“What does it mean, Cuthbert? what can it mean?  Canst read the words aright?”

“Ay, it is well writ.  I can read it, but I know not what it means.”

“Read it again to me.”

He obeyed, and she forthwith began to ask a hundred questions.

“’Three times three’—­that comes so many times.  What can that mean, Cuthbert? it must mean something.”

“Yes, doubtless, but I know not what.”

“And again, ‘Robin’s gain is Trevlyn’s loss.’  Cuthbert, who may Robin be?”

“I know not:  Yet stop—­hold!  Yes, I have it now.  Not that it may be aught of import.  Robin is a name a score of men may bear even in one village.  But when the robbers of the road found themselves at the ruined mill where the gipsies were, I heard the leader ask, ‘Where is Long Robin?’”

“And was he there?” asked Cherry eagerly.

“I know not:  none answered the question, and I heeded it no more.  Most like he was but some serving man they wanted to take the horses.”

“Cuthbert, it seems plain that some Robin has stolen this treasure, and carried it off and hidden it.  The verses must mean that!”

“Ay, I doubt it not, Cherry,” answered Cuthbert, smiling; “but see you not, fair cousin, that almost any person knowing of this lost treasure and the legend of the 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.