of Elizabeth, when one of the family had turned "gentleman
adventurer," become a companion of Drake and Hawkins, and won it as a
prize from a Spanish galloon.

In his childhood, the present Sir Ralph had heard (from old servants as
well as from his mother) descriptions of these treasured jewels; but the
secret of their hiding-place now rested with the dead.

Sir Ralph grew to manhood, returned to England at the Restoration, and
finally, after much suing and delay, succeeded in obtaining repossession
of his small paternal estate. Then, for many months, did he devote
himself to a careful, but utterly unavailing, search about his property,
vainly seeking along the lake-side and all round the big pond for the
concealed valuables--but never finding aught but disappointment. The
neighbours said that the silent, morose man, who spent his days walking
about the estate with bent head and anxious, searching eyes, had become
a trifle crazed; and indeed his fruitless search after his hidden wealth
had grown into a monomania.

As the years rolled by, Sir Ralph became a soured and misanthropic man;
for his estate had returned to him in a ruinous and burthened condition,
and the acquisition of his hidden treasure was really necessary to clear
off incumbrances and to repair the family fortunes.

Lady Trevern often assured her husband that it was more than probable
that the late Cromwellian proprietor had discovered the jewels during
his occupancy, and that, like a prudent man, he kept his own counsel in
the matter. But Sir Ralph still clung to the belief that somewhere in
his grounds, "near the water and by the fern," the wealth he now so
sorely needed lay concealed. That in this faith Sir Ralph lived and died
was proved by his will, in which he bequeathed to the younger of his two
sons, "and to his heirs," the jewels and other specified valuables which
the testator firmly believed were still concealed _somewhere_ about the
Trevern property. The widowed Lady Trevern, however, was a capable and
practically-minded woman, little inclined to set much value upon this
visionary idea of "treasure trove." She was most reluctant to see her
sons waste their lives in a hopeless search after the missing property,
and succeeded in impressing both her children with her own views
regarding the utter hopelessness of their father's quest. And, as the
years passed away, the story of the "Trevern Treasure" became merely a
kind of "family legend." The