uickly
backwards as though in some sort afraid. Within the narrow doorway
stood the priest, a small, slim man in rusty black, with a crucifix
suspended from his rosary, which he held up before the crowd, who
most of them crossed themselves with apparent devotion.

"Peace be with you, my children!" was his somewhat incongruous
salutation to the blood-thirsty mob; and then turning his bright
but benignant eyes upon Cuthbert, he said:

"This is a leper house, my son. Yet methinks thou wilt be safer
here a while than in the street. Dost thou fear to enter? If thou
dost, we must e'en talk where we are."

"I have no fear," answered Cuthbert, who indeed only experienced a
lively curiosity.

The priest seemed pleased with the answer, and drew him within the
sheltering door; and Cuthbert followed his guide into a long, low
room, where a table was spread with trenchers and pitchers, whilst
an appetizing odour arose from a saucepan simmering on the fire and
stirred by one of the patients, upon whom Cuthbert gazed with
fascinated interest.

"He is well nigh cured," answered the priest. "Our sick abide on
the floor above; but there be not many here now. The plague carried
off above half our number last year.

"But now of thine own matters, boy: how comest thou hither? Thou
art a bold lad to venture a stranger into these haunts, unless thou
be fleeing a worse peril from the arm of the law; and neither thy
face nor thy dress looks like that. Hast thou not heard of
Whitefriars and its perils? or art thou a rustic knave, unversed in
the ways of the town?"

Cuthbert told his story frankly enough. He had lost himself in the
streets, and was in the forbidden region before he well knew. A few
kindly and dexterous questions from Father Urban led him to tell
all that there was to know about himself, his parentage and his
past; and the priest listened with great attention, scanning the
face of the youth narrowly the while.

"Trevlyn--the name is known to us. It was a good old name once, and
may be still again. I have seen thy father, Nicholas Trevlyn. It
may be I shall see him again one day. Be true to thy father's
faith, boy; be not led away by hireling shepherds. The day is
coming on England when the true faith shall spread from end to end
of the land, and all heretics shall be confounded! See that thou
art in thy place in that day! See that thou art found by thy
father's side in the hour of victory!"

Cuthbert hung his head a