Grisly Grisell

Brother Kit took his leave, reiterating assurances that Sir Leonard's life depended on his secrecy.

Whatever was said in the booth was plainly audible in the inner room. Grisell and Clemence were packing linen, and the little shutter of the wooden partition was open. Thus Lambert found Grisell standing with clasped hands, and a face of intense attention and suspense.

'You have heard, lady,' he said.

'Oh, yea, yea! Alas, poor Leonard!' she cried.

'The Saints grant him recovery.'

'Methought you would be glad to hear you were like to be free from such a yoke. Were you rid of him, you, of a Yorkist house, might win back your lands, above all, since, as you once told me, you were a playmate of the King's sister.'

'Ah! dear master, speak not so! Think of him! treacherously wounded, and lying moaning. That gruesome oil! Oh! my poor Leonard!' and she burst into tears. 'So fair, and comely, and young, thus stricken down!'

'Bah!' exclaimed Lambert. 'Such are women! One would think she loved him, who flouted her!'

'I cannot brook the thought of his lying there in sore pain and dolour, he who has had so sad a life, baulked of his true love.'

Master Lambert could only hold up his hands at the perversity of womankind, and declare to his Clemence that he verily believed that had the knight been a true and devoted Tristram himself, ever at her feet, the lady could not have been so sore troubled.

The next day brought Brother Kit back with an earnest request from the Infirmarer and the Sub-Prior that 'Master Groats' would come to the monastery, and give them the benefit of his advice on the wounds and the fever which was setting in, since gun-shot wounds were beyond the scope of the monastic surgery.

To refuse would not have been possible, even without the earnest entreaty of Grisell; and Lambert, who had that medical instinct which no training can supply, went on his way with the lay brother.

He came back after many hours, sorely perturbed by the request that had been made to him. Sir Leonard, he said, was indeed sick nigh unto death, grievously hurt, and distraught by the fever, or it might be by the blow on his head in the fall with his horse, which seemed to have kicked him; but there was no reason that with good guidance and rest he should not recover. But, on the other hand, King Edward was known to be on his progress to Durham, and he was understood to be especially virulent against Sir Leonard Copeland, under the impression that the young knight had assisted in Clifford's slaughter of his brother Edmund of Rutland. It was true that a monastery was a sanctuary, but if all that was reported of Edward Plantagenet were true, he might, if he tracked Copeland to the Abbey, insist on his being yielded up, or might make Abbot and monks suffer severely for the protection given to his enemy; and there was much fear that the Dacres might be on the scent. The Abbot and Father Copeland were anxious to be able to answer that Sir Leonard was not within their precincts, and, having heard that Master Groats was about to sail for Flanders, the Sub-Prior made the entreaty that his nephew might thus be conveyed to the Low Countries, where the fugitives of each party in turn found a refuge. Father Copeland promised to be at charges, and, in truth, the scheme was the best hope for Leonard's chances of life. Master Groot had hesitated, seeing various difficulties in the way of such a charge, and being by no means disposed towards Lady Grisell's unwilling husband, as such, though in a professional capacity he was interested in his treatment of his patient, and was likewise touched by the good mien of the fine, handsome, straight-limbed young man, who was lying unconscious on his pallet in a narrow cell.

He had replied that he would answer the next day, when he had consulted his wife and the ship-master, whose consent was needful; and there was of course another, whom he did not mention.

As he told all the colour rose in Grisell's face, rosy on one side, purple, alas, on the other. 'O master, good master, you will, you will!'

'Is it your pleasure, then, mistress? I should have held that the kindness to you would be to rid you of him.'

'No, no, no! You are mocking me! You know too well what I think! Is not this my best hope of making him know me, and becoming his true and-and-'

A sob cut her short, but she cried, 'I will be at all the pains and all the cost, if only you will consent, dear Master Lambert, good Master Groot.'

'Ah, would I knew what is well for her!' said Lambert, turning to his wife, and making rapid signs with face and fingers in their mutual language, but Grisell burst in-

'Good for her,' cried she. 'Can it be good for a wife to leave her husband to be slain by the cruel men of York and Warwick, him who strove to save the young Lord Edmund? Master, you will suffer no such foul wrong. O master, if you did, I would stay behind, in some poor hovel on the shore, where none would track him, and tend him there. I will! I vow it to St. Mary.'

'Hush, hush, lady! Cease this strange passion. You could not be more moved if he were the tenderest spouse who ever breathed.'

'But you will have pity, sir. You will aid us. You will save us. Give him the chance for life.'

'What say you, housewife?' said Groot, turning to the silent Clemence, whom his signs and their looks had made to perceive the point at issue. Her reply was to seize Grisell's two hands, kiss them fervently, clasp both together, and utter in her deaf voice two Flemish words, 'Goot Vrow.' Grisell eagerly embraced her in tears.

'We have still to see what Skipper Vrowst says. He may not choose to meddle with English outlaws.'

'If you cannot win him to take my knight, he will not take me,' said Grisell.

There was no more to be said except something about the waywardness of the affections of women and dogs; but Master Groot was not ill-pleased at the bottom that both the females of the household took part against him, and they had a merry supper that night, amid the chests in which their domestic apparatus and stock-in-trade were packed, with the dried lizard, who passed for a crocodile, sitting on the settle as if he were one of the company. Grisell's spirits rose with an undefined hope that, like Sir Gawaine's bride, or her own namesake, Griselda the patient, she should at last win her lord's love; and, deprived as she was of all her own relatives, there arose strongly within her the affection that ten long years ago had made her haunt the footsteps of the boy at Amesbury Manor.

Groot was made to promise to say not a word of her presence in his family. He was out all day, while Clemence worked hard at her démenagement, and only with scruples accepted the assistance of her guest, who was glad to work away her anxiety in the folding of curtains and stuffing of mails.

At last Lambert returned, having been backwards and forwards many times between the Vrow Gudule and the Abbey, for Skipper Vrowst drove a hard bargain, and made the most of the inconvenience and danger of getting into ill odour with the authorities; and, however anxious Father Copeland might be to save his nephew, Abbot and bursar demurred at gratifying extortion, above all when the King might at any time be squeezing them for contributions hard to come by.

However, it had been finally fixed that a boat should put in to the Abbey steps to receive the fleeces of the sheep-shearing of the home grange, and that, rolled in one of these fleeces, the wounded knight should be brought on board the Vrow Gudule, where Groot and the women would await him, their freight being already embarked, and all ready to weigh anchor.

The chief danger was in a King's officer coming on board to weigh the fleeces, and obtaining the toll on them. But Sunderland either had no King, or had two just at that time, and Father Copeland handed Master Groot a sum which might bribe one or both; while it was to the interest of the captain to make off without being overhauled by either.

CHAPTER XXII-THE CITY OF BRIDGES

So for long hours sat Enid by her lord,

There in the naked hall, propping his head,

And chafing his pale hands, and calling to him.

And at the last he waken'd from his swoon.

TENNYSON, Enid.

The transit was happily effected, and closely hidden in wool, Leonard Copeland was lifted out the boat, more than half unconscious, and afterwards transferred to the vessel, and placed in wrappings as softly and securely as Grisell and Clemence could arrange before King Edward's men came to exact their poundage on the freight, but happily did not concern themselves about the sick man.