Martin Holt pushed his nephew before him into the lighted room, and looked him well over from head to foot.

“There is little of thy mother about thee, boy,” he said, with some stern bitterness of tone.  “I fear me thou art all thy father’s son.”

“My father says not so,” answered Cuthbert, facing his uncle fearlessly.  “He has flung it again and yet again in my teeth that I am the heretic son of my heretic mother.”

Martin Holt uttered an inarticulate exclamation and came a step nearer.

“Say that again, boy—­say that again!  Can it be true that thy unhappy and deluded mother repented of her Popish errors ere she died, and turned back to the pure faith of her childhood?  If that be so, it is like a mill stone rolled from off my heart.  I have wept for her all these years as for one of the lost.”

“I was too young when she died to remember aught of her teaching, but I have seen those who tell me she was fearfully unhappy with my father, and abjured his faith ere she died.  I know that he reviles her memory, and he forbids even her children to speak of her.  He would scarce have branded her with the hateful name of heretic had she adhered to his faith till her death.”

“Susan, dost hear that?” cried Martin Holt, turning exultantly to his sister.  “It was as our mother fondly said.  She was not lost for ever; she returned to her former faith.  Nay, I doubt not that in some sort she died for it—­died through the harshness and sternness of her husband.  Susan, dost hear—­dost understand?”

But Susan only turned a sour face towards her brother.

“I hear,” she answered ungraciously.  “But the boy has doubtless been bred a Papist.  Who can believe a word he says?  Doubtless he has been sent here to corrupt your daughters, as Bridget was corrupted by his father.  I would liefer put my hand in the maw of a mad dog than my faith in the word of a Papist.”

Cuthbert did not wince beneath this harsh speech, he was too well inured to such; he only looked at his aunt with grave curiosity as he answered thoughtfully: 

“Methinks it is something hard to believe them, always.  Yet I have known them speak sooth as well as other men.  But I myself would sooner put confidence in the word of one of the other faith.  They hold not with falsehood in a good cause as our father confessors do.  Wherefore, if it were for that alone, I would sooner be a heretic, albeit there be many things about my father’s faith that I love and cling to.”

This answer caused Martin to look more closely at his nephew, discerning in him something of the fearless Puritan spirit, as well as that instinctive desire to weigh and judge for himself that was one of his own characteristics.  Papist the lad might be by training and inheritance, but it was plain that at present he was no bigot.  He would not strive to corrupt his cousins; rather were they likely to influence and draw him.