The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn: A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot

by Evelyn Everett-Green

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.