The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn | Page 6

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!"
Petronella, trembling in every limb, shrank silently away in the
shadows as her father approached, the sight of his grim, stern face and
the cruel-looking weapon in his hands bringing quick thrills of pain and
pity to her gentle heart. Petronella was a very tender floweret to have
been reared amidst so much hardness and sorrow. It was wonderful that
she had lived through the helpless years of infancy (her mother had
died ere she had completed her second year) with such a father over her,
or that having so lived she had preserved the sweetness and clinging
softness of temperament which gave to her such a strange charm--at
least in the opinion of one. Doubtless she owed much of her well being
to the kindly care of an old deaf and dumb woman, the only servant in
that lonely old house, who had entered it to nurse the children's mother
through her last illness, and had stayed on almost as a matter of course,
receiving no wage for her untiring service, but only the coarse victuals
that all shared alike, and such scanty clothing as was absolutely
indispensable.

To this old crone Petronella fled with white face and tearful eyes, as the
sound of those terrible blows smote upon her ears with the whistling
noise that well betrayed the force with which they were dealt. She
quickly made the faithful old creature aware of what was going on, and
her sympathy was readily aroused on behalf of the sufferer. The dumb
request for food was also understood and complied with. No doubt
there had been times before when the girl had crept with bread and
meat in her apron to the solitary captive, who was shut up alone
without food till he should come to a better mind.
Of Cuthbert's intended flight she made no attempted revelation. She
must act now, and explain later, if she could ever make the old woman
understand, that her brother had fled, and had not been done to death by
his hard-hearted father.
Supper was over. It had been at the close of that meal that the explosion
had taken place. She would not be called upon to meet her father again
that day. Fleeing up the broken stone staircase just as his feet were
heard returning from the vaulted room, she heard him bang to the door
of the living room before she dared to steal into the little bare chamber
where her brother slept, and where all his worldly possessions were
stored.
The old Gate House was a strange habitation. Formerly merely the
gateway to the Castle, which had once reared its proud 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