The Herd Boy and His Hermit | Page 4

mountain blasts. There was only one room,
earthen floored, and with no furniture save a big chest, a rude table, a
settle and a few stools, besides the big kettle and a few crocks and
wooden bowls. Yet whereas all was clean, it had an air of comfort and
civilisation beyond any of the cabins in the neighbourhood, more
especially as there was even a rude chimney-piece projecting far into
the room, and in the niche behind this lay the little girl in her clothes,
fast asleep.
Very young and childish she looked as she lay, her lips partly unclosed,

her dark hair straying beyond her hand, and her black lashes resting on
her delicate brunette cheeks, slightly flushed with sleep. Hal could not
help standing for a minute gazing at her in a sort of wondering curiosity,
till roused by the voice of Mother Doll.
'Go thy ways, my bairn, to wash in the burn. Here's thy comb. I must
have the lassie up before the shepherd comes back, though 'tis amost a
pity to wake her! There, she is stirring! Best be off with thee, my
bonnie lad.'
It was spoken more in the tone of nurse to nursling than of mother to
son, still less that of mistress to farm boy; but Hal obeyed, only
observing, 'Take care of her.'
'Ay, my pretty, will not I,' murmured the old woman, as the child
turned round on her pillow, put up a hand, rubbed her eyes, and
disclosed a pair of sleepy brown orbs, gazed about, and demanded,
'What's this? Who's this?'
''Tis Hob Hogward's hut, my bonnie lamb, where you are full welcome!
Here, take a sup of warm milk.'
'I mind me now,' said the girl, sitting up, and holding out her hands for
the bowl. 'They all left me, and the lad brought me--a great lubber
lout--'
'Nay, nay, mistress, you'll scarce say so when you see him by day--a
well-grown youth as can bear himself with any.'
'Where is he?' asked the girl, gazing round; 'I want him to take me back.
This place is not one for me. The Sisters will be seeking me! Oh, what
a coil they must be in!'
'We will have you back, my bairn, so soon as my goodman can go with
you, but now I would have you up and dressed, ay, and washed, ere he
and Hal come in. Then after meat and prayer you will be ready to go.'
'To Greystone Priory,' returned the girl. 'Yea, I would have thee to
know,' she added, with a little dignity that sat drolly on her bare feet
and disordered hair and cap as she rose out of bed, 'that the Sisters are
accountable for me. I am the Lady Anne St. John. My father is a lord in
Bedfordshire, but he is gone to the wars in Burgundy, and bestowed me
in a convent at York while he was abroad, but the Mother thought her
house would be safer if I were away at the cell at Greystone when
Queen Margaret and the Red Rose came north.'
'And is that the way they keep you safe?' asked the hostess, who

meanwhile was attending to her in a way that, if the Lady Anne had
known it, was like the tendance of her own nurse at home, instead of
that of a rough peasant woman.
'Oh, we all like the chase, and the Mother had a new cast of hawks that
she wanted to fly. There came out a heron, and she threw off the new
one, and it went careering up--and up--and we all rode after, and just as
the bird was about to pounce down, into a dyke went my pony, Imp,
and not one of them saw! Not Bertram Selby, the Sisters, nor the groom,
nor the rabble rout that had come out of Greystone; and before I could
get free they were off; and the pony, Imp of Evil that he is, has not
learnt to know me or my voice, and would not let me catch him, but
cantered off--either after the other horses or to the Priory. I knew not
where I was, and halloaed myself hoarse, but no one heard, and I went
on and on, and lost my way!'
'I did hear tell that the Lady Prioress minded her hawks more than her
Hours,' said Mother Doll.
'And that's sooth,' said the Lady Anne, beginning to prove herself a
chatterbox. 'The merlins have better hoods than the Sisters; and as to
the Hours, no one ever gets up in the night to say Nocturns or even
Matins but old Sister Scholastica, and she is as strict and cross as may
be.'
Here the flow of confidence was interrupted by the return of