The old Gate House was a strange habitation.  Formerly merely the gateway to the Castle, which had once reared its proud head upon the crest of the hill to the westward, it had but scant accommodation for a family—­one living room below, flanked on one side by the kitchen, and on the other by the vaulted chamber, once possibly a guardroom, but so bitterly cold and damp now that it was never used save for such purposes as had been witnessed there that evening.  A winding, broken stone stairway led upwards to a few very narrow chambers above of irregular shape, and all lighted by loophole windows deeply splayed.  The lowest of these was the place where Nicholas slept, and there was a slight attempt at furniture and comfort; but the upper chambers, where Petronella and Cuthbert retired out of the way of their father’s sullen and morose temper, were bare of all but actual necessities, and lacked many things which would be numbered amongst essentials in later days.  The stone floors had not even a carpeting of rushes, the pallet beds lay on the hard stone floor, and only the girl possessed a basin and ewer for washing.  Cuthbert was supposed to perform his ablutions in the water of the moat without, or at the pump in the yard.

But Petronella had small notion of the hardness of her life.  She had known no other, and only of late had she begun to realize that other girls were more gently reared and tended.  Since the family had come to live at the Chase—­which had only happened within the past year—­her ideas had begun to enlarge; but so far this had not taught her discontent with her surroundings.

She knew that her father had fled to the Gate House as a place of retirement in the hour of his danger and need, and that nobody had denied his right to remain there, though the whole property was in the possession of Sir Richard Trevlyn, the nephew of her morose parent.  Nicholas, however, as may have been already gathered, bore no goodwill towards his nephew, and would fain have hindered his children from so much as exchanging a word with their kinsfolks.  But blood is thicker than water, and the young naturally consort together.  Nicholas had married so late in life that his children were much about the same age as those of his nephew—­indeed the Trevlyns of the Chase were all older than Petronella.  Sir Richard had striven to establish friendly relations with his uncle when he had first brought his family to the Chase, and had only given up the attempt after many rebuffs.  He encouraged his children to show kindness to their cousins, as they called each other, and since that day a ray of sunshine had stolen into Petronella’s life, though she was almost afraid to cherish it, lest it should only be withdrawn again.

As she hurried to the tryst that evening, this fear was only second to the bitter thought of parting with Cuthbert.  Yet she did not wish him to stay.  Her father’s wrath and suspicion once fully aroused, no peace could be hoped for or looked for.  Terribly as she would miss him, anything was better than such scenes as the one of today.  Cuthbert was no longer a child; he was beginning to think and reason and act for himself.  It was better he should fly before worse had happened; only the girl could not but wonder what her own life would be like if, after his departing, her stern father should absolutely forbid her seeing or speaking to her cousins again.