Thora's treachery was specially perilous. All that the young man
could do was to seek counsel with Cuthbert Ridley, and even this he
was obliged to do in the stable, bidding Dick keep watch outside.
Ridley too had heard a spiteful whisper or two, but it had seemed too
preposterous for him to attend to it. "You are young, Hardcastle,"
he said, with a smile, "or you would know that there is nothing a
grumbler will not say, nor how far men's tongues lie from their
hands."
"Nay, but if their hands DID begin to act, how should we save the
lady? There's nothing Tordu would not do. Could we get her away to
some nunnery?"
"There is no nunnery nearer at hand than Gateshead, and there the
Prioress is a Musgrove, no friend to my lord. She might give her up,
on such a charge, for holy Church is no guardian in them. My poor
bairn! That ingrate Thora too! I would fain wring her neck! Yet
here are our fisher folk, who love her for her bounty."
"Would they hide her?" asked Pierce.
"That serving-wench--would I had drowned her ere bringing her here--
might turn them, and, were she tracked, I ken not who might not be
scared or tortured into giving her up!"
Here Dick looked in. "Tordu is crossing the yard," he said.
They both became immediately absorbed in studying the condition of
Featherstone's horse, which had never wholly recovered the flight
from Wakefield.
After a time Ridley was able to steal away, and visit Grisell in her
apartment.
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