The
priest and Meg Margetson, who knows more of wounds and simples than
anyone here, are with him."
"Has his mother's body been recovered?"
The man shook his head.
"The hold was on fire, from roof to cellar, before they left," he said.
"I and others ran up there, directly they had galloped away. The house
was like a furnace. And indeed, we knew not of her death until a boy,
who had seen her slain, and had dropped from a window and hidden
himself till they had gone, came out and told us. He, and two or three
others, are the only ones left alive of those in the hold, when we
arrived and saved young Allan; and indeed, whether he lives now, or
not, I know not. The priest said, when we carried him in, that his
state was almost beyond hope."
Oswald galloped on to the end of the village, leapt from his horse, and
threw the reins to Roger, who had been muttering words that he
certainly would not have found in the missals, or the books, of the
monastery.
"Is there nothing to be done, Master Oswald?"
"Not at present. We must wait till my uncle returns."
Then he entered the house. He had met the priest frequently, during his
stay with the Armstrongs; as he entered the room, he was standing by a
pallet on which Allan was laid, while a very old woman was attending to
a decoction that was boiling over the fire.
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