Kate did not trouble her head as to whether anyone had seen her from the mill. She set the donkey’s nose for the Forest, and helped him with her heels. Luckily, she knew the way, and soon the moon came over the hill to help her.
“A blessing on you, Master Moon,” she said quite solemnly, looking over the donkey’s tail.
The clock at Paradise was striking midnight when Kate saw the Black Moor lying dim and mysterious under the moon. More than once she had been shrewdly frightened in the deeps of the woods; but old Jock was the most stolid of mokes, and the beast’s steadiness had comforted her. She had stretched herself on his back, her arms about his neck, her face close to his flopping ears, and had talked to him.
“Who’s afraid, Jock? I can say a Mater Maria and a Pater. Besides, we are on a good errand, and the saints will watch over us.”
Jock, by his silence, most heartily agreed with her.
“Dom Geraint is a treacherous villain. The lean, black rat! Some day Abbot Hilary will send for Martin Valliant and will make him prior.”
She sat up straight on Jock’s back as the donkey climbed the moor. The place had a magic for her. She could imagine all sorts of miraculous things happening where Martin Valliant lived.
“Assuredly he will be a very great saint,” she said to herself, “and people will come to him to be healed.”
Presently she saw the cross standing out against the sky, and it stirred her almost to passionate tears. She slipped off Jock’s back, fastened him to a stunted thorn, and went on alone.
Everything was very still. In the far south the sea glimmered under the moon. Kate went forward with a strange, exultant awe in her heart. Martin would pardon her for breaking her promise when he knew why she had come.