Before the day was over the two had made friends, and Grisell had found him to be a gentle, scholarly youth, whom the defence of the Queen had snatched from his studies into the battlefield. He told her a great deal about the good King, and his encouragement of his beloved scholars at Eton, and he spoke of Queen Margaret with an enthusiasm new to Grisell, who had only heard her reviled as the Frenchwoman. Pierce could speak with the greatest admiration, too, of his own knight, Sir Leonard, whom he viewed as the pink of chivalry, assuring Lady Copeland, as he called her, that she need never doubt for a moment of his true honour and courtesy. Grisell longed to know, but modest pride forbade her to ask, whether he knew how matters stood with her rival, Lady Eleanor Audley. Ridley, however, had no such feeling, and he reported to Grisell what he had discovered.
Young Hardcastle had only once seen the lady, and had thought her very beautiful, as she looked from a balcony when King Henry was riding to his Parliament. Leonard Copeland, then a squire, was standing beside her, and it had been currently reported that he was to be her bridegroom.
He had returned from his captivity after the battle of Northampton exceedingly downcast, but striving vehemently in the cause of Lancaster, and Hardcastle had heard that the question had been discussed whether the forced marriage had been valid, or could be dissolved; but since the bodies of Lord Whitburn and his son had been found on the ground at Wakefield, this had ceased, and it was believed that Queen Margaret had commanded Sir Leonard, on his allegiance, to go and take possession of Whitburn and its vassals in her cause.
But Pierce Hardcastle had come to Ridley's opinion, that did his knight but shut his eyes, the Lady Grisell was as good a mate as man could wish both in word and deed.
"I would fain," said he, "have the Lady Eleanor to look at, but this lady to dress my hurts, ay, and talk with me. Never met I woman who was so good company! She might almost be a scholar at Oxford for her wit."
However much solace the lady might find in the courtesy of Master Hardcastle, she was not pleased to find that her hand-maiden Thora exchanged glances with the young men-at-arms; and in a few days Ridley spoke to Grisell, and assured her that mischief would ensue if the silly wench were not checked in her habit of loitering and chattering whenever she could escape from her lady's presence in the solar, which Grisell used as her bower, only descending to the hall at meal-times.
Grisell accordingly rebuked her the next time she delayed unreasonably over a message, but the girl pouted and muttered something about young Ralph Hart helping her with the heavy pitcher up the stair.
"It is unseemly for a maiden to linger and get help from strange soldiers," said Grisell.
"No more unseemly than for the dame to be ever holding converse with their captain," retorted the North Country hand-maiden, free of speech and with a toss of the head.
"Whist, Thora! or you must take a buffet," said Grisell, clenching a fist unused to striking, and trying to regard chastisement as a duty. "You know full well that my only speech with Master Hardcastle is as his hostess."
Thora laughed. "Ay, lady; I ken well what the men say. How that poor youth is spell-bound, and that you are casting your glamour over him as of old over my poor old lady and little Master Bernard."
"For shame, Thora, to bring me such tales!" and Grisell's hand actually descended on her maiden's face, but so slight was the force that it only caused a contemptuous laugh, which so angered the young mistress as to give her energy to strike again with all her might.
"And you'd beat me," observed her victim, roused to anger. "You are so ill favoured yourself that you cannot bear a man to look on a fair maid!"
"What insolence is this?" cried Grisell, utterly amazed. "Go into the turret room, spin out this hank, and stay there till I call you to supper. Say your Ave, and recollect what beseems a modest maiden."
She spoke with authority, which Thora durst not resist, and withdrew still pouting and grumbling.
Grisell was indeed young herself and inexperienced, and knew not that her wrath with the girl might be perilous to herself, while sympathy might have evoked wholesome confidence.
For the maiden, just developing into northern comeliness, was attractive enough to win the admiration of soldiers in garrison with nothing to do, and on her side their notice, their rough compliments, and even their jests, were delightful compared with the dulness of her mistress's mourning chamber, and court enough was paid to her completely to turn her head. If there were love and gratitude lurking in the bottom of her heart towards the lady who had made a fair and skilful maiden out of the wild fisher girl, all was smothered in the first strong impulse of love for this young Ralph Hart, the first to awaken the woman out of the child.
The obstacles which Grisell, like other prudent mistresses in all times, placed in the course of this true love, did but serve to alienate the girl and place her in opposition. The creature had grown up as wild and untamed as one of the seals on the shore, and though she had had a little training and teaching of late years, it was entirely powerless when once the passion was evoked in her by the new intercourse and rough compliments of the young archer, and she was for the time at his beck and call, regarding her lady as her tyrant and enemy. It was the old story of many a household.
CHAPTER XVIII-WITCHERY
The lady has gone to her secret bower,
The bower that was guarded by word and by spell.
SCOTT, The Lay of the Last Minstrel.
"Master Squire," said the principal man-at-arms of the garrison to Pierce Hardcastle, "is it known to you what this laidly dame's practices be?"
"I know her for a dame worthy of all honour and esteem," returned the esquire, turning hastily round in wrath. He much disliked this man, a regular mercenary of the free lance description, a fellow of French or Alsatian birth, of middle age, much strength, and on account of a great gash and sideways twist of his snub nose always known as Tordu, and strongly suspected that he had been sent as a sort of spy or check on Sir Leonard Copeland and on himself. The man replied with a growclass="underline"
"Ah ha! Sans doubt she makes her niggard fare seem dainty cakes to those under her art."
In fact the evident pleasure young Hardcastle took in the Lady Castellane's society, the great improvement in his wound under her treatment, and the manner in which the serfs around came to ask her aid in their maladies, had excited the suspicion of the men-at-arms. They were older men, hardened and roughened, inclined to despise his youth, and to resent the orderly discipline of the household, which under Ridley went on as before, and the murmurs of Thora led to inquiries, answered after the exaggerated fashion of gossip.
There were outcries about provisions and wine or ale, and shouts demanding more, and when Pierce declared that he would not have the lady insulted, there was a hoarse loud laugh. He was about to order Tordu as ringleader into custody, but Ridley said to him aside, "Best not, sir; his fellows will not lay a finger on him, and if we did so, there would be a brawl, and we might come by the worst."
So Pierce could only say, with all the force he could, "Bear in mind that Sir Leonard Copeland is lord here, and all miscourtesy to his lady is an offence to himself, which will be visited with his wrath."
The sneering laugh came again, and Tordu made answer, "Ay, ay, sir; she has bewitched you, and we'll soon have him and you free."
Pierce was angered into flying at the man with his sword, but the other men came between, and Ridley held him back.