It was plain from the first that their father's bitterness and rigid rule had done anything but endear his own views to his children.

Petronella accepted the creeds and dogmas instilled into her mind with a childlike faith, and dreamed her own devotional dreams over her breviary and her book of saints--the only two volumes she possessed.

She was content, in the same fashion that a little child is content, with just so much as was given her.

But Cuthbert's mind was of a different stamp, and he had long been panting to break the bonds that held both body and soul in thrall, and find out for himself the meaning of those questions and controversies that were convulsing the nation and the world.
Intercourse with his kinsfolk had given him his first real insight into the burning questions of the hour, and his attendance from time to time at the parish church had caused him fresh access of wonder at what his father could object to in the doctrines there set forth.

They might not embody everything a popish priest would bid him believe, but at least they appeared to the boy to contain all the integral truths of Christianity.