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Settle your own matters henceforth, Abbot Maldon, for in them I find no luck," and he glanced at his broken staff. Thus ended the great trial of the Blossholme witches. Cicely had sunk to sleep at last, and Emlyn watched her, for, since there was nowhere else to put them, they were back in their own room, but guarded by armed men, lest they should escape.
"You 'but' enough to butt down a wall, you dull-pated old Stead," said Emlyn, "you know where to get at more, and so do I." Stead's grey eyes fixed on her in astonishment and bewilderment. "Numskull!" she exclaimed, but still in that good humoured voice of banter that he never had withstood, "you know what I mean, though maybe you would not have me say it in the street, you that have secrets."
They paused by the ruins of the farm where Stead still kept up as much of the orchard and garden as he could with so little time and so far from home, and Emlyn filled her skirt with rosy-cheeked apples, saying in a pretty gentle manner, "they were such a treat to our poor rogues on a dusty march," and Stead aided her by carrying as many as he could.
"Emlyn, drag her hence ere she is shot. Swift, I say, swift, or God's curse and mine rest on you. Unclasp your arms, wife; how can I fight while you hang about my neck? What! Must I strike you? Then, there and there!" She loosed her grasp, and, groaning, fell back upon the breast of Emlyn, who half led, half carried her across the courtyard, where their scared horses galloped loose.
Not knowing when we should get home again, I brought it, thinking that perhaps one day you might marry, when it would be useful. And now, strangely enough, the marriage has come." "Emlyn, Emlyn, I believe that you planned all this business, whereof God alone knows the end." "That is why He makes a beginning, dear, that His end may be fulfilled in due season." "Aye, but what is that end?
You cast me off now you are whole." "I shall never be whole again, Emlyn." "I don't believe Master Willis. He is nought but a barber," she exclaimed passionately. "I know there are physicians at the Bath who would cure you; or there's the little Jew by the wharf; or the wise man on Durdham Down.
All I had put by is well nigh gone, and I'm not like to make it up again for many a year, even if I were as strong as ever." "And you won't go to the Jew, or the wise man, or the Bath?" "I have not the money." "But I will I will save it for you!" cried Emlyn, who never had saved in her life. "Or look here.
Now I see my path clear, and will follow it to the death. Yes, yes; I will save you all or die." "What path, Mother?" "Emlyn, you have heard no tidings for these many months, but I have. Listen; there is much afoot. The King, or the Lord Cromwell, or both, make war upon the lesser Houses, dissolving them, seizing their goods, turning the religious out of them upon the world to starve.
"What may you mean, my Lord Abbot?" asked Mother Matilda, bridling up. "My sisters and I do not understand. Emlyn Stower is right. Do you call that witchcraft which works so good an end? The ghost of Sir John Foterell appeared here we admit it who saw that ghost. But what did the spirit do?
"And do you remember," went on Emlyn, "that you told me that there the carp were so big and fat because just at this place 'neath the drawbridge the Abbey sewer the big Abbey sewer down which all foul things are poured empties itself into the moat, and that therefore I would eat none of those fish, even in Lent?" "Aye, I remember. What of it?"
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