Grisly Grisell | Page 9

Silence!"
"See, my lady, what she has done to your ladyship's Venice glass,
which she never should have touched. She must have run to your
chamber while you were at mass. All false her feigning to be so sick
and feeble."
"Ay," replied Lady Whitburn, "she must up--don her clothes, and away
with me."

"Hush, I pray you, madam. How, how, Grisell, my poor child. Call
Master Miles, Maudlin! Give me that water." The Countess was raising
the poor child in her arms, and against her bosom, for the shock of that
glance in the mirror, followed by the maid's harsh reproaches, and
fright at the arrival of the two ladies, had brought on a choking,
hysterical sort of convulsive fit, and the poor girl writhed and gasped
on Lady Salisbury's breast, while her mother exclaimed, "Heed her not,
Lady; it is all put on to hinder me from taking her home. If she could
go stealing to your room--"
"No, no," broke out a weeping, frightened voice. "It was I, Lady Aunt.
You bade me never tell her how her poor face looked, and when she
begged and prayed me, I did not say, but I fetched the mirror. Oh! oh!
It has not been the death of her."
"Nay, nay, by God's blessing! Take away the glass, Margaret. Go and
tell thy beads, child; thou hast done much scathe unwittingly! Ah,
Master Miles, come to the poor maid's aid. Canst do aught for her?"
"These humours must be drawn off, my lady," said the barber-surgeon,
who advanced to the bed, and felt the pulse of the poor little patient. "I
must let her blood."
Maudlin, whose charge she was, came to his help, and Countess Alice
still held her up, while, after the practice of those days, he bled the
already almost unconscious child, till she fainted and was laid down
again on her pillows, under the keeping of Maudlin, while the clanging
of the great bell called the family down to the meal which broke fast,
whether to be called breakfast or dinner.
It was plain that Grisell was in no state to be taken on a journey, and
her mother went grumbling down the stair at the unchancy bairn always
doing scathe.
Lord Salisbury, beside whom she sat, courteously, though perhaps
hardly willingly, invited her to remain till her daughter was ready to
move.

"Nay, my Lord, I am beholden to you, but I may scarce do that. I be
sorely needed at Whitburn Tower. The knaves go all agee when both
my lord and myself have our backs turned, and my lad bairns--worth a
dozen of yon whining maid--should no longer be left to old Cuthbert
Ridley and Nurse. Now the Queen and Somerset have their way 'tis all
misrule, and who knows what the Scots may do?"
"There are Nevils and Dacres enough between Whitburn and the
Border," observed the Earl gravely. However, the visitor was not such
an agreeable one as to make him anxious to press her stay beyond what
hospitality demanded, and his wife could not bear to think of giving
over her poor little patient to such usage as she would have met with on
the journey.
Lady Whitburn was overheard saying that those who had mauled the
maid might mend her, if they could; and accordingly she acquiesced,
not too graciously, when the Countess promised to tend the child like
her own, and send her by and by to Whitburn under a safe escort; and
as Middleham Castle lay on the way to Whitburn, it was likely that
means would be found of bringing or sending her.
This settled, Lady Whitburn was restless to depart, so as to reach a
hostel before night.
She donned her camlet cloak and hood, and looked once more in upon
Grisell, who after her loss of blood, had, on reviving, been made to
swallow a draught of which an infusion of poppy heads formed a great
part, so that she lay, breathing heavily, in a deep sleep, moaning now
and then. Her mother did not scruple to try to rouse her with calls of
"Grizzy! Look up, wench!" but could elicit nothing but a half turn on
the pillow, and a little louder moan, and Master Miles, who was still
watching, absolutely refused to let his patient be touched or shaken.
"Well a day!" said Lady Whitburn, softened for a moment, "what the
Saints will must be, I trow; but it is hard, and I shall let St. Cuthbert of
Durham know it, that after all the candles I have given him, he should
have let my poor maid be so mauled and marred, and then forsaken by
the rascal who did it, so that she will never be aught but a dead weight

on my