espy you and make your going difficult. Yet I would have you ask
shelter for your steed and yourself tonight at the little hostelry
you will find just this side Hammerton Heath. The heath is an ill
place for travellers, as you doubtless know. If you should lose the
road, as is like enough, it being as evil and rough a track as well
may be, you will like enough plunge into some bog or morass from
which you may think yourself lucky to escape with life. And if you
do contrive to keep to the track, the light-heeled gentlemen of the
road may swoop down upon you like birds of prey, and rob you of the
little worldly wealth that you possess. Wherefore I counsel you to
pause ere you reach that ill-omened waste, and pass the night at
the hostel there. The beds may be something poor, but they will be
better than the wet bog, and you will be less like to be robbed
there than on the road."

"I will take your good counsel, cousin," said Cuthbert. "I have not
much to lose, but that little is my all. I will stop at the place
you bid me, and only journey forth across the heath when the
morrow's sun be up."

"You will do well. And now farewell, for I must return. I will do
all that in me lies to watch over and guard Petronella. She shall
be to me as a sister, and I will act a brother's part by her, until
I may have won a right to call her something more. Have no fears
for her. I will die sooner than she shall suffer. Her father shall
not visit on her his wrath at your escape."

The cousins parted on excellent terms, and Cuthbert turned, with a
strange smile on his brave young face, for a last look at the old
Gate House, the gray masonry of which gleamed out between the dark