"Boy, what is thy name?" she asked, in a quick, harsh whisper.
"Cuthbert Trevlyn," he answered, without hesitation, and at the name a wild laugh rang out through the vaulted room, illumined by the glow of a huge fire of logs, whilst all present started and looked at one another.
"I knew it--I knew it!" cried the old woman, with a wild gesture of her withered arms, which were bare to the elbow, as though she had been engaged in culinary tasks. "I knew it--I knew it! I knew it the moment the light fell upon his face. Trevlyn--Trevlyn! one of that accursed brood! Heaven be praised, the hour of vengeance has come! We will do unto one of them even as they did unto us;" and she waved her arms again in the air, and glanced towards the glowing fire on the hearth with a look in her wild eyes that for a moment caused Cuthbert's heart to stand still. For he remembered the story of the witch burned by his grand sire's mandate, and he felt he was not mistaken in the interpretation he had put upon the old woman's words.
But Tyrrel roughly interposed.
"No more of that, mother," he said. "We have wiped out that old score long ago. The lad is a bold lad, Trevlyn or no. Let us to supper now, and forget those accursed beldam's tales. Where is Long Robin, and what is he doing? and where is Joanna tonight?"
"Here," answered a clear, full voice from the shadows of the inglenook, and forth there stepped a very queenly-looking woman, in the prime of life, when youth's bloom has not been altogether left behind, and yet all the grace of womanhood, with its dignity and ease, has come to give an added charm. One glance from the old woman's face to that of the young one showed them to be mother and daughter, and it did not take a sharp eye to see that Tyrrel, as he was always called, was deeply enamoured of the beautiful Joanna, though treated by her with scant notice, and as though he were yet a boy, scarce worthy of being looked at or spoken to.
She stood in the glow of the fire, a tall, graceful presence, to the full as picturesque as her gipsy mother, and far more attractive. Cuthbert's eyes turned upon her with an unconscious appeal in them; for it suddenly dawned upon him that for a Trevlyn to adventure himself amongst these wild gipsy folks was like putting the head into a lion's mouth.
It almost seemed as though Joanna read this doubt and this fear; for a flashing smile crossed her dark face, and she held out a shapely hand to lead the guest to the table.
"Thou art welcome to our board, Cuthbert Trevlyn," she said, "as is any hapless stranger in these wilds, be he Trevlyn or no. Thou shalt eat our salt this night, and then woe betide the man who dares to lay hand on thee;" and such a glance was flashed around from her magnificent dark eyes as caused each one that met it to resolve to take good heed to his ways. "Thou shalt come and go unmolested; Joanna the Gipsy Queen has so decreed it!"
Every one present, the old woman included, bent the head at these words, and Cuthbert felt by some instinct that his life was now safe.