"'Twas no doing of mine! She knew
not how to cut the bird."
Answering again was a far greater fault than the first, and his
father only treated it as his just desert when he was ordered off
under the squire in charge to be soundly scourged, all the more
sharply for his continuing to mutter, "It was her fault."
And sore and furrowed as was his back, he continued to exclaim, when
his friend Edmund of York came to condole with him as usual in all
his scrapes, "'Tis she that should have been scourged for clumsiness!
A foul, uncouth Border dame! Well, one blessing at least is that now
I shall never be wedded to her daughter--let the wench live or die as
she lists!"
That was not by any means the opinion of the Lady of Whitburn, and no
sooner was the meal ended than, in the midst of the hall, the debate
began, the Lady declaring that in all honour Sir William Copeland was
bound to affiance his son instantly to her poor daughter, all the
more since the injuries he had inflicted to her face could never be
done away with. On the other hand, Sir William Copeland was
naturally far less likely to accept such a daughter-in-law, since her
chances of being an heiress had ceased, and he contended that he had
never absolutely accepted the contract, and that there had been no
betrothal of the children.
The Earl of Salisbury could not but think that a strictly honourable
man would have felt poor Grisell's disaster inflicted by his son's
hands all the more reason for holding to the former understanding;
but the loud clamours and rude language of Lady Whitburn were enough
to set any one in opposition to her, and moreover, the words he said
in favour of her side of the question appeared to Copeland merely
spoken out of the general enmity of the Nevils to the Beauforts and
all their following.
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