Part 4 (1/2)
Thus recalled to her subject, Kate took up her narrative again.
”You doubtless know that Queen Mary died in November of the year of grace fifteen hundred and fifty-eight. In that year, some months earlier, my father was born, and at the time of the proclamation of the new Queen he was a tender infant. My grandfather was in London about the Court, and his wife and child were here in this house--the sumptuous mansion he and his father had built--not dreaming of harm or ill. They had not heard of the death of one Queen or the proclamation of the other till one dark winter's night when, just as the household were about to retire to bed, my grandfather and your father, Cuthbert, arrived at the house, their faces pale with anxiety and apprehension, their clothes stained with travel; the state of both riders and horses showing the speed with which they had travelled, and betraying plainly that something urgent had happened. The news was quickly told. Queen Mary was dead. Bonfires in London streets were blazing in honour of Elizabeth. The Protestants were everywhere in a transport of joy and triumph. The Papists were trembling for their lives and for their fortunes. No one knew the policy of the new Queen. All felt that it was like enough she would inflict b.l.o.o.d.y chastis.e.m.e.nt on those who had been the enemies of herself and of her Protestant subjects. Even as the Trevlyn brothers had pa.s.sed through the streets of the city on their way out, they had been hissed and hooted and even pelted by the crowd, some amongst which knew well the part they had played in the recent persecutions. They had been not a little alarmed by threats and menaces hurled at them even in the precincts of St. James's, and it had become very plain to them that they would speedily become the objects of private if not of public vengeance. That being so, my grandfather was eager and anxious to return to the Chase, to place his wife and child in some place of safety; whilst your father's fear was all for the treasure in gold and plate and valuables stored up in the house, which might well fall an easy prey to the rapacious hands of spoilers, should such (as was but too likely) swoop down upon the house to strive to recover the jewels and gold taken from them when they were helpless to oppose or resent such spoliation.”
”Then it was all laid by at the Chase--all the money and precious things taken from others?”
”Yes, and a vast quant.i.ty of silver and gold plate which had come into the possession of former Trevlyns ever since the rise of the family in the early days of the Tudors. The seventh Henry and the eighth alike enriched our forefathers, and I know not what wealth was stored up in the treasure room of this house now so drearily void. But I mind well the story our grandam told us when we were little children, standing at her knee in the ruddy firelight, of that night when all this treasure was packed up in great chests and boxes, and carried at dead of night by trusty servants into the heart of the forest, and buried beneath a certain giant oak many times pointed out to us, and well-nigh killed in after years by the diggings around it in search of the missing h.o.a.rd. To secure this treasure, and bury it out of the reach of rapacious and covetous hands, was the aim and object of that hurried journey taken on the evening of the Queen's decease. None were in the secret save three old servants, whose faithful loyalty to the family had been tested in a thousand different ways. Those three, together with my grandfather and your father, packed and transported with their own hands this great treasure into the wood, and there entombed it. None else knew of that night's work. No other eye saw what was done. They worked the whole night through, and by the tardy dawn all was done, and even the soil of the forest so cleverly arranged that none could guess at the existence of that deep grave. And who would guess the secret of that tangled forest? Even were it thought that the gold and silver had been hid, who would have such skill as to guess the spot, and go and filch it thence? And yet it must have been carried away full soon. For Nicholas Trevlyn, in his anxious greed, visited the spot not many weeks later--visited it by stealth, for he and his brother were alike in hiding, waiting for the first burst of vengeful fury to be over--and he found it gone! He thought on the first survey that all was well; but on more closely examining the ground his heart misgave him, for it appeared to him as if the soil had been moved. With anxious haste he began to dig, and soon his spade struck the lid of one of the chests. For a moment he breathed again; but he was impelled to carry his search farther. He uncovered the chest and raised the lid--it was empty! In a wild fear and fury he dug again and again, and with the same result. Every chest or box was in its place, but every one was empty! The treasure had been spirited away by some spoiler's hand; the treasure of Trevlyn was lost from that night forward!”
Cuthbert was leaning forward drinking all in with eager curiosity.
”My father discovered the loss--my father?”
Kate nodded her head, and seemed to divine the thought in his mind, for she answered as if he had spoken it aloud.
”We have all thought of that. I know it is sometimes in my father's mind as he looks at his kinsman's grim face; but our grand sire never suspected him for a moment--nay, he vowed he was certain he had had no part nor lot in the matter. For there was nothing but accord between the brothers; they shared good and evil hap alike. It was with his son, my father, who abjured the old faith and became a Protestant, that your father picked a quarrel. He hated his brother's wife, it is true; but he never appeared to hate his brother. And he suffered more than any in the years that followed. He lost his all, and has been a ruined man since. If he had a secret h.o.a.rd, sure he would scarce live the life he does now.”
”I know not. It seems scarce like; and yet I can never answer for my father's moods, they are so wild and strange. But there is yet one thing more I would ask. You spoke awhile ago of gipsies--of a hatred they bore to our house. Tell me of that, I pray. Might it have somewhat to do with the stealing of the treasure?”
”That is what some have thought, though with what truth none can say. The story of that is soon told. Many long years agone now, the Trevlyn whose portrait hangs below in the hall--our great grandfather--gave sentence upon an old gipsy woman that she should be burnt as a witch. Men said of her that she had overlooked their children and their cattle: that the former had become sick or silly, and that the latter had incontinently died of diseases none had heard of before. There was such a hue and cry about her, and so many witnesses to testify the harm she had done, that all men held the case proven, and she was burnt in the sight of all the village out upon the common yonder by order of our forefather, whose office it was to see the law enforced. There were then many of these gipsy folk scattered about the common and forest, and this old witch belonged to them. They mustered strong upon the heath, and it was said that if the villagers had not been too strong for them they would have rescued the witch as she was led out to die. But the Trevlyns, when a thing has to be done, are wont to carry it through; and your grandfather, Cuthbert, was prepared against any such attempt, and the thing was done as had been decreed. The old woman went bravely to her death, but she turned as she pa.s.sed Sir Richard and cursed him with a terrible curse. Later on some rude verses were found fastened to the wall of the church, and it was said by those who had heard the curse that these verses contained the same words. The paper was burnt by the haughty knight; but my grandam remembered some of the lines--she had got a sight of the paper--and used to tell them to us. I cannot recall them to memory now, but there was something about loss of gold and coming woe, years of strife and vengeful foe. And when years after the Trevlyn treasure was lost, there were many who vowed that it had been the work of the gipsy tribe, who had never forgotten or forgiven, and who had been waiting their turn to take vengeance upon the descendants of their old enemy.”
”It seems not unlike,” said Cuthbert, thoughtfully; ”and if that be so, the treasure will most like be dissipated to the four winds by now. It would be divided amongst the tribe, and never be seen within the walls of Trevlyn again.”
”That I know not,” answered Kate, and she drew a little nearer to her cousin. ”Cuthbert, dost thou believe in old saws? Dost thou believe those predictions which run in old families, and which men say work themselves out sometimes--in after generations?”
”I scarce know,” answered Cuthbert, ”I hear so little and see so little. I know not why they should not be true. Men of old used to look into the future, and why not now? But why speakest thou thus, sweet cousin?”
”Marry that will I tell thee, Cuthbert; but my mother chides me for such talk, and says it befits not a discreet and G.o.dly maiden. Yet I had it from mine own grandam, my father's mother, and she was a G.o.dly woman, too.”
”And what did she tell thee?”
”My grandam was a Wyvern,” said Kate, ”as perchance thou knowest, since the match pleased not thy father. And she was not the first Wyvern who had married a Trevlyn. It was Isabel Wyvern, her aunt, who had wedded with the redoubtable Sir Richard who had burnt the old witch, and I trow had he been married when the old beldam was brought before him he would have dealt more mercifully with her; for the Wyverns ever protected and helped the gipsy folk, and thought better of them than the rest of the world. Well, be that as it may, my grandam had many stories about them and their strange ways, their fas.h.i.+on of fortune telling and divining, and the wonderful things they could foretell. Many a time had a Wyvern been saved from danger and perhaps from death by a timely warning from one of the gipsy folk; and from a child she went fearlessly amongst them, though all men else shunned and hated them.”
”But the prediction--the prediction?” demanded Cuthbert eagerly.
”I am coming to that,” answered Kate. ”It is a prediction about the descendants of the Wyverns. My grandam knew it by heart--she had a wondrous memory--but my mother would never let me write down such things. She loved them not, and said they had better be forgotten. But though I cannot recall the words, the meaning stays still with me. It was that though death might thin the ranks of the Wyverns, and their name even die out amongst men, yet in the future they should bring good hap to those who wed with them, and that some great treasure trove should come to the descendants in another generation. Now, Cuthbert, though the name of Wyvern has died out--for the sons went to the Spanish main, and were killed fighting for the honour of England and the Queen in the days of Elizabeth; and the daughters are married, and have lost their t.i.tle to the old name--yet thou and I have their blood in our veins. Your grandam and mine were alike of the house of Wyvern. Wherefore it seems to me that if this treasure is to be the treasure trove of the old saw, it behoves some of us to find it, and why not thou as well as another? Philip is like to our mother, who loves not and believes not such saws. Our father says that if stolen the treasure must long since have been scattered and lost. Of all our house methinks I am the only one who believes it will yet be found, as I know my grandam did. And so I say to thee, 'Go forth, and good hap attend thee.' Thou art as much a Wyvern as I, and we will have faith that all will be yet restored.”
Cuthbert rose to his feet and shook back his hair. His dark eyes flashed with the fixity of his purpose.
”I will never despair till the treasure is found. Prithee, good cousin, show me the spot where it was buried first.”
Cuthbert never stirred outside the house till after dark. He was still in hiding from his father, who knew not his whereabouts, and was still on the watch for the truant, believing him to be lurking about in the forest around his home. Philip had once contrived to see Petronella and soothe her fears, telling her that her brother was safe, and would be sent forth to their kinsfolk in London so soon as he was fit for the long ride. But many evening rambles had been taken by the youth, who panted for the freedom of the forest, to which he was so well used; and Kate delighted in any excuse for a moonlight stroll.
The place was soon found. Kate had visited it so often that the tangled path which led thither was as familiar to her as if it had been a well-beaten road. It lay right away in the very heart of the forest, and save for the majestic size of the oak beneath which the chests had been buried, had nothing to mark the spot. Now there were traces of much digging. The ground all around had been disturbed again and yet again by eager searchers, each hopeful to come upon some clue missed by all the rest. But nothing, save the remains of a few iron-bound chests, served to show that anything had once been secreted there; and the moonlight shone steadily and peacefully down upon the scene of so many heart-burnings and grievous disappointments, as though such things did not and could not exist in such a still and lovely place.
”Ah, if she would but tell us all she has seen!” said Kate, looking up towards the silver Queen of Night. But the moon kept her own secret, and presently the pair turned away.
”Shall we go back by the chantry?” asked Cuthbert, with some hesitation; ”I should like to see it once again.”
”Let us,” answered Kate; ”we are not like to meet thy father. He has given up by now his watch around the house. Moreover, I have eyes and ears like a wildcat. None can approach unawares upon us. I can feel a human presence ere I see it.”