It was almost certain that Sir Daniel had made for the Moat House; but, considering the heavy snow, the lateness of the hour, and the necessity under which he would lie of avoiding the few roads and striking across the wood, it was equally certain that he could not hope to reach it ere the morrow.  
There were two courses open to Dick; either to continue to follow in the knight’s trail, and, if he were able, to fall upon him that very night in camp, or to strike out a path of his own, and seek to place himself between Sir Daniel and his destination.
 
Either scheme was open to serious objection, and Dick, who feared to expose Joanna to the hazards of a fight, had not yet decided between them when he reached the borders of the wood.
 
At this point Sir Daniel had turned a little to his left, and then plunged straight under a grove of very lofty timber.  His party had then formed to a narrower front, in order to pass between the trees, and the track was trod proportionally deeper in the snow.  The eye followed it under the leafless tracery of the oaks, running direct and narrow; the trees stood over it, with knotty joints and the great, uplifted forest of their boughs; there was no sound, whether of man or beast—not so much as the stirring of a robin; and over the field of snow the winter sun lay golden among netted shadows.
 
“How say ye,” asked Dick of one of the men, “to follow straight on, or strike across for Tunstall?”
 
“Sir Richard,” replied the man-at-arms, “I would follow the line until they scatter.”
 
“Ye are, doubtless, right,” returned Dick; “but we came right hastily upon the errand, even as the time commanded.  Here are no houses, neither for food nor shelter, and by the morrow’s dawn we shall know both cold fingers and an empty belly.  How say ye, lads?  Will ye stand a pinch for expedition’s sake, or shall we turn by Holywood and sup with Mother Church?  The case being somewhat doubtful, I will drive no man; yet if ye would suffer me to lead you, ye would choose the first.”
 
The men answered, almost with one voice, that they would follow Sir Richard where he would.
 
And Dick, setting spur to his horse, began once more to go forward.
 
The snow in the trail had been trodden very hard, and the pursuers had thus a great advantage over the pursued.  They pushed on, indeed, at a round trot, two hundred hoofs beating alternately on the dull pavement of the snow, and the jingle of weapons and the snorting of horses raising a warlike noise along the arches of the silent wood.
 
Presently, the wide slot of the pursued came out upon the high road from Holywood; it was there, for a moment, indistinguishable; and, where it once more plunged into the unbeaten snow upon the farther side, Dick was surprised to see it narrower and lighter trod.  Plainly, profiting by the road, Sir Daniel had begun already to scatter his command.
 
At all hazards, one chance being equal to another, Dick continued to pursue the straight trail; and that, after an hour’s riding, in which it led into the very depths of the forest, suddenly split, like a bursting shell, into two dozen others, leading to every point of the compass.
 
Dick drew bridle in despair.  The short winter’s day was near an end; the sun, a dull red orange, shorn of rays, swam low among the leafless thickets; the shadows were a mile long upon the snow; the frost bit cruelly at the finger-nails; and the breath and steam of the horses mounted in a cloud.
 
“Well, we are outwitted,” Dick confessed.  “Strike we for Holywood, after all.  It is still nearer us than Tunstall—or should be by the station of the sun.”
 
So they wheeled to their left, turning their backs on the red shield of sun, and made across country for the abbey.  But now times were changed with them; they could no longer spank forth briskly on a path beaten firm by the passage of their foes, and for a goal to which that path itself conducted them.  Now they must plough at a dull pace through the encumbering snow, continually pausing to decide their course, continually floundering in drifts.  The sun soon left them; the glow of the west decayed; and presently they were wandering in a shadow of blackness, under frosty stars.
 
Presently, indeed, the moon would clear the hilltops, and they might resume their march.  But till then, every random step might carry them wider of their march.  There was nothing for it but to camp and wait.
 
Sentries were posted; a spot of ground was cleared of snow, and, after some failures, a good fire blazed in the midst.  The men-at-arms sat close about this forest hearth, sharing such provisions as they had, and passing about the flask; and Dick, having collected the most delicate of the rough and scanty fare, brought it to Lord Risingham’s niece, where she sat apart from the soldiery against a tree.
 
She sat upon one horse-cloth, wrapped in another, and stared straight before her at the firelit scene.  At the offer of food she started, like one wakened from a dream, and then silently refused.
 
“Madam,” said Dick, “let me beseech you, punish me not so cruelly.  Wherein I have offended you, I know not; I have, indeed, carried you away, but with a friendly violence; I have, indeed, exposed you to the inclemency of night, but the hurry that lies upon me hath for its end the preservation of another, who is no less frail and no less unfriended than yourself.  At least, madam, punish not yourself; and eat, if not for hunger, then for strength.”
 
“I will eat nothing at the hands that slew my kinsman,” she replied.
 
“Dear madam,” Dick cried, “I swear to you upon the rood I touched him not.”
 
“Swear to me that he still lives,” she returned.
 
“I will not palter with you,” answered Dick.  “Pity bids me to wound you.  In my heart I do believe him dead.”
 
“And ye ask me to eat!” she cried.  “Ay, and they call you ‘sir!’  Y’ have won your spurs by my good kinsman’s murder.  And had I not been fool and traitor both, and saved you in your enemy’s house, ye should have died the death, and he—he that was worth twelve of you—were living.”
 
“I did but my man’s best, even as your kinsman did upon the other party,” answered Dick.  “Were he still living—as I vow to Heaven I wish it!—he would praise, not blame me.”
 
“Sir Daniel hath told me,” she replied.  “He marked you at the barricade.  Upon you, he saith, their party foundered; it was you that won the battle.  Well, then, it was you that killed my good Lord Risingham, as sure as though ye had strangled him.  And ye would have me eat with you—and your hands not washed from killing?  But Sir Daniel hath sworn your downfall.  He ’tis that will avenge me!”
 
The unfortunate Dick was plunged in gloom.  Old Arblaster returned upon his mind, and he groaned aloud.
 
“Do ye hold me so guilty?” he said; “you that defended me—you that are Joanna’s friend?”
 
“What made ye in the battle?”............