“I?  Oh!  I make that you should stop at home and send some one else to do your business.  Sir Christopher, for instance.”

“Why, then I should baulk your dream, which is either true or false.  If true, I have no choice, it must be fulfilled; if false, why should I heed it?  Cicely, I am a plain man and take no note of such fancies.  Yet I have enemies, and it may well chance that my day is done.  If so, use your mother wit, girl; beware of Maldon, look to yourself, and as for your mother’s jewels, hide them,” and he turned to go.

She clasped him by the arm.

“In that sad case what should I do, father?” she asked eagerly.

He stopped and stared at her up and down.

“I see that you believe in your dream,” he said, “and therefore, although it shall not stay a Foterell, I begin to believe in it too.  In that case you have a lover whom I have forbid to you.  Yet he is a man after my own heart, who would deal well by you.  If I die, my game is played.  Set your own anew, sweet Cicely, and set it soon, ere that Abbot is at your heels.  Rough as I may have been, remember me with kindness, and God’s blessing and mine be on you.  Hark!  Jeffrey calls, and if they stand, the horses will take cold.  There, fare you well.  Fear not for me, I wear a chain shirt beneath my cloak.  Get back to bed and warm you,” and he kissed her on the brow, thrust her from him and was gone.

Thus did Cicely and her father part—­for ever.

All that day Sir John and Jeffrey, his serving-man, trotted forward through the snow—­that is, when they were not obliged to walk because of the depth of the drifts.  Their plan was to reach a certain farm in a glade of the woodland within two hours of sundown, and sleep there, for they had taken the forest path, leaving again for the Fens and Cambridge at the dawn.  This, however, proved not possible because of the exceeding badness of the road.  So it came about that when the darkness closed in on them a little before five o’clock, bringing with it a cold, moaning wind and a scurry of snow, they were obliged to shelter in a faggot-built woodman’s hut, waiting for the moon to appear among the clouds.  Here they fed the horses with corn that they had brought with them, and themselves also from their store of dried meat and barley cakes, which Jeffrey carried on his shoulder in a bag.  It was a poor meal eaten thus in the darkness, but served to stay their stomachs and pass away the time.

At length a ray of light pierced the doorway of the hut.

“She’s up,” said Sir John, “let us be going ere the nags grow stiff.”