“Marry that will I tell thee, Cuthbert; but my mother chides me for such talk, and says it befits not a discreet and godly maiden.  Yet I had it from mine own grandam, my father’s mother, and she was a godly woman, too.”

“And what did she tell thee?”

“My grandam was a Wyvern,” said Kate, “as perchance thou knowest, since the match pleased not thy father.  And she was not the first Wyvern who had married a Trevlyn.  It was Isabel Wyvern, her aunt, who had wedded with the redoubtable Sir Richard who had burnt the old witch, and I trow had he been married when the old beldam was brought before him he would have dealt more mercifully with her; for the Wyverns ever protected and helped the gipsy folk, and thought better of them than the rest of the world.  Well, be that as it may, my grandam had many stories about them and their strange ways, their fashion of fortune telling and divining, and the wonderful things they could foretell.  Many a time had a Wyvern been saved from danger and perhaps from death by a timely warning from one of the gipsy folk; and from a child she went fearlessly amongst them, though all men else shunned and hated them.”

“But the prediction—­the prediction?” demanded Cuthbert eagerly.

“I am coming to that,” answered Kate.  “It is a prediction about the descendants of the Wyverns.  My grandam knew it by heart—­she had a wondrous memory—­but my mother would never let me write down such things.  She loved them not, and said they had better be forgotten.  But though I cannot recall the words, the meaning stays still with me.  It was that though death might thin the ranks of the Wyverns, and their name even die out amongst men, yet in the future they should bring good hap to those who wed with them, and that some great treasure trove should come to the descendants in another generation.  Now, Cuthbert, though the name of Wyvern has died out—­for the sons went to the Spanish main, and were killed fighting for the honour of England and the Queen in the days of Elizabeth; and the daughters are married, and have lost their title to the old name—­yet thou and I have their blood in our veins.  Your grandam and mine were alike of the house of Wyvern.  Wherefore it seems to me that if this treasure is to be the treasure trove of the old saw, it behoves some of us to find it, and why not thou as well as another?  Philip is like to our mother, who loves not and believes not such saws.  Our father says that if stolen the treasure must long since have been scattered and lost.  Of all our house methinks I am the only one who believes it will yet be found, as I know my grandam did.  And so I say to thee, ’Go forth, and good hap attend thee.’  Thou art as much a Wyvern as I, and we will have faith that all will be yet restored.”

Cuthbert rose to his feet and shook back his hair.  His dark eyes flashed with the fixity of his purpose.

“I will never despair till the treasure is found.  Prithee, good cousin, show me the spot where it was buried first.”