His father looked at him a moment, standing with
his hands clasped behind his back.

"Have you heard anything of a priest that is newly come to these
parts--or coming?"

"Yes, sir. I hear mass is to be said ... in the district on Sunday."

"Where is mass to be said?"

Robin drew along breath, lifted his eyes to his father's and then
dropped them again.

"Did you hear me, sir? Where is mass to be said?"

Again Robin lifted and again dropped his eyes.

"What is the priest's name?"

Again there was dead silence. For a son, in those days, so to behave
towards his father, was an act of very defiance. Yet the father said
nothing. There the two remained; Robin with his eyes on the ground,
expecting a storm of words or a blow in the face. Yet he knew he could
do no otherwise; the moment had come at last and he must act as he would
be obliged always to act hereafter.

Matters had matured swiftly in the boy's mind, all unconsciously to
himself. Perhaps it was the timid air of the priest he had met an hour
ago that consummated the process. At least it was so consummated.

Then his father turned suddenly on his heel; and the son went out
trembling.

CHAPTER III

I

"I will speak to you to-night, sir, after supper," said his father
sharply a second day later, when Robin, meeting his father setting out
before dinner, had asked him to give him an hour's talk.

* * * * *

Robin's mind had worked fiercely and intently since the encounter in the
hall. His father had sat silent both at supper and afterwards, and the
next day was the same; the old man spoke no more than was necessary,
shortly and abruptly, scarcely looking his son once in the face, and the
rest of the day they had not met. It was plain to the boy that something
must follow his defiance, and he had prepared all his fortitude to meet
it. Yet the second night had passed and no word had been spoken, and by
the second morning Robin could bear it no longer; he must know what was
in his father's mind. And now the appointment was made, and he would
soon know all. His father was absent from dinner and the boy dined
alone. He learned from Dick Sampson that his father had ridden
southwards.

* * * * *

It was not until Robin had sat down nearly half an hour later than
supper-time that the old man came in. The frost was gone; deep mud had
succeeded, and the rider was splashed above his thighs.