CHAPTER LX. THEY FALL IN WITH THREE CHAPMEN.
NOW when the next day was, the Lady of Brookside sent a score of men-at-arms to the House of the Grey Sisters, and bade them give up to them the Carline and the Maiden, if they had them there. But the Sisters said that they had come to them indeed the night before and had slept in their house, but had gone on early in the morning; and when the men asked what road they had taken, they said that they had gone north, and were minded for the uplands and the mountains. So the men-at-arms made no delay, but turned and rode the northern way diligently, and put their horses to it all they might; and they rode all that day and part of the next; but rode they fast or rode they slow, it was all one, for they came across neither hide nor hair of those twain, and so must needs come back empty-handed to Brookside. And when they told the Lady hereof, she fell into a cold rage, and cursed those twain for their folly and thanklessness, and said that now they had missed all the good that she had in her heart to do them, since they had been such close friends to her dear son, late murdered. But however that might be, the Carline and the Maiden never saw Brookside again.
