that case the foresters
would have had to fight hard to make their retreat to their fastness. The
officer in command of the mercenaries, however, had no great stomach for
the matter. Men were hard to get, and Prince John would not have been
pleased to hear that a number of the men whom he had brought with such
expense from foreign parts had been killed in a petty fray. Therefore
after following for a short time he called them off, and the archers fell
back into the forest.

Here they found Dame Editha, and for three days she abode among them,
living in a small hut in the centre of the forest. Then she left, to take
up her abode, until the troubles were past, with some kin who lived in
the south of Gloucestershire.

Although the lady abbess had assured Cuthbert that the retreat of Lady
Margaret was not likely to be found out, he himself, knowing how great a
stake Sir Rudolph had in the matter, was still far from being easy. It
would not be difficult for the latter to learn through his agents that
the lady superior of the little convent near Hereford was of kin to her
of St. Anne's, and, close as a convent is, yet the gossiping of the
servants who go to market was certain to let out an affair so important
as the arrival of a young lady to reside under the charge of the
superior. Cuthbert was not mistaken as to the acuteness of his enemy. The
relationship between the two lady superiors was no secret, and after
having searched all the farmhouses and granges near the forest, and being
convinced that the lady abbess would have sent her charge rather to a
religious house than to that of a franklin, Sir Rudolph sought which of
those within the circuit of a few miles would be likely to be the one
selected. It was not long before he was enabled to fix upon that near
Hereford, and spies going to the spot soon found out from the
countrypeople that it was a matter of talk that a young lady of rank had
been admitted by the superior. Sir Rudolph hesitated whether to go
himself at the head of a strong body of men and openly to take her, or to
employ some sort of device. It was not that he himself feared the
anathema of the church; but he knew Prince John to be weak and
vacillating, at one time ready to defy the thunder of the pope, the next
cringing before the spiritual authority. He therefore determined to
employ some of his men to burst into the convent and carry off the
heiress, arranging that he himself, with some of his men-at-ar