dom that the maiden had the courage to resist her, stern
father; but today, love for her brother overcoming every other
feeling, she suddenly sank on her knees before him, clasping her
hands in piteous supplication, as she cried, with tears streaming
down her face: "O father, sweet father, spare him this time! for
the love of heaven visit not his misdoings upon him! Let me but
talk to him; let me but persuade him! Oh, do not treat him so
harshly! Indeed he may better be won by love than driven by blows!"

But Nicholas roughly repulsed the girl, so that she almost fell as
he brushed past her.

"Tush, girl! thou knowest not what thou sayest. Disobedience must
be flogged out of the heretic spawn. I will have no son of mine
sell himself to the devil unchecked. A truce to such tears and vain
words! I will none of them. And take heed that thine own turn comes
not next. I will spare neither son nor daughter that I find
tampering with the pestilent doctrines of heretics!"

So saying, the angry man strode away himself in search of the
weapon of chastisement, and whilst Petronella sobbed aloud in her
agony of pity, Cuthbert looked round with a strange smile to say:
"Do not weep so bitterly, my sister; it will soon be over, and it
is the last beating I will ever receive at his hands. This settles
it--this decides me. I leave this house this very night, and I
return no more until I have won my right to be treated no longer as
a slave and a dog."

"Alas, my brother! wilt thou really go?"

"Ay, that will I, and this very night to boot."

"This night! But I fear me he will lock thee in this chamber here."

"I trust he may; so may I the better effect my purpose. Listen,
sister, for he will return right soon, and I must be brief. I have
been shut up here before, and dreaming of some such day as this, I
have worked my way through one of yon stout bars to the window; and
it will fall out now with a touch. Night falls early in these dark
November days. When the great clock in the tower of the Chase tolls
eight strokes, then steal thou from the house bearing some victuals
in a wallet, and my good sword and dagger and belt. Meet me by the
ruined chantry where we have sat so oft. I will then tell thee all
that is in my heart--for which time lacks me to speak now.

"Hist! there is his returning step. Leave me now, and weep not. I
care naught for hard blows; I have received too many in my time.
But these shall be the last!"

Petrone