‘Nay,’ she said, looking up through her tears, ’and wherefore should I not share your shepherd’s lot?’

’You!  Nan, sweet Nan, tenderly nurtured in the convent while I have ever lived as a rough hardy shepherd!’

‘And I have ever been a moorland maid,’ she answered, ’bred to no soft ways.  I know not how to be the lady of a castle—­I shall be a much better herdsman’s wife, like your good old Dolly, whom I have always loved and envied.’

’You never saw us snowed up in winter with all things scarce, and hardly able to milk a goat.’

‘Have not we been snowed up at Greystone for five weeks at a time?’

‘Ay, but with thick walls round and a stack of peat at hand,’ said Hal, his heart beating violently as more and more he felt that the maiden did not speak in jest, but in full earnestness of love.

’Verily one would deem you took me for a fine dainty dame, such as I saw at the Minoresses’, shivering at the least gust of fresh wind, and not daring to wet their satin shoes if there had been a shower of rain in the cloisters.  Were we not all stifled within the walls, and never breathed till we were out of them?  Nay, Hal, there is none to come between us now.  Take me to your moors and hills!  I will be your good housewife and shepherdess, and make you such a home!  And you will teach me of the stars and of the flowers and all the holy lore of your good royal hermit.’

’Ah! my hermit, my master, how fares it with him?  Would that I could go and see!’

‘Which do you love best—­me or the hermit?’ asked Anne archly, lifting up her head, which was lying on his shoulder.

‘I love you, mine own love and sweetheart, with all my heart,’ he said, regaining her hand, ’but my King and master with my soul; and oh! that I had any strength to give him!  I love him as my master in holy things, and as my true prince, and what would I not give to know how it is with him and how he bears these dreadful tidings!’

He bent his head, choking with sobs as he spoke, and Anne wept with him, her momentary jealousy subdued by the picture of the lonely prisoner, his friends slain in his cause, and his only child cut off in early prime; but she tried the comfort of hoping that his Queen would be with him.  Thus talking now of love, now of grief, now of the future, now of the past, the Prioress found them, and as she was inclined to blame Anne for letting her patient weep, the maiden looked up to her and said, ’Dear Mother, we are disputing—­I want this same Hal to wed me so soon as he can stand and walk.  Then I would go home with him to Derwentside, and take care of him.’

The Prioress burst out laughing.  ’Make porridge, milk the ewes and spin their wool?  Eh?  Meet work for a baron’s daughter!’

‘So I tell her,’ said Harry.  ‘She knows not how hard the life is.’

‘Do I not?’ said Anne.  ’Have I not spent a night and day, the happiest my childhood knew, in your hut?  Has it not been a dream of joy ever since?’