the household of the Marquess of Montagu, brother of the Kingmaker
and had been despatched with letters to the south. He had made a
halt at his cousin's priory, had been persuaded to join in flying the
new hawks, and then had first been detained by the snow-storm, and
then joined in the quest for the lost Lady Anne St. John.

No doubt had then arisen that the Nevils were firm in their
attachment to Edward IV., and, as a consequence, in enmity to the
House of Clifford, and both these scions of Selby had been excited at
a rumour that the widow of the Baron who had slain young Edmund of
York had married Sir Lancelot Threlkeld of Threlkeld, and that her
eldest son, the heir of the line, might be hidden somewhere on the De
Vesci estates.

Bertram had already told the Prioress that his men had spied a lad
accompanying the shepherd who escorted the lady, and who, he thought,
had a certain twang of south country speech; and no sooner had he
carved for the ladies, according to the courtly duty of an esquire,
than the inquiry began as to who had found the maiden and where she
had been lodged. Prioress Agnes, who had already broken her fast,
sat meantime with the favourite hawk on her wrist and a large dog
beside her, feeding them alternately with the bones of the grouse.

'Come, tell us all, sweet Nan! Where wast thou in that untimely
snow-storm? In a cave, starved with cold, eh?'

'I was safe in a cabin with a kind old gammer.'

'Eh! And how cam'st thou there? Wandering thither?'