But his open-air life had done him good in many ways.  His uncle smiled, and told him he had grown to be a very son of Anak, and that he was as brown as a gipsy; whilst his cousins looked at him with furtive admiration, and Keziah could almost have wept that Cherry was not there to welcome him.

Cuthbert, however, quickly got over his disappointment on this score, and after swallowing a few sighs, was content to think that it might indeed be best so.  Cherry would learn where he was from Petronella, and would hear from her that his heart was still her own, and that success had crowned his search after the lost treasure.  He could go to seek her shortly, when the gipsy tribe should have drawn away from that part of the forest into the quarters they preferred during the winter months.  Were she to be here, he must surely betray himself, and should have to speak immediately to Martin Holt of his desire to make Cherry his wife.  Somehow, when face to face with his uncle, he felt less confident of winning his sanction for this step than he had done when away from him in the forest.  There it had seemed perfectly simple so long as he could show the father that he had the means to keep a wife in comfort.  Now he began to wonder if this would be enough.  Hints were dropped by both the Holts regarding Cherry’s approaching marriage with Jacob Dyson.  Mistress Susan openly regretted her absence from home as hindering that ceremony; and although Martin Holt spoke with more reticence, it was plain he was still cherishing the hope of the match when his wilful youngest should be a little older.

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.