the Grey Sisters’ +convent, rose, graciously received her obeisance, and conducted her into +the great State bedroom, likewise very sombre, with black hangings worked +and edged, however, with white, and the window was permitted to let in +the light of day. The bed was raised on steps in an alcove, and was +splendidly draped and covered with black embroidered with white, but the +Duchess did not occupy it. A curtain was lifted, and she came forward in +her deepest robes of widowhood, leading her little granddaughter Mary, a +child of eight or nine years old. Grisell knelt to kiss the hands of +each, and the Duchess said— + +“Good Griselda, it is long since I have seen you. Have you finished the +border?” + +“Yes, your Highness; and I have begun the edging of the corporal.” + +The Duchess looked at the work with admiration, and bade the little Mary, +the damsel of Burgundy, look on and see how the dainty web was woven, +while she signed the maker to seat herself on a step of the alcove. + +When the child’s questions and interest were exhausted, and she began to +be somewhat perilously curious about the carved weights of the bobbins, +her grandmother sent her to play with the ladies in the ante-room, +desiring Grisell to continue the work. After a few kindly words the +Duchess said, “The poor child is to have a stepdame so soon as the year +of mourning is passed. May she be good to her! Hath the rumour thereof +reached you in the city, Maid Griselda, that my son is in treaty with +your English King, though he loves not the house of York? But princely +alliances must be looked for in marriage.” + +“Madge!” exclaimed Grisell; then colouring, “I should say the Lady +Margaret of York.” + +“You knew her?” + +“Oh! I knew her. We loved each other well in the Lord of Salisbury’s +house! There never was a maid whom I knew or loved like her!” + +“In the Count of Salisbury’s house,” repeated the Duchess. “Were you +there as the Lady Margaret’s fellow-pupil?” she said, as though +perceiving that her lace maker must be of higher quality than she had +supposed. + +“It was while my father was alive, madame, and before her father had +fixed his eyes on the throne, your Highness.” + +“And your father was, you said, the knight De—De—D’Acor.” + +“So please you, madame,” said Grisell kneeling, “not to mention my poor +name to the lady.” + +“We are a good way from speech of her,” said the Duchess smiling. “Our +year of doole must pass, and mayhap the treaty will not hold in the +meantime. The King of France would fain hinder it. But if the +Demoiselle loved you of old would she not give you preferment in her +train if she knew?” + +“Oh! madame, I pray you name me not till she be here! There is much that +hangs on it, more than I can tell at present, without doing harm; but I +have a petition to prefer to her.” + +“An affair of true love,” said the Duchess smiling. + +“I know not. Oh! ask me not, madame!” + +When Grisell was dismissed, she began designing a pattern, in which in +spray after spray of rich point, she displayed in the pure frostwork-like +web, the Daisy of Margaret, the Rose of York, and moreover, combined +therewith, the saltire of Nevil and the three scallops of Dacre, and each +connected with ramifications of the forget-me-not flower shaped like the +turquoises of her pouncet box, and with the letter G to be traced by +ingenious eyes, though the uninitiated might observe nothing. + +She had plenty of time, though the treaty soon made it as much of a +certainty as royal betrothals ever were, but it was not till July came +round again that Bruges was in a crisis of the fever of preparation to +receive the bride. Sculptors, painters, carvers were desperately at work +at the Duke’s palace. Weavers, tapestry-workers, embroiderers, +sempstresses were toiling day and night, armourers and jewellers had no +rest, and the bright July sunshine lay glittering on the canals, graceful +skiffs, and gorgeous barges, and bringing out in full detail the glories +of the architecture above, the tapestry-hung windows in the midst, the +gaily-clad Vrows beneath, while the bells rang out their merriest +carillons from every steeple, whence fluttered the banners of the guilds. + +The bride, escorted by Sir Antony Wydville, was to land at Sluys, and +Duchess Isabel, with little Mary, went to receive her. + +“Will you go with me as one of my maids, or as a tirewoman perchance?” +asked the Duchess kindly. + +Grisell fell on her knee and thanked her, but begged to be permitted to +remain where she was until the bride should have some leisure. And +indeed her doubts and suspense grew more overwhelming. As she freshly +trimmed and broidered Leonard’s surcoat and sword-belt, she heard one of +the many gossips who delighted to recount the members of the English +suite as picked up from the subordinates of the heralds and pursuivants +who had to marshal the procession and order the banquet. “Fair ladies +too,” he said, “from England. There is the Lord Audley’s daughter with +her father. They say she is the very pearl of beauties. We shall see +whether our fair dames do not surpass her.” + +“The Lord Audley’s daughter did you say?” asked Grisell. + +“His daughter, yea; but she is a widow, bearing in her lozenge, per pale +with Audley, gules three herrings haurient argent, for Heringham. She is +one of the Duchess Margaret’s dames-of-honour.” + +To Grisell it sounded like her doom on one side, the crisis of her +self-sacrifice, and the opening of Leonard’s happiness on the other. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII +THE PAGEANT + + + When I may read of tilts in days of old, + And tourneys graced by chieftains of renown, + Fair dames, grave citoyens, and warriors bold— + If fancy would pourtray some stately town, + Which for such pomp fit theatre would be, + Fair Bruges, I shall then remember thee. + + SOUTHEY, _Pilgrimage to Waterloo_. + +LEONARD COPELAND was in close attendance on the Duke, and could not give +a moment to visit his friends at the Green Serpent, so that there was no +knowing how the presence of the Lady of Heringham affected him. Duke +Charles rode out to meet his bride at the little town of Damme, and here +the more important portions of the betrothal ceremony took place, after +which he rode back alone to the Cour des Princes, leaving to the bride +all the splendour of the entrance. + +The monastic orders were to be represented in the procession. The Grey +Sisters thought they had an especial claim, and devised the presenting a +crown of white roses at the gates, and with great pleasure Grisell +contributed the best of Master Lambert’s lovely white Provence roses to +complete the garland, which was carried by the youngest novice, a fair +white rosebud herself. + +Every one all along the line of the tall old houses was hanging from +window to window rich tapestries of many dyes, often with gold and silver +thread. The trades and guilds had renewed their signs, banners and +pennons hung from every abode entitled to their use, garlands of bright +flowers stretched here and there and everywhere. All had been in a +frenzy of preparation for many days past, and the final touches began +with the first hours of light in the long, summer morning. To Grisell’s +great delight, Cuthbert Ridley plodded in at the hospitable door of the +Green Serpent the night before. “Ah! my ladybird,” said he, “in good +health as ever.” + +“All the better for seeing you, mine old friend,” she cried. “I thought +you were far away at Compostella.” + +“So verily I was. Here’s St. James’s cockle to wit—Santiago as they call +him there, and show the stone coffin he steered across the sea. No small +miracle that! And I’ve crossed France, and looked at many a field of +battle of the good old times, and thought and said a prayer for the brave +knights who broke lances there. But as I was making for St. Martha’s +cave in Provence, I met a friar, who told me of the goodly gathering +there was like to be here; and I would fain see whether I could hap upon +old friends, or at any rate hear a smack of our kindly English tongue, so +I made the best of my way hither.” + +“In good time,” said Lambert. “You will take the lady and the housewife +to the stoop at Master Caxton’s house, where he has promised them seats +whence they may view the entrance. I myself am bound to walk with my +fellows of the Apothecaries’ Society, and it will be well for them to +have another guard in the throng, besides old Anton.” + +“Nay, but my garb scarce befits the raree show,” said Ridley, looking at +his russet gown. + +“We will see to that anon,” said Lambert; and ere supper was over, old +Anton had purveyed a loose blue gown from the neighbouring merchants, +with gold lace seams and girdle, peaked boots, and the hideous brimless +hat which was then highly fashionable. Ridley’s trusty sword he had +always worn under his pilgrim’s gown, and with the dagger always used as +a knife, he made his appearance once more as a squire of degree, still +putting the scallop into his hat, in honour of Dacre as well as of St. +James. + +The party had to set forth very early in the morning, slowly gliding +along several streets in a barge, watching the motley crowds thronging +banks and bridges—a far more brilliant crowd than in these later +centuries, since both sexes were alike gay in plumage. From every house, +even those out of the line of the procession, hung tapestry, or coloured +cloths, and the garlands of flowers, of all bright lines, with their +fresh greenery, were still unfaded by the clear morning sun, while joyous +carillons echoed and re-echoed from the belfry and all the steeples. +Ridley owned that he had never seen the like since King Harry rode home +from Agincourt—perhaps hardly even then, for Bruges was at the height of +its splendour, as were the Burgundian Dukes at the very climax of their +magnificence. + +After landing from the barge Ridley, with Grisell on his arm, and Anton +with his mistress, had a severe struggle with the crowd before they +gained the ascent of the stoop, where the upper steps had been railed in, +and seats arranged under the shelter of the projecting roof. + +Master Caxton was a gray-eyed, thin-cheeked, neatly-made Kentishman, who +had lived long abroad, and was always ready to make an Englishman +welcome. He listened politely to Grisell’s introduction of Master +Ridley, exchanged silent greetings with Vrow Clemence, and insisted on +their coming into the chamber within, where a repast of cold pasty, +marchpane, strawberries, and wine, awaited them—to be eaten while as yet +there was nothing to see save the expectant multitudes. + +Moreover, he wanted to show Mistress Grisell, as one of the few who cared +for it, the manuscripts he had collected on the history of Troy town, and +likewise the strange machine on which he was experimenting for +multiplying copies of the translation he had in hand, with blocks for the +woodcuts which Grisell could not in conscience say would be as beautiful +as the gorgeous illuminations of his books. + +Acclamations summoned them to the front, of course at first to see only +scattered bodies of the persons on the way to meet the bride at the gate +of St. Croix. + +By and by, however, came the “gang,” as Ridley called it, in earnest. +Every body of ecclesiastics was there: monks and friars, black, white, +and gray; nuns, black, white, and blue; the clergy in their richest +robes, with costly crucifixes of gold, silver, and ivory held aloft, and +reliquaries of the most exquisite workmanship, sparkling with precious +jewels, diamond, ruby, emerald, and sapphire flashing in the sun; the +fifty-two guilds in gowns, each headed by their Master and their banner, +gorgeous in tint, but with homely devices, such as stockings, saw and +compasses, weavers’ shuttles, and the like. Master Lambert looked up and +nodded a smile from beneath a banner with Apollo and the Python, which +Ridley might be excused for taking for St. Michael and the Dragon. The +Mayor in scarlet, white fur and with gold collar, surrounded by his +burgomasters in almost equally radiant garments, marched on. + +Next followed the ducal household, trumpets and all sorts of instruments +before them, making the most festive din, through which came bursts of +the joy bells. Violet and black arrayed the inferiors, setting off the +crimson satin pourpoints of the higher officers, on whose brimless hats +each waved with a single ostrich plume in a shining brooch. + +Then came more instruments, and a body of gay green archers; next heralds +and pursuivants, one for each of the Duke’s domains, glittering back and +front in the tabard of his county’s armorial bearings, and with its +banner borne beside him. Then a division of the Duke’s bodyguard, all +like himself in burnished armour with scarves across them. The nobles of +Burgundy, Flanders, Hainault, Holland, and Alsace, the most splendid body +then existing, came in endless numbers, their horses, feather-crested as +well as themselves, with every bridle tinkling with silver bells, and the +animals invisible all but their heads and tails under their magnificent +housings, while the knights seemed to be pillars of radiance. Yet even +more gorgeous were the knights of the Golden Fleece, who left between +them a lane in which moved six white horses, caparisoned in cloth of +gold, drawing an open litter in which sat, as on a throne, herself +dazzling in cloth of silver, the brown-eyed Margaret of old, her dark +hair bride fashion flowing on her shoulders, and around it a +marvellously-glancing diamond coronet, above it, however, the wreath of +white roses, which her own hands had placed there when presented by the +novice. Clemence squeezed Grisell’s hand with delight as she recognised +her own white rose, the finest of the garland. + +Immediately after the car came Margaret’s English attendants, the +stately, handsome Antony Wydville riding nearest to her, and then a bevy +of dames and damsels on horseback, but moving so slowly that Grisell had +full time to discover the silver herrings on the caparisons of one of the +palfreys, and then to raise her eyes to the face of the tall stately lady +whose long veil, flowing down from her towered head-gear, by no means +concealed a beautiful complexion and fair perfect features, such as her +own could never have rivalled even if they had never been defaced. Her +heart sank within her, everything swam before her eyes, she scarcely saw +the white doves let loose from the triumphant arch beyond to greet the +royal lady, and was first roused by Ridley’s exclamation as the knights +with their attendants began to pass. + +“Ha! the lad kens me! ’Tis Harry Featherstone as I live.” + +Much more altered in these seven years than was Cuthbert Ridley, there +rode as a fully-equipped squire in the rear of a splendid knight, Harry +Featherstone, the survivor of the dismal Bridge of Wakefield. He was +lowering his lance in greeting, but there was no knowing whether it was +to Ridley or to Grisell, or whether he recognised her, as she wore her +veil far over her face. + +This to Grisell closed the whole. She did not see the figure which was +more to her than all the rest, for he was among the knights and guards +waiting at the Cour des Princes to receive the bride when the final +ceremonies of the marriage were to be performed. + +Ridley declared his intention of seeking out young Featherstone, but +Grisell impressed on him that she wished to remain unknown for the +present, above all to Sir Leonard Copeland, and he had been quite +sufficiently alarmed by the accusations of sorcery to believe in the +danger of her becoming known among the English. + +“More by token,” said he, “that the house of this Master Caxton as you +call him seems to me no canny haunt. Tell me what you will of making +manifold good books or bad, I’ll never believe but that Dr. Faustus and +the Devil hatched the notion between them for the bewilderment of men’s +brains and the slackening of their hands.” + +Thus Ridley made little more attempt to persuade his young lady to come +forth to the spectacles of the next fortnight to which he rushed, through +crowds and jostling, to behold, with the ardour of an old warrior, the +various tilts and tourneys, though he grumbled that they were nothing but +child’s play and vain show, no earnest in them fit for a man. + +Clemence, however, was all eyes, and revelled in the sight of the +wonders, the view of the Tree of Gold, and the champion thereof in the +lists of the Hôtel de Ville, and again, some days later, of the banquet, +when the table decorations were mosaic gardens with silver trees, laden +with enamelled fruit, and where, as an interlude, a whale sixty feet long +made its entrance and emitted from its jaws a troop of Moorish youths and +maidens, who danced a saraband to the sound of tambourines and cymbals! +Such scenes were bliss to the deaf housewife, and would enliven the +silent world of her memory all the rest of her life. + +The Duchess Isabel had retired to the Grey Sisters, such scenes being +inappropriate to her mourning, and besides her apartments being needed +for the influx of guests. There, in early morning, before the revels +began, Grisell ventured to ask for an audience, and was permitted to +follow the Duchess when she returned from mass to her own apartments. + +“Ah! my lace weaver. Have you had your share in the revels and +pageantries?” + +“I saw the procession, so please your Grace.” + +“And your old playmate in her glory?” + +“Yea, madame. It almost forestalled the glories of Heaven!” + +“Ah! child, may the aping of such glory beforehand not unfit us for the +veritable everlasting glories, when all these things shall be no more.” + +The Duchess clasped her hands, almost as a foreboding of the day when her +son’s corpse should lie, forsaken, gashed, and stripped, beside the +marsh. + +But she turned to Grisell asking if she had come with any petition. + +“Only, madame, that it would please your Highness to put into the hands +of the new Duchess herself, this offering, without naming me.” + +She produced her exquisite fabric, which was tied with ribbons of blue +and silver in an outer case, worked with the White Rose. + +The Dowager-Duchess exclaimed, “Nay, but this is more beauteous than all +you have wrought before. Ah! here is your own device! I see there is +purpose in these patterns of your web. And am I not to name you?” + +“I pray your Highness to be silent, unless the Duchess should divine the +worker. Nay, it is scarce to be thought that she will.” + +“Yet you have put the flower that my English mother called +‘Forget-me-not.’ Ah, maiden, has it a purpose?” + +“Madame, madame, ask me no questions. Only remember in your prayers to +ask that I may do the right,” said Grisell, with clasped hands and +weeping eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX +DUCHESS MARGARET + + + I beheld the pageants splendid, that adorned those days of old; + Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of + Gold. + + LONGFELLOW, _The Belfry of Bruges_. + +IN another week the festivities were over, and she waited anxiously, +dreading each day more and more that her gift had been forgotten or +misunderstood, or that her old companion disdained or refused to take +notice of her; then trying to console herself by remembering the manifold +engagements and distractions of the bride. + +Happily, Grisell thought, Ridley was absent when Leonard Copeland came +one evening to supper. He was lodged among the guards of the Duke in the +palace, and had much less time at his disposal than formerly, for Duke +Charles insisted on the most strict order and discipline among all his +attendants. Moreover, there were tokens of enmity on the part of the +French on the border of the Somme, and Leonard expected to be despatched +to the camp which was being formed there. He was out of spirits. The +sight and speech of so many of his countrymen had increased the longing +for home. + +“I loathe the mincing French and the fat Flemish tongues,” he owned, when +Master Lambert was out of hearing. “I should feel at home if I could but +hear an honest carter shout ‘Woa’ to his horses.” + +“Did you have any speech with the ladies?” asked Grisell. + +“I? No! What reck they of a poor knight adventurer?” + +“Methought all the chivalry were peers, and that a belted knight was a +comrade for a king,” said Grisell. + +“Ay, in the days of the Round Table; but when Dukes and Counts, and great +Marquesses and Barons swarm like mayflies by a trout stream, what chance +is there that a poor, landless exile will have a word or a glance?” + +Did this mean that the fair Eleanor had scorned him? Grisell longed to +know, but for that very reason she faltered when about to ask, and turned +her query into one whether he had heard any news of his English +relations. + +“My good uncle at Wearmouth hath been dead these four years—so far as I +can gather. Amply must he have supplied Master Groot. I must account +with him. For mine inheritance I can gather nothing clearly. I fancy +the truth is that George Copeland, who holds it, is little better than a +reiver on either side, and that King Edward might grant it back to me if +I paid my homage, save that he is sworn never to pardon any who had a +share in the death of his brother of Rutland.” + +“You had not! I know you had not!” + +“Hurt Ned? I’d as soon have hurt my own brother! Nay, I got this blow +from Clifford for coming between,” said he, pushing back his hair so as +to show a mark near his temple. “But how did you know?” + +“Harry Featherstone told me.” She had all but said, “My father’s +squire.” + +“You knew Featherstone? Belike when he was at Whitburn. He is here now; +a good man of his hands,” muttered Leonard. “Anyway the King believes I +had a hand in that cruel business of Wakefield Bridge, and nought but his +witness would save my neck if once I ventured into England—if that would. +So I may resign myself to be the Duke’s captain of archers for the rest +of my days. Heigh ho! And a lonely man; I fear me in debt to good +Master Lambert, or may be to Mistress Grisell, to whom I owe more than +coin will pay. Ha! was that—” interrupting himself, for a trumpet blast +was ringing out at intervals, the signal of summons to the men-at-arms. +Leonard started up, waved farewell, and rushed off. + +The summons proved to be a call to the men-at-arms to attend the Duke +early the next morning on an expedition to visit his fortresses in +Picardy, and as the household of the Green Serpent returned from mass, +they heard the tramp and clatter, and saw the armour flash in the sun as +the troop passed along the main street, and became visible at the opening +of that up which they walked. + +The next day came a summons from the convent of the Grey Sisters that +Mistress Griselda was to attend the Duchess Isabel. + +She longed to fly through the air, but her limbs trembled. Indeed, she +shook so that she could not stand still nor walk slowly. She hurried on +so that the lay sister who had been sent for her was quite out of breath, +and panted after her within gasps of “Stay! stay, mistress! No bear is +after us! She runs as though a mad ox had got loose!” + +Her heart was wild enough for anything! She might have to hear from her +kind Duchess that all was vain and unnoticed. + +Up the stair she went, to the accustomed chamber, where an additional +chair was on the dais under the canopy, the half circle of ladies as +usual, but before she had seen more with her dazzled, swimming eyes, even +as she rose from her first genuflection, she found herself in a pair of +soft arms, kisses rained on her cheeks and brow, and there was a tender +cry in her own tongue of “My Grisell! my dear old Grisell! I have found +you at last! Oh! that was good in you. I knew the forget-me-nots, and +all your little devices. Ah!” as Grisell, unable to speak for tears of +joy, held up the pouncet box, the childish gift. + +The soft pink velvet bodice girdled and clasped with diamonds was pressed +to her, the deep hanging silken sleeves were round her, the white satin +broidered skirt swept about her feet, the pearl-edged matronly cap on the +youthful head leant fondly against her, as Margaret led her up, still in +her embrace, and cried, “It is she, it is she! Dear belle mère, thanks +indeed for bringing us together!” + +The Countess of Poitiers looked on scandalised at English impulsiveness, +and the elder Duchess herself looked for a moment stiff, as her +lace-maker slipped to her knees to kiss her hand and murmur her thanks. + +“Let me look at you,” cried Margaret. “Ah! have you recovered that +terrible mishap? By my troth, ’tis nearly gone. I should never have +found it out had I not known!” + +This was rather an exaggeration, but joy did make a good deal of +difference in Grisell’s face, and the Duchess Margaret was one of the +most eager and warm-hearted people living, fervent alike in love and in +hate, ready both to act on slight evidence for those whose cause she took +up, and to nourish bitter hatred against the enemies of her house. + +“Now, tell me all,” she continued in English. “I heard that you had been +driven out of Wilton, and my uncle of Warwick had sped you northward. +How is it that you are here, weaving lace like any mechanical sempstress? +Nay, nay! I cannot listen to you on your knees. We have hugged one +another too often for that.” + +Grisell, with the elder Duchess’s permission, seated herself on the +cushion at Margaret’s feet. “Speak English,” continued the bride. “I am +wearying already of French! Ma belle mère, you will not find fault. You +know a little of our own honest tongue.” + +Duchess Isabel smiled, and Grisell, in answer to the questions of +Margaret, told her story. When she came to the mention of her marriage +to Leonard Copeland, there was the vindictive exclamation, “Bound to that +blood-thirsty traitor! Never! After the way he treated you, no marvel +that he fell on my sweet Edmund!” + +“Ah! madame, he did not! He tried to save him.” + +“He! A follower of King Henry! Never!” + +“Truly, madame! He had ever loved Lord Edmund. He strove to stay Lord +Clifford’s hand, and threw himself between, but Clifford dashed him +aside, and he bears still the scar where he fell against the parapet of +the bridge. Harry Featherstone told me, when he fled from the piteous +field, where died my father and brother Robin.” + +“Your brother, Robin Dacre! I remember him. I would have made him good +cheer for your sake, but my mother was ever strict, and rapped our +fingers, nay, treated us to the rod, if we ever spake to any of my +father’s meiné. Tell on, Grisell,” as her hand found its way under the +hood, and stroked the fair hair. “Poor lonely one!” + +Her indignation was great when she heard of Copeland’s love, and still +more of his mission to seize Whitburn, saying, truly enough, that he +should have taken both lady and Tower, or given both up, and lending a +most unwilling ear to the plea that he had never thought his relations to +Grisell binding. She had never loved Lady Heringham, and it was plainly +with good cause. + +Then followed the rest of the story, and when it appeared that Grisell +had been instrumental in saving Copeland, and close inquiries elicited +that she had been maintaining him all this while, actually for seven +years, all unknown to him, the young Duchess could not contain herself. +“Grisell! Grisell of patience indeed. Belle mère, belle mère, do you +understand?” and in rapid French she recounted all. + +“He is my husband,” said Grisell simply, as the two Duchesses showed +their wonder and admiration. + +“Never did tale or ballad show a more saintly wife,” cried Margaret. +“And now what would you have me do for you, my most patient of Grisells? +Write to my brother the King to restore your lands, and—and I suppose you +would have this recreant fellow’s given back since you say he has seen +the error of following that make-bate Queen. But can you prove him free +of Edmund’s blood? Aught but that might be forgiven.” + +“Master Featherstone is gone back to England,” said Grisell, “but he can +bear witness; but my father’s old squire, Cuthbert Ridley, is here, who +heard his story when he came to us from Wakefield. Moreover, I have seen +the mark on Sir Leonard’s brow.” + +“Let be. I will write to Edward an you will. He has been more prone to +Lancaster folk since he was caught by the wiles of Lady Grey; but I would +that I could hear what would clear this knight of yours by other +testimony than such as your loving heart may frame. But you must come +and be one of mine, my own ladies, Grisell, and never go back to your +Poticary—Faugh!” + +This, however, Grisell would not hear of; and Margaret really reverenced +her too much to press her. + +However, Ridley was sent for to the Cour des Princes, and returned with a +letter to be borne to King Edward, and likewise a mission to find +Featherstone, and if possible Red Jock. + +“’Tis working for that rogue Copeland,” he growled. “I would it were for +you, my sweet lady.” + +“It is working for me! Think so with all your heart, good Cuthbert.” + +“Well, end as it may, you will at least ken who and what you are, wed or +unwed, fish, flesh or good red herring, and cease to live nameless, like +the Poticary’s serving-woman,” concluded Ridley as his parting grumble. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX +THE WEDDING CHIMES + + + Low at times and loud at times, + Changing like a poet’s rhymes, + Rang the beautiful wild chimes, + From the belfry in the market + Of the ancient town of Bruges. + + LONGFELLOW, _The Carillon_. + +NO more was heard of the Duchess for some weeks. Leonard was absent with +the Duke, who was engaged in that unhappy affair of Peroune and Liège, +the romantic version of which may be read in _Quentin Durward_, and with +which the present tale dares not to meddle, though it seemed to blast the +life of Charles the Bold, all unknowing. + +The Duchess Margaret was youthful enough to have a strong taste for +effect, and it was after a long and vexatious delay that Grisell was +suddenly summoned to her presence, to be escorted by Master Groot. There +she sat, on her chair of state, with the high tapestried back and the +square canopy, and in the throng of gentlemen around her Grisell at a +glance recognised Sir Leonard, and likewise Cuthbert Ridley and Harry +Featherstone, though of course it was not etiquette to exchange any +greetings. + +She knelt to kiss the Duchess’s hand, and as she did so Margaret raised +her, kissing her brow, and saying with a clear full voice, “I greet you, +Lady Copeland, Baroness of Whitburn. Here is a letter from my brother, +King Edward, calling on the Bishop of Durham, Count Palatine, to put you +in possession of thy castle and lands, whoever may gainsay it.” + +That Leonard started with amazement and made a step forward Grisell was +conscious, as she bent again to kiss the hand that gave the letter; but +there was more to come, and Margaret continued— + +“Also, to you, as to one who has the best right, I give this parchment, +sealed and signed by my brother, the King, containing his full and free +pardon to the good knight, Sir Leonard Copeland, and his restoration to +all his honours and his manors. Take it, Lady of Whitburn. It was you, +his true wife, who won it for him. It is you who should give it to him. +Stand forth, Sir Leonard.” + +He did stand forth, faltering a little, as his first impulse had been to +kneel to Grisell, then recollecting himself, to fall at the Duchess’s +feet in thanks. + +“To her, to her,” said the Duchess; but Grisell, as he turned, spoke, +trying to clear her voice from a rising sob. + +“Sir Leonard, wait, I pray. Her Highness hath not spoken all. I am well +advised that the wedlock into which you were forced against your will was +of no avail to bind us, as you in mind and will were contracted to the +Lady Eleanor Audley.” + +Leonard opened his lips, but she waved him to silence. “True, I know +that she was likewise constrained to wed; but she is a widow, and free to +choose for herself. Therefore, either by the bishop, or it may be +through our Holy Father the Pope, by mutual consent, shall the marriage +at Whitburn be annulled and declared void, and I pray you to accept +seisin thereof, while my lady, her Highness the Duchess Isabel, with the +Lady Prioress, will accept me as a Grey Sister.” + +There was a murmur. Margaret utterly amazed would have sprung forward +and exclaimed, but Leonard was beforehand with her. + +“Never! never!” he cried, throwing himself on his knees and mastering his +wife’s hand. “Grisell, Grisell, dost think I could turn to the +feather-pated, dull-souled, fickle-hearted thing I know now Eleanor of +Audley to be, instead of you?” + +There was a murmur of applause, led by the young Duchess herself, but +Grisell tried still to withdraw her hand, and say in low broken tones, +“Nay, nay; she is fair, I am loathly.” + +“What is her fair skin to me?” he cried; “to me, who have learnt to know, +and love, and trust to you with a very different love from the boy’s +passion I felt for Eleanor in youth, and the cure whereof was the sight +and words of the Lady Heringham! Grisell, Grisell, I was about to lay my +very heart at your feet when the Duke’s trumpet called me away, ere I +guessed, fool that I was, that mine was the hand that left the scar that +now I love, but which once I treated with a brute’s or a boy’s lightness. +Oh! pardon me! Still less did I know that it was my own forsaken wife +who saved my life, who tended my sickness, nay, as I verily believed, +toiled for me and my bread through these long seven years, all in secret. +Yea, and won my entire soul and deep devotion or ever I knew that it was +to you alone that they were due. Grisell, Grisell,” as she could not +speak for tears. “Oh forgive! Pardon me! Turn not away to be a Grey +Sister. I cannot do without you! Take me! Let me strive throughout my +life to merit a little better all that you have done and suffered for one +so unworthy!” + +Grisell could not speak, but she turned towards him, and regardless of +all spectators, she was for the first time clasped in her husband’s arms, +and the joyful tears of her friends high and low. + +What more shall be told of that victory? Shall it be narrated how this +wedlock was blest in the chapel, while all the lovely bells of Bruges +rang out in rejoicing, how Mynheer Groot and Clemence rejoiced though +they lost their guest, how Caxton gave them a choice specimen of his +printing, how Ridley doffed his pilgrim’s garb and came out as a squire +of dames, how the farewells were sorrowfully exchanged with the Duchess, +and how the Duke growled that from whichever party he took his stout +English he was sure to lose them? + +Then there was homage to King Edward paid not very willingly, and a +progress northward. At York, Thora, looking worn and haggard, came and +entreated forgiveness, declaring that she had little guessed what her +talk was doing, and that Ralph made her believe whatever he chose! She +had a hard life, treated like a slave by the burgesses, who despised the +fisher maid. Oh that she could go back to serve her dear good lady! + +There was a triumph at Whitburn to welcome the lady after the late reign +of misrule, and so did the knight and dame govern their estates that for +long years the time of ‘Grisly Grisell’ was remembered as Whitburn’s +golden age. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRISLY GRISELL*** + + +******* This file should be named 7387-0.txt or 7387-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/3/8/7387 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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