His voice, too, was gentle, as if tamed for the seminary and the altar; and his whole air and manner wholly unlike that of some of the priests whom Robin knew--loud-voiced, confident, burly men whom you would have sworn to be country gentlemen or yeomen living on their estates or farms and fearing to look no man in the face.

It was this latter kind, thought Robin, that was best suited to such a life--to riding all day through north-country storms, to lodging hardily where they best could, to living such a desperate enterprise as a priest's life then was, with prices upon their heads and spies everywhere.

It was not a life for quiet persons like Mr.Simpson, who, surely, would be better at his books in some college abroad, offering the Holy Sacrifice in peace and security, and praying for adventurers more hardy than himself.

Yet here was Mr.Simpson just set out upon such an adventure, of his own free-will and choice, with no compulsion save that of God's grace.
* * * * * There was yet more than an hour before supper-time when he rode into the court at last; and Dick Sampson, his own groom, came to take his horse from him.
"The master's not been from home to-day, sir," said Dick when Robin asked of his father.
"Not been from home ?" "No, sir--not out of the house, except that he was walking in the pleasaunce half an hour ago." Robin ran up the steps and through the screens to see if his father was still there; but the little walled garden, so far as he could see it in the light from the hall windows, was empty; and, indeed, it would be strange for any man to walk in such a place at such an hour.

He wondered, too, to hear that his father had not been from home; for on all days, except he were ill, he would be about the estate, here and there.