"And why to him?" questioned Cuthbert, drawing his brows together in the effort to understand; "why to him rather than to Miriam or any other of the tribe?"
"Verily because he was the one being in the world beloved of Long Robin. Miriam he trusted not, for that she was a woman, and he held that no woman, however faithful, might be trusted with a secret. I have heard him say so a hundred times, and have seen her flinch beneath the words, whilst her eyes flashed fire. Methinks that Long Robin loved gold with the miser's greed--loved to hoard and not to spend--loved to feel it in his power, but desired not to touch it. Miriam was content so long as vengeance on the Trevlyns had been taken. She wanted not the gold herself so long as it was hidden from them. But the secret was one that must not die, and to young Robin it has been intrusted. And if I mistake me not, he has other notions regarding it, and will not let it lie in its hiding place for ever. He is sharp and shrewd as Lucifer. He knows by some instinct that I suspect and that I watch him, and never has he betrayed aught to me. But sure am I that the secret rests with him; and if thou wouldst find it out, it is Long Robin's steps that thou must dog and watch."
"I will watch him till I have tracked him to his lair!" cried Cuthbert, springing to his feet in great excitement. "I will never rest, day nor night, until the golden secret is mine!"
Chapter [14]: Long Robin.
The gipsy had left him, gliding away in the moonlight like a veritable shadow; and Cuthbert, left alone in the dim cave, buried his face in his hands and sank into a deep reverie.
This, then, was the meaning of it all: the long-deferred vengeance of the gipsy tribe; the avaricious greed of one amongst their number, who had committed dastardly crimes so as to keep the secret hiding place in his own power alone; the secret passed on (as it seemed) to one who feigned to be what he was not, and was cunningly awaiting time and opportunity to remove the gold, and amass to himself this vast hoard; none beside himself of all the tribe heeding or caring for it, all holding to the story told long ago of the seven men who had disappeared bearing away to foreign lands the stolen treasure. A generation had well-nigh passed since that treasure had been filched from the grasp of the Trevlyns. The stalwart fellows who had been bred up amongst the gipsies, or had joined the bands of freebooters with whom they were so closely connected, knew little of and cared nothing for the tradition of the hidden hoard. They found gold enough in the pockets of the travellers they waylaid to supply their daily needs; the free life of the forest was dear to them, and left them no lingering longings after wealth that might prove a burden instead of a joy to its possessor.
Out of those who had been living when the treasure was stolen and lost, only Miriam and Long Robin (if indeed it were he) and Esther remained alive. Esther had retired to London, and was lost to her people. Miriam had done everything to encourage the belief that the treasure had been made away with by the seven helpers who had gone forth, but had never returned to tell the tale. Esther, who had thought very differently, had confined her suspicious for a time to her own bosom, and later on had spoken of them only to Joanna. Upon her had she laid the charge to strive to make restitution, now that vengeance had been inflicted and the curse of the old witch fulfilled. To Joanna it belonged to restore prosperity to the house of Wyvern through the daughters' sons, and it was for her to strive to learn where the treasure lay, and give notice of the spot to the Trevlyns.
The queen had done all that she could. She had watched with close attention the pair with whom Esther believed the secret to lie. Miriam, her mother, knew not the spot, of that she was convinced; but she did know that the treasure had been hidden somewhere in the forest by her husband, and that the exact place was known to the white-bearded man whom she and others called Long Robin.
About that weird old man, said to be well-nigh a hundred years old, a flavour of romance existed. Men looked upon him as bearing a charmed existence. He went his lonely way unheeded by all. He was said to have dealings with the fairies and the pixies of the forest. All regarded him with a species of awe. He had drawn, as it were, a charmed circle about himself and his ways. None desired to interfere with him; none questioned his coming or going. All brought to him a share of the spoil taken on the roads as a matter of right and due, but none looked to receive aught in return from him. He and Miriam, from their great age, lived as it were apart. They took the place of patriarchal heads of the tribe, and were treated with reverence and filial respect by all.
The question Cuthbert had pressed home on Joanna was why, this being so, the treasure had not been moved away before this, so that Miriam should end her days in peace and luxury, instead of growing old in the wilds of the forest.