In an hour they had parted with the old smith and with Emmy. Englefield and Morgen Fay went over the wold, not by the road, but by a shepherds’ path, running hereabouts over and between low hills. From the first of these they looked back. They could see, almost closely, the smithy and the hut under the hill. They had loved this place, loved the wold. “Love it still and take it with us! So I have the rose tree and Ailsa and the garden. All things we love go with us, nor can we ever help that.” “So who loveth most hath most treasure!” They looked back to the smithy and then to the road that ran almost beneath them on this hill top. Now they could see approaching a mounted company, thirty at least, still a good way off but growing larger with a steady pacing movement. “Let us watch. They do not dream we are here. Move yonder and the furze will hide.” Prior Hugh of Saint Leofric, with him a dozen monks and the rest stout lay Brothers, rode thoughtfully, mounted on his white mule. Out of grey day, athwart the gathering snow, pictures formed for him. The man and woman above him, hidden on the hill brow, also saw pictures, vivid, defined, one after the other. Friar Martin, huge on huge horse, looked upward as he passed. They saw his great tanned face, his black beard wagging ever for Saint Leofric. Loyalties--loyalties! There passed Prior Hugh and his following. Reaching the smithy they halted and dismounted. Richard Englefield and Morgen Fay went on over the wold, taking faint, broken paths of shepherds. The sky was grey and came close, they saw not a living thing on the wold before them, the flakes began to fall a little more thickly. An hour passed, and now they talked together and now they were silent. Down came the flakes; the flakes came down. Now they were white and many, steadily, steadily falling. Before long they seemed to quicken, they became a soft vast multitude, they hid as with curtains the wold all around. “This is the path?” “Aye, but there will be a great snow.” They walked as fast as they might, but the path ran up and down or wound in the trough of the low waves of whitened earth. They could not eat the leagues. And ever the snow came faster. “Three hours yet of daylight. Time enough to reach Brighthaven. But if the snow covers the path--” The snow covered it. An hour went by. “We have all the wold for path! But eastward there lies the sea. And by my reckoning Grey Farm should be near.” “The snow cometh so we cannot be sure--” “Art warm?” “Aye.” Another hour and it was dusk and the snow came steadily, hugely, and where was sea or east or west or north or south could no longer be told with assurance. No house or hut, and now at last cold, great cold and weariness. “Grey Farm may be yonder or yonder, but we cannot see. Lost is but lost--never forever lost!” Night! Cold now and ever falling snow, and no path or all path. No light, no shape other than the wold shape and the snow shape and the night shape.