’Blackreed Moss!  That moor belongs to the De Vescis, the blackest Lancaster fellow of all!  His daughter is the widow of the red-handed Clifford, who slew young Earl Edmund on Wakefield Bridge.  They say her young son is in hiding in some moss in his lands, for the King holds him in deadly feud for his brother’s death.’

‘He was a babe, and had nought to do with it,’ said Anne.

‘He is of his father’s blood,’ returned Sister Joan, who in her convent was still a true north country woman.  ’Ay, Lady Anne, you from your shires know nought of how deep goes the blood feud in us of the Borderland!  Ay, lady, was not mine own grandfather slain by the Musgrave of Leit Hill, and did not my father have his revenge on his son by Solway Firth?  Yea, and now not a Graeme can meet a Musgrave but they come to blows.’

‘Nay, but that is not what the good Fathers teach,’ Anne interposed.

’The Fathers have neither chick nor child to take up their quarrel.  They know nought about blood crying for blood!  If King Edward caught that brat of Clifford he would make him know what ’tis to be born of a bloody house.’

Anne tried to say something, but the lay Sister pushed her along.  ’There, there, go you down—­you know nothing about what honour requires of you!  You are but a south country maid, and have no notion of what is due to them one came from.’

Joan Graeme was only a lay Sister, her father a small farmer when not a moss trooper; but all the Border, on both sides, had the strongest ideas of persistent vendetta, such as happily had never been held in the midland and southern counties, where there was less infusion of Celtic blood.  Anne was a good deal shocked at the doctrine propounded by the attendant Sister, a mild, good-natured woman in daily life, but the conversation confirmed her suspicions, and put her on her guard as she remembered Hob’s warning.  She had liked the shepherd lad far too much, and was far too grateful to him, to utter a word that might give him up to the revengers of blood.

At the foot of the stone stairs that led into the quadrangle she met the black-robed, heavily hooded Sister Scholastica on her way to the chapel.  The old nun held out her arms.  ’Safely returned, my child!  God be thanked!  Art thou come to join thy thanksgiving with ours at this hour of nones?’

’Nay, I am bound to break my fast with the Mother and Master Bertram.’

’Ah! thou must needs be hungered!  It is well!  But do but utter thy thanks to Him Who kept thee safe from the storm and from foul doers.’

Anne did not break away from the good Sister, but went as far as the chapel porch, was touched with holy water, and bending her knee, uttered in a low voice her ‘Gratias ago,’ then hastened across the court to the refectory, where the Prioress received her with a laugh and, ’So Sister Scholastica laid hands on thee; I thought I should have to come and rescue thee ere the grouse grew cold.’