"I know little of such disputed matters," answered Cuthbert, made a
little nervous by the ardent glance bent upon him from the bright
eyes of the speaker. He had a dark, narrow face, pale and eager, a
small, pointed beard trimmed after the fashion of the times, and
the wide-brimmed sugar-loaf hat drawn down upon his brows cast a
deep shadow over his features. But his voice was peculiarly
melodious and persuasive, and there was a nameless attraction about
him that Cuthbert was quick to feel. Others in the days to follow
felt it to their own undoing, but of that the lad knew nothing. He
only wished to retain the good opinion this stranger seemed to have
formed of him.

"I have led but a hermit's life, as I have told you. I have been
bred up in the faith of my forefathers, and that faith I believe.
What perplexes me is that those who hold the Established or
Reformed faith, as men term it, have the same creeds, the same
doctrines as we ourselves. I have from time to time conformed to
the law, and gone to the services, and I have not heard aught
spoken within their walls that our good priest in old days used not
to tell me was sound doctrine. There be things he taught me that
these men say naught about; but no man may in one discourse touch
upon every point of doctrine. I freely own that I have been sorely
perplexed to know whence comes all this strife, all these heart
burnings."

"Thou wilt know and understand full soon, when once thou hast seen
the life of the great city and the strife of faction there,"
answered his companion, lapsing into the familiar "thou" as he
spoke with increased earnestness. "In thy hermit's life thou hast
had no knowledge of the robbery, the desecration, the pollution