The Hidden Treasure of Glaston

by Eleanore M Jewett

  It took some time for him to cover the distance, but at last he stood at the sagging door of the little old hut. Everything was just as Master Bleheris had left it, just as Hugh remembered it, when he had lain in the corner of it during that long feverish illness. Only the black chest was empty now, its cover thrown back displaying its cavernous interior. He sat down on the rough block of stone that had been the hermit’s favorite resting place. Good old Master Bleheris! Hugh’s eyes smarted with tears and he tried to swallow down the lump in his throat as he thought of him. Bleheris had seen his heart’s desire and died beholding it, and the joy in his face would be what Hugh would remember about him longest, that and his love for the old stories and traditions about the Holy Grail. He must have been a wonderful minstrel in his youth. And now all those noble tales would be lost forever. With the broken Book of the Seynt Graal burned, and Master Bleheris dead, no one would ever know, no future age would ever hear those stories, the loveliest in all the world. Unless someone should write them down, unless some one who knew them now, to whom they were as clear and fresh as if they had happened but yesterday.

  Hugh rested his head on his hand and gazed out over the marshes back toward Weary-All, but his eyes were not looking for St. Joseph’s thorn or resting on the blue line of sea beyond Tor Hill. A sudden thought had gripped him, a plan that was absorbing all his attention. At length he rose up and walked back to Glaston with a sure and decided step.

  When breakfast had been eaten and the monks had gathered on the abbot’s terrace, there being no longer any chapter house in which to hold their morning meeting, Hugh sought out the Templar.

  “Father,” said he, touching his sleeve gently. “Father, I have a boon to ask thee, something I desire with all my heart.”

  “It is thine before thou dost ask it, child,” said Sir Hugh heartily. “What dost thou desire with all thy heart?”

  But Hugh found it difficult to go on and stammered hesitantly.

  “I have no doubt but that thou wilt be wroth and disappointed with me, but—Father—I do not want to go with thee now—to the Holy Land—not yet. I have somewhat to accomplish before I leave our Glaston, something to do that none but I can do.”

  “Not go with me, my son?” cried the knight in astonishment. “But what can be better to thee than to become a knight and fight nobly in a noble cause?”

  “It is hard for me to tell thee,” continued Hugh, “but I somehow feel—nay, I know that knighthood can wait—that it must wait, until I have accomplished that task to which I feel myself bounden.”

  “What task, boy?”

  “The writing of a book that will last long after any deeds of knighthood that I might do will have been forgotten; the recording of tales that belong to our Glaston and must not be lost, and which none but I now know. Father, I must stay here and tell those tales again in a form that is durable! It is my gift to Glaston, the one thing I can give and must give toward her rebuilding.”

  Sir Hugh stood silently looking down at the boy. His face wore a puzzled frown but showed no anger or resentment.

  “And Father,” continued Hugh, taking courage from the man’s quiet attention, “the boon I ask is this: take Dickon with thee as thy squire-at-arms instead of me. Let him learn knighthood and follow thee. He will be faithful and devoted, a brave and stalwart knight. And when Glaston is built anew, more gloriously than before, and when the tales of the Holy Grail are told again, then Father, oh, then, if thou and he should come riding back—!”

  Hugh’s eyes were shining. His father caught his two shoulders in his hands and smiled down at him.

  “Hush, lad, I know not rightly what thou art talking about! But if thou art minded to be a builder and a giver in this poor broken world, I would not stay thee—nay, I shall be proud of thee! As for Dickon, I like the boy much, and if thou wilt not squire thine old father, faith! then thy friend shall do it for thee! Run quickly and fetch the lad, for we must be upon our way.”

  The abbot must be consulted about releasing Dickon from the vows taken for him by his father, but there was little fear that he would not consent, especially as Sir Hugh was a Templar under an order very similar to the Benedictine, and was going back to serve the Holy Sepulchre and all pilgrims going thereto. While his father sought the abbot, Hugh raced off to find his friend. He came upon him, as usual, helping Brother Symon with his poor.

  “Dickon!” he cried. “Dickon!” He was so excited himself that he could scarcely get the words out. “You are going with my father and Jacques to the Holy Land! You are going to be a squire and then a knight, just as you have dreamed of all your life! Dickon, hurry and come to my father; he is even now talking to Abbot Robert about you, asking to have you as his squire!”

  Dickon stood perfectly still for a moment, his round blue eyes getting bigger and rounder, his mouth half open. Then he poked Hugh gently, with a trembling finger. “Say that again, Hugh, all of it! I don’t think I heard you right.”

  When Hugh had repeated the essential part of his message, Dickon let out a whoop that might have been heard from Tor to the Mendip Hills, and then stood on his head. Having thus relieved himself of his first emotion, he fell upon Hugh and began pummelling him, and rolling on the ground with him. Then he sat back and hugged his knees, breathless and grinning ecstatically.

  “Me going, along with you! To be squire-at-arms and then knight! Knights! Hugh, we’ll be brothers-in-arms as well as sworn brothers! I can’t believe it! I just can’t believe it’s true!”

  Hugh sobered. “Not brothers-in-arms, Dickon—at least not yet—but brothers, always and always—Dickon—I’m not going. Father is taking you instead. I’m staying here at Glaston.”

  All the joy and enthusiasm died out of Dickon’s face so that he looked stricken. “You—are—not—going?” said he slowly. “But Hugh, why? Couldn’t we both go? Wouldn’t your father take us both? I wouldn’t ask to be squire—if I could just follow along—be a servant and mind the horses.”

  Hugh shook his head, smiling affectionately at his friend, but speaking with finality. “No, Dickon, I think now it was fated to be this way—that—maybe that was why I was shown the vision of the Sacred Hallow. Bleheris is gone, the broken book is gone, no one will ever search again in Glaston or anywhere for a Holy Grail that can be held in one’s two hands. But the stories, the tradition—all the meaning and the marvel of the Holy Grail—that mustn’t be lost and it will be, if I don’t write it down. Nobody knows about it or could tell it from beginning to end now but me. I’ve got to stay here and make a book of it, the most beautiful book in the world. I’ve got to do it—and I want to do it for our Glaston.”

  Things happened fast after that. Dickon recovered his excitement and enthusiasm to a certain extent, grieved though he was at the thought that he must leave Hugh behind him. He said good-by to Brother Symon with a catch in his voice, and ran with Hugh to the grange to see Brother Guthlac.

  “It’s a queer thing,” he said huskily. “I thought I’d be so happy about going away from Glaston, especially to seek adventure in a strange land, and now, when I say good-by to all these good folk, seems as if I could just bawl like a baby because I am going.”

  “You won’t feel that way long,” encouraged Hugh, “and you’ll be riding back some day, you mustn’t forget that, with your shield and spurs and all sorts of knightly honors upon you.”

  Dickon’s face cleared and he smiled happily again. “True enough; and everything I do, all the battles and the honors that I win, will be for Glaston!”

  After the grange, they went into the bell-tower chapel to say good-by to Brother John. He had already learned that Dickon was going instead of Hugh and his face wore a comical mixture of relief and delight that his favorite would remain with him, and concern for the boy who was going out from the sheltering walls that had been his home ever since babyhood. The friendly advice that he poured forth upon Dickon’s head was interrupted, however, by a summons to hasten to the south gate.

&
nbsp; Father Robert was standing with Sir Hugh and Jacques near the half-ruined entrance to the monastic grounds. The horses of the two men were pawing the earth near them and another horse, one that belonged to the abbey, had been saddled and bridled ready for Dickon to mount. The boy had nothing of his own to take with him except the clothes on his back, and Hugh had told him his father would doubtless have him fitted out in proper livery for a squire when they had got to a neighboring city. There was nothing more now except the saying of the final farewells.

  “My son,” said the abbot gravely, laying a hand on Dickon’s shoulders. “I am giving thee into the charge of Sir Hugh de Morville, to be his squire-at-arms and to be his man. Be dutiful, obedient, faithful. Serve God as truly and as lovingly out in the world as thou wouldst serve Him here in the shelter of our abbey. If, when thou art grown to manhood, thou dost wish to return and take the Benedictine vows thy father purposed for thee, well and good; if thou dost not feel thyself called of God to enter our brotherhood, then I absolve thee of the vow thy parents made for thee. Thou art free to choose, but let it be God’s way thou dost choose, not thine own way, wheresoever thou art and whatsoever thou doest. Farewell, my son, and God Himself bless thee and go with thee.” He made the sign of the cross over the boy, who knelt before him.

  Then the seriousness of the moment broke. Jacques stept forward with his master’s horse, bidding Dickon hold the other two. Sir Hugh put his arms about his son unashamedly and kissed him. The two looked at each other for a long silent moment of mutual understanding.

  “Good-by, lad—until thy task is done,” said the knight.

  “Good-by, my father.”

  And then—“Farewell, Jacques—and Dickon—oh, Dickon, good-by! good-by!” Hugh called to first one then the other.

  They were all mounted at last and moving toward the gate, Sir Hugh first, then Jacques, then Dickon. The long shadows of late afternoon were falling and a shaft of sunlight shone through the trees directly on Dickon as he turned for a last wave of farewell. With a sudden chuckling laugh, he seized his round borel cap and made a lunge with it at the streak of sun. Then he caught it again as it was about to fall, almost tumbling off his horse as he did so.

  “No use!” cried Hugh, laughing. “You just can’t hang your hat on a sunbeam! You’re no saint yet!”

  “You wait!” Dickon shouted back. “Someday—” but the last of his sentence was drowned in the clatter of the horses’ hoofs as they passed under the stone gate and out onto the highroad beyond.

  Hugh turned back into the cluttered and blackened abbey grounds. Father Robert still stood beside him. The two looked at one another for a moment in quiet friendliness.

  “Tomorrow,” said the abbot, “we shall begin to build. It will be good to see Glaston rise again out of her ashes.”

  When he had got back to Brother John he found the little monk happily fingering a sheet of fine new parchment.

  “Hugh, lad,” said he, “there be a few clean, newly stretched skins in yon remnant of a kitchen, and some minium—the clearest red—and ink and gold leaf, a little, and the novices have found some rules and pens and other aumbry material in the ashes of the cloisters, still unharmed, miraculously unharmed. Thou canst begin at once.”

  “Aye,” said Hugh, “tomorrow I can set the title page.”

  “And we shall soon have more materials; we can borrow from Wells Cathedral—we can go right on with the work.”

  “Capitals in gold leaf, with a good red ground,” continued Hugh dreamily. “How about it, Brother John? And scroll work all down the page; S for Sanctum and G for Gradalis, big and floreated, and for a subtitle, written in good clear black in the pointed Gothic lettering—

  Note

  A WORD TO those who like to ask of a story, especially one with an historical background, “Is it true?” Many of the incidents in this tale of Hugh and Dickon in Glastonbury really did happen, a good many more might actually have taken place, if we are to believe persistent tradition, and the details of the setting are as authentic as a good deal of research can verify.

  The Glastonbury of the twelfth century stood much closer to the sea than the present abbey ruins would indicate, for that was before the extensive drainage and reclaiming of land of a later age took place. A little old wooden church overlaid upon an alloy of lead is believed to have stood until the Great Fire upon the exact spot where Joseph of Arimathaea built his original beehive-shaped oratory, with the twelve cells around it. This disastrous conflagration which laid waste almost all the monastic structures, took place in the year 1184. (We have pushed the date forward a little, to fit in with the story of Hugh as a young lad, and to keep it still within the period of good, kindly Robert of Jumiège who was abbot of Glastonbury at the time of our story.)

  Under this little basilica-shaped Chapel of St. Joseph, ancient records tell of a chamber hewn out of the limestone foundations, with a well in it, and extensive underground passages radiating from it. One of these led, at one time, to the sea, and included a secret treasure vault not far from the old north gate, built and used during the time of Danish incursions and subsequently forgotten.

  Perhaps the imperfectly recovered recollection of some such underground passages and hiding places lies at the bottom of the constantly recurring suggestion that the actual Cup, the material and substantial Holy Grail, still lies buried in Glastonbury. In many of the old stories Joseph is supposed to have brought the Holy Grail with him “to Avalon in the Isle of Britain,” and the confusion between an actual and material vessel and the symbol of a spiritual reality is far from being limited to the experience and understanding of the two boys, Dickon and Hugh!

  As for the Grail stories, the vast and complicated question of where and how they arose can, of course, scarcely be touched upon here. But this much, at least, may lend interest to our story:—The tradition of a lost book appears again and again, no matter which lane one travels down in search of Grail source material. Some say it was written in Latin, some in Provençal, some that a hermit, inspired by an angel, wrote it, others that it came out of Wales as part of some hidden and secret minstrel or ecclesiastical lore. And, of course, many trace the whole Christianized version of the stories to monkish sources in which the name of Glastonbury frequently figures. The late twelfth century is said, also, to be the period in which the Grail stories began to take form. So it is not at all beyond the bounds of possibility that a lad in Glastonbury, like Hugh, should have collected and written them from some unknown source, about the time of the Great Fire.

  All that we have recorded of Sir Hugh de Morville is historical, as is also the account of the finding of King Arthur’s grave, and the description of St. David’s sapphire altar which was lost for long years and then found “hidden underground.” The ravages of the Great Fire and its promised rebuilding by King Henry II are authentic, and the visit of Walter Mape and Maurice the minstrel in the king’s train at Glastonbury is, at least, probable.

  To the tireless and loving labor of such monks as Brother John we owe far more gratitude than has ever been given. Patiently copying by hand, in clear black script, books that would otherwise have been lost to us, they kept alive not only the substance of men’s thoughts, but also the art of binding and illuminating which made of those books treasures of beauty beyond price. There were countless Brother Johns in the Middle Ages, and a few saintly souls like Brother Symon. Life was by no means dull and stuffy in the vast monastic communities of those days, and a boy might easily find in them friendships and happy tasks and high adventure, as Hugh did, in his year of searching for

  THE HIDDEN TREASURE OF GLASTON

  About the Author

  ELEANORE M. JEWETT was born in New York City in 1890. She found it to be a somewhat lonely city for an only child, but the fact that one side of her family had been there since it was a small Dutch village made her feel like she “practically owned the place.” Her solitude caused her to create imaginary friends with whom, at around the age of n
ine, she even formed a literary club. Since young Eleanore was the only one who actually could put pen to paper the club died a natural and early death, but she dates her ambition to write for children from this time.

  When Mrs. Jewett was doing a Master’s degree in comparative literature at Columbia University she became deeply interested in the medieval period, a fascination begun many years earlier after hearing a story about King Arthur. The Hidden Treasure of Glaston and Big John’s Secret, a story of the fifth Crusade which takes place in 1218, were direct and satisfying results of this interest. The Hidden Treasure received a Newbery Honor in 1947.

  The truth and nobility which she infused into her historical novels was also something valued in her daily life. In the dedication to Big John’s Secret the author writes: “This book is dedicated to my husband, Charles Harvey Jewett, a physician who has shown me that a doctor’s life, consecrated to his work, is nobler than that of any knight in shining armor.”

  After their marriage, the Jewetts moved from New York City to a town in upstate New York where they lived with their two daughters. Eleanore Jewett died in 1967, leaving a small but solid contribution to the field of children’s literature.