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."