the court that she might wash her face and hands. She changed her
soiled riding-dress for a tight-fitting serge garment of dark green
with long hanging sleeves, assisted by Joan, who also arranged her
dark hair in two plaits, and put over it a white veil, fastened over
a framework to keep it from hanging too closely.

All the time Joan talked, telling of the fright the Mother had been
in when the loss of the Lady Anne had been discovered, and how it was
feared that she had been seized by Scottish reivers, or lost in the
snow on the hills, or captured by the Lancastrians.

'For there be many of the Red Rose rogues about on the mosses--
comrades, 'tis said, of that noted thief Robin of Redesdale.'

'I was with good folk, in a shepherd's sheiling,' replied Anne.

'Ay, ay. Out on the north hill, methinks.'

'Nay. Beyond Deadman's Pool,' said Anne. 'By Blackreed Moss. That
was where the pony fell.'

'Blackreed Moss! That moor belongs to the De Vescis, the blackest
Lancaster fellow of all! His daughter is the widow of the red-handed
Clifford, who slew young Earl Edmund on Wakefield Bridge. They say
her young son is in hiding in some moss in his lands, for the King
holds him in deadly feud for his brother's death.'

'He was a babe, and had nought to do with it,' said Anne.

'He is of his father's blood,' returned Sister Joan, who in her