The queen had done all that she could. She had watched with close
attention the pair with whom Esther believed the secret to lie.
Miriam, her mother, knew not the spot, of that she was convinced;
but she did know that the treasure had been hidden somewhere in the
forest by her husband, and that the exact place was known to the
white-bearded man whom she and others called Long Robin.

About that weird old man, said to be well-nigh a hundred years old,
a flavour of romance existed. Men looked upon him as bearing a
charmed existence. He went his lonely way unheeded by all. He was
said to have dealings with the fairies and the pixies of the
forest. All regarded him with a species of awe. He had drawn, as it
were, a charmed circle about himself and his ways. None desired to
interfere with him; none questioned his coming or going. All
brought to him a share of the spoil taken on the roads as a matter
of right and due, but none looked to receive aught in return from
him. He and Miriam, from their great age, lived as it were apart.
They took the place of patriarchal heads of the tribe, and were
treated with reverence and filial respect by all.

The question Cuthbert had pressed home on Joanna was why, this
being so, the treasure had not been moved away before this, so that
Miriam should end her days in peace and luxury, instead of growing
old in the wilds of the forest.

Joanna's reply had been that she did not think Miriam had ever
really wished to leave the free forest life; that with her,
vengeance upon the Trevlyns had been the leading impulse of her
life; and that she had no covetous desires herself after the gold.
Old Robin had loved it with the miser's love; but doubtless the