But, as he rode up to the porch of the house, his father came out to meet him, and one look at his grief-stricken face made him forget everything else but the pain in his foot and leg, for he moved it suddenly to reach over and greet his father, and then, overcome by the long hours of pain, the sudden anguish made him feel sick and faint, and he reeled in his saddle, and would have fallen if his father had not caught him in his strong arms.
"Ah, woe is me! for here is another son struck down in my very arms," said the old man, with a groan, as he supported Miles until the servants could come and help to carry him into the house. Miles heard the words, although to his failing senses they seemed a long way off, for he felt as though he was sinking, sinking away into nothingness; and yet this "Woe is me! woe is me!" kept ringing in his ears while he sank farther and farther away from life and hope into the depth of its woefulness.
There was great consternation in the household when Miles was carried into the hall helpless and unconscious, and although their anxiety was somewhat relieved when the reeve told them about the students' fray at the fair, still, to see their second son in such a condition just after the death of the first, was sufficiently alarming to both his parents.
A monk surgeon was sent for from a neighbouring monastery, and when he had heard the reeve's account of what had happened before they left Oxford, and how excited the lad became over the depopulation of the village, he said the fatigue and pain he had suffered, added to this excitement, was sufficient to account for his present illness.
But, although it was sufficient for the doctor, there were whispers in the household the next day that the family misfortune had been caused by witchcraft, and when it was known that Miles could not possibly attend his brother's funeral, these vague rumours became certainties in the minds of the panic-stricken servants.
Sir Thomas Paton and his wife were too fully occupied to pay much heed to the whispers that were abroad, but after the funeral of their eldest son, and when Miles began to recover, then there was time for the rumours to make themselves heard.
Three sons and four daughters had been born to Sir Thomas and Lady Jane Paton, but the bones of one son were whitening on the fields of France, and three girls had sickened and died within a month, and the fourth was a frail, delicate girl, who rarely went beyond her own rooms, which were in the sunniest and most pleasant wing of the house, looking out upon the park, and sheltered from every rough wind or disagreeable sight that could interfere with her comfort.
Margery's rooms, too, were more luxuriously furnished than any other portion of the house. The walls were hung with arras, and the floor plentifully supplied with green rushes; her casements were made to open that she might have the fresh air when she pleased, which was in itself a most unheard-of luxury in those days. Indeed, to please Mistress Margery was the business of the whole household, and little went on but the news of it reached her, either through her maid or one of the other servants who waited upon her.
And so at last Margery heard the whisper about her brothers being bewitched.
"Perhaps they think I am bewitched too, as I lie here so long, and get no stronger," laughed the girl, for her maid's long face provoked this merriment in spite of the sorrow she was suffering.