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"MINE HONOURED LORD AND FATHER I pray you to send me Black Lightning and xvj crowns by the hand of Ralf, and so the Saints have you in their keeping. Your dutiful sonne, xvj crowns were a heavy sum in those days, and Lord Whitburn vowed that he had never so called on his father except when he was knighted, but those were the good old days when spoil was to be won in France.
Then the Lord of Whitburn, first recovering himself, cried, "Come, sir knight, kiss your bride. Ha! where is he? Sir Leonard here. Who hath seen him? Not vanished in yon flash! Eh?"
There was a well in the centre with roses trained over it, roses of the dark old damask kind and the dainty musk, used to be distilled for the eyes, some flowers lingering still; there was the brown dittany or fraxinella, whose dried blossoms are phosphoric at night; delicate pink centaury, good for ague; purple mallows, good for wounds; leopard's bane with yellow blossoms; many and many more old and dear friends of Grisell, redolent of Wilton cloister and Sister Avice; and she ran from one to the other quite transported, and forgetful of all the dignities of the young Lady of Whitburn, while Lambert was delighted, and hoped she would come again when his lilies were in bloom.
She was Grisell Dacre, the daughter of the Baron of Whitburn, and had been placed, young as she was, in the household of the Countess of Salisbury on her mother being made one of the ladies attending on the young Queen Margaret of Anjou, lately married to King Henry VI.
She was also to purchase a warm gown and mantle for her mother, and enough of cloth to afford winter garments for Bernard; and a steady old pack-horse carried the bundles of yarn to be exchanged for these commodities, since the Whitburn household possessed no member dexterous with the old disused loom, and the itinerant weavers did not come that way it was whispered because they were afraid of the fisher folk, and got but sorry cheer from the lady.
The comfort would have been in burning Crooked Nan, but that beldame had disposed of herself out of reach, though Lady Whitburn still cherished the hope of forcing the Gilsland Dacres or the Percies to yield the woman up.
The Earl of Salisbury could not but think that a strictly honourable man would have felt poor Grisell's disaster inflicted by his son's hands all the more reason for holding to the former understanding; but the loud clamours and rude language of Lady Whitburn were enough to set any one in opposition to her, and moreover, the words he said in favour of her side of the question appeared to Copeland merely spoken out of the general enmity of the Nevils to the Beauforts and all their following.
The Duke of York and Earl of Salisbury set forth to repress what they called a riot, probably unaware of the numbers who were daily joining the Queen. With them went Lord Whitburn, hoping thence to return home, and his son Robert, still a squire of the Duke's household. They reached York's castle of Sendal, and there merrily kept Christmas, but on St.
"Here is your mother, my poor child," began the Lady of Salisbury, but there was no token of joy. Grisell gave a little gasp, and tried to say "Lady Mother, pardon " but the Lady of Whitburn, at sight of the reddened half of the face which alone was as yet visible, gave a cry, "She will be a fright! You evil little baggage, thus to get yourself scarred and made hideous!
Her indignation was great when she heard of Copeland's love, and still more of his mission to seize Whitburn, saying, truly enough, that he should have taken both lady and Tower, or given both up, and lending a most unwilling ear to the plea that he had never thought his relations to Grisell binding. She had never loved Lady Heringham, and it was plainly with good cause.
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