d of playing boy's pranks with his cap?"

"I did not wish to kill an abbot, Nurse."

"Foolish man, what is the difference in such a matter between him and
one of his servants? Moreover, he will only say that you tried to slay
him, and missed, and produce the cap and arrow in evidence against you.
Well, my talk serves nothing to mend a bad matter, and soon you will
hear it straighter from himself. Go now and make your house ready for
attack, and never dare to set a foot without its doors, for death waits
you there."

Emlyn was right. Within three hours an unarmed monk trudged up to
Cranwell Towers through the falling snow and cast across the moat a
letter that was tied to a stone. Then he nailed a writing to one of the
oak posts of the outer gate, and, without a word, departed as he had
come. In the presence of Christopher and Cicely, Emlyn opened and read
this second letter, as she had read the first. It was short, and ran--

"Take notice, Sir Christopher Harflete, and all others whom it may
concern, that the oath which I, Clement Maldon, Abbot of Blossholme,
swore to you this day, is utterly void and of none effect, having been
wrung from me under the threat of instant death. Take notice, further,
that a report of the murder which you have done has been forwarded to
the King's grace and to the Sheriff and other officers of this county,
and that by virtue of my rights and authority, ecclesiastical and civil,
I shall proceed to possess myself of the person of Cicely Foterell, my
ward, and of the lands and other property held by her father, Sir John
Foterell, deceased, upon the former of which I have already entered on
her behalf, and by exercise of such force as may be needful to seize
you, Christopher Harflete, and to hand you over to justice. Further, by
means of notice sent herewith, I warn all that cling to you and abet
you in your crimes that they will do so at the peril of their souls and
bodies.

"Clement Maldon, Abbot of Blossholme."

CHAPTER V

WHAT PASSED AT CRANWELL

A week had gone by. For the first three days of that time little of note
had happened at Cranwell Towers; that is, no assault was delivered.
Only Christopher and his dozen or so of house-servants and small tenants
discovered that they were quite surrounded. Once or twice some of them
rode out a little way, to be hunted back again by a much superior force,
which emerged from the copses near by or from cottages in the village,
and ev