‘A shepherd took me to his hut, Lady Mother,’ answered Anne rather coldly.

’Little didst thou think of our woe and grief when thy palfrey was found standing riderless at the stable door, and Sister Scholastica told us that there he had been since nones!  And she had none to send in quest but Cuddie, the neatherd.’

’My palfrey fell with me when you were in full chase of hawk and heron, ‘and none ever turned a head towards me nor heard me call.’

’Poor maid!  But it was such a chase as never you did watch.  On and on went the heron, the falcon ever mounting higher and higher, till she was but a speck in the clouds, and Tam Falconer shouting and galloping, mad lest she should go down the wind.  Methought she would have been back to Norroway, the foul jade!’

‘Did you capture her, Mother?’ asked Anne.

’Ay, she pounced at last, and well-nigh staked herself on the heron’s beak!  But we had a long ride, and were well-nigh at the Tyne before we had caught her.  Full of pranks, but a noble hawk, as I shall write to my brother by the next messenger that comes our way.  I call it a hawk worth her meat that leads one such a gallop.’

’What would you have done, reverend Mother, if she had crossed the Border?’ asked Bertram.

’Ridden after her.  No Scot would touch a Lady Prioress on the chase,’ responded Mother Agnes, looking not at all like a reverend Mother.  ’Now, poor Anne, thou must be hungered.  Thou shalt eat with Master Bertram and me in the refectory anon.  Take her, Sister Joan, and make her ready to break her fast with us.’

Anne quickly went to her chamber.  It was not quite a cell, the bare stone walls being hung with faded woollen tapestry, the floor covered with a deerskin, the small window filled with dark green glass, a chest serving the double purpose of seat and wardrobe, and further, a bed hung with thick curtains, in which she slept with the lay Sister, Joan, who further fetched a wooden bowl of water from the fountain in the court that she might wash her face and hands.  She changed her soiled riding-dress for a tight-fitting serge garment of dark green with long hanging sleeves, assisted by Joan, who also arranged her dark hair in two plaits, and put over it a white veil, fastened over a framework to keep it from hanging too closely.

All the time Joan talked, telling of the fright the Mother had been in when the loss of the Lady Anne had been discovered, and how it was feared that she had been seized by Scottish reivers, or lost in the snow on the hills, or captured by the Lancastrians.

’For there be many of the Red Rose rogues about on the mosses—­ comrades, ‘tis said, of that noted thief Robin of Redesdale.’

‘I was with good folk, in a shepherd’s sheiling,’ replied Anne.

‘Ay, ay.  Out on the north hill, methinks.’

‘Nay.  Beyond Deadman’s Pool,’ said Anne.  ’By Blackreed Moss.  That was where the pony fell.’