“Let him blood! good madame,” exclaimed Master Lambert. “In his state, to take away his blood would be to kill him outright!”
“False fool and pretender,” cried Lady Whitburn; “as if all did not ken that the first duty of a leech is to take away the infected humours of the blood! Demented as I was to send for you. Had you been worth but a pinch of salt, you would have shown me how to lay hands on Nan the witch-wife, the cause of all the scathe to my poor bairn.”
Master Lambert could only protest that he laid no claim to the skill of a witch-finder, whereupon the lady stormed at him as having come on false pretences, and at her daughter for having brought him, and finally fell into a paroxysm of violent weeping, during which Grisell was thankful to convey her guest out of the chamber, and place him under the care of Ridley, who would take care he had food and rest, and safe convoy back to Wearmouth when his mule had been rested and baited.
“Oh, Master Lambert,” she said, “it grieves me that you should have been thus treated.”
“Heed not that, sweet lady. It oft falls to our share to brook the like, and I fear me that yours is a weary lot.”
“But my brother! my little brother!” she asked. “It is all out of my mother’s love for him.”
“Alack, lady, what can I say? The child is sickly, and little enough is there of peace or joy in this world for such, be he high or low born. Were it not better that the Saints should take him to their keeping, while yet a sackless babe?”
Grisell wrung her hands together. “Ah! he hath been all my joy or bliss through these years; but I will strive to say it is well, and yield my will.”
The crying of the poor little sufferer for his Grisly called her back before she could say or hear more. Her mother lay still utterly exhausted on her bed, and hardly noticed her; but all that evening, and all the ensuing night, Grisell held the boy, sometimes on her lap, sometimes on the bed, while all the time his moans grew more and more feeble, his words more indistinct. By and by, as she sat on the bed, holding him on her breast, he dropped asleep, and perhaps, outwearied as she was, she slept too. At any rate all was still, till she was roused by a cry from Thora, “Holy St. Hilda! the bairn has passed!”
And indeed when Grisell started, the little head and hand that had been clasped to her fell utterly prone, and there was a strange cold at her breast.