The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn: A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot by - (red queen ebook txt) 📗

indeed to be sitting at this hospitable board, warmed by the friendly glow of the fire, and discussing the savoury viands that always adorned a table of Mistress Susan's spreading, and which did indeed taste well after the hardy and sometimes scanty fare he had known in the forest.

But his open-air life had done him good in many ways. His uncle smiled, and told him he had grown to be a very son of Anak, and that he was as brown as a gipsy; whilst his cousins looked at him with furtive admiration, and Keziah could almost have wept that Cherry was not there to welcome him.

Cuthbert, however, quickly got over his disappointment on this score, and after swallowing a few sighs, was content to think that it might indeed be best so. Cherry would learn where he was from Petronella, and would hear from her that his heart was still her own, and that success had crowned his search after the lost treasure. He could go to seek her shortly, when the gipsy tribe should have drawn away from that part of the forest into the quarters they preferred during the winter months. Were she to be here, he must surely betray himself, and should have to speak immediately to Martin Holt of his desire to make Cherry his wife. Somehow, when face to face with his uncle, he felt less confident of winning his sanction for this step than he had done when away from him in the forest. There it had seemed perfectly simple so long as he could show the father that he had the means to keep a wife in comfort. Now he began to wonder if this would be enough. Hints were dropped by both the Holts regarding Cherry's approaching marriage with Jacob Dyson. Mistress Susan openly regretted her absence from home as hindering that ceremony; and although Martin Holt spoke with more reticence, it was plain he was still cherishing the hope of the match when his wilful youngest should be a little older.

It might be that Cherry's absence at this time was fortunate rather than the reverse. Cuthbert, at any rate, was relieved from the necessity for immediate action; and when he had spoken a little of himself, his kinsfolk, and the visits he had paid during his wanderings in the forest (keeping the real object of those wanderings quite out of the talk), he turned his conversation to other matters, and asked what was passing in London, and what was chiefly stirring men's minds.

"Marry it is the opening of Parliament that is the chiefest thing," said Martin Holt. "It is said in the city that his Majesty loves not his good Parliament; and truly it looks like it, since he has put off its opening so many a time. First it was to have been last February, then not till the third of this present month. Now it is again prolongued till the fifth of November next; but I trow his Majesty will scarce dare to postpone again. His people like not those rulers who fear to meet those who are chosen by them to debate on matters of the state. It looks not well for the sovereign to fear to meet his people."

Cuthbert, who knew little about such matters, asked many questions about Parliament and its assemblies. His uncle answered him freely and fully, and explained to him exactly the site of the building where the great body assembled.

"Thou canst take the wherry thou used to love so well, and row thyself to Westminster one of these days, and look well at the Parliament Houses," said Martin Holt. "It is a grand spectacle to see the King come in state to open the assembly. Thou mayest see that sight, too, an thou purposest to stay with us so long."

"I would gladly do so," answered Cuthbert, who remembered that he was bidden not to return to the forest too quickly. He knew that, now he was safely away, Joanna would allow all search to be made after him there, and that it would soon be ascertained that he had fled. But whilst that search was going on, he was safest in London, and was glad enough of the opportunity of seeing any gay pageant.

As he lay in his narrow bed that night, enjoying the comfort of it after his chilly nook in the tree, which had been his best shelter of late, and somewhat disturbed by the noises that from time to time arose from the street below, he recalled to mind the strange greeting he had received from Anthony Cole, and wondered anew at his mysterious words.

And then his fancy somehow strayed to the great Parliament Houses of which his uncle had spoken. He remembered that strange dark journey across the river from Lambeth and the lonely house there to Westminster and its lofty palaces. He recalled the locality of the house he had entered, where Catesby and his friends were assembled at some strange toil, and the terrified aspect these men all wore when some unexpected sound had smitten upon their ears. He recalled the sudden fierce grip of Catesby's hand upon his arm before he recognized the face of the stranger within their midst. He recollected the threats he had striven to speak binding him to the silence he was so willing to promise.

What did it all mean? what could it mean? Lying in the dark, and turning the matter over and over in his mind, Cuthbert began to feel some fearful and sinister suspicions.

The month when all this had happened had been early in the year; was it January, or early February? He could scarce remember, but he knew it was one or the other. And had not his uncle said that Parliament was to have met in February? Now that it was about to meet soon again, had not Anthony spoken words implying that some muster of friends was looked for in London; and had not Anthony and his son always regarded him in the light of a friend and ally?

Cuthbert was by this time aware that he had but little love left for the creed in which he had been reared. It seemed to him that all, or at any rate far the greater part, of what was precious in that creed was equally open to him in the Church established in the land, together with the liberty to read the Scriptures for himself, and to exercise his own freedom of conscience as no priest of the Romish Church would ever let him exercise it. With him there had been no wild revulsion of feeling, no sense of tearing and rending away from one faith to join himself to another. His own convictions had been of gradual growth, and he still felt and would always feel a certain loving loyalty towards the Church of his childhood. Still, he was increasingly convinced of the fact that it was not within that fold that he himself could ever find true peace and conviction of soul; and though no ardent theologian, and by no means given over to controversy and dogmatism, he had reached a steady conclusion as to his own faith, and one that was little likely to be shaken.

At the same time he was kindly disposed to those of his countrymen who were still beneath the Papal yoke, and were suffering for their old allegiance. He honoured their constancy, and felt even a boyish sense of shame in having, as it were, deserted the weaker side when it was in trouble and undergoing persecution. He felt a qualm of uneasiness when he thought of this, and would gladly have shared the perils if he could have shared the convictions of those who had striven to make him their friend. Cuthbert was a little in advance of his times in the facility with which he set aside matters of opinion in the choosing of his friends. Those were days in which men were seldom able to do this. They still divided themselves into opposing camps, and hated not only the opinions embraced by their rivals, but the rivals themselves, without any discrimination at all. To be intimate and friendly with those of hostile opinions was far more rare then than it has since become; and Cuthbert, who possessed that faculty, was liable to be greatly misunderstood, and to run into perils of which he little dreamed.

Thinking of those things he had seen that strange night led him to wonder more and more what it could all mean; and, accordingly, upon the morrow the first visit he paid was to Anthony Cole on the bridge, hoping that through him this curiosity might be in some way satisfied.

Cuthbert took the privilege accorded him in old times, and walked through the house and up the narrow staircase without pausing in the shop below. It was still early, and business had not yet begun. The house was very silent; but he heard low-toned voices above, and pursued his way towards them. As he did so a door, the existence of which had never been discovered by him before, though he thought the house was well known by him from attic to basement, suddenly opened from the staircase, and a head appeared for a single instant, and was as suddenly withdrawn. The door closed sharply, and he heard the click as of a spring falling back to its place. He passed his hand across his eyes as he exclaimed beneath his breath:

"Sure that was Father Urban--"

But he began to feel doubtful as to his right to come and go in this house at will, and was about to descend the stairs quietly again, when a door opened from above, and some one came hastily down the stairs. Cuthbert fancied he saw the gleam of some weapon in the hand of the advancing figure, and felt that he had better be upon his guard.

"Cuthbert Trevlyn!" exclaimed a familiar voice, and a hand was slipped beneath the doublet, and there was no further gleam of cold steel. "I am right glad to welcome thee. It is well for friends to muster at such a time. Comest thou with news?"

Walter Cole was the speaker. His face too wore something of the look which Cuthbert had observed on the father's the previous evening--an expression of strained expectancy, as if with long waiting mind and spirit had alike grown worn and over anxious. The bright eyes scanned his face eagerly. Cuthbert felt half ashamed of his ignorance of and indifference to the burning questions of the day.

"I have heard naught, I know naught. I have been living the life of the forests these past months," he answered, following Walter into a small room where they had often worked together. "I have heard no word of what was passing in the world; I come to learn that here."

The eagerness faded from Walter's face. He spoke much more quietly.

"Belike thou wert right to hide and live thus obscure; many of our leaders have done the like. It is ofttimes the best and the safest plan. But the time is at hand, and we must rally around them now. When the hour has struck and when the deed is done, then will it be for us to work--then will our hour of toil come. East and west, north and south, must we spur forth with the tidings. The whole nation must hear it and be roused. The blow must be struck whilst the iron is hot. Thus and only thus can we be secure of the promised victory."

Walter spoke quietly, yet with an undercurrent of deep enthusiasm that struck an answering chord in Cuthbert's heart. All true and deep feeling moved him to sympathy. His friend was talking in riddles to him; but he felt the earnestness and devotion of the man, and his sympathy was at once aroused.

"What hour? what blow? what deed?" he asked wonderingly. "I know not of what thou speakest."

Walter drew his brows together and regarded him with an expression of intense and wondering scrutiny. When he spoke it was in a different tone, as though he were carefully weighing his every word, as though he were a little uncertain of the ground on which he stood. There was something of evasive vagueness in his tone, whilst his eyes were fixed on Cuthbert's face as though he would read his very soul.

"Methought thou knewest how cruelly we suffered, and that we trust some stroke of kind fortune's wheel may ere long make life something better for us. The King meets his Parliament soon. Then is the time when men's grievances may be discussed, and when there is hope for all that wiser and more merciful laws may be passed. We have gathered together at this time to see what may be done. We are resolved, as thou must surely know, not to suffer like this for ever. Half the people of the realm be with us. It were strange