Cuthbert was too faint and bewildered to take in all the sense of Kate’s words, but he understood that for the moment he was to be cared for and concealed, and that was enough.  Philip echoed his sister’s invitation to his father’s house as his first stage on his journey, and all that the lad remembered of the next few hours was the dancing of lights before his dazzled eyes, the sound of friendly voices in his ears, and the gentle ministrations of kindly hands, as he was helped to bed and cosseted up, and speedily made so comfortable that he fell off almost immediately into a calm refreshing sleep that was like to be the best medicine he could have.

When Sir Richard rejoined his family, it was with a stern expression on his face.

“The boy has been grossly maltreated,” he said.  “It is no mere paternal chastisement he has received this day, but such a flogging as none but the lowest vagabond would receive at the hands of the law.  The very bone is in one place laid bare, and there be many traces of savage handling before this.  Were he not mine own uncle, bearing mine own name, I would not let so gross an outrage pass.  But at least we can do this much—­shelter the lad and send him forth, when he is fit for the saddle, in such sort that he may reach London in easy fashion, as becomes one of his race.  The lad has brains and many excellent qualities.  There is no reason why he should not make his way in life.”

“If he can be cured of his Papist beliefs,” said Lady Frances; “but no man holding them gets on in these days, and Cuthbert has been bred up in the very worst of such tenets.”

“So bad that he is half disgusted with them before he can rightly say why,” answered Sir Richard with a smile.  “There is too much hatred and bitterness in Nicholas Trevlyn’s religion to endear it to his children.  The boy has had the wit to see that the Established Church of the land uses the same creeds and holds the same cardinal doctrines as he has been bred up in.  For the Pope he cares no whit; his British blood causes him to think scorn of any foreign potentate, temporal or spiritual.  He has the making of a good churchman in him.  He only wants training and teaching.  Methinks it were no bad thing to send him to his mother’s kindred for that.  They are as stanch to the one party as old Nicholas to the other.  The lad will learn all he needs there of argument and controversy, and will be able to weigh the new notions against the old.

“Verily, the more I think of it the better I like the plan.  He is scarce fit for a battle with the world on his own account.  Food and shelter and a home of some sort will be welcome to him whilst he tries the strength of his wings and fits them for a wider flight.”

“His mother’s kindred,” repeated Kate quickly, and with a shade of hauteur in her manner.  “Why, father, I have ever thought that on their mother’s side our cousins had little cause to be proud of their parentage.  Was not their mother—­”