“Dark childeen, what is wrong with you? What is wrong? There was a wing in my heart until I saw you coming.”

“Nurse Ellen, there ‘s a man dead at the abbey. I saw him die, with my two eyes.”

“O alanna veg! Is it any one we know? It isn’t the master, is it, or Sir Maurice?”

“No, Nurse Ellen, no! It’s no one I know. I was sitting reading by Mother’s grave, and a wee red fox, a wee hunted fox, ran up to me for help. And then the man came jumping the wall, and his horse reared and he was killed. I never saw him before, but we know him, Nurse Ellen. I know we do.”

“Why dotey child? Why do you say so?”

“He saw me and he took me for Mother, Nurse Ellen. He called, ‘Reynardine!’”

“Was he a dour, black man, child of grace? Would you be afraid of him, and he alive?”

“Yes, that’s he, Nurse Ellen. Who is it we know?”

“It’s no one we know, a lanna. No one at all.”

“But he called, ‘Reynardine!’”

“You only think so, dark childeen, you trembling there and standing by your mother’s grave. A trick your mind played you, machree dheelish. He was no one you know, or nothing to you. Only a strange man was it, a strange bad man.”