Prior Hugh of Saint Leofric, with him a dozen monks and the rest stout lay Brothers, rode thoughtfully, mounted on his white mule. Out of grey day, athwart the gathering snow, pictures formed for him. The man and woman above him, hidden on the hill brow, also saw pictures, vivid, defined, one after the other. Friar Martin, huge on huge horse, looked upward as he passed. They saw his great tanned face, his black beard wagging ever for Saint Leofric. Loyalties—loyalties!
There passed Prior Hugh and his following. Reaching the smithy they halted and dismounted.
Richard Englefield and Morgen Fay went on over the wold, taking faint, broken paths of shepherds. The sky was grey and came close, they saw not a living thing on the wold before them, the flakes began to fall a little more thickly. An hour passed, and now they talked together and now they were silent.
Down came the flakes; the flakes came down. Now they were white and many, steadily, steadily falling. Before long they seemed to quicken, they became a soft vast multitude, they hid as with curtains the wold all around.
“This is the path?”
“Aye, but there will be a great snow.”
They walked as fast as they might, but the path ran up and down or wound in the trough of the low waves of whitened earth. They could not eat the leagues. And ever the snow came faster. “Three hours yet of daylight. Time enough to reach Brighthaven. But if the snow covers the path—”
The snow covered it. An hour went by.
“We have all the wold for path! But eastward there lies the sea. And by my reckoning Grey Farm should be near.”
“The snow cometh so we cannot be sure—”