‘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?’
‘Ay, a summer’s dream!’ said Hal. ‘Tell her the folly of it.’
‘I verily believe he does not want me. If he had not a lame leg, I trow he would be trying to be mewed up with his King!’
‘It would be my duty,’ murmured Hal, ‘nor should I love thee the less.’
‘’Tis a duty beyond your reach,’ said the Prioress. ‘Master Lorimer hears that none have access to King Henry, God help him! and he sits as in a trance, as though he understood and took heed of nothing—not even of this last sore battle.’
‘God aid him! Aye, and his converse is with Him,’ said Hal, with a gush of tears. ‘He minds nought of earth, not even earthly griefs.’
‘But we, we are of earth still, and have our years before us,’ said Anne, ‘and I will not spend mine the dreary lady of a dull castle. Either I will back and take my vows in your Priory, reverend Mother, if Hal there disdains to have me.’
‘Nan, Nan! when you know that all I dread is to have you mewed behind a wall of snow as thick as the walls of the Tower and freezing to the bone!’
‘With you behind it telling all the tales. Mother, prithee prove to him that I am not made of sugar like the Clares, but that I love a fresh wind and the open moorlands.’