gipsies' hate could have strung
together words like these? All men hold that it may still be hidden
in the forest around the Chase; but there be deep dells by the
dozen, and the pixies, men say, have all fled away. And there be
wells that run dry, and men find fresh ones bursting out where
never water was before. These lines scarce show me more than I have
known or thought before."

"But they do, they do!" cried Cherry excitedly. "They tell that it
was Robin who has stolen it. Cuthbert, when thou goest to the
forest next thou must find this Long Robin and see if it can be
he."

The young man smiled at her credulity and enthusiasm. He was not so
entirely sceptical as to some possible clue being given by these
verses as he would have her believe, but he could not see any
daylight yet, and wished to save her from disappointment.

"That is scarce like to be. The treasure was stolen nigh on fifty
years agone, and he must have been a lusty robber who stole it
then--scarce like to be living now. But we will think of this more.
The wise woman must have dealings with a familiar, else how could
she have known our errand? We must heed her words well; they may be
words of wisdom. She knew strange things from my hand. I marvel how
she could read it all there."

Cuthbert looked upon his palm and shook his head. It was all a
mystery to him. But he had greater faith in the wise woman than he
altogether felt prepared to admit, and as he sought his couch that
night he kept saying over and over to himself the magic words he
had heard.

"'Three times three--three times three!' What can that signify? In
the forest perchance I shall read the riddle aright. Or perchance
the gipsy queen, the dark-eyed Joanna, will aid me in the search.
If I could but trust her, she might see things that I cannot in
these lines. Would that the winter were past; would that the summer
were about to come! The perils of the forest are to be less to me
than the perils of the city. I wonder what perils menace me here.
Beneath my father's roof I oft went in peril of my life; but
here--why, here I feel safer than ever in my life before!"

Chapter 10: The Hunted Priest.

The two friends that Cuthbert had made of his own sex during the
first weeks spent beneath his uncle's roof were the same two guests
he had seen at the supper table on the evening of his arrival--Walter
Cole and Jacob Dyson.

Both these men were several years older than himself, but i