“Believed it of me? Well, I did it.”
“Then arrive Abbot Mark and Prior Matthew, riding hard from Silver Cross. Now comes about the strangest thing. I doff my cap, I lout my knee to Westforest!”
He told. She drew hard breath, then broke into terrible laughter. “So, the monk is in the madhouse and they drive a stake for me by town cross? But the Abbot and the Prior and the crew that worked for them, and Sir Robert Somerville—oh, have you no little penance at all? Must be that you are to say a hundred paternosters or give a tall wax candle! Nothing? Scot free? If they take me, I will tell!”
“If you do, it does you no good nor them any harm! Prior Matthew usually spins without a fault.”
“‘Us,’ Rob! Does ‘us’ no harm!”
He jerked his shoulders. “‘Us’ then. I was at home. Thomas Bettany brought me all this two hours agone. I came as soon as I could think it out. Search is up already, Morgen! They course here and they course there. Presently the ruined farm. I run high danger, standing talking here.”
“Begone, then! Quick, Rob, quick!”
Somerville turned red under her tone. “Naturally, I am all thy care! Thou bitter witch!”
“Didst ever burn thy finger? It is not pleasant to burn finger. Well, now, counsel!”
“Counsel is to hide as deep and as soon as may be.”