d the Abbot supposed to be away.

Bolle, who had been out, reported also that a man he met declared that
he had heard a troop of horsemen pass through the village in the night,
but of this no proof was forthcoming, since if they had done so the
heavy rain that was still falling had washed out all traces of them.
Moreover, in those times people were always moving to and fro in the
dark, and none could know if this troop had anything to do with the band
they had seen in the forest, which might have gone some other way.

When Cicely was ready they went downstairs, and in Mother Matilda's
private room found Jacob Smith and Thomas Bolle awaiting them.

"Lady Harflete," said Jacob, with the air of a man who has no time to
lose, "things stand thus. As yet none know that you are here, for we
have the gardener and his wife under ward. But as soon as they learn
it at the Abbey there will be risk of an attack, and this place is not
defensible. Now at your hall of Shefton it is otherwise, for there
it seems is a deep moat with a drawbridge and the rest. To Shefton,
therefore, you must go at once, unobserved if may be. Indeed, Thomas has
been there already, and spoken to certain of your tenants whom he can
trust, who are now hard at work preparing and victualling the place,
and passing on the word to others. By nightfall he hopes to have thirty
strong men to defend it, and within three days a hundred, when your
commission and his captaincy are made known. Come, then, for there is no
time to tarry and the horses are saddled."

So Cicely kissed Mother Matilda, who blessed and thanked her for all she
had done, or tried to do on behalf of the sisterhood, and within five
minutes once more they were on the backs of their weary beasts and
riding through the rain to Shefton, which happily was but three
miles away. Keeping under the lee of the woods they left the Priory
unobserved, for in that wet few were stirring, and the sentinels at
the Abbey, if there were any, had taken shelter in the guard-house. So
thankfully enough they came unmolested to walled and wooded Shefton,
which Cicely had last seen when she fled thence to Cranwell on the
day of her marriage, oh, years and years ago, or so it seemed to her
tormented heart.

It was a strange and a sad home-coming, she thought, as they rode over
the drawbridge and through the sodden and weed-smothered pleasaunce to
the familiar door. Yet it might have been worse, for the tenants whom
Bol