"How now, fellow, what mean you?" cried the abbot, furiously.
"To warn you," replied Demdike.
"Stand aside," cried the abbot, spurring his steed, "or I will trample you beneath my horse's feet."
"I might let you ride to your own doom," rejoined Demdike, with a scornful laugh, as he seized the abbot's bridle. "But you shall hear me. I tell you, you will never go forth on this expedition. I tell you that, ere to-morrow, Whalley Abbey will have passed for ever from your possession; and that, if you go thither again, your life will be forfeited. Now will you listen to me?"
"I am wrong in doing so," cried the abbot, who could not, however, repress some feelings of misgiving at this alarming address. "Speak, what would you say?"
"Come out of earshot of the others, and I will tell you," replied Demdike. And he led the abbot's horse to some distance further on the hill.
"Your cause will fail, lord abbot," he then said. "Nay, it is lost already."
"Lost!" cried the abbot, out of all patience. "Lost! Look around. Twenty fires are in sight—ay, thirty, and every fire thou seest will summon a hundred men, at the least, to arms. Before an hour, five hundred men will be gathered before the gates of Whalley Abbey."
"True," replied Demdike; "but they will not own the Earl of Poverty for their leader."
"What leader will they own, then?" demanded the abbot, scornfully.