Hugh was sad at his going, wise though he knew it to be. His meeting with Jacques was the last link, he told himself, that connected him with his family and his old life. Now only the unknown and the new existence lay ahead of him.
Dickon was late and, after waiting an hour, Hugh became restless. Perhaps the boy already regretted his promised friendship, but no, he was not that sort; and before long he spied him coming across the abbey lawn on a run. He grinned his greeting as he came up, rather breathlessly.
“I went along with him,” he said, pointing to the porch where Jacques had been. “Thought maybe he would be off early so that he could make a port before folk could be yapping at his heels again. I got here before dawn and he was just setting out. I went with him five miles or so, for I had a notion it might be well for him to have somebody from Glaston right beside him. Everybody seems to get into such a dither at the mere mention of the murder of Thomas à Becket.”
Hugh winced and his cheeks flushed. For a few moments he walked along beside Dickon with troubled eyes fastened on the ground.
Dickon glanced at him uneasily, wishing he had not referred to the tragedy of the Archbishop. “Of course I know he didn’t really have anything to do with it—Jacques, I mean—any more than you did—”
“I know how it is,” said Hugh. “It sort of spreads a blackness over everybody, a terrible deed like that, even over folk whose hands are clean of all guilt in it. I feel it all the time over me, as if everybody must hate me and all my family.”
“But it isn’t a matter of hate at all,” said Dickon, standing still in his earnestness. “Not in Glaston, it isn’t! And you belong to Glaston now.”
Hugh smiled a little. “I guess you’re right about Glaston; maybe I’ll feel about it the way you do, sometime. Now it seems as if I hadn’t quite the right to belong.”
“Well, come along now, let’s walk faster,” continued Dickon, still uncomfortable for the turn the conversation had taken. “We’ve quite a way to go to my secret cavern. Oh, I forgot!” He slowed his quickened pace immediately, glancing at Hugh’s limping foot.
“That’s all right!” Hugh flushed uncomfortably again, then threw back his shoulders and grinned, making Dickon feel less embarrassed. “I can get along as well as most.”
“I should say you could!” said the other heartily. “Jacques said he never would have got to Glaston whole if you hadn’t climbed into that cart quicker than a rabbit and used your wits even quicker than your feet!”
Hugh’s depression of spirits warmed at the praise. “That was good of Jacques,” said he, adding modestly, “I did naught. And Dickon, it was good of you to go with him.”
“Oh, I was glad to, but it made me late meeting you, because when I got back, I had all my morning tasks to do, and Brother Guthlac was standing with the sleeve of his gown rolled up and a stout switch in his hand!” Dickon made a rueful face.
“So you got a drubbing for your pains?”
“No, he barely touched me! He’s too fat to catch me or hold me if he does! And I got everything done before I came here, but it took time; he’ll be over being cross with me when I get back this evening.”
All this while the two boys had been walking north and away from the monastic buildings. Just before they reached the old north gate, Dickon turned aside into the fields, striking off toward the west where the moorland was wildest. After a little they came to a depression in the ground almost like a deep hole, and near the bottom, partly concealed by a rock, was a cleft just wide enough to wriggle through. Dickon wormed his way in and Hugh followed, scraping his legs and tearing his clothes a bit, for it was a tight squeeze; but once they were inside the boys were able to stand upright without difficulty. They found themselves in a cave dimly lit by the cleft through which they had entered. Beyond them was a dark opening apparently leading further underground.
Dickon struck flint and lighted a tallow candle, both of which articles he unearthed from a hiding place in a corner of the cave. Then he led the way into the dark passage, Hugh following closely. It was high and wide enough for them to walk upright, single file, and gave the impression of a man-made tunnel leading deeper and deeper into the earth at a very slight downward grade. At one place it dropt abruptly into a small open cavern but it climbed out again directly, on the opposite side, and continued, narrowing somewhat and turning, then proceeding with astonishing straightness for what seemed like a long distance. Hugh was filled with astonishment.
“What is this place?” he asked, his voice loud and reverberating in the close, walled space.
“I am not sure,” answered Dickon, speaking low to avoid the re-echoing. “It might be part of an old drain abandoned long ago, maybe when the Romans left Britain. I’ve heard Brother Sacristan tell about the Romans and the roads and water works they built. Or maybe—and this is what I really think—it is a part of a secret passageway between Glaston and the sea, a way of escape for the brothers in the old days when the Danish pirates harried the land.”
“Does it lead all the way back to the monastery buildings?” asked Hugh.
“That is the only trouble with my theory,” said Dickon; “it stops in just a bit. You’ll see.”
A sudden turn and they reached an arched doorway which led into a low stone-lined room perhaps sixteen feet square. Along two sides of it were ranged heavy black oak chests, and against the wall directly opposite the entrance stood a large wardrobe or press, also of wood, blackened with age, tall, extending up to the rough stone ceiling. In a corner, not far from this aumbry, the wall had been broken through, leaving an irregular round hole and much rubble and loose stone on the floor beneath it. Through this hole came a damp draught which flickered the candle in Dickon’s hand.
The boys looked around for a moment in silence. Then Dickon moved toward one of the chests. The top was covered with dust and he blew on it and flapped his gown, removing the worst of it, and apologized like a housewife for the condition of his premises.
“I’ve not been here for many a long day and dirt collects, though I can’t imagine where from.”
But Hugh’s eyes were fastened on the jagged hole in the wall. “Dickon,” said he, “however did that hole get there and what is beyond it?”
“That puzzles me more than anything else, though there are plenty of queer things about this place.”
“What do you think it is, really? What is it all about?”
“This must be a secret storeroom; you can guess that when I show you what’s in here.” Dickon lifted the lid of the chest which creaked and groaned on rusty hinges. Then he handed his candle to Hugh and devoted both hands to bringing the contents of it carefully out. Hugh forgot for the moment his questions, in astonishment over what was brought to light.
First a narrow box of metal inlaid with enamel and having crystal and amber and dull red and purple stones set in it. The inside was lined with gold and it contained a single white bone.
“A reliquary,” explained Dickon, “and that might be the finger bone of some saint.”
Hugh crossed himself and looked with added awe upon it. Dickon put the box carefully on the floor and reached into the chest again, bringing forth a curious object, quite large, of blackened metal wrought in the semblance of a castle. It opened in the middle showing a place to burn incense.
“That’s a censer, evidently,” said Hugh, “and what a beautiful one! Look at all those delicate little turrets hammered out of—is it bronze or iron? It’s hard to tell, it’s so black—but if it were polished—”
“And here’s a book satchel with gold clasps,” Dickon continued, taking things out and, after showing them to Hugh, placing them beside the others on the floor. “And look at this bell, dull metal with square corners and a bone clapper.” He rang it softly and a full sweet tone came from it. “St. Patrick’s bell is like that; they keep it in a special reliquary at the abbey. This might have belonged to somebody about his time. And look at this.” He handed out a round, flat object with
ivory carving on one side, covered with grime but exquisite in workmanship, and on the other a mirror.
“Well, by my faith!” exclaimed Hugh, “how did that get in here with all these churchly things?”
“It doesn’t belong in here,” said Dickon, “I found this outside, over by the Tor in the marshes, but it seemed so wonderful I brought it in to be with the other treasures!”
Mirrors had not played any part in Dickon’s young life before and he turned and twisted this ancient one, looking at himself and grimacing, placing his round cap at a rakish angle over one eye, and blowing out his cheeks comically, delighted to see the expressions on his own face given back in the uncertain light from the candle. But to Hugh a mirror was no curiosity. “What else is in there?” said he, bending over the chest himself.
“This key,” continued Dickon, putting the mirror down and diving into the depths of the chest again. It was fully ten inches long, heavy and dull, but had curious grill work at the end of it. “I found that outside, too; not so precious as the other things, but it may come in useful some time. And here’s a bishop’s staff with jewels on the handle; and now—this is the greatest treasure of all.”
With both hands he lifted something out that was large and heavy, carried it to one of the other chests and set it carefully upon the top of it. “Doesn’t seem as if this ought to touch the ground alongside those other things; it is so special and—and holy.”
Hugh gasped and stared, for a moment unable to say anything. It was an oblong boxlike article about two feet long and eighteen inches wide with a stone top, in the center of which had been set a huge and magnificent sapphire. The intense blue of it and the lights caught from the shine of the candle seemed to fill the dark underground chamber with a soft radiance. The sides and front were of gold, with other precious and semiprecious stones set in it, but the great sapphire dominated the whole.
“Dickon!” exclaimed Hugh at last. “I never saw anything so beautiful! What is it?”
“I think it’s a portable altar,” said the other, awe and reverence mingling in his voice, “the kind the saints used to carry with them when they went to convert the pagans. Nobody knows what holy man may have consecrated it and taken it about with him.”
“Or what adventures it may have had!” Hugh’s imagination was on fire with the thought. “It may have been present at a martyrdom, even!”
Dickon nodded and they continued to gaze at it. “It’s so beautiful,” repeated Hugh. “Don’t the brothers know about it—or this place?” he continued in a moment, coming back to his wonder about the whole discovery.
“I’m sure they don’t,” said Dickon. “I’ve questioned carefully Brother Sacristan and several of the others. I’ve an idea this is a secret storage place, as I said and that there once was a passage underground all the way from the monastic buildings to the sea, so the brothers could get away and carry their treasures with them when they were besieged or raided. But it must have been walled up or blocked by a cave-in or something, because there is no way out of here except the way we came in, and nobody bigger than us could get through that cleft in the moor into the cave. And what’s more nobody has been in here for ages and ages. You should have seen the blankets of untouched dust that lay over everything when I first happened on that cleft and followed the passageway in here’
“And you found all those things except the key and the mirror right in here?”
Dickon nodded. “In these chests—or two of them, rather: the other has old books and parchments in it, torn mostly.”
“Books!” Hugh’s interest blazed afresh. “Let’s look at them!”
They went over to the chest Dickon indicated, threw open the lid, and this time Hugh handed over the candle and bent over the contents himself to investigate. Loose pages mostly, worn, cracked, discolored, but many of them with the script still legible upon them, and down at the bottom were several bound books with heavy gold and silver clasps, their leather bindings old, but the boards beneath the leather still whole.
Hugh looked intently at the writing on some of the loose pages. “That’s not at all the way the scribes write now,” said he, “and it’s not very plain though the letters are so round and big. It’s Latin, evidently. Dickon, could I take a few of these pages out? It’s hard to see clearly in here, and they might be interesting.”
“Of course!” answered Dickon readily. “This place is yours as well as mine, or will be as soon as we’ve sworn brotherhood. Let’s do that now and make a real ceremony of it, shall we?”
Hugh put down the parchment sheets and watched as Dickon found an irregular place in the wall where he could set the candle so it would hold. Then he put the reliquary with the white bone in it on top of the chest whereon the sapphire altar rested, and said:
“It is really binding, this vow we’re going to take, and that altar and the reliquary with the bone in it make it sacred. You stand beside me now and say everything I say. Are you ready?” Hugh nodded.
Dickon then dug under his tunic for the knife he apparently always wore tied around his waist, and took it from its clumsy leather sheath. Hesitating just a moment, he scratched the point sharply across the underside of his arm and drew a little blood, then he handed the knife to Hugh and bade him do likewise. He took a drop from the arm of each on the tip of his knife and then laid it on the chest before the jeweled altar.
“I do solemnly swear,” Dickon began, “before this sacred and hidden treasure and before this bone in the reliquary, the bone of an unknown somebody, most probably a saint, that he whose blood is mingled with mine, will be my brother forever and ever.”
Prickles of excitement were running up and down Hugh’s spine. The mysteriousness of the place, the intense quiet except for the sound of their own voices and movements, the sense of being hidden completely from the knowledge of all men, alone, the two of them, in a forgotten underground chamber, got hold of his imagination and thrilled him. And more, still, the beauty of that shining blue sapphire, the rich gold, the soft mellow color of the marble into which it was set, and the sense of what that jeweled rectangular object was, filled him with awe and a sort of exaltation which was more than excitement and made of the ceremony something very deep and vital. He repeated Dickon’s words without faltering over one of them; they seemed to be burned into his memory so that he would never forget them.
“I will keep nothing hid from my brother,” Dickon continued in the same solemn voice; “all that I have shall be his also and for him I will die, if need be, willingly. Go on, Hugh.”
And Hugh repeated these words also, slowly, meaningfully.
They stood a moment in silence and then the spell seemed to break. Dickon gathered up the treasures he had left on the floor, and replaced them in the chest. When he picked up the bell he rang it once or twice, savoring the beauty of the tone and listening to the echoes dying away in the mysterious underground darkness. The reliquary was also put away and Hugh lifted the jeweled altar with breathless care and they placed that too in the chest and closed the lid.
“The candle is burning low,” said Dickon. “We’d better go out now. I wouldn’t like to get caught here in the dark.”
“What is in that cupboard?” said Hugh. “You haven’t said anything about that. It looks as if it might be for vestments like the one in the abbey.” He approached the tall black piece of furniture opposite the arched doorway.
“Oh, that,” said Dickon, “that’s locked. I’ve tried to pick the panel open but couldn’t without hurting the wood. Sounds empty; listen.” He rapped his knuckles sharply against the paneling. A hollow reverberation came back to them.
“It could still sound hollow if it was not completely filled.” Hugh ran his fingers around the edges of what surely were intended to be doors.
“Well, it’s stuck or fastened in some way. Come on, it must be getting late.”
Hugh could not bear to tear himself away. “Can we get some more candles from some place, and come again as soo
n as I can have another day off? I want to see what’s beyond that hole and look at everything again. Dickon, I think this is a wonderful place!”
The other nodded appreciatively, then looked at the stump of his candle with a calculating eye, and moved toward the passageway. Picking up the loose parchment sheets he had left on the top of the chest, Hugh followed him quickly, realizing that they would indeed have to hurry if they were to get through the long passage to the cleft in the moor before their light gave out entirely.
And indeed, they had not gone very far before the candlewick began to sputter and in another moment Dickon dropt it with an exclamation as he put his burnt fingers to his mouth.
“Couldn’t hold it any longer,” said he, speaking out of the appalling blackness which had immediately enveloped them. “By all the saints, but it’s dark! Feel along the wall and follow me close.”
It seemed to Hugh as if he had gone suddenly blind; he could not see his own hand when he raised it to touch his face. But with the inability to see, his sense of hearing became more acute. The boys moved slowly and in silence, feeling their way along the tough cold stones of the passage wall and pausing every now and then to listen, though why they did this they could not have told. Faint and far off they heard a trickle of water, then some pebbles or loosened earth fell with a soft swish, like grating sand. The sound of their own breathing and their shuffling steps as they felt their way, stumbling over the unevenness of the flooring, seemed unnaturally loud. Hugh suddenly crouched down with a little cry of fear. Something had flown by him; he felt the motion of wings, though of course he could see nothing.
The Hidden Treasure of Glaston Page 5