How Croftly cut the Hay in the Two-Year Stack.
There was a great deal of talk about punishing those who had rescued Mother Goodhugh from the flames; but Sir Mark was away with his wife, and soon after his marriage, being somewhat of a favourite of the British Solomon, he was appointed to a diplomatic post at one of the continental courts, and when Sir Thomas Beckley took his first steps to vindicate the insult offered to the law he received so broad a hint that he might suffer bodily for his interference, that he quietly shut himself up in his old house, surrounded by the carp-haunted moat, and took walks upon its bank to give the gaping, staring fish a model that they might study for their benefit at will.
In fact, the rescue of Mother Goodhugh was half forgotten in the news that was spread by the superstitious that by her subsequent death a spell had been broken, and Sweet Mace had been set free and had returned to life.
For by degrees she was restored, but it was only by long and patient nursing. In the latter part of her imprisonment her faculties had become dulled, and the shock had produced a semi-torpid state that had its effect upon her mental powers, which were slow to recover their tone. Gil was ever by her side, though she did not know him or her father; but, after a month’s prostration, during which she had hardly left her couch, she began to fight her way very slowly back to strength.
Tender nursing prevailed, and, could her health, drunk in flagons of ale, have given it back sooner, Master Peasegood would have insured her the most robust of constitutions months before she was seated in the old garden, an object of curiosity to all who saw her, with the face of twenty and the silvery hair of three-score and ten.
But the ashy pallor gave way to the returning hue of health, and the rigid, fixed features became softened and rounded. It was Sweet Mace’s old face again by the next summer, all but a couple of deeply-marked lines in her forehead—lines of care and thought which still remained.
The founder sighed even in his joy at her return, for still there was something wanting.
“Nay, Gil,” he said, sadly, “thou hast brought me back the body of my darling, but thou hast not brought the spirit. She smiles sadly and gazes at me when I speak, and that is all.”
“Yes, that is all,” groaned Gil; “she knows me no longer.”
“Poor lad, poor lad!” muttered Master Peasegood, who was present; and he drowned his sigh in a flagon of ale.