But nature will smile though priests may frown, and next day the
sun shone brightly, and on the next, and the next again. And in the
morning's glare, and the evening's soft repose, the five sisters still
walked, or worked, or beguiled the time by cheerful conversation, in
their quiet orchard.

'Time passed away as a tale that is told; faster indeed than many tales
that are told, of which number I fear this may be one. The house of the
five sisters stood where it did, and the same trees cast their pleasant
shade upon the orchard grass. The sisters too were there, and lovely as
at first, but a change had come over their dwelling. Sometimes, there
was the clash of armour, and the gleaming of the moon on caps of steel;
and, at others, jaded coursers were spurred up to the gate, and a female
form glided hurriedly forth, as if eager to demand tidings of the weary
messenger. A goodly train of knights and ladies lodged one night within
the abbey walls, and next day rode away, with two of the fair sisters
among them. Then, horsemen began to come less frequently, and seemed to
bring bad tidings when they did, and at length they ceased to come at
all, and footsore peasants slunk to the gate after sunset, and did their
errand there, by stealth. Once, a vassal was dispatched in haste to the
abbey at dead of night, and when morning came, there were sounds of woe
and wailing in the sisters' house; and after this, a mournful silence
fell upon it, and knight or lady, horse or armour, was seen about it no
more.

'There was a sullen darkness in the sky, and the sun had gone angrily
down, tinting the dull clouds with the last traces of his wrath,
when the same black monk walked slowly on, with folded arms, within a
stone's-throw of the abbey. A blight had fallen on the trees and shrubs;
and the wind, at length beginning to break the unnatural stillness
that had prevailed all day, sighed heavily from time to time, as though
foretelling in grief the ravages of the coming storm. The bat skimmed in
fantastic flights through the heavy air, and the ground was alive with
crawling things, whose instinct brought them forth to swell and fatten
in the rain.

'No longer were the friar's eyes directed to the earth; they were cast
abroad, and roamed from point to point, as if the gloom and desolation
of the scene found a quick response in his own bosom. Again he paused
near the sisters' house, and again he entered by the postern.

'But not again did