And I nodded my head, for I could say no word.
She said, "Pray you, do not wake them. An they sleep till the morrow,
all will be well." Suddenly her wits came back upon her with a rush, as
doth a wind that hath seemed to be gone for aye. And she snapt the
girdle on her wrists like as it had been a thread o' silk, and ran and
laid hold on him with her hands, and dragged him forth upon the grass.
And she saith,
"Ernle! Ernle! Ernle! What! wilt thou not answer me, now that thou art
free? See! thou mayest ride to war. It is not yet too late. What there,
nurse! My lord's charger! Run! run!" Then leaped she to her feet with
one cry that methought would 'a' cracked the welkin in twain above our
heads.
"Dead! Oh God in heaven!"
So for an instant she stood, with her arms reached high above her head,
and her eyes upon him as he lay at her feet, even as a flame doth poise
for a breath ere sinking again upon the coals. But anon she dropped down
beside him, and beat her forehead with the lower palms o' her hands, and
she saith, "Well didst thou sign me with thy blood! well didst thou sign
me with thy blood!" Then all at once did she peep up at me over her
shoulder with one o' her winsome ways, and fell a-laughing softly.
"Nurse," saith she, "hath he not found a pretty way to punish me? He
feigns it well--by'r lay'kin--doth he not, nurse?"
And she rocked to and fro, as she knelt beside him, laughing softly to
herself, and ever and again she would reach forth one little hand, all
scarred in her struggle with Mistress Marian, and would touch a stray
lock into place, and once she bent over and kissed him, laughing softly,
and nodding to herself very wisely. And she would sit that way, and rock
herself to and fro, and smile upon the ground, and laugh softly, until
the very day that she did die. And the last words that she did ever say
were, "Just once, Ernle--just once."
* * * * *
(Nurse Crumpet rises and stirs the fire, amid a heavy silence, broken
only by the little Lady Dorothy's sobs and the rushing of the wind
outside the great hall.)