"Ill _will_ befall me if I listen to thee, thou wicked churl," cried the abbot. "What hast thou done with Cuthbert Ashbead?"
"I have seen nothing of him since he sent a bolt after me at your bidding, lord abbot," replied Demdike.
"Beware lest any harm come to him, or thou wilt rue it," cried Paslew. "But I have no time to waste on thee. Farewell, fathers. High mass will be said in the convent church before we set out on the expedition to-morrow morning. You will both attend it."
"You will never set out upon the expedition, lord abbot," cried Demdike, planting his staff so suddenly into the ground before the horse's head that the animal reared and nearly threw his rider.
"How now, fellow, what mean you?" cried the abbot, furiously.
"Stand aside," cried the abbot, spurring his steed, "or I will trample you beneath my horse's feet."
"I might let you ride to your own doom," rejoined Demdike, with a scornful laugh, as he seized the abbot's bridle. "But you shall hear me. I tell you, you will never go forth on this expedition. I tell you that, ere to-morrow, Whalley Abbey will have passed for ever from your possession; and that, if you go thither again, your life will be forfeited. Now will you listen to me?"
"I am wrong in doing so," cried the abbot, who could not, however, repress some feelings of misgiving at this alarming address. "Speak, what would you say?"
"Come out of earshot of the others, and I will tell you," replied Demdike. And he led the abbot's horse to some distance further on the hill.
"Your cause will fail, lord abbot," he then said. "Nay, it is lost already."
"Lost!" cried the abbot, out of all patience. "Lost! Look around. Twenty fires are in sight--ay, thirty, and every fire thou seest will summon a hundred men, at the least, to arms. Before an hour, five hundred men will be gathered before the gates of Whalley Abbey."
"True," replied Demdike; "but they will not own the Earl of Poverty for their leader."
"What leader will they own, then?" demanded the abbot, scornfully.
"The Earl of Derby," replied Demdike. "He is on his way thither with Lord Mounteagle from Preston."
"Ha!" exclaimed Paslew, "let me go meet them, then. But thou triflest with me, fellow. Thou canst know nothing of this. Whence gott'st thou thine information?"