He on his side was attentively regarding Cuthbert.

“Thy name, good youth?” he asked abruptly.

“Cuthbert Trevlyn,” was the unhesitating rejoinder.

The lad had not yet learned the prudence of reticence in dealing with strangers.  He was neither ashamed of his errand nor of his name.

“Trevlyn—­Trevlyn.  It is a good name, and I have heard it before.  I have heard Catesby speak of thee.  So thou hast come with papers for him?  Art thou indeed to be one of us?”

The question was asked almost in a whisper, accompanied by a very keen and searching glance.  Cuthbert did not exactly know what to make of it.

He shook his head as he replied: 

“Nay, I know naught of that.  I am but a messenger from Father Urban, who was in sore straits but two days back, and well-nigh fell into the hands of his foes with these papers upon him.  I had the good hap to help him to escape the peril; and as he was sore hurt, he begged of me to carry them to Master Catesby and deliver them with mine own hand.  This have I come to do.  He bid me seek this house, for that I should likely find him here.  If he be not so, I pray you direct me where he may be found; for I have no mind to return with my task unfulfilled, nor yet to carry about with me these same papers an hour longer than need be.”

“Heaven forfend!” ejaculated the custodian of the place with unfeigned anxiety.  “Father Urban in peril!  Father Urban sore hurt!  We must know more of this business, and that without delay.  Art sure he is safe for the present?  Art sure he hath not fallen into the hands of the King’s hirelings?”

“He is safe enow for the nonce.”

“And where—­where is he hidden?”

Cuthbert gave the man a keen look as he answered: 

“That will I tell to none save Master Robert Catesby himself, whom I know.  You, good sir, are a stranger to me, albeit, I doubt not, a very worthy gentleman.”

The man’s thin face lighted up with a gleam of approval.

“You are i’ the right, young sir; you are i’ the right of it,” he said.  “In these days of peril and trouble men cannot walk too warily.  My name is Robert Kay, and the fate which has been your father’s has been mine, too.  I have been ruined and beggared for my devotion to my faith; and but for Master Robert Catesby and others who have given me assistance and employment, I might well have starved in some garret ere now.  Yet I was gently born and nurtured, and mine only cause of offence was the religion which but a generation back all men in this realm honoured and loved.  Well-a-day! alack-a-day! we have fallen on evil times.  Yet there is still a God in the heavens above us, and our turn may come—­yea, our turn may come!”

The fierce wild gesture that accompanied these words recalled to Cuthbert’s mind the same sort of prediction and menace uttered by Catesby on the night of their journey together over Hammerton Heath.  He felt at once a lively curiosity and a sense of awe and repulsion; but he made no remark, and Kay quickly recovered himself.