The girl hid her blushing face on Cuthbert’s shoulder, whilst he answered with boyish straightforwardness: 

“I will wed my cousin Cherry or none else.  We have plighted our troth secretly, and she shall one day be my bride.  If thou canst help me in this matter, it will make our lot easier; but, poor or rich, she shall be mine!”

The old woman nodded her head several times, and Cuthbert fancied that a greater benignity of expression crossed her wrinkled face.

“Brave words! brave words!” she muttered, “and a brave heart behind.  Grandson to Isabel Wyvern!  Ay, so it is; and there is Wyvern in that face as well as Trevlyn.  For her sake—­for her sake!  Ay, I would do much for that.

“Boy,” she said suddenly, raising her voice and speaking in her witch-like accents again, “thou hast spoken a name which is as a talisman, and though thou hast asked a hard thing, I will help thee an I can.  Yet I myself know naught.  It is the familiar spirits that know, and they will not always come even at my call; they will not always speak sooth at my bidding.  I can but use my arts; the rest lies with them; and this is a secret that has been long-time hid.”

“Ay, and the time has now come when it should be revealed,” answered Cuthbert boldly.  “Use what arts thou wilt!  I ask the answer to my question.  I would know where the lost treasure lies.”

As he spoke these words the room became suddenly darkened.  Around them again as they stood there seemed to float voices and whispers, though not one articulate word could either hear.  In the gloom they saw nothing save the fiery eyes of the great cat, which appeared to be crouched upon the table beside its mistress.  The whisperings and voices, sometimes accompanied by soft or mocking laughter, continued for the space of several moments, and appeared to be interrupted at last by the tap of the wise woman’s wand upon the table, which three times repeated enforced a sudden silence.

The silence was for a moment more awe inspiring than what had gone first; but before Cherry had more time than sufficed to nip Cuthbert hard by the hand, they heard the old woman’s voice, in an accent of stern command, uttering one single word: 

“Speak!”

There was a brief pause, and then a sweet low voice rose in the room and seemed to float round them, whilst the words with their rhythmic cadence fell distinctly on the ears of the listening pair: 

“Three times three—­on a moonlight night,
The oak behind, the beech to right;
Three times three—­over ling and moss,
Robin’s gain is Trevlyn’s loss.

“Three times three—­the war is long,
Yet vengeance hums, and the back is strong;
Three times three—­the dell is deep,
It knows its secret well to keep.

“Three times three—­the bones gleam white,
None dare pass by day or night;
Three times three—­the riddle tell! 
The answer lies in the pixies’ well.”