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 eac