The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn: A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot

"So that thou art out of thy trouble for the nonce?"

Culverhouse laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"I say not that, for they tell us it will be many years ere we can hope to be wed again in due form; and waiting is weary work."

"And why should you wait?"

Culverhouse laughed again.

"That is soon answered. My father has always told me that I must wed a lady of wealth if I am to wed young. Our estates are encumbered. We have more state to keep up than we well know how to manage. We have had troubles and losses even as the Trevlyns have. I have known this well. I cannot complain of my father. Nevertheless I chose my Kate without any dowry before all the world beside, and I am prepared to abide by my choice. But we shall have to wait; we shall have to possess our souls in patience. They all tell us that; and I gainsay them not. I am young. I have friends in high places. I will win a name for myself, and a fortune too, ere my head be gray. Alas for the old days of chivalry, when men might ride forth to fame and glory, and win both that and wealth in a few short years! Those bright days are gone for ever. Still methinks I will conquer fate yet!"

Culverhouse looked as though fitted indeed for some career of chivalrous daring. He and Cuthbert would gladly have ridden forth together upon some knightly quest; but the days for such things had gone by, as both recognized with a sigh. Still there was brightness in Cuthbert's eyes as he said:

"Mistress Kate will spend her Christmas at the Cross Way House, and I trow that others of the Trevlyns will do the like. If thou wilt be one of the party there upon that day, I doubt not that there will be a welcome for thee; and perchance thou wilt find then that thy nuptials need not be so long postponed. A golden key may be found which will unlock many doors."

Culverhouse looked quickly and eagerly at his companion, but could ask no more even had he wished, as they were at that moment joined by two friends of his, young men about the Court, who at once began to talk of the approaching opening of Parliament and the grand show that would accompany the act.

The King's love for fine dress, fine pageants, and fine shows, of which he was the sun and centre (in his own opinion at least), was well known by this time. These young sprigs of the nobility amused themselves by making game freely of his Majesty behind his back, ridiculing his vanity, mimicking his ungainly action, especially upon horseback (though he considered himself a most finished and accomplished rider), and describing to Culverhouse the fine new robes he had ordered for the occasion, and which were to surpass in grandeur anything he had ever worn before.

"Folks talked of the vanity of our good Queen Bess, and called her mighty extravagant; but beshrew me if she were half as vain or extravagant as our noble King Jamie! It is a marvel he cannot see how ten-fold uglier he makes his ugly person by trapping himself out in all such frippery and gorgeous apparel."

So the young men chatted on in lightsome fashion, and Cuthbert, who listened to every word, could not gather that the smallest uneasiness had penetrated the minds of those who moved in these high places. Culverhouse talked with equal gaiety and security. Certainly he had no suspicion of coming ill. The mutterings of discontent the seething of the troubled waters, the undefined apprehensions of many of the classes of the people, were apparently unknown and unheeded here. All was sunshine and brightness in the region of palaces. But if these youths had entertained any secret misgivings, they would have discussed them freely together.

Culverhouse kept Cuthbert to dinner, and he was kindly received by the Earl's family. Lady Andover even remembered to ask after Cherry, and won Cuthbert's heart by so doing. She questioned him in private about the marriage in the church porch, of which he had been witness, and plainly all he told her only went to strengthen her conviction that the matter had gone too far to admit of any drawing back without some breach of faith that was akin to sacrilege.

After the meal, which seemed stately and long to Cuthbert, Culverhouse asked him would he like to see the Houses of Parliament, where the King would shortly meet his Lords and Commons. Cuthbert eagerly assented, and the two youths spent some time in wandering about the stately buildings, to which Culverhouse could obtain easy admittance; the Viscount explaining to his companion where the King sat and where his immediate counsellors, to all of which Cuthbert listened with marked attention.

There were several attendants and ushers within the building, and Culverhouse told him that orders had been given to keep strict watch over the building both by night and day.

"The King is not like our good Queen-Heaven rest her soul!" said the Viscount, laughing. "He does not trust his people. He is always in fear of some mischance either through accident or design. Well may the great Shakespeare have said: 'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!' Albeit the King would do better to have a little more courage."

This was the first word Cuthbert had heard of any uneasiness in high quarters, and he asked with some eagerness:

"Meanest thou that the King fears some evil to himself at this time?"

"No; I have heard naught of that. The country seems unwontedly quiet. It is the fear which never leaves him-the fear that makes him wear a doublet so thickly quilted that it would suffice to turn the sharpest blade, even as a suit of chain mail. He is always dreading assassination. That is why he wills such close watch to be kept, lest haply any evil-disposed person might find hiding within the walls and spring upon him unawares. Methinks it is an unkingly fear, but there it be, and he carries it ever with him. The Queen had none such-nor had she need; and as thou knowest, when once an assassin did approach her when she was alone in her garden, the glance of her eye kept him cowed and at bay till her gentlemen could hasten to her side. She was a Queen in very truth! I would we had more of her like!"

Culverhouse spoke out aloud, careless of being overheard, for he was but speaking the thoughts of the whole nation. Cuthbert echoed his wish with all sincerity; and still looking round and about him with keen interest, went through a certain mental calculation which caused him at last to ask:

"And what buildings lie around or beneath this?"

"I know not exactly how that may be. There is a house close beside this where methinks I have heard that Master Thomas Percy dwells, the steward to my Lord of Northumberland. I know not what lies beneath; it may be some sort of cellar.

"Dost thou know, fellow, whether there be cellars beneath this place?"

Culverhouse spoke to a man-at-arms who appeared to be on duty there, and who had for some moments been regarding Cuthbert with close scrutiny, and had now drawn slowly near them. Cuthbert was vaguely aware that the man's face was in some way familiar to him, but he had no recollection where he had seen him before.

"Master Thomas Percy has rented the cellar beneath, where his coals be stored," answered the man carelessly; and Cuthbert, who had asked the question rather haphazard and without exactly knowing why, moved away to examine a piece of fine carving close at hand.

Whilst he was doing this he knew that the man-at-arms asked Culverhouse a question, to which the latter gave ready reply, and he heard the name of Trevlyn pass his lips. At the moment he heeded this little, but the remembrance came back to him later.

As he passed out he noted that the man still continued to gaze after him, as though wishful to read his face by heart. He was standing beside a companion warder then, pointing out, as it seemed, the visitor to the other fellow. Was it only fancy, or did Cuthbert really hear the name of Father Urban pass in a whisper between them? Puzzled, and even a shade uneasy, he followed Culverhouse to the outer door, A flash of memory seemed then to recall to him the faces of these two men. Had he not seen them keeping watch at the wharf for Father Urban that day so long ago? He was almost certain it had been so. But what of that? How could they possibly connect him with the fugitive priest?

It would soon be dusk now, so the comrades said adieu to each other and went their several ways. Cuthbert had come as far as the Strand by boat, and had only to drop down and find it there; but somehow he felt more disposed to linger about these solemn old buildings, and try to piece together the things he had seen and heard.

Hardly knowing what he was doing, he wandered round the great pile till he came to the narrow entry he had once traversed, leading up from the river to the door of the house where he had seen Catesby and his companions at their mysterious toil. The house looked dark as night now. Not a single gleam penetrated the gloom. Already the last of the twilight had faded into night, but no ray of any kind shone from any of the casements.

Cuthbert stood looking thoughtfully up at the house, hardly knowing why he did so, his fancy running riot in his excited brain and conjuring up all manner of fantastic visions, when suddenly and silently the door opened. A gleam of light from behind showed in relief the figure of a tall man muffled in a cloak, a soft felt hat being drawn over the brow and effectually concealing the features; but one glance sufficed to convince Cuthbert that this cloaked and muffled individual was none other than the same tall dark man who had produced the holy water blessed by the Pope and had had it sprinkled around the spot where those mysterious men were at work in Percy's house. Filled with a burning curiosity that rendered him impervious to the thought of personal risk, Cuthbert first shrank into a dark recess, and then with hushed and noiseless footfall followed the tall figure in its walk.

The cloaked man walked quietly, but without any appearance of fear. He skirted round the great block of buildings of which the Houses of Parliament were composed, until he reached a door in the rear of that building, within a deep arch sunk a little way below the level of the ground, and this door he opened, but closed it after him, and locked it on the inside.

Unable to follow further, Cuthbert put his ear to the keyhole, and heard distinctly the sound of footsteps descending stone stairs till the sound changed to the unbarring of a lower door, and then all was silence.

Cuthbert looked keenly around him, and soon made out that these steps must certainly lead down to the cellar beneath the Parliament Houses of which he had recently heard. That other cellar he had visited so many months before was close at hand-close to these great buildings; and this tall dark man seemed to have some mysterious connection with both.

What could it all mean? what did it mean? Cuthbert felt as though he were on the eve of some strange discovery, but what that discovery could be he could not guess.

He was aroused from his reverie by the sound of approaching footfalls along the roadway, and he hastily stood upright and walked onwards to meet the advancing pedestrian. The man carried a light which he flashed in Cuthbert's face, and the youth saw that it was one of the men-at-arms on guard over these buildings.

"What are you doing here?" asked the man civilly, though in slightly peremptory fashion.

"I did not know that this road was anything but public," answered Cuthbert, with careless boldness. "I have walked in London streets before now, no man interfering with me."

"Have a care how and where you walk at night," returned the man, passing by without further comment. "There be many perils abroad in the streets-more than perchance you wot of."

Cuthbert thanked him for the hint, and went on his way. He would have liked well enough to linger till the tall man emerged again, but he saw that to do so would only excite suspicion.

Although it was quite dark by this time, it was not really late; for it was the last day of October save one, and masses of heavy cloud obscured the sky. Now and again a ray of moonlight glinted through these ragged masses, but for the rest it was profoundly dark in the narrow streets, and only a little lighter on the open river.

The tide was running in fast, with a strong cold easterly wind. Cuthbert saw that it would be hard work to row against it.

"Better wait for the ebb; it will not be long in coming now," he said to himself as he noted the height of the tide; and stepping into his boat, he pulled idly out into midstream, as being a safer place of waiting than the dark wharf, to find himself drifting up with the strong current, which he did not care to try to stem.

"Beware of the dark-flowing river!" spoke a voice within him; "beware of the black cellar!"

He started, for it almost seemed as though some one had spoken the words in his ear, and a little thrill of fear ran through him. But all was silent save for the wash of the current as it bore him rapidly onwards, and he knew that the voice was one in his own head.

Upwards and upwards he drifted; was it by his own will, or not? He did not himself know, he could not have said. He only knew that a spell seemed upon him, that an intense desire had seized him to look once again upon that lonely house beside the river bank. He had no wish to try to obtain entrance there. He felt that he was treading the dark mazes of some unhallowed plot. But this very suspicion only increased his burning curiosity; and surely there could no harm come of one look at that dark and lonely place.

No volition of his own was needed to carry him onwards; wind and tide did all that. He had merely to keep his place and steer his little bark up the wide river. He saw against the sky the great pile of Westminster. He had drifted almost across the river by that time. He was seated in the bow of the boat, just dipping an oar from time to time as it slipped along beneath the trees. And now the moon shone out for a few minutes clear and bright. It did not shine upon his own craft, gliding so stealthily beneath the bare trees that fringed the wall of the very house he had come to see; but it did gleam upon another wherry out in midstream, rowed by a strong man wrapped in a cloak, and directed straight for the same spot. Cuthbert started, and caught hold of a bough of a weeping willow, bringing his boat to a standstill in a place where the shadow was blackest. He had no wish to be found in this strange position. He would remain hidden until this other boat had landed at the steps. He would be hidden well where he was. He had better be perfectly silent, and so remain.

A sound of voices above his head warned him that he was not the only watcher, and for a moment he feared that, silent as had been his movements, his presence had been discovered. But some one spoke in anxious accents, and in that voice he recognized the clear and mellow tones of Robert Catesby. He was speaking in a low voice to some companion.

"If he comes not within a short while, I shall hold that all is lost. I fear me we did wrong to send him. That letter-that letter-that luckless letter! who can have been the writer?"

"Tresham, I fear me without doubt, albeit he denied it with such steadfast boldness. Would to heaven that fickle hound had never been admitted to our counsels! That was thy doing, Catesby."

"Ay, and terribly do I repent me of it, Winter. I upbraid myself as bitterly as any can upbraid me for the folly. But hark-listen! I hear the plash of oars. See, there is a boat! It is he-it is Fawkes! I know him by his height and his strong action. Heaven be praised! All cannot yet be lost! Move upwards yet a few paces, and we will speak to him here alone before we take him within doors to the others.