The Duke was at Windsor with the poor insane King, and the Earl and the Duchess plunged into a discussion of the latest news of the northern counties and of the Court. The elder daughters were languidly entertained by the Countess, but no one disturbed the interview of Margaret and Grisell, who, hand in hand, had withdrawn into the embrasure of a window, and there fondled each other, and exchanged tidings of their young lives, and Margaret told of friends in the Nevil household.
All too soon the interview came to an end. The Duchess, after partaking of a manchet, was ready to proceed to Baynard's Castle, and the Lady Margaret was called for. Again, in spite of surprised, not to say displeased looks, she embraced her dear old playfellow. 'Don't go into a convent, Grisell,' she entreated. 'When I am wedded to some great earl, you must come and be my lady, mine own, own dear friend. Promise me! Your pledge, Grisell.'
There was no time for the pledge. Margaret was peremptorily summoned. They would not meet again. The Duchess's intelligence had quickened Warwick's departure, and the next day the first start northwards was to be made.
It was a mighty cavalcade. The black guard, namely, the kitchen ménage, with all their pots and pans, kettles and spits, were sent on a day's march beforehand, then came the yeomen, the knights and squires, followed by the more immediate attendants of the Earl and Countess and their court. She travelled in a whirlicote, and there were others provided for her elder ladies, the rest riding singly or on pillions according to age or taste. Grisell did not like to part with her pony, and Dame Gresford preferred a pillion to the bumps and jolts of the waggon-like conveyances called chariots, so Grisell rode by her side, the fresh spring breezes bringing back the sense of being really a northern maid, and she threw back her veil whenever she was alone with the attendants, who were used to her, though she drew it closely round when she encountered town or village. There were resting-places on the way. In great monasteries all were accommodated, being used to close quarters; in castles there was room for the 'Gentles,' who, if they fared well, heeded little how they slept, and their attendants found lairs in the kitchens or stables. In towns there was generally harbour for the noble portion; indeed in some, Warwick had dwellings of his own, or his father's, but these, at first, were at long distances apart, such as would be ridden by horsemen alone, not encumbered with ladies, and there were intermediate stages, where some of the party had to be dispersed in hostels.
It was in one of these, at Dunstable, that Dame Gresford had taken Grisell, and there were also sundry of the gentlemen of the escort. A minstrel was esconced under the wide spread of the chimney, and began to sound his harp and sing long ballads in recitative to the company. Whether he did it in all innocence and ignorance, or one of the young squires had mischievously prompted him, there was no knowing; Dame Gresford suspected the latter, when he began the ballad of 'Sir Gawaine's Wedding.' She would have silenced it, but feared to draw more attention on her charge, who had never heard the song, and did not know what was coming, but listened with increasing eagerness as she heard of King Arthur, and of the giant, and the secret that the King could not guess, till as he rode-
He came to the green forest,
Underneath a green hollen tree,
There sat that lady in red scarlet
That unseemly was to see.
Some eyes were discourteously turned on the maiden, but she hardly saw them, and at any rate her nose was not crooked, nor had her eyes and mouth changed places, as in the case of the 'Loathly Lady.' She heard of the condition on which the lady revealed the secret, and how King Arthur bound himself to bring a fair young knight to wed the hideous being. Then when he revealed to his assembled knights-
Then some took up their hawks,
And some took up their hounds,
And some sware they would not marry her
For cities nor for towns.
Glances again went towards the scarred visage, but Grisell was heedless of them, only listening how Sir Gawaine, Arthur's nephew, felt that his uncle's oath must be kept, and offered himself as the bridegroom.
Then after the marriage, when he looked on the lady, instead of the loathly hag he beheld a fair damsel! And he was told by her that he might choose whether she should be foul at night and fair by day, or fair each evening and frightful in the daylight hours. His choice at first was that her beauty should be for him alone, in his home, but when she objected that this would be hard on her, since she could thus never show her face when other dames ride with their lords-
Then buke him gentle Gawayne,
Said, 'Lady, that's but a shill;
Because thou art mine own lady
Thou shalt have all thy will.'
And his courtesy broke the spell of the stepdame, as the lady related -
'She witched me, being a fair young lady,
To the green forest to dwell,
And there must I walk in woman's likeness,
Most like a fiend in hell.'
Thenceforth the enchantment was broken, and Sir Gawaine's bride was fair to see.
Grisell had listened intently, absorbed in the narrative, so losing personal thought and feeling that it was startling to her to perceive that Dame Gresford was trying to hush a rude laugh, and one of the young squires was saying, 'Hush, hush! for very shame.'
Then she saw that they were applying the story to her, and the blood rushed into her face, but the more courteous youth was trying to turn away attention by calling on the harper for 'The Beggar of Bethnal Green,' or 'Lord Thomas and Fair Annet,' or any merry ballad. So it was borne in on Grisell that to these young gentlemen she was the lady unseemly to see. Yet though a few hot tears flowed, indignant and sorrowful, the sanguine spirit of youth revived. 'Sister Avice had told her how to be not loathly in the sight of those whom she could teach to love her.'
There was one bound by a pledge! Ah, he would never fulfil it. If he should, Grisell felt a resolute purpose within her that though she could not be transformed, he should not see her loathly in his sight, and in that hope she slept.
CHAPTER IX-THE KING-MAKER
O where is faith? O where is loyalty?
SHAKESPEARE,
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
