She remembered Cuthbert Ridley, who had carried her about and petted her long ago, and, to her surprise, looked no older than he had done in those days when he had seemed to her infinitely aged. Indeed it was to him, far more than to her father, that she owed any attention or care taken of her on the journey. Her father was not unkind, but never seemed to recollect that she needed any more care than his rough followers, and once or twice he and all his people rode off headlong over the fell at sight of a stag roused by one of their great deer-hounds. Then Cuthbert Ridley kept beside her, and when the ground became too rough for a New Forest pony and a hand unaccustomed to northern ground, he drew up. She would probably—if not thrown and injured—have been left behind to feel herself lost on the moors. She minded the less his somewhat rude ejaculation, “Ho! Ho! South! South! Forgot how to back a horse on rough ground. Eh? And what a poor soft-paced beast! Only fit to ride on my lady’s pilgrimage or in a State procession.”
(He said Gang, but neither the Old English nor the northern dialect could be understood by the writer or the reader, and must be taken for granted.)
“They are all gone!” responded Grisell, rather frightened.
“Never guessed you were not among them,” replied Ridley. “Why, my lady would be among the foremost, in at the death belike, if she did not cut the throat of the quarry.”
Grisell could well believe it, but used to gentle nuns, she shuddered a little as she asked what they were to do next.
“Turn back to the track, and go softly on till my lord comes up with us,” answered Ridley. “Or you might be fain to rest under a rock for a while.”
The rest was far from unwelcome, and Grisell sat down on a mossy stone while Ridley gathered bracken for her shelter, and presently even brought her a branch or two of whortle-berries. She felt that she had a friend, and was pleased when he began to talk of how he remembered her long ago.
“Ah! I mind you, a little fat ball of a thing, when you were fetched home from Herring Dick’s house, how you used to run after the dogs like a kitten after her tail, and used to crave to be put up on old Black Durham’s back.”
“I remember Black Durham! Had he not a white star on his forehead?”
“A white blaze sure enough.”