But the words of the priest had awakened a new train of thought. Cuthbert resolved not to delay longer the reclamation of his own property. He spoke to Cherry that same evening about his lost purse, giving her a brief account of his ride across Hammerton Heath, and she was eager for him to ask his own, lest he should lose it altogether.
"For gay gallants are not always to be trusted, for all that they look so fine and speak so fair," she said, nodding her pretty curly head, an arch smile in her big gray eyes. "I have heard my father say so a hundred times. I would go quickly and claim mine own again. But tell me the rest of the adventure. What didst thou, left thus alone upon the lone heath? I trow it was an unmanly and unmannerly act to leave thee thus. What befell thee then?"
Cuthbert looked round cautiously; but there was no one listening to the chatter of this pair of idlers in the window. Mistress Susan's voice was heard below scolding the serving wench, and Martin Holt was poring over some big ledger whilst Jemima called over the figures of a heap of bills. Keziah was at her spinning wheel, which hummed merrily in the red firelight; and Cherry was seizing advantage of her aunt's absence to chatter instead of work.
Cherry had from the first been Cuthbert's confidante and friend. It was taken for granted by this time that this should be so. Nobody was surprised to see them often together, and Cherry had never found the house on the bridge so little dull as when Cuthbert came in night by night to give her the most charming and exciting accounts of his doings and adventures. Once, too, she had gone with him to see some sights. They had paraded Paul's Walk together, and Cuthbert had been half scandalized and wholly astonished to see a fine church desecrated to a mere fashionable promenade and lounging place and mart. They had watched some gallants at their tennis playing another day, and had even been present at the baiting of a bear, when they had come unawares upon the spectacle in their wanderings. But Cuthbert's ire had been excited through his humanity and love for dumb animals, and Cherry had been frightened and sickened by the brutality of the spectacle. And when Martin Holt had inveighed against the practice with all a Puritan's vehemence, Cuthbert had cordially agreed, and had thus drawn as it were one step nearer the side of the great coming controversy which his uncle had embraced.
These expeditions together had naturally drawn the cousins into closer bonds of intimacy. Cherry felt privileged to ask questions of Cuthbert almost at will, and he had no wish to hide anything from her.
"I will tell thee that adventure some day when we are alone," he answered. "I have often longed to share the tale with thee, but we have had so much else to speak of. I was taken prisoner by the robbers, and conveyed to a ruined mill, where some of their comrades and some wild gipsies dwell, as I take it, for the greater part of the inclement winter. I thought my end had surely come when first I saw the fierce faces round me; but there was one who called herself their queen, and who made them quit their evil purpose. She put me to sit beside her at the board, and when the morning came she fed me again and bid me ride forth without fear. She told me certain things to boot, which I must not forget: but those I will not speak of till you know the whole strange story. I may not tell it here. I would not that any should know it but thee, Cherry. But some day when we can get into some lonely place together I will tell thee all, and we will think together how the thing on which my mind is set may be accomplished."
Cherry's eyes were dilated with wonder and curiosity. Her cousin all at once took rank as a hero and knight of romance. He had already experienced a wonderful adventure, and there was plainly some mystery behind which was to be made known to her later.
What a proud thing it was to have such a cousin! How she despised honest Jacob now, with his large hands and heavy ways! She had laughed at him ever since she could remember, and had ordered him about much as though he were a faithful dog always ready to do her bidding; but she had never quite realized what a clumsy boor he was till their handsome, dark-faced Trevlyn cousin had come amongst them, with his earnest eyes, his graceful movements, and his slim, attractive person. Cuthbert's manners, that in fine society would have been called rustic and unformed, were a great advance on anything Cherry had seen in her own home, save in the person of Anthony Cole and his son. She admired him immensely, and he was rapidly becoming the sun and centre of her life; whilst Cuthbert, who had always been used to the companionship of a sister, and who found several fanciful resemblances as well as so many points of contrast between the lively Cherry and the pensive Petronella, was glad enough of her sisterly friendship and counsel, and did not lose in favour with his uncle that he succeeded in pleasing and brightening the life of his youngest born, who was in truth the idol of his heart, though he would sooner have cut off his right hand than have let her know as much too plainly.
As Cherry also was of opinion that Cuthbert ought to reclaim his money, he resolved to do so upon the morrow without any further loss of time. Cherry advised him not to speak openly of his visit to the tavern, for her father held all such places in abhorrence, and would likely speak in slighting terms of any person who could frequent them. He had better prosecute his errand secretly, and tell her the result at the end. Cherry dearly loved a little bit of mystery, and was very anxious that Cuthbert should continue to occupy his present position in her father's good graces.
The Cat and Fiddle was none too well looking a place when Cuthbert succeeded at last in finding it. It had one door in the thoroughfare of Holborn, but it ran back some way, and its other doors opened into a narrow alley turning off from the main street under a low archway. As Cuthbert pushed open the door of the public room, he saw several men with faces of decidedly unprepossessing type sitting together at a table engrossed in talk, and these all looked quickly up as he entered, and gazed at him with undisguised suspicion.