“He scorned and ran away from you. He is mansworn and recreant,” persisted Bernard. “Rob and I will make him say that you are the fairest of ladies.”
“O nay, nay. That he could not.”
“But you are, you are—on this side—mine own Grisly,” cried Bernard, whose experiences of fair ladies had not been extensive, and who curled himself on her lap, giving unspeakable rest and joy to her weary, yearning spirit, as she pressed him to her breast. “Now, a story, a story,” he entreated, and she was rich in tales from Scripture history and legends of the Saints, or she would sing her sweet monastic hymns and chants, as he nestled in her lap.
The mother had fits of jealousy at the exclusive preference, and now and then would rail at Grisell for cosseting the bairn and keeping him a helpless baby; or at Bernard for leaving his mother for this ill-favoured, useless sister, and would even snatch away the boy, and declare that she wanted no one to deal with him save herself; but Bernard had a will of his own, and screamed for his Grisly, throwing himself about in such a manner that Lady Whitburn was forced to submit, and quite to the alarm of her daughter, on one of these occasions she actually burst into a flood of tears, sobbing loud and without restraint. Indeed, though she hotly declared that she ailed nothing, there was a lassitude about her that made it a relief to have the care of Bernard taken off her hands; and the Baron’s grumbling at disturbed nights made the removal of Bernard’s bed to his sister’s room generally acceptable.
Once, when Grisell was found to have taught both him and Thora the English version of the Lord’s Prayer and Creed, and moreover to be telling him the story of the Gospel, there came, no one knew from where, an accusation which made her father tramp up and say, “Mark you, wench, I’ll have no Lollards here.”
“Lollards, sir; I never saw a Lollard!” said Grisell trembling.
“Where, then, didst learn all this, making holy things common?”
“We all learnt it at Wilton, sir, from the reverend mothers and the holy father.”
The Baron was fairly satisfied, and muttered that if the bairn was fit only for a shaveling, it might be all right.
Poor child, would he ever be fit for that or any occupation of manhood? However, Grisell had won permission to compound broths, cakes, and possets for him, over the hall fire, for the cook and his wife would not endure her approach to their domain, and with great reluctance allowed her the materials. Bernard watched her operations with intense delight and amusement, and tasted with a sense of triumph and appetite, calling on his mother to taste likewise; and she, on whose palate semi-raw or over-roasted joints had begun to pall, allowed that the nuns had taught Grisell something.