Among the various hungry and diseased there limped in a sturdy beggar with a wallet on his back, and a broad shady hat, as though on pilgrimage. He was evidently a stranger among the rest, and had his leg and foot bound up, leaning heavily on a stout staff.
‘Italy pilgrim, what ails thee?’ demanded the lady, as he approached her.
‘Alack, noble dame! we poor pilgrims must ever be moving on, however much it irks foot and limb, over these northern stones,’ he answered, and his accent and tone were such that a thrill seemed to pass over the lady’s whole person, but she controlled it, and only said, ‘Tarry till these have received their alms, then will I see to thee and thy maimed foot. Give him a stool, Alice, while he waits.’
The various patients who claimed the lady’s assistance were attended to, those who needed food were relieved, and in due time the hall was cleared, excepting of the lady, an old female servant, and Hob, who had sat all the time with his foot on a stool, and his back against the wall, more than half asleep after the toils and long journey of the night.
Then the Lady Threlkeld came to him, and making him a sign not to rise, said aloud, ‘Good Gaffer, let me see what ails thy leg.’ Then kneeling down and busying herself with the bandages, she looked up piteously in his face, with the partly breathed inquiry, ‘My son?’
‘Well, my lady, and grown into a stalwart lad,’ was Hob’s answer, with an eye on the door, and in a voice as low as his gruff tones would permit.
‘And wherefore? What is it?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Be they on the track of my poor boy?’
‘They may be,’ answered Hob, ‘wherefore I deemed it well to shift our quarters. As hap would have it, the lad fell upon a little wench lost in the mosses, and there was nothing for it but to bring her home for the night. I would have had her away as soon as day dawned, and no questions asked, but the witches, or the foul fiend himself, must needs bring up a snow-storm, and there was nothing for it but to let her bide in the cot all day, giving tongue as none but womenfolk can do; and behold she is the child of the Lord St. John of Bletso.’
‘Nay, what should bring her north?’
‘She wonnes at Greystone with the wild Prioress Selby, who lost her out hawking. Her father is a black Yorkist. I saw him up to his stirrups in blood at St. Albans!’