“And cure the bone ache and the rheumatics,” said another.
A fat, pork butcher with a face the colour of swine’s flesh remembered that his dame was to take to her bed in a month, and that he would have her blessed by Denise. A charm against “the staggers” was the desire of a carrier. Wuluric, a wax chandler, wondered whether his trade would be increased. One old woman was eaten up with a sore that would not heal. “I shall beg me a little of her spittle,” said she, “a holy virgin’s spittle on a dock leaf is a wondrous cure.”
So they brought Denise to her cell near Mountjoye Hill, and from that hour they began to call the little field below it “Virgin’s Croft.”
All this had happened the day before Oswald and Peter had told the Lord of the Saw-pit the tale of the devil in the Goldspur beech wood. According to Grimbald’s bidding they brought the pony to him at dawn, helped him from his hiding-place, and set him upon the beast which bore up bravely though Grimbald’s heels nearly ploughed the ground. They started off through the woods, thinking to make Goldspur within two hours, but their reckonings were without the sanction of heaven, for Grimbald’s pony stumbled over a red ant’s mound, and threw the priest heavily, for he was weak after his many days abed. And Grimbald lay on his back with his arms spread out like the arms of a man crucified, and Oswald and Peter stood and stared at him, and wondered whether he was dead.
They knelt down and chafed his feet and hands until Grimbald came to his senses again, and cheered them with the uttering of a few godly curses. The men lifted him up, and for their clumsiness he cursed them further, and bade them put him with his back against a tree. Grimbald, being a heavy man, had broken his right collar-bone in the fall, and he was still weak for such rough byplay.
“Give me a mouthful of water,” he said.
But neither Oswald nor Peter had water with them, nor was there a pool near, nor a running brook. Grimbald looked at them with mighty disdain, and Oswald, sneaking off, mounted his pony to get what he could. Five miles rode Oswald that morning before he came to Burghersh village, and begged a hornful of mead there, and a bottle of water. He bumped back again at a rollicking canter, till his pony’s coat was as wet as if he had swum a stream. Grimbald had been sick as a dog with the twist of the fall, but the mead heartened him, and he bade Oswald splash the water on his face. Then they bound his right arm to his body with their girdles, and when he had rested awhile, he made them put him again upon the pony.
Nor was this mounting an easy matter, though approached in subtle and backward fashion over the pony’s tail. Happily the beast had no kick in him, being tired and subdued. So they had Grimbald astride, and started off once more, the men walking one on either side, and steadying him as they went.
What with the time wasted, and the slow travelling that they made, evening was making the beech wood brilliant as they climbed up out of the valley. The great sentinel trees that stood forward from the main host cast purple shadows upon the grass. A small herd of red deer went trotting into the green-wood, and there was a great silence save for the sucking patter of their hoofs.
One corner of Denise’s glade was still steeped in sunlight when Grimbald and his men came from under the beech trees. They could see that both the wicket gate and the cell door stood open. Grimbald dismounted at the wicket, and leaning on Oswald’s shoulder, went up the path towards the cell. They were close to the threshold when a brownish thing flew forth into their faces, screamed, and sped away on noiseless wings. It was only a great owl, but Oswald had covered his face with his arm like one who fears a blow.