A painful struggle succeeded. Cuthbert had been taught the rudiments of surgery and he knew the truth; the spine was broken just below the neck, and he saw that suffocation would be the end, from inability to inflate the lungs, or to inhale the air.
“Pray! ask the saints to intercede for thee! call upon the Blessed Mother! nay upon the Incarnate Son Himself!” said Cuthbert after the teaching of his day.
“Sancte Nicolæ ora pro me—Cuthbert hasten to Glastonbury—Sir John—the secret chamber—midnight—beware—omnes sancti—orate pro me peccatore.”
And so he died.
“I thank God his blood is not upon my head, that He Who has said ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ has Himself decided the question between us: poor Nicholas! yes, I can forgive thee freely, and the best proof of forgiveness is to pray for thy soul.”
He first laid the body decently on the turf, beneath the spreading beech, closed the eyes, composed the features, then spread the ill-fated youth’s cloak over his corpse, and knelt down to pray.
When he arose, the setting sun was casting his rays on all that was mortal of Nicholas Grabber. Cuthbert re-mounted his steed, cast a lingering look behind, then rode on slowly, for he could give his horse rest now, towards Glastonbury.
He entered that old monastic town by moonlight, ere the curfew rang; he felt strangely moved by all that had happened, yet he could but be sensible of great relief that such a danger was averted, much as he now pitied his late foe.
He passed the butts where he had once contended with Nicholas for the silver arrow, and entered the town; every street and almost every house awakened a flood of boyish recollections; but he turned not aside, until he reached the outskirts on the opposite side of the place, where his old foster father and mother yet, as he knew, lived, in a new cottage on the site of the former one, destroyed by fire.