Griscom

“ Poor Griscombe stood overwhelmed with a multitude of emotions. One thing alone was clear to his mind: he must protect his innocent and precious charge from all knowledge of what had now doubtless befallen her unhappy father. It were better that those emissaries of evil that had beset him should fulfil their every purpose—even to the last—rather than that she should suffer. He must be dumb, and allow them to conclude their dreadful work. ”

“ Evans,” replied Ralph.
“Oh, yes, you do. Forgan is partial to you. The others don’t like me because I’m a crack man in my line. One word, though; I’ll pay you off for this some time or other,” and Evans left the spot shaking his fist at Ralph menacingly.
“One of the bad kind,” mused Ralph, looking after the fellow, “not at all fit for duty half the time. Here comes one of the good kind,” he added as a freight engine with a long train of cars attached steamed up at the roundhouse. “It’s my run, Mr. Griscom.” ”

“ But these courteous expressions only declared to Griscombe how inadequate was his play, and at each repetition merely served to incite him to fresh endeavors.
At the end of an hour the stranger declared his appetite for the amusement to be satisfied; and, gathering up his jack-straws and replacing them in the ebony box, he thanked our hero most courteously for the entertainment he had offered him. ”

“ At these words Griscombe knew not whether his ears deceived him nor whether he or this new-found [44] client were mad or sane. Nor could he at all accredit the truth of what he heard, until the stranger, opening the mouth of the bag, poured forth upon the table a great heap of jingling gold money. "You will," resumed his new-found client, with perfect composedness of manner, "be, no doubt, considerably surprised to learn the nature of the duty which I shall call upon you to perform. It is that you play me a game of jack-straws." ”

“ Her father had given her to believe that he would follow her immediately to New York, accordingly, reminding Griscombe that the next day would be Christmas, she invited him to come to M. de Troinville's to dine with them. Nor could Griscombe listen to her innocent prattle without experiencing such an overmastering pity for her unconsciousness of the tragic fate that had overtaken her father and for her own hapless condition, that it was well-nigh impossible for him to answer her sallies with raillery of a like sort. ”

“ At the very first appearance of the stranger—who, somehow, in his singularly Oriental appearance suggested the jack-straw player of a few days before—a strange presentiment of evil began to take possession of Griscombe's mind. Nor were his apprehensions lessened as the old gentleman, resuming his speech, continued as follows: "I am, as you may observe, my dear young gentleman and my dear young lady, extremely old ”

“ A sob cut her short, but she cried, “I will be at all the pains and all the cost, if only you will consent, dear Master Lambert, good Master Groot.”
“Ah, would I knew what is well for her!” said Lambert, turning to his wife, and making rapid signs with face and fingers in their mutual language, but Grisell burst in—
“Good for her,” cried she. “Can it be good for a wife to leave her husband to be slain by the cruel men of York and Warwick, him who strove to save the young Lord Edmund? Master, you will suffer no such foul wrong. ”

“ Grisha walked the streets, rejoicing in this brisk cold, in his new clothes, and with his naïve fancies; he always loved to dream when he was alone, and he dreamt always of great deeds, of fame, of a bright, happy life in a rich house, indeed of everything that was unlike the sad reality.
As Grisha stood on the bank of the canal and looked through the iron railings at the thin ice that floated on the surface, he was approached by a street urchin in threadbare attire, and with hands red from the cold. ”

“ At one of these—not one of the largest or handsomest, but far superior to the old home at Sunderland—hung the large handsome painted and gilded sign of the same serpent which Grisell had learnt to know so well, and here the barge hove to, while two servants, the man in a brown belted jerkin, the old woman in a narrow, tight, white hood, came out on the steps with outstretched hands.
“Mein Herr, my dear Master Lambert. Oh, joy! Greet thee well. Thanks to our Lady that I have lived to see this day,” was the old woman’s cry. ”

“ All the city of Bruges watched in anxiety for tidings, for the kindly Duke was really loved where his hand did not press. One evening during the suspense when Master Lambert was gone out to gather tidings, there was the step with clank of spurs which had grown familiar, and Leonard Copeland strode in hot and dusty, greeting Vrow Clemence as usual with a touch of the hand and inclination of the head, and Grisell with hand and courteous voice, as he threw himself on the settle, heated and weary, and began with tired fingers to unfasten his heavy steel cap. ”

“ With as much formality as if she was entering a conquered city, Lady Grizel received the keys of the barbican gate from her ground-baillie Syme, of the Greenhill, who, bareheaded, with three stout sons, bearing torches, and several of the old servants who had found shelter in Syme's onsteading, and whose clamorous joy burst forth in loud pæans of triumph, as she was led by the baillie into the old baronial chamber of dais, the canopy of which, to the simple "tenant bodies" of those days, was fraught with more terrors than the chair of the Lord President Lockhart. ”

“ The move in the open air had partly revived him, partly made him feverish, and he continued to murmur complacently his thanks to Eleanor for tending her “wounded knight,” little knowing whom he wounded by his thanks.
On one point this decided Grisell. She looked up at Lambert, and when he used her title of “Lady,” in begging her to leave old Mother Abra in charge and to come down to supper, she made a gesture of silence, and as she came down the broad stair—a refinement scarce known in England—she entreated him to let her be Grisell still. ”

“ He entreated Grisell to accompany him and Clemence, assuming her that at the chief city of so great a prince as Duke Philip of Burgundy, she would have a better hope of hearing tidings of her husband than in a remote town like Sunderland; and that if she still wished to dispose of her jewels she would have a far better chance of so doing. He was arguing the point with her, when there was a voice in the stall outside which made Grisell start, and Lambert, going out, brought in Cuthbert Ridley, staggering under the weight of his best suit of armour, and with a bundle and bag under his mantle. ”

“ You could not be more moved if he were the tenderest spouse who ever breathed.”
“But you will have pity, sir. You will aid us. You will save us. Give him the chance for life.”
“What say you, housewife?” said Groot, turning to the silent Clemence, whom his signs and their looks had made to perceive the point at issue. Her reply was to seize Grisell’s two hands, kiss them fervently, clasp both together, and utter in her deaf voice two Flemish words, “Goot Vrow.” Grisell eagerly embraced her in tears. ”

“ The wealth and luxury of the citizen world of the Low Countries caused the proud and jealous nobility to treat them with the greater distance of manner. And, as Grisell afterwards learnt, this was Isabel de Souza, Countess of Poitiers, a Portuguese lady who had come over with her Infanta; and whose daughter produced Les Honneurs de la Cour, the most wonderful of all descriptions of the formalities of the Court.
Grisell remained kneeling on the steps of the dais, while the Duchess addressed her in much more imperfect Flemish than she could by this time speak herself. ”

“ And thus as time went on Grisell led no unhappy life. Every one around was used to her scars, and took no notice of them, and there was nothing to bring the thought before her, except now and then when a fishwife’s baby, brought to her for cure, would scream at her. She never went beyond the castle except to mass, now and then to visit a sick person, and to seek some of the herbs of which she had learnt the use, and then she was always attended by Thora and Ridley, who made a great favour of going. ”

“ Grisell gave a little gasp, and tried to say “Lady Mother, pardon—” but the Lady of Whitburn, at sight of the reddened half of the face which alone was as yet visible, gave a cry, “She will be a fright! You evil little baggage, thus to get yourself scarred and made hideous! Running where you ought not, I warrant!” and she put out her hand as if to shake the patient, but the Countess interposed, and her niece Margaret gave a little cry. “Grisell is still very weak and feeble! She cannot bear much; we have only just by Heaven’s grace brought her round.” ”

“ Grismer tipped him generously:
"Be very attentive to this young lady," he said, "and see that she has every service required, and that she is notified in plenty of time to get off at Hudson. Now you may leave us until we ring."
He turned from the corridor and entered the stateroom, closing the door behind him. The girl sat on the sofa, very pale, with a dazed expression in her eyes.
He seated himself beside her and drew her hands into his own.
"Let me tell you something," he said cheerfully. "Everybody makes mistakes. You've made some; so have I; so has everybody I ever heard of. ”

“ His lectures were constantly attended by students in other departments of the university for sheer pleasure in Griswold's racy and entertaining exposition of the laws touching the libeling of schooners and the recovery of jettisoned cargoes. Henry Maine Griswold was tall, slender and dark, and he hovered recklessly, as he might have put it, on the brink of thirty. He stroked his thin brown mustache habitually, as though to hide the smile that played about his humorous mouth—a smile that lay even more obscurely in his fine brown eyes. ”

“ I called up Griswold and learned that he had never lived in New England, and had spent most of his brief vacations here at home, or out in the Middle West. That helped to give me a start, and I sized Simpson up as a man with some clever ideas, but probably timid and unacquainted with the world in many respects. I reasoned that such a man might conceive the idea of outwitting his enemies by hiding his stealings in the last place which would be likely to be searched—his own—and once thought of, I felt sure he would decide on it for other reasons. ”

“ I doubt me much, lady, that there is little hope of winning back your lands, whatever side may be uppermost, yet there be true hearts among our villeins, who say they will never pay dues to any save their lord’s daughter.”
“Then I am landless and homeless,” sighed Grisell.
“The greater cause that you should make your home with us, lady,” returned Lambert Groot; and he went on to lay before Ridley the state of the case, and his own plans. ”

“ Every one else, however, was very kind to the poor girl, Sister Avice especially so, and Grisell soon forgot her disfigurement when she ceased to suffer from it. She had begun to learn reading, writing, and a little Latin, besides spinning, stitchery, and a few housewifely arts, in the Countess of Salisbury’s household, for every lady was supposed to be educated in these arts, and great establishments were schools for the damsels there bred up. It was the same with convent life, and each nunnery had traditional works of its own, either in embroidery, cookery, or medicine. ”

“ Next they came to some fine meadows. "Whose are those beautiful green, meadows?" said she. "They belong to king Grisly-beard; hadst thou taken him, they had all been thine." "Ah! unlucky wretch that I am!" said she, "would that I had married king Grisly-beard!"
Then they came to a great city. "Whose is this noble city?" said she. "It belongs to king Grisly-beard: hadst thou taken him, it had all been thine." "Ah! miserable wretch that I am!" sighed she, "why did I not marry king Grisly-beard?" "That is no business of mine," said the musician; "why should you wish for another husband? ”

“ Old Grizzie was bright as the new day, bustling and deedy. Her sense of the awful was nowise to be measured by the degree of her dread: she believed and did not fear—much. She had an instinctive consciousness that a woman ought to be, and might be, and was a match for the devil.
“I am sorry we have no coffee for your lordship,” said the laird, “To tell the truth, we seldom take anything more than our country’s porridge. I hope you can take tea? Our Grizzie’s scons are good, with plenty of butter.” ”

“ They went into the woods back [Pg 292] of the church, where Griswold began to exercise his reasoning powers.
"Some one must have come in from this direction and freed the man and taken him away," he declared.
He knelt and marked the hoof-prints where Appleweight had been left tied; but the grass here was much trampled, and Griswold was misled by the fact, not knowing that news of Appleweight's strange disappearance had passed among the outlaw's friends by the swift telegraphy of the border, and that the whole neighborhood had been threshed over hours before. ”

“ Griswold said irritably. "We have quartered the globe. The other experts are anxious to land, so they can get to their work. We have made a search for your civilization and we have not found it."
"I withdraw all objections to landing, Captain. You are entirely correct. We must land."
The intercom on the wall squawked into life.
"Observation to Control. Observation to Control. Network of canals forming a junction ahead."
"Prepare for landing, Lieutenant Atkinson," Griswold commanded sharply. "At the junction." He turned and watched the screen. "There, Mr. Berkeley, dead ahead. ”