“No, sir, we do not need you,” said Grisell. “If Sir Leonard Copeland lives and claims this Tower, there is no choice save to yield it to him. I would not delay you in seeking your own safety, but only thank you for your true service to my lord and father.”

She held out her hand, which Featherstone kissed on his knee.

His horse was terribly jaded, and he thought he could make his way more safely on foot than in the panoply of an esquire, for in this war, the poorer sort were hardly touched; the attacks were chiefly made on nobles and gentlemen. So he prepared to set forth, but Grisell obtained from him what she had scarcely understood the night before, the entire history of the fall of her father and brother, and how gallantly Leonard Copeland had tried to withstand Clifford’s rage.

“He did his best for them,” she said, as if it were her one drop of hope and comfort.

Ridley very decidedly hoped that Clifford’s blow had freed her from her reluctant husband; and mayhap the marriage would give her claims on the Copeland property. But Grisell somehow could not join in the wish. She could only remember the merry boy at Amesbury and the fair face she had seen sleeping in the hall, and she dwelt on Featherstone’s assurance that no wound had pierced the knight, and that he would probably be little the worse for his fall against the parapet of the bridge. Use her as he might, she could not wish him dead, though it was a worthy death in defence of his old playfellow and of her own brother.

CHAPTER XVI
A NEW MASTER

In the dark chambère, if the bride was fair,
Ye wis, I could not see.
. . . .
And the bride rose from her knee
And kissed the smile of her mother dead.

E. B. Browning, The Romaunt of the Page.

The Lady of Whitburn lingered from day to day, sometimes showing signs of consciousness, and of knowing her daughter, but never really reviving. At the end of a fortnight she seemed for one day somewhat better, but that night she had a fresh attack, and was so evidently dying that the priest, Sir Lucas, was sent for to bring her the last Sacrament. The passing bell rang out from the church, and the old man, with his little server before him, came up the stair, and was received by Grisell, Thora, and one or two other servants on their knees.

Ridley was not there. For even then, while the priest was crossing the hall, a party of spearmen, with a young knight at their head, rode to the gate and demanded entrance.

The frightened porter hurried to call Master Ridley, who, instead of escorting the priest with the Host to his dying lady, had to go to the gate, where he recognised Sir Leonard Copeland, far from dead, in very different guise from that in which he had been brought to the castle before. He looked, however, awed, as he said, bending his head—