Catharine asserted that she was a good horse-woman, and had no fear of the journey; also that she knew the country, having been to Glastonbury with her lord. The weather was frosty, and there was no sign of any change for the worse; the weather prophets, as upon a later occasion,[43] gave no intimation of an approaching storm. Before dawn on Holy Innocents’ Day, Madge awoke the young widow; together they left the castle while the whole household was asleep. They crossed the star-lit park to the Luckland Mill, now rebuilt, where Madge had procured the horse. They found it awaiting them, and the gipsy was there, by appointment, with the babe. One other person alone was in the secret, the miller. They parted with many tears, and never met in this world again. Poor Madge, her life had been stained by sin; let this act of Christian charity plead her forgiveness. On her way back to the castle, Madge was struck by the wondrous but ominous beauty of the dawn, first a streak of pale blue, which then seemed upheaved by sheets of crimson fire; the eye was almost dazzled by the brilliancy of the deepening blaze, as if the eastern heavens were in conflagration. “A red sky at night is the shepherds’ delight, but a red sky in the morning is the shepherds’ warning,” muttered Madge, fearing there would be bad weather. It was one of those lovely winter days when the blue sky and fleecy clouds and the brilliant atmosphere are more delightful than in summer, but towards evening the wind set in steadily from the east, the heavens assumed a dull leaden hue, and just before sunset, down came the first flakes of snow. Thicker flakes! thicker! thicker! the night darker; the snow deeper, each hour. The reader knows the rest, if he has read the prologue to our tale. The horse must have refused to proceed, nor was he ever found, he must have perished in the snow; but the miller did not dare to make enquiries for fear of exciting suspicion. It was lucky that the same snow procured a brief respite for Madge, for Sir John could not get home for more than a week, and when he came was met by the intelligence that the mother had fled, as it was supposed, in a fit of mental derangement, caused by grief over the loss of her infant; and that she had perished, as they thought, in the snow. But how she had perished, and where, was never known to Sir John; Madge persuaded him that she had strayed into the river, but no body was ever found when the thaw, after some weeks of intense frost, permitted a search; the miller kept his secret, and Sir John was content to leave the matter in mystery, and to reap the benefit. But he never afterwards liked the presence of Madge, his supposed confederate, and he sent her from the neighbourhood, so that he lost sight of her for twenty years. How they met at last the reader has learned.