style="font-size:15px;"> "These," she lamented, "are all that your mother has for her bed or her body. All her others your sisters have taken."
"I am considering," he answered her, "how I best may save my mother."
She took her linen to the spring which was deep and clear, and began sedulously to soak piece after piece, rinsing it over and over as she knelt, and beating it with an oaken staff upon an oaken board that she had in her basket bottom. And as she hung each piece over the bramble bushes she looked diligently into the scene below her to see what was stirring in the Castle or the village. Young Lovell had selected that high spot so that they might know what was agate by way of a pursuit. She saw, at intervals, three men on horseback go spurring up the street from the Castle arch, but she did not disturb her master with the news. She thought it better to leave him to his thinking, for she considered that he would hit upon some magic way out of it. She imagined that he had dwelt that three months amongst wizards and sorcerers that he should have met during his vigil in the little old chapel that was a very haunted place.
At last he raised his head and said:
"Old woman, tell me truly now, all your news."
What she knew first was that, on the morning when the Lord Lovell had died, all the lords and knights and the Prince Bishop and the others being gone from the hall, there remained only the dead lord, his wife in a swound, the Lady Margaret Eure and her. Then Sir Walter Limousin of Cullerford with his wife Isopel and the other sister had approached with several men of theirs in arms and had carried the good body of her senseless lady up to a little chamber in the tower called Wanshot, in the very top of it. She, Elizabeth Campstones, had carried her lady's feet, but all the rest of her bearers had been men-at-arms. The Lady Margaret had followed them up into that little stone cell and asked them what they would do with that lady in that place. But no one of them answered her a word, high and haughty as she was, and at last they went away and left them, the Lady Rohtraut just coming to herself on a little, rotting frame bed that had no coverings but the strings that held it together.
The Lady Margaret had sought to go out with them, calling them all proud and beastly names and she was determined to set her own men that she had there, to the number of twenty, all well armed, to make war upon these and to raise the Castle. But when she came to the doorway that was little and low Sir Simonde Vesey set his hand upon her chest and thrust her back so hard into the room that she fell against the wall and lost her breath. When she had it again the door was locked and it was of thick oak, studded deep with nails.
Finely she raved, but when she came to, the Lady Rohtraut was in a sort of stupour, sitting still and shaking her head at all that they said. She thought this must be a dream that would vanish upon her awakening, and so it was lost labour to talk.
So they remained until well on into the afternoon, seeing nothing but the ceaseless run of the clouds and the sky and the gulls upon the Farne Islands and the restless sea, from their little window. Then there came three weeping maids of their lady's, bearing bedding that they set down on the floor, and a little food and some wine that were placed upon the window-sill. But these girls spoke no word, for Sir Simonde Vesey stood outside and looked awfully upon them. The Lady Margaret made to run from the room, but two men that stood hidden put their pikes to her breast so that she ran upon them, and would have been sore hurt only they were somewhat blunted.
The Lady Rohtraut sat for a long while eating a little white bread that she crumbled in her fingers, and sipping at the wine from the black leather bottle, but still she said little, which was a great pity.
Towards four of the afternoon, to judge by the shadows, Sir Simonde let himself in at the door and asked the Lady Margaret if she would forthwith marry the Decies. She said no, not if Sathanas himself branded her with hot irons to make her do it. Sir Simonde said she might as lief do it since she was betrothed to that good knight and that could never be altered. Then she caught at the little dagger with which she was wont to mend her pens. It hung in her girdle, and Sir Simonde went swiftly enough out at the little door.
The Lady Margaret chafed up and down that small place, but those women said little, for they knew well what this all meant in the way of robbery and pillage and bending them to their wills. But the Lady Margaret swore that she would have the Eures of Witton and the Widdringtons and the Nevilles themselves – aye and the spy Percies – who were all her good cousins, and they should hang the Decies and do much worse to the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle.
And no doubt she had the right of it, for long after it was dark they saw a glow of light illumining in a dreary way the face of the White Tower, so that the Lady Margaret thought it was a fire of joy or at least a baal-blaze, but Elizabeth Campstones said that it was houses burning in the township. Then a man with a torch came through the little doorway and lighted in the Magister, or as he now was, the Bailiff Stone, since the Prince Bishop had signed the appointment for him that morning. This rendered him safe against any persecution or processes of laymen in those parts, nevertheless, when the torch-bearer had stuck his torch in a ring by the door and gone away, the lawyer would have the little door left open, and they knew afterwards that it was done so that the men without might rescue him if the Lady Margaret meant to strike or slay him, for she could have slain five of such lean cats.
Before the Lady Margaret could bring out a question, for she was astonished and could not think why such a person should come there, he broke into a trembling gibber:
"Oh, good kind ladies; oh, gentle sweet and noble dames, for God His love and sufferings, save all our lives and houses of which two are burning!"
The Lady Margaret asked highly what all this claver was and what he wanted.
"These are very violent and high-stomached people," the lawyer babbled quaveringly on. "Two houses of the township they have burned, and hanged the husbandmen for an example. So that if you do not save us…"
He stretched his hands to the Lady Rohtraut, but she looked before her and said nothing.
"Well, go you and make common cause with them," the Lady Margaret said to him contemptuously. "So you will save your neck.
"Ah, but no," he answered miserably but with a sort of professional and cunning air. "I must be on the side of the law."
"Then what does the law say?" she asked as bitterly. "I will warrant you will not be far from the top dog."
He began, however, to whine and wring his hands and said that he had not long to live if he could not win these ladies to do the wills of the violent people who had taken that Castle, not but what it might not be said that they had not some shew of equity on their sides.
"I thought we should come near there," the Lady Margaret said; "come, Master, what is the worst on 't?"
"Ah, gentle lady," the lawyer said, "this is at the best a grievous matter; at the worst it is…" And he waved his hand as if there were no speaking of it.
"Go on," the Lady Margaret said grimly.
"I have been so confused," the lawyer answered, "with much running here and there and seeing such blood flow and the hearing of such threats…"
"Come, come," the lady said, "you are a man of law and such a clever one that if I threw you out of this window you could tell the law of it or ever you fell to the ground."
"I am not saying," he retorted, with a sort of relish, "that I go in doubts concerning the law. What perplexes and affrights me is the fall of great and powerful lords. As to the torts, replevins, fines, amercements and the other things too numerous to recite, I am clear enough."
"Well, it is in the fall of mighty lords that the rats of your trade find bloody bones to
