Grisly Grisell | Page 6

she
beset him in the manner that boys are apt to resent from younger girls,
and when he was thirteen, and she ten years old, there was very little
affection on his side. Moreover, the birth of two brothers had rendered
Grisell's hand a far less desirable prize in the eyes of the Copelands.
To attend on the Court was penance to the North Country dame, used to
a hardy rough life in her sea-side tower, with absolute rule, and no hand
over her save her husband's; while the young and outspoken Queen,
bred up in the graceful, poetical Court of Aix or Nancy, looked on her
as no better than a barbarian, and if she did not show this openly,

reporters were not wanting to tell her that the Queen called her the great
northern hag, or that her rugged unwilling curtsey was said to look as if
she were stooping to draw water at a well. Her husband had kept her in
some restraint, but when be had gone to Ireland with the Duke of York,
offences seemed to multiply upon her. The last had been that when she
had tripped on her train, dropped the salver wherewith she was serving
the Queen, and broken out with a loud "Lawk a daisy!" all the ladies,
and Margaret herself, had gone into fits of uncontrollable laughter, and
the Queen had begged her to render her exclamation into good French
for her benefit.
"Madam," she had exclaimed, "if a plain woman's plain English be not
good enough for you, she can have no call here!" And without further
ceremony she had flown out of the royal presence.
Margaret of Anjou, naturally offended, and never politic, had sent her a
message, that her attendance was no longer required. So here she was
going out of her way to make a casual inquiry, from the Court at
Winchester, whether that very unimportant article, her only daughter,
were dead or alive.
The Earl absolutely prohibited all conversation on affairs in debate
during the supper which was spread in the hall, with quite as much state
as, and even greater profusion and splendour, than was to be found at
Windsor, Winchester, or Westminster. All the high born sat on the dais,
raised on two steps with gorgeous tapestry behind, and a canopy
overhead; the Earl and Countess on chairs in the centre of the long
narrow table. Lady Whitburn sat beside the Earl, Sir William Copeland
by the Countess, watching with pleasure how deftly his son ran about
among the pages, carrying the trenchers of food, and the cups. He
entered on a conversation with the Countess, telling her of the King's
interest and delight in his beautiful freshly-founded Colleges at Eton
and Cambridge, how the King rode down whenever he could to see the
boys, listen to them at their tasks in the cloisters, watch them at their
sports in the playing fields, and join in their devotions in the Chapel--a
most holy example for them.
"Ay, for such as seek to be monks and shavelings," broke in the North

Country voice sarcastically.
"There are others--sons of gentlemen and esquires--lodged in houses
around," said Sir William, "who are not meant for cowl or for mass-
priests."
"Yea, forsooth," called Lady Whitburn across the Earl and the Countess,
"what for but to make them as feckless as the priests, unfit to handle
lance or sword!"
"So, lady, you think that the same hand cannot wield pen and lance,"
said the Earl.
"I should like to see one of your clerks on a Border foray," laughed the
Dame of Dacre. "'Tis all a device of the Frenchwoman!"
"Verily?" said the Earl, in an interrogative tone.
"Ay, to take away the strength and might of Englishmen with this
clerkly lore, so that her folk may have the better of them in France; and
the poor, witless King gives in to her. And so while the Beauforts rule
the roast--"
Salisbury caught her up. "Ay, the roast. Will you partake of these roast
partridges, madam?"
They were brought round skewered on a long spit, held by a page for
the guest to help herself. Whether by her awkwardness or that of the
boy, it so chanced that the bird made a sudden leap from the
impalement, and deposited itself in the lap of Lady Whitburn's scarlet
kirtle! The fact was proclaimed by her loud rude cry, "A murrain on
thee, thou ne'er-do-weel lad," together with a sounding box on the ear.
"'Tis thine own greed, who dost not--"
"Leonard, be still--know thy manners," cried both at once the Earl and
Sir William, for, unfortunately, the offender was no other than Leonard
Copeland, and, contrary to all the laws of pagedom, he was too angry

not to argue the point. "'Twas