People knew the end of the thing also; that Emlyn had cursed the Abbot, and that her curse had been fulfilled.  That Thomas Bolle had shaken off his superstitious fears and risen up against him and at last been given the commission of the King, and, as his Grace’s officer, shown himself no fool but a man of mettle who had taken the Abbey by storm and rescued Sir Christopher Harflete from its dungeons.  Emlyn also, like her mistress, had been bound to the stake as a witch, and saved from burning by this same Thomas, who with her had been concerned in many remarkable events whereof the countryside was full of tales, true or false.  Now at last after all these adventures they came together to be wed, and who was there for ten miles round that would not see it done?

The monks being gone Father Roger Necton, the old vicar of Cranwell, he who had united Christopher and his wife Cicely in strange circumstances, and for that deed been obliged to fly for his life when the last Abbot of Blossholme burned Cranwell Towers, came to tie the knot before his great congregation.  Notwithstanding that they were both of middle age, Emlyn in her grand gown and the brawny, red-haired Thomas in his yeoman’s garb of green, such as he had worn when he wooed her many years before he put on the monk’s russet robe, made a fine and handsome pair at the altar.  Or so folk thought, though some friend of the monks, remembering Bolle’s devil’s livery and Emlyn’s repute as a sorceress, cried out from the shadow that Satan was marrying a witch, and for his pains got his head broken by Jeffrey Stokes.

So the white-haired and gentle Father Necton, having first read the King’s order releasing Thomas from his vows, tied them fast according to the ancient rites and blessed them both.  At length it was finished, and the pair walked from the old church to the Manor Farm, where they were to dwell, followed, as was the custom, by a company of their friends and well-wishers.  As they went they passed through a little stretch of woodland by the stream, where on this spring day the wild daffodils and lilies of the valley were abloom making sweet the air.  Here Emlyn paused a moment and said to her husband, Captain Bolle—­

“Do you remember this place?”

“Aye, Wife,” he answered, “it was here that we plighted our troth in youth, and looked up to see Maldon passing us just beyond that same oak, and felt the shadow of him strike cold to our hearts.  You spoke of it yonder in the Priory chapel when I came up by the secret way, and its memory made me mad.”

“Yes, Thomas, I spoke of it,” answered Emlyn in a rich and gentle voice, a new voice to him.  “Well, now let its memory make you happy, as, notwithstanding all my faults, I will if I can,” and swiftly she bent towards him and kissed him, adding, “Come on, Husband, they press behind us and I hope that we have done with perils and plottings.”