Grisly Grisell Read online

  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 a
nd 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 hi
story 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."