Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/294

 nor threat, for God's love and Allhallows' I will heal him if it may be.

So he took Osberne from Steelhead's arms, and being a stark and big man got him on to the bed and did off his raiment. Then he searched his grievous hurts according to leechcraft, and presently looked up from the wounded man and said: Since this man is not yet dead, I deem not his hurts deadly, and I think to heal him with the help of the Holy Saints. Said Steelhead: Thou hast in thy mouth, my friend, a deal of holiness that I know nought of. But I thank thee, and if thou heal my friend verily I will call thee Holy. Now shall I depart, but to-morrow forenoon I shall come here again and learn tidings of him. Go in peace, and God and Allhallows keep thee, said the hermit. Well, well, said Steelhead, we will not contend about it, but I look to it to keep myself. And therewith he strode off into the night.

There then lay Osberne between life and death a long while; but after a time he began to mend, and came to his right mind, and remembered the felon-strokes in the ghyll; but of Steelhead's being there he knew nothing, for Steelhead had charged the hermit to say no word of it to him. The hermit was a good and kind man and a well-learned leech, and after a while Osberne began to mend speedily. And he would have amended speedier, but he was sick at heart that his sudden hope had so failed him, and said within himself that now all hope was gone. Albeit the Dale and Wethermel drew him to them without ceasing.