a town still
loyal to the king, and where he hoped his wife and babe would be safer
than in their remote Devonshire Manor House amid neighbours of
Parliamentary sympathies.

At Exeter Sybil Trevern remained until the city was forced to capitulate
in the spring of 1646; and then, widowed and landless (for Sir Ralph had
fallen at Marston Moor and his estate had been confiscated), she was
thankful to accept the invitation of some Royalist friends, who had
accompanied the queen, Henrietta Maria, in her secret flight to France
some while before, and journeyed, with her babe, to join them in Paris.

There was no opportunity for Sybil Trevern to return to her old home,
now in the possession of enemies; and, remembering her husband's strict
charge of secrecy, she was reluctant to mention the hidden treasure,
even to her friends.

"I will reveal it to our boy when he is of an age to understand it,"
thought Lady Trevern; but she never lived to see her son grow into
manhood, or even into youth.

The trials and sorrows which had befallen her had told upon the gentle
woman; and while the little Ralph was still a child, his mother passed
into the Silent Land.

The concealment of valuables in secret places frequently results in
misadventure. Sybil had often described to her little son the concealed
valuables, which, if the exiled Royalists were ever able to re-visit
England, she hoped to recover for herself and for him; and, in later
years, Sir Ralph could still recall the enigmatical words in which his
mother had (possibly with the idea that the rhyme might, as it did,
cling to his childish memory) spoken to him of the hidden treasure.

"Near the water, by the fern,
The Trevern secret you shall learn,"

had often been whispered into his childish ears, and this rhyme was now
the only clue that he possessed to the hiding-place of all that remained
of his family's fortunes. The articles heedfully concealed by the elder
Sir Ralph were of no small value. Besides papers and documents of some
moment to the family, and some heirlooms (antique silver so prized as to
have been exempted, even by the devoted Royalists, from contribution to
the king's "war treasure chest," for which the University of Oxford, and
many a loyal family, had melted down their plate), Sir Ralph had hidden
a most valuable collection of jewels, notably a necklace of rubies and
diamonds, which had been a treasured possession of the Treverns since
the days