THE WOUNDED KNIGHT
Belted Will Howard is marching here,
And hot Lord Dacre with many a spear
SCOTT, _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_.
“MASTER GROOT, a word with you.” A lay brother in the coarse, dark robe
of St. Benedict was standing in the booth of the Green Serpent.
Groot knew him for Brother Christopher of Monks Wearmouth, and touched
his brow in recognition.
“Have you here any balsam fit for a plaguey shot with an arquebuss, the
like of which our poor peaceful house never looked to harbour?”
“For whom is it needed, good brother?”
“Best not ask,” said Brother Christopher, who was, however, an inveterate
gossip, and went on in reply to Lambert’s question as to the place of the
wound. “In the shoulder is the worst, the bullet wound where the Brother
Infirmarer has poured in hot oil. St. Bede! How the poor knight howled,
though he tried to stop it, and brought it down to moaning. His leg is
broken beside, but we could deal with that. His horse went down with
him, you see, when he was overtaken and shot down by the Gilsland folk.”
“The Gilsland folk!”
“Even so, poor lad; and he was only on his way to see after his own, or
his wife’s, since all the Whitburn sons are at an end, and the Tower gone
to the spindle side. They say, too, that the damsel he wedded perforce
was given to magic, and fled in form of a hare. But be that as it will,
young Copeland—St. Bede, pardon me! What have I let out?”
“Reck not of that, brother. The tale is all over the town. How of
Copeland?”
“As I said even now, he was on his way to the Tower, when the Dacres—Will
and Harry—fell on him, and left him for dead; but by the Saints’ good
providence, his squire and groom put him on a horse, and brought him to
our Abbey at night, knowing that he is kin to our Sub-Prior. And there
he lies, whether for life or death only Heaven knows, but for death it
will be if only King Edward gets a scent of him; so hold your peace,
Master Groats, as to who it be, as you live, or as you would not have his
blood on you.”
Master Groats promised silence, and gave numerous directions as to the
application of his medicaments, and Brother Kit took his leave,
reiterating assurances that Sir Leonard’s life depended on his secrecy.
Whatever was said in the booth was plainly audible in the inner room.
Grisell and Clemence were packing linen, and the little shutter of the
wooden partition was open. Thus Lambert found Grisell standing with
clasped hands, and a face of intense attention and suspense.
“You have heard, lady,” he said.
“Oh, yea, yea! Alas, poor Leonard!” she cried.
“The Saints grant him recovery.”
“Methought you would be glad to hear you were like to be free from such a
yoke. Were you rid of him, you, of a Yorkist house, might win back your
lands, above all, since, as you once told me, you were a playmate of the
King’s sister.”
“Ah! dear master, speak not so! Think of him! treacherously wounded, and
lying moaning. That gruesome oil! Oh! my poor Leonard!” and she burst
into tears. “So fair, and comely, and young, thus stricken down!”
“Bah!” exclaimed Lambert. “Such are women! One would think she loved
him, who flouted her!”
“I cannot brook the thought of his lying there in sore pain and dolour,
he who has had so sad a life, baulked of his true love.”
Master Lambert could only hold up his hands at the perversity of
womankind, and declare to his Clemence that he verily believed that had
the knight been a true and devoted Tristram himself, ever at her feet,
the lady could not have been so sore troubled.
The next day brought Brother Kit back with an earnest request from the
Infirmarer and the Sub-Prior that “Master Groats” would come to the
monastery, and give them the benefit of his advice on the wounds and the
fever which was setting in, since gun-shot wounds were beyond the scope
of the monastic surgery.
To refuse would not have been possible, even without the earnest entreaty
of Grisell; and Lambert, who had that medical instinct which no training
can supply, went on his way with the lay brother.
He came back after many hours, sorely perturbed by the request that had
been made to him. Sir Leonard, he said, was indeed sick nigh unto death,
grievously hurt, and distraught by the fever, or it might be by the blow
on his head in the fall with his horse, which seemed to have kicked him;
but there was no reason that with good guidance and rest he should not
recover. But, on the other hand, King Edward was known to be on his
progress to Durham, and he was understood to be especially virulent
against Sir Leonard Copeland, under the impression that the young knight
had assisted in Clifford’s slaughter of his brother Edmund of Rutland.
It was true that a monastery was a sanctuary, but if all that was
reported of Edward Plantagenet were true, he might, if he tracked
Copeland to the Abbey, insist on his being yielded up, or might make
Abbot and monks suffer severely for the protection given to his enemy;
and there was much fear that the Dacres might be on the scent. The Abbot
and Father Copeland were anxious to be able to answer that Sir Leonard
was not within their precincts, and, having heard that Master Groats was
about to sail for Flanders, the Sub-Prior made the entreaty that his
nephew might thus be conveyed to the Low Countries, where the fugitives
of each party in turn found a refuge. Father Copeland promised to be at
charges, and, in truth, the scheme was the best hope for Leonard’s
chances of life. Master Groot had hesitated, seeing various difficulties
in the way of such a charge, and being by no means disposed towards Lady
Grisell’s unwilling husband, as such, though in a professional capacity
he was interested in his treatment of his patient, and was likewise
touched by the good mien of the fine, handsome, straight-limbed young
man, who was lying unconscious on his pallet in a narrow cell.
He had replied that he would answer the next day, when he had consulted
his wife and the ship-master, whose consent was needful; and there was of
course another, whom he did not mention.
As he told all the colour rose in Grisell’s face, rosy on one side,
purple, alas, on the other. “O master, good master, you will, you will!”
“Is it your pleasure, then, mistress? I should have held that the
kindness to you would be to rid you of him.”
“No, no, no! You are mocking me! You know too well what I think! Is
not this my best hope of making him know me, and becoming his true
and—and—”
A sob cut her short, but she cried, “I will be at all the pains and all
the cost, if only you will consent, dear Master Lambert, good Master
Groot.”
“Ah, would I knew what is well for her!” said Lambert, turning to his
wife, and making rapid signs with face and fingers in their mutual
language, but Grisell burst in—
“Good for her,” cried she. “Can it be good for a wife to leave her
husband to be slain by the cruel men of York and Warwick, him who strove
to save the young Lord Edmund? Master, you will suffer no such foul
wrong. O master, if you did, I would stay behind, in some poor hovel on
the shore, where none would track him, and tend him there. I will! I
vow it to St. Mary.”
“Hush, hush, lady! Cease this strange passion. You could not be more
moved if he were the tenderest spouse who ever breathed.”
“But you will have pity, sir. You will aid us. You will save us. Give
him the chance for life.”
“What say you, housewife?” said Groot, turning to the silent Clemence,
whom his signs and their looks had made to perceive the point at issue.
Her reply was to seize Grisell’s two hands, kiss them fervently, clasp
both together, and utter in her deaf voice two Flemish words, “_Goot
Vrow_.” Grisell eagerly embraced her in tears.
“We have still to see what Skipper Vrowst says. He may not choose to
meddle with English outlaws.”
“If you cannot win him to take my knight, he will not take me,” said
Grisell.
There was no more to be said except something about the waywardness of
the affections of women and dogs; but Master Groot was not ill-pleased at
the bottom that both the females of the household took part against him,
and they had a merry supper that night, amid the chests in which their
domestic apparatus and stock-in-trade were packed, with the dried lizard,
who passed for a crocodile, sitting on the settle as if he were one of
the company. Grisell’s spirits rose with an undefined hope that, like
Sir Gawaine’s bride, or her own namesake, Griselda the patient, she
should at last win her lord’s love; and, deprived as she was of all her
own relatives, there arose strongly within her the affection that ten
long years ago had made her haunt the footsteps of the boy at Amesbury
Manor.
Groot was made to promise to say not a word of her presence in his
family. He was out all day, while Clemence worked hard at her
_démenagement_, and only with scruples accepted the assistance of her
guest, who was glad to work away her anxiety in the folding of curtains
and stuffing of mails.
At last Lambert returned, having been backwards and forwards many times
between the _Vrow Gudule_ and the Abbey, for Skipper Vrowst drove a hard
bargain, and made the most of the inconvenience and danger of getting
into ill odour with the authorities; and, however anxious Father Copeland
might be to save his nephew, Abbot and bursar demurred at gratifying
extortion, above all when the King might at any time be squeezing them
for contributions hard to come by.
However, it had been finally fixed that a boat should put in to the Abbey
steps to receive the fleeces of the sheep-shearing of the home grange,
and that, rolled in one of these fleeces, the wounded knight should be
brought on board the _Vrow Gudule_, where Groot and the women would await
him, their freight being already embarked, and all ready to weigh anchor.
The chief danger was in a King’s officer coming on board to weigh the
fleeces, and obtaining the toll on them. But Sunderland either had no
King, or had two just at that time, and Father Copeland handed Master
Groot a sum which might bribe one or both; while it was to the interest
of the captain to make off without being overhauled by either.