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

hill with Kate tripping lightly beside him, Philip having lingered to watch Petronella safely within the shelter of the gloomy walls of the Gate House. "She shall have her dower, that she may wed this gay Lord Culverhouse. My sweet sister shall be dowered, too, and in no danger of spending all her youth and sweetness shut up between those gloomy walls. Fortune will smile once more upon all those who have the blood of the Trevlyns and Wyverns in their veins. I believe in the old prediction. I believe that the treasure trove will come, and that it will prove to be the lost treasure of the house of Trevlyn!" Chapter 4: A Night On Hammerton Heath.

"Farewell, Cuthbert, farewell, farewell! Heaven speed you on your way! We shall look for tidings of you some day. And when the long summer days come upon the green world, perchance you may even make shift to ride or walk the twenty miles that separates us from London to tell of your own well being and ask of ours."

These and many like words were showered on Cuthbert as he sat his steed at the door of Trevlyn Chase, as the dusk was beginning to gather, and his uncle and cousins stood clustered together on the steps to see him ride forth to seek his fortune, as Kate insisted on calling it, though her father spoke of it rather as a visit to his mother's kinsfolks.

Cuthbert had been very loath to go. He had found himself happier beneath his uncle's roof than ever he had been before (Sir Richard was in point of fact his cousin, but the lad had given him the title of uncle out of respect, and now never thought of him as anything else), but he knew that to linger long would be neither safe nor possible.

Only his strange and savage life had prevented the news of his son's present quarters from coming to the knowledge of the angry Nicholas, and all were feeling it better for the young man to take his departure. Now the moment of parting had really come, and already the hope of a flying visit to the Chase in the summer next to follow was the brightest thought to lighten the regrets of the present.

"Ay, that will I gladly do!" cried the lad, with kindling eyes. "Why, twenty miles is naught of a journey when one can rise with the midsummer sun. I trow I shall pine after the forest tracks again. I shall have had enough and to spare of houses and cities by the time the summer solstice is upon us."

"We shall look for you, we shall wait for you!" cried Kate, waving her hand; and as it was fast growing dark, Sir Richard made a sign of dismissal and farewell, and Cuthbert moved slowly along the dark avenue, Philip walking beside his bridle rein for a few last words.

Cuthbert would have liked his sister to have seen him go forth, but that was not thought advisable. He wore an old riding suit of Philip's, which had fitted the latter before his shoulders had grown so broad and his figure assumed its present manly proportions. It suited Cuthbert well, and in spite of its having seen some service from its former owner, was a far better and handsomer dress than anything he had ever worn before, His own meagre wardrobe and few possessions were packed in the saddlebag across the saddle. His uncle had made no attempt to send him out equipped as a relative of the house of Trevlyn, and Cuthbert was glad that there should be no false seeming as to his condition when he appeared at Martin Holt's door. Sir Richard had given him at parting a small purse containing a couple of gold pieces and a few silver crowns, and had told him that he might in London sell the nag he bestrode and keep the price himself. He was not an animal of any value, and had already seen his best days, but he would carry Cuthbert soberly and safely to London town; and as the lad was still somewhat weak from his father's savage treatment, he was not sorry to be spared the long tramp over the deep mud of winter roads.

"I would not have you travel far tonight," said Philip, as he paced beside the sure-footed beast, who leisurely picked his way along the familiar road. "The moon will be up, to be sure, ere long; but it is ill travelling in the night. It is well to get clear of this neighbourhood in the dark, for fear your father might chance to espy you and make your going difficult. Yet I would have you ask shelter for your steed and yourself tonight at the little hostelry you will find just this side Hammerton Heath. The heath is an ill place for travellers, as you doubtless know. If you should lose the road, as is like enough, it being as evil and rough a track as well may be, you will like enough plunge into some bog or morass from which you may think yourself lucky to escape with life. And if you do contrive to keep to the track, the light-heeled gentlemen of the road may swoop down upon you like birds of prey, and rob you of the little worldly wealth that you possess. Wherefore I counsel you to pause ere you reach that ill-omened waste, and pass the night at the hostel there. The beds may be something poor, but they will be better than the wet bog, and you will be less like to be robbed there than on the road."

"I will take your good counsel, cousin," said Cuthbert. "I have not much to lose, but that little is my all. I will stop at the place you bid me, and only journey forth across the heath when the morrow's sun be up."

"You will do well. And now farewell, for I must return. I will do all that in me lies to watch over and guard Petronella. She shall be to me as a sister, and I will act a brother's part by her, until I may have won a right to call her something more. Have no fears for her. I will die sooner than she shall suffer. Her father shall not visit on her his wrath at your escape."

The cousins parted on excellent terms, and Cuthbert turned, with a strange smile on his brave young face, for a last look at the old Gate House, the gray masonry of which gleamed out between the dark masses of the leafless trees, a single light flickering faintly in an upper casement.

"Petronella's light!" murmured Cuthbert to himself. "I trow well she is thinking of me and praying for me before the little shrine in the turret. May the Holy Saints and Blessed Virgin watch over and protect her! I trust the day may come ere long when I may have power to rescue her from that evil home, and give to her a dower that shall make her not unworthy of being Philip's wife."

By which it may be seen that Cuthbert's thoughts were still running on the lost treasure, and that he had by no means relinquished his dream of discovery through hearing how others had sought and failed.

"If I may but win a little gold in these winter days when the forest is too inhospitable to be scoured and searched, I can give the whole of the summer to the quest. I will find these gipsies or their descendants and live amongst them as one of them. I will learn their ways, win their trust, and gradually discover all that they themselves know. Who dare say that I may not yet be the one to bring back the lost luck to the house of Trevlyn? Has it always been the prosperous and rich that have won the greatest prize? A humble youth such as I may do far more in the wild forest than those who have been bred to ease and luxury, and have to keep state and dignity."

Thus musing, Cuthbert rode slowly along in the light of the rising moon, his thoughts less occupied with the things he was leaving behind than with thoughts of the future and what it was to bring forth. The lad had all the pride of his house latent within him, and it delighted him to picture the day when he might return all Sir Richard's benefits a thousandfold by coming to him with the news of the lost treasure, and bidding him take the elder brother's share before ever his own father even knew that it had been found at last. His heart beat high as he pictured that day, and thought how he should watch the light coming into Kate's bright eyes, as the obstacle to her nuptials should be thus removed. Sure she could coax her father to remove his veto and overlook the cousinship if she had dower to satisfy Lord Andover. And if the Trevlyn treasure were but half what men believed, there would be ample to dower all three daughters and fill the family coffers, too.

"In truth it is a thing well worth living for!" cried the eager lad, as he pushed his way out of the wood and upon the highroad, where for a time travelling was somewhat better. "And why should I not succeed even though others have failed? My proud kinsmen have never lived in the forest themselves, learning its every secret winding track, making friends of its wild sons and daughters, learning the strange lore that only the children of the forest gather. What chance had they of learning secrets which but few may know? I trow none. I will not believe that great treasure has been cast away to the four winds. I verily believe it is still hidden away beneath the earth in some strange resting place known but to a few living souls. What do these wild gipsy folks want with gold and silver and jewels? They have all they need with the heavens above them and the earth beneath. They may love to have a buried hoard; they may love to feel that they have treasure at command if they desire it; but I can better believe they would keep it safe hidden in their forest or moorland home than that they would scatter it abroad by dividing it amongst their tribe. Moreover, any such sudden wealth would draw upon them suspicion and contumely. They would be hunted down and persecuted like the Jews in old days. No: they may well have stolen it out of revenge, but I believe they have hidden it away as they took it. It shall be my part to learn where it lies; and may the Holy Saints aid and bless me in the search!"

Cuthbert crossed himself as he invoked the Saints, for at heart he was a Romanist still, albeit he had had the wit to see that the same cardinal doctrines were taught by the Established Church of the land, whose services he had several times attended. And even as he made the gesture he became suddenly aware that he was not alone on the road. A solitary traveller mounted on a strong horse was standing beneath the shadow of a tree hard by, and regarding his approach with some curiosity, though the lad had not been aware of his close proximity until his horse paused and snorted.

"Good even, young man," said this traveller, in a pleasant voice that bespoke gentle birth. "I was waiting to see if I had an enemy to deal with in the shape of one of those rogues of the road, cutpurses or highwaymen, of whom one bears so many a long tale. But these travel in companies, and it behoves wise travellers to do likewise. How comes it that a stripling like you are out alone in this lone place? Is it a hardy courage or stern necessity?"

"I know not that it is one or the other," answered Cuthbert. "But I have not far to go this night, and I have not much to lose, though as that little is my all I shall make a fight ere I part with it. But by what I hear there is little danger of molestation till one reaches Hammerton Heath. And I propose to halt on the edge of that place, and sleep at the hostelry there."

"If you follow my counsel, my young friend," said the stranger as he paced along beside Cuthbert, "you will not adventure yourself in that den of thieves. Not long ago it was a safe place for a traveller, but now it is more perilous to enter those doors than to spend the darkest night upon the road. The new landlord is in league with the worst of the rogues and foot pads who frequent the heath, and no traveller