Grisly Grisell

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Grisly Grisell

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"Hush again. Forget the word! They are gone to Shields in search of
the witch-finder, to pinch me, and probe me, and drown me, or burn
me," cried Grisell, clasping her hands. "Oh! take me somewhere if
you cannot safely hide me; I would not bring trouble on you!"

"You need not fear," he answered. "None will enter here but by my
goodwill, and I will bar the garden door lest any idle lad should pry
in; but they come not here. The tortoise who crawls about in the
summer fills them with too much terror for them to venture, and is
better than any watch-dog. Now, let me touch your pulse. Ah! I
would prescribe lying down on the bed and resting for the day."

She complied, and Clemence took her to the upper floor, where it was
the pride of the Flemish housewife to keep a guest-chamber,
absolutely neat, though very little furnished, and indeed seldom or
never used; but she solicitously stroked the big bed, and signed to
Grisell to lie down in the midst of pillows of down, above and below,
taking off her hood, mantle, and shoes, and smoothing her down with
nods and sweet smiles, so that she fell sound asleep.

When she awoke the sun was at the meridian, and she came down to the
noontide meal. Master Groot was looking much entertained.

Wearmouth, he said, was in a commotion. The great Dutch Whitburn
man-at-arms had come in full of the wonderful story. Not only had
the grisly lady vanished, but a cross-bow man had shot an enormous
hare on the moor, a creature with one ear torn off, and a seam on its
face, and Masters Hardcastle and Ridley altogether favoured the
belief that it was the sorceress herself without time to change her
shape. Did Mynheer Groot hold with them?

For though Dutch and Flemings were not wholly friendly at home, yet
in a strange country they held together, and remembered that they
were both Netherlanders, and Hannekin would fain know what thought
the wise man.

"Depend on it, there was no time for a change," gravely said Groot.
"Have not Nostradamus, Albertus Magnus, and Rogerus Bacon" (he was
heaping names together as he saw Hannekin's big gray eyes grow
rounder and rounder) "all averred that the great Diabolus can give
his minions power to change themselves at will into hares, cats, or
toads to transport themselves to the Sabbath on Walpurgs' night?"

"You deem it in sooth," said the Dutchman, "for know you that the
parish priest swears, and so do the more part of the villein fisher
folk, that there's no sorcery in the matter, but that she is a true
and holy maid, with no powers save what the Saints had given her, and
that her cures were by skill. Yet such was scarce like to a mere
Jungvrow."

It went sorely against Master Lambert's feelings, as well as somewhat
against his conscience, to encourage the notion of the death of his
guest as a hare, though it ensured her safety and prevented a search.
He replied that her skill certainly was uncommon in a Jungvrow,
beyond nature, no doubt, and if they were unholy, it was well that
the arblaster had made a riddance of her.

"By the same token," added Hannekin, "the elf lock came out of my
hair this very morn, I having, as you bade me, combed it each morn
with the horse's currycomb."

Proof positive, as Lambert was glad to allow him to believe. And the
next day all Sunderland and the two Wearmouths believed that the dead
hare had shrieked in a human voice on being thrown on a fire, and had
actually shown the hands and feet of a woman before it was consumed.

It was all the safer for Grisell as long as she was not recognised,
and of this there was little danger. She was scarcely known in
Wearmouth, and could go to mass at the Abbey Church in a deep black
hood and veil. Master Lambert sometimes received pilgrims from his
own country on their way to English shrines, and she could easily
pass for one of these if her presence were perceived, but except to
mass in very early morning, she never went beyond the garden, where
the spring beauty was enjoyment to her in the midst of her loneliness
and entire doubt as to her future.

It was a grand old church, too, with low-browed arches, reminding her
of the dear old chapel of Wilton, and with a lofty though undecorated
square tower, entered by an archway adorned with curious twisted
snakes with long beaks, stretching over and under one another.

The low heavy columns, the round circles, and the small windows,
casting a very dim religious light, gave Grisell a sense of being in
the atmosphere of that best beloved place, Wilton Abbey. She longed
after Sister Avice's wisdom and tenderness, and wondered whether her
lands would purchase from her knight, power to return thither with
dower enough to satisfy the demands of the Proctor. It was a hope
that seemed like an inlet of light in her loneliness, when no one was
faithful save Cuthbert Ridley, and she felt cut to the heart above
all by Thora's defection and cruel accusations, not knowing that half
was owning to the intoxication of love, and the other half to a
gossiping tongue.

CHAPTER XX--A BLIGHT ON THE WHITE ROSE

Witness Aire's unhappy water
Where the ruthless Clifford fell,
And when Wharfe ran red with slaughter
On the day of Towton's field.
Gathering in its guilty flood
The carnage and the ill spilt blood
That forty thousand lives could yield.

SOUTHEY, Funeral Song of Princess Charlotte.

Grisell from the first took her part in the Apothecary's household.
Occupation was a boon to her, and she not only spun and made lace
with Clemence, but showed her new patterns learned in old days at
Wilton; and still more did she enjoy assisting the master of the
house in making his compounds, learning new nostrums herself, and
imparting others to him, showing a delicacy of finger which the old
Fleming could not emulate. In the fabrication of perfumes for the
pouncet box, and sweetmeats prepared with honey and sugar, she proved
to have a dainty hand, so that Lambert, who would not touch her
jewels, declared that she was fully earning her maintenance by the
assistance that she gave to him.

They were not molested by the war, which was decidedly a war of
battles, not of sieges, but they heard far more of tidings than were
wont to reach Whitburn Tower. They knew of the advance of Edward to
London; and the terrible battle of Towton begun, was fought out while
the snow fell far from bloodless, on Palm Sunday; and while the choir
boys had been singing their Gloria, laus et honor in the gallery over
the church door, shivering a little at the untimely blast, there had
been grim and awful work, when for miles around the Wharfe and Aire
the snow lay mixed with blood. That the Yorkists had gained was
known, and that the Queen and Prince had fled; but nothing was heard
of the fate of individuals, and Master Lambert was much occupied with
tidings from Bruges, whence information came, in a messenger sent by
a notary that his uncle, an old miser, whose harsh displeasure at his
marriage had driven him forth, was just dead, leaving him heir to a
fairly prosperous business and a house in the city.

To return thither was of course Lambert's intention as soon as he
could dispose of his English property. He entreated Grisell to
accompany him and Clemence, assuming her that at the chief city of so
great a prince as Duke Philip of Burgundy, she would have a better
hope of hearing tidings of her husband than in a remote town like
Sunderland; and that if she still wished to dispose of her jewels she
would have a far better chance of so doing. He was arguing the point
with her, when there was a voice in the stall outside which made
Grisell start, and Lambert, going out, brought in Cuthbert Ridley,
staggering under the weight of his best suit of armour, and with a
bundle and bag under his mantle.

Grisell sprang up eagerly to meet him, but as she put her hands into
his he looked sorrowfully at her, and she asked under her breath,
"Ah! Sir Leonard--?"

"No tidings of the recreant," growled Ridley, "but ill tidings for
both of you. The Dacres of Gilsland are on us, claiming your castle
and lands as male heirs to your father."

"Do they know that I live?" asked Grisell, "or"--unable to control a
little laugh--"do they deem that I was slain in the shape of a hare?"

"Or better than that," put in Lambert; "they have it now in the
wharves that the corpse of the hare took the shape and hands of a
woman when in the hall."

"I ken not, the long-tongued rogues," said Ridley; "but if my young
lady were standing living and life-like before them as, thank St.
Hilda, I see her now, they would claim it all the more as male heirs,
and this new King Edward has granted old Sir John seisin, being that
she is the wife of one of King Henry's men!"

"Are they there? How did you escape?"

"I got timely notice," said Cuthbert. "Twenty strong halted over the
night at Yeoman Kester's farm on Heather Gill--a fellow that would do
anything for me since we fought side by side on the day of the
Herrings. So he sends out his two grandsons to tell me what they
were after, while they were drinking his good ale to health of their
King Edward. So forewarned, forearmed. We have left them empty
walls, get in as they can or may--unless that traitor Tordu chooses
to stay and make terms with them."

"Master Hardcastle! Would he fly? Surely not!" asked Grisell.

"Master Hardcastle, with Dutch Hannekin and some of the better sort,
went off long since to join their knight's banner, and the Saints
know how the poor young lad sped in all the bloody work they have
had. For my part, I felt not bound to hold out the castle against my
old lord's side, when there was no saving it for you, so I put what
belonged to me together, and took poor old Roan, and my young lady's
pony, and made my way hither, no one letting me. I doubt me much,
lady, that there is little hope of winning back your lands, whatever
side may be uppermost, yet there be true hearts among our villeins,
who say they will never pay dues to any save their lord's daughter."

"Then I am landless and homeless," sighed Grisell.

"The greater cause that you should make your home with us, lady,"
returned Lambert Groot; and he went on to lay before Ridley the state
of the case, and his own plans. House and business, possibly a seat
in the city council, were waiting for him at Bruges, and the vessel
from Ostend which had continually brought him supplies for his
traffic was daily expected. He intended, so soon as she had made up
her cargo of wool, to return in her to his native country, and he was
urgent that the Lady Grisell should go with him, representing that
all the changes of fortune in the convulsed kingdom of England were
sure to be quickly known there, and that she was as near the centre
of action in Flanders as in Durham, besides that she would be out of
reach of any enemies who might disbelieve the hare transformation.

After learning the fate of her castle, Grisell much inclined to the
proposal which kept her with those whom she had learnt to trust and
love, and she knew that she need be no burthen to them, since she had
profitable skill in their own craft, and besides she had her jewels.
Ridley, moreover, gave her hopes of a certain portion of her dues on
the herring-boats and the wool.

"Will not you come with the lady, sir?" asked Lambert.

"Oh, come!" cried Grisell.

"Nay, a squire of dames hath scarce been heard of in a Poticar's
shop," said Ridley, and there was an irresistible laugh at the rugged
old gentleman so terming himself; but as Lambert and Grisell were
both about to speak he went on, "I can serve her better elsewhere. I
am going first to my home at Willimoteswick. I have not seen it
these forty year, and whether my brother or my nephew make me welcome
or no, I shall have seen the old moors and mosses. Then methought I
would come hither, or to some of the towns about, and see how it
fares with the old Tower and the folk; and if they be as good as
their word, and keep their dues for my lady, I could gather them, and
take or bring them to her, with any other matter which might concern
her nearly."

This was thoroughly approved by Grisell's little council, and Lambert
undertook to make known to the good esquire the best means of
communication, whether in person, or by the transmission of payments,
since all the eastern ports of England had connections with Dutch and
Flemish traffic, which made the payment of monies possible.

Grisell meantime was asking for Thora. Her uncle, Ridley said, had
come up, laid hands on her, and soundly scourged her for her foul
practices. He had dragged her home, and when Ralph Hart had come
after her, had threatened him with a quarter-staff, called out a mob
of fishermen, and finally had brought him to Sir Lucas, who married
them willy-nilly. He was the runaway son of a currier in York, and
had taken her en croupe, and ridden off to his parents at the sign of
the Hart, to bespeak their favour.

Grisell grieved deeply over Thora's ingratitude to her, and the two
elder men foreboded no favourable reception for the pair, and hoped
that Thora would sup sorrow.

Ridley spent the night at the sign of tire Green Serpent, and before
he set out for Willimoteswick, he confided to Master Groot a bag
containing a silver cup or two, and a variety of coins, mostly
French. They were, he said, spoils of his wars under King Harry the
Fifth and the two Lord Salisburys, which he had never had occasion to
spend, and he desired that they might be laid out on the Lady Grisell
in case of need, leaving her to think they were the dues from her
faithful tenantry. To the Hausvrow Clemence it was a great grief to
leave the peaceful home of her married life, and go among kindred who
had shown their scorn in neglect and cold looks; but she kept a
cheerful face for her husband, and only shed tears over the budding
roses and other plants she had to leave; and she made her guest
understand how great a comfort and solace was her company.

CHAPTER XXI--THE WOUNDED KNIGHT

Belted Will Howard is marching here,
And hot Lord Dacre with many a spear

SCOTT, The Lay of the Last Minstrel.

"Master Groot, a word with you." A lay brother in the coarse, dark
robe of St. Benedict was standing in the booth of the Green Serpent.

Groot knew him for Brother Christopher of Monks Wearmouth, and
touched his brow in recognition.

"Have you here any balsam fit for a plaguey shot with an arquebuss,
the like of which our poor peaceful house never looked to harbour?"

"For whom is it needed, good brother?"

"Best not ask," said Brother Christopher, who was, however, an
inveterate gossip, and went on in reply to Lambert's question as to
the place of the wound. "In the shoulder is the worst, the bullet
wound where the Brother Infirmarer has poured in hot oil. St. Bede!
How the poor knight howled, though he tried to stop it, and brought
it down to moaning. His leg is broken beside, but we could deal with
that. His horse went down with him, you see, when he was overtaken
and shot down by the Gilsland folk."

"The Gilsland folk!"

"Even so, poor lad; and he was only on his way to see after his own,
or his wife's, since all the Whitburn sons are at an end, and the
Tower gone to the spindle side. They say, too, that the damsel he
wedded perforce was given to magic, and fled in form of a hare. But
be that as it will, young Copeland--St. Bede, pardon me! What have I
let out?"

"Reck not of that, brother. The tale is all over the town. How of
Copeland?"

"As I said even now, he was on his way to the Tower, when the Dacres-
-Will and Harry--fell on him, and left him for dead; but by the
Saints' good providence, his squire and groom put him on a horse, and
brought him to our Abbey at night, knowing that he is kin to our Sub-
Prior. And there he lies, whether for life or death only Heaven
knows, but for death it will be if only King Edward gets a scent of
him; so hold your peace, Master Groats, as to who it be, as you live,
or as you would not have his blood on you."

Master Groats promised silence, and gave numerous directions as to
the application of his medicaments, and Brother Kit took his leave,
reiterating assurances that Sir Leonard's life depended on his
secrecy.

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

"You have heard, lady," he said.

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

"The Saints grant him recovery."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XXII--THE CITY OF BRIDGES

So for long hours sat Enid by her lord,
There in the naked hall, propping his head,
And chafing his pale hands, and calling to him.
And at the last he waken'd from his swoon.

TENNYSON, Enid.

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

He might almost be congratulated on his semi-insensibility, for
though he suffered, he would not retain the recollection of his
suffering, and the voyage was very miserable to every one, though the
weather was far from unfavourable, as the captain declared. Grisell
indeed was so entirely taken up with ministering to her knight that
she seemed impervious to sickness or discomfort. It was a great
relief to enter on the smooth waters of the great canal from Ostend,
and Lambert stood on the deck recognising old landmarks, and pointing
them out with the joy of homecoming to Clemence, who perhaps felt
less delight, since the joys of her life had only begun when she
turned her back on her unkind kinsfolk.

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