Grisly Grisell by Yonge, Charlotte Mary, 1823-1901

Leonard Copeland's mood was sullen, not to say surly. He submitted to the chastisement without a word or cry, for blows were the lot of boys of all ranks, and were dealt out without much respect to justice; and he also had to endure a sort of captivity, in a dismal little circular room in a turret of the manorial house, with merely a narrow loophole to look out from, and this was only accessible by climbing up a steep broken slope of brick-work in the thickness of the wall.

Here, however, he was visited by his chief friend and comrade, Edmund Plantagenet of York, who found him lying on the floor, building up fragments of stone and mortar into the plan of a castle.

"How dost thou, Leonard?" he asked. "Did old Hal strike very hard?"

"I reck not," growled Leonard.

"How long will my uncle keep thee here?" asked Edmund sympathisingly.

"Till my father comes, unless the foolish wench should go and die. She brought it on me, the peevish girl. She is always after me when I want her least."

"Yea, is not she contracted to thee?"

"So they say; but at least this puts a stop to my being plagued with her--do what they may to me. There's an end to it, if I hang for it."

"They would never hang thee."

"None knows what you traitor folk of Nevil would do to a loyal house," growled Leonard.

"Traitor, saidst thou," cried Edmund, clenching his fists. "'Tis thy base Somerset crew that be the traitors."

"I'll brook no such word from thee," burst forth Leonard, flying at him.

"Ha! ha!" laughed Edmund even as they grappled. "Who is the traitor forsooth? Why, 'tis my father who should be King. 'Tis white-faced Harry and his Beauforts--"

The words were cut short by a blow from Leonard, and the warder presently found the two boys rolling on the floor together in hot contest.

And meanwhile poor Grisell was trying to frame with her torn and flayed cheeks and lips, "O lady, lady, visit it not on him! Let not Leonard be punished. It was my fault for getting into his way when I should have been in the garden. Dear Madge, canst thou speak for him?"

Madge was Edmund's sister, Margaret of York, who stood trembling and crying by Grisell's bed.

CHAPTER II--THE BROKEN MATCH

The Earl of Salisbury, called Prudence.

Contemporary Poem.

Little Grisell Dacre did not die, though day after day she lay in a suffering condition, tenderly watched over by the Countess Alice. Her mother had been summoned from attendance on the Queen, but at first there only was returned a message that if the maid was dead she should be embalmed and sent north to be buried in the family vault, when her father would be at all charges. Moreover, that the boy should be called to account for his crime, his father being, as the Lady of Whitburn caused to be written, an evil-minded minion and fosterer of the house of Somerset, the very bane of the King and the enemies of the noble Duke of York and Earl of Warwick.