believe that Miriam herself
knows not the spot, but that she knows it lies yet in the forest,
and that when the hour is come she and Robin together will bear it
away, and keep it for ever from the house of Trevlyn."

"But sure if they are ever to enjoy their ill-gotten gains it
should be soon," said Cuthbert. "Miriam is old, and Long Robin can
scarce be younger--"

"Hold! I have not done. Long Robin, her husband, was older by far
than she. If the old man who goes by that name be indeed he, he
must be nigh upon fourscore and ten. But I have long doubted what
no man else doubts. I believe not that yon gray-beard is Robin; I
believe that it is another who masquerades in old man's garb, but
has the strength and hardihood of youth beneath that garb and that
air of age."

"Marry! yet how can that be?"

"It might not be so hard as thou deemest. In our tribe our men
resemble each other closely, and have the same tricks of voice and
speech. Nay, it was whispered that many of the youths were in very
truth sons to Robin; and one of these so far favoured him that they
were ever together, and he was treated in all ways like a son.
Miriam loved him as though he had been her own. Where Long Robin
went there went this other Robin, too. He was as the shadow of the
other. And a day came when they went forth together to roam in
foreign lands, and Miriam with them. They were gone for full three
years. We gave up the hope of seeing them more. But suddenly they
came amongst us again--two of them, not three. They said the
younger Robin had died of the plague in foreign lands, and all men
gave heed to the tale. But from the first I noted that Long Robin's
step was firmer than when he went forth, that there was more power
in his voice, more strength in his arm. True, he goes about with
bowed back; but I have seen him lift himself up when he thought
there was none to see him, and stretch his long arms with a
strength and ease that are seldom seen in the very aged. He can
accomplish long rides and rambles, strange in one so old; and our
people begin to regard him with awe, as a man whom death has passed
by. But I verily believe that it was old Robin who passed away, and
that this man is none other but young Robin; and that in him and
him alone is reposed the secret of the lost treasure, that he may
one day have it for his own."

"And why to him?" questioned Cuthbert, drawing his brows together
in the effort to understand; "why to him rath