bid me seek
this house, for that I should likely find him here. If he be not
so, I pray you direct me where he may be found; for I have no mind
to return with my task unfulfilled, nor yet to carry about with me
these same papers an hour longer than need be."

"Heaven forfend!" ejaculated the custodian of the place with
unfeigned anxiety. "Father Urban in peril! Father Urban sore hurt!
We must know more of this business, and that without delay. Art
sure he is safe for the present? Art sure he hath not fallen into
the hands of the King's hirelings?"

"He is safe enow for the nonce."

"And where--where is he hidden?"

Cuthbert gave the man a keen look as he answered:

"That will I tell to none save Master Robert Catesby himself, whom
I know. You, good sir, are a stranger to me, albeit, I doubt not, a
very worthy gentleman."

The man's thin face lighted up with a gleam of approval.

"You are i' the right, young sir; you are i' the right of it," he
said. "In these days of peril and trouble men cannot walk too
warily. My name is Robert Kay, and the fate which has been your
father's has been mine, too. I have been ruined and beggared for my
devotion to my faith; and but for Master Robert Catesby and others
who have given me assistance and employment, I might well have
starved in some garret ere now. Yet I was gently born and nurtured,
and mine only cause of offence was the religion which but a
generation back all men in this realm honoured and loved.
Well-a-day! alack-a-day! we have fallen on evil times. Yet there is
still a God in the heavens above us, and our turn may come--yea,
our turn may come!"

The fierce wild gesture that accompanied these words recalled to
Cuthbert's mind the same sort of prediction and menace uttered by
Catesby on the night of their journey together over Hammerton
Heath. He felt at once a lively curiosity and a sense of awe and
repulsion; but he made no remark, and Kay quickly recovered
himself.

"It boots not to linger. We must to Catesby without delay. He must
hear your news, young man, and must learn of you the fate of Father
Urban. You will come with me to find him?"

"Very gladly, an you know where he is to be found."

A curious expression flitted across the man's face.

"Ay, that do I know well; nor is he far from here. We shall soon
reach him in that wherry of yours. He is but across the river at
Westminster, in the house of Thomas Percy, who has a lodging there
in right of h