“‘Three times three—­three times three!’ What can that signify?  In the forest perchance I shall read the riddle aright.  Or perchance the gipsy queen, the dark-eyed Joanna, will aid me in the search.  If I could but trust her, she might see things that I cannot in these lines.  Would that the winter were past; would that the summer were about to come!  The perils of the forest are to be less to me than the perils of the city.  I wonder what perils menace me here.  Beneath my father’s roof I oft went in peril of my life; but here—­why, here I feel safer than ever in my life before!”

Chapter 10:  The Hunted Priest.

The two friends that Cuthbert had made of his own sex during the first weeks spent beneath his uncle’s roof were the same two guests he had seen at the supper table on the evening of his arrival—­Walter Cole and Jacob Dyson.

Both these men were several years older than himself, but in a short time he became exceedingly intimate with the pair, and thus obtained insight into the home life of persons belonging to the three leading parties in the realm.  The Puritan element was strongly represented in Martin Holt’s house, the Romanist in that of the Coles, whilst the Dysons, although springing from a Puritan stock, had been amongst those willing to conform to the laws as laid down in the late Queen’s time.  Both Rachel and Jacob preferred the Episcopal form of worship to any other, and openly marvelled at the taste of those who still frequented the private conventicles, where unlicensed preachers, at the risk of liberty and even life, held forth by the hour together upon their favourite doctrines and arguments.

But honest Jacob was no theologian.  He did not hesitate to assert openly his ignorance of all controversy, and his opinion that it mattered uncommonly little what a man believed, so long as he led an upright life and did his duty in the world.  He was “fair sick” of long-drawn arguments, the splitting of hairs, and those questions which the theologians of all parties took such keen joy in discussing—­though, as nobody ever moved his opponent one whit, the disputes could only be held for the love the disputants felt for hearing themselves talk.  Jacob had long since claimed for himself the right to leave the room when politics and religion came under discussion.  As an only son, he had some privileges accorded him, and this was one he used without stint.

Honest Jacob had taken an immediate and great liking for Cuthbert Trevlyn from the first appearance of that youth at his uncle’s house.  Though himself rough and uncouth of aspect, clumsy of gait and slow of speech, he was quick to see and admire beauty and wit in others.  He had picked out Cherry from amongst her sisters for those qualities of brightness and vivacity in which he felt himself so deficient, and it seemed as though he took to Cuthbert for very much the same reason.