“Aye, it is. Take our thanks, friend!”
The packman mounted his pony and went away through the grey day, the few flakes of snow.
“Are you going, too?” asked Emmy. “I see you over wold and you do not come back. But I wish you to come back and I must weep!”
“We are pilgrims—we cannot stay! Some one has set us a pilgrimage.”
In an hour they had parted with the old smith and with Emmy. Englefield and Morgen Fay went over the wold, not by the road, but by a shepherds’ path, running hereabouts over and between low hills. From the first of these they looked back. They could see, almost closely, the smithy and the hut under the hill. They had loved this place, loved the wold.
“Love it still and take it with us! So I have the rose tree and Ailsa and the garden. All things we love go with us, nor can we ever help that.”
“So who loveth most hath most treasure!”
They looked back to the smithy and then to the road that ran almost beneath them on this hill top. Now they could see approaching a mounted company, thirty at least, still a good way off but growing larger with a steady pacing movement.
“Let us watch. They do not dream we are here. Move yonder and the furze will hide.”