Derette laid up the remark in her mind for future consideration.
“Folks baint all bad that other folks call ill names,” he observed further.
Derette gave a little nod. She was satisfied that Ermine had found a refuge, and with some unlikely person.
“Wind’s chopped round since morning, seems to me,” pursued Stephen, as if he had nothing particular to say. “Blew on my back as I came up to the gate.”
Another nod from Derette. She understood that Ermine’s refuge lay south of Oxford.
“Have you seen Flemild?” she asked. “She has sprained her wrist sadly, and cannot use her hand.”
“Now just you tell her,” answered Stephen, with a significant wink, “I’ve heard say the White Witch of Bensington makes wonderful cures with marsh-mallows poultice: maybe it would ease her.”
“I’ll let her know, be sure,” said Derette: and Stephen took his leave as Leuesa returned with her purchase.
He had told her nothing about Ermine: he had told her every thing. Derette thanked God for the—apparently causeless—impulse to mention her sister’s accident, which had just given Stephen the opportunity to utter the last and most important item. Not the slightest doubt disturbed her mind that Ermine was in the keeping of the White Witch of Bensington, and that Stephen was satisfied of the Wise Woman’s kind treatment and good faith. She was sorry for Gerhardt and Agnes; but she had loved Ermine best of all. As for Rudolph, if Ermine were safe, why should he not be likewise? Derette’s was a hopeful nature, not given to look on the dark side of any thing which had a light one: a tone of mind which, as has been well said, is worth a thousand a year to its possessor.
Leuesa returned full of excitement. A wolf had been killed only three miles from the city, and the Earl had paid the sportsman fourpence for its head, which was to be sent up to the King—the highest price ever given for a wolf’s head in that county. The popular idea that Edgar exterminated all the wolves in England is an error. Henry Second paid tenpence for three wolves’ heads (Pipe Roll, 13 Henry Second), and Henry Third’s State Papers speak of “hares, wolves, and cats,” in the royal forests (Close Roll, 38 Henry Third).