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 to remain there, though the whole property was in the possession of Sir Richard Trevlyn, the nephew of her morose parent.

Nicholas, however, as may have been already gathered, bore no goodwill towards his nephew, and would fain have hindered his children from so much as exchanging a word with their kinsfolks.
But blood is thicker than water, and the young naturally consort together.

Nicholas had married so late in life that his children were much about the same age as those of his nephew--indeed the Trevlyns of the Chase were all older than Petronella.