“I will win it back—­I will, I will!” he said in his heart, as he walked up the hill with Kate tripping lightly beside him, Philip having lingered to watch Petronella safely within the shelter of the gloomy walls of the Gate House.  “She shall have her dower, that she may wed this gay Lord Culverhouse.  My sweet sister shall be dowered, too, and in no danger of spending all her youth and sweetness shut up between those gloomy walls.  Fortune will smile once more upon all those who have the blood of the Trevlyns and Wyverns in their veins.  I believe in the old prediction.  I believe that the treasure trove will come, and that it will prove to be the lost treasure of the house of Trevlyn!”

Chapter 4:  A Night On Hammerton Heath.

“Farewell, Cuthbert, farewell, farewell!  Heaven speed you on your way!  We shall look for tidings of you some day.  And when the long summer days come upon the green world, perchance you may even make shift to ride or walk the twenty miles that separates us from London to tell of your own well being and ask of ours.”

These and many like words were showered on Cuthbert as he sat his steed at the door of Trevlyn Chase, as the dusk was beginning to gather, and his uncle and cousins stood clustered together on the steps to see him ride forth to seek his fortune, as Kate insisted on calling it, though her father spoke of it rather as a visit to his mother’s kinsfolks.

Cuthbert had been very loath to go.  He had found himself happier beneath his uncle’s roof than ever he had been before (Sir Richard was in point of fact his cousin, but the lad had given him the title of uncle out of respect, and now never thought of him as anything else), but he knew that to linger long would be neither safe nor possible.

Only his strange and savage life had prevented the news of his son’s present quarters from coming to the knowledge of the angry Nicholas, and all were feeling it better for the young man to take his departure.  Now the moment of parting had really come, and already the hope of a flying visit to the Chase in the summer next to follow was the brightest thought to lighten the regrets of the present.

“Ay, that will I gladly do!” cried the lad, with kindling eyes.  “Why, twenty miles is naught of a journey when one can rise with the midsummer sun.  I trow I shall pine after the forest tracks again.  I shall have had enough and to spare of houses and cities by the time the summer solstice is upon us.”

“We shall look for you, we shall wait for you!” cried Kate, waving her hand; and as it was fast growing dark, Sir Richard made a sign of dismissal and farewell, and Cuthbert moved slowly along the dark avenue, Philip walking beside his bridle rein for a few last words.