And then, as if we had actually drawn up in order of battle, we all stood looking at the mound, with the Professor a little in front of the others.
There it was—a heap of earth and stones, presently to reveal whatever grim secrets it might contain. God alone knows what a tumult of disordered thoughts may then have been rioting in the mind of Professor Reisby!
“Oh, you dear wonderful old place!” cried Miss Priscilla Macwardle in her thin, pinched little pipe, “forgive our temerity in thus venturing to disturb the repose of your beautiful dead.”
Mr. Goy looked rather startled, and he muttered a single word, which I did not hear distinctly—but it sounded like “rot.”
“I have seen them in a vision,” Miss Priscilla continued in a weird sibylline manner, her grey locks ruffled in the breeze. “The king lies there—” she pointed vaguely at the mound—“in his kingly armour, with spear and a mighty shield…”
We stood in an awkward silence, while the crazy lady rambled on for at least five minutes. Even when she had finished, nobody cared to make a move or a comment until Mr. Tuffle briskly ran forward with his bundle of painted poles, like a matador, and bravely stuck one of them in the side of the mound.
“Now then, you fellows with the picks!” he cried, “clear away this tangle and rubble! Have you got any bill-hooks? Good! Now—here is Trench A, and here is Trench B. Am I right, sir?”
“Aye, aye!” shouted Reisby, no longer moodily staring, but full of energy and of good-humour. “Those are the places, my boy. Not less than ten feet across. You two here, and you here, and away we go!”
The attack had begun.
4
There are people who believe that archaeology is dull. So it is in its written form—deplorably and desperately dull. But I know of nothing jollier than archaeology in the field, provided that you are really getting something for your pains. And there is no doubt that we did get something for our pains—a great deal more than we bargained for—when we opened the Devil’s Hump.
For the first hour or so the digging was uneventful. There was a lot of turf and rubble and gorse to be cleared away before the men could make much impression on the mound, and the Professor insisted, very wisely, on trenches of maximum width.
The ladies, after the interest in the start of the work had subsided, began to stroll about on the side of the valley, or, sitting on rugs near the lunch-baskets, engaged in amiable chatter. Mrs. Goy, I noticed, sat apart from the others with a newspaper on her knees.
The men of the party, including young Peter, took a hand in the picking and shovelling and heaving. Reisby, with much redundant bellowing, tore up enormous masses of turf, uprooted whole bushes, playfully tossed over the top of the mound a series of colossal boulders. And all the time he kept up a flow of noisy banter or of humorous admonition.
As the professional workers—the four gardeners from the Manor—got further into the mound, there was more for the rest of us to do, and we were soon busy clearing away the rubbish, and occasionally relieving the pioneers.
Enthusiasm was presently roused by the discovery of a patch of charcoal in Trench A, and everybody came up to look at it.
“Cremated burial,” said Mr. Goy.
“Not necessarily,” said Mr. Tuffle, “not necessarily. May be ritualistic.”
“How beautiful!” cried Miss Priscilla. “The purification of burning!”
“More likely to be an offering of roasted ox, ma’am!” said Reisby.
“Probably in the immediate vicinity of a chamber, at any rate,” observed Ellingham. “I expect we shall touch the sides of it in a moment.”
“Jolly good going!” said Peter, thrusting his fingers back through a mass of glistening curls. “It’s about time we jolly well did strike something, if you ask me!”
“Can any of you tell me what this is?” said Mrs. Goy, demurely smiling. “Five letters. ‘If Coriolanus looked me in the face, he’d wear his toga with a better grace.’ The second letter is a G and the last is an L.”
“Mirror,” said Mr. Goy.
“Wilberforce! You are paying no attention!” cried the lady, and she withdrew, rather sulkily, with her paper.
We were still picking up pinches of the charcoal when poor old Ingleworth, supported by his chauffeur, appeared on the scene.
“Good day to you all!” piped the Dean in his quavering, senile voice. “Pray do not cease from your most interesting occupations. Give me leave to investigate.”
He raised his black-and-yellow straw hat to the ladies and slowly tottered up to the edge of the mound. Professor Reisby explained his plan.
“Now I am surprised, my dear Reisby, I am indeed,” cried the Dean querulously, “to see you cutting a trench in this direction. Give me a stick, Jenkins. I should certainly have supposed that you would begin over there.” He flung the stick feebly into the air and it fell on the top of the mound.
“Just over there, on the other side.”
Reisby towered above the slender, brittle, attenuated figure of the poor little Dean, but he did not roar and bellow at him, as he did fourteen years ago.
“Ah, ho! My dear Ingleworth, we shall be able to extend in that direction if it seems desirable; but our objective, you see, is the centre of the mound. There is undoubtedly a chamber, or chambers, below the disturbed portion—you can now actually see the edges of one of them.”
He pointed with a crowbar, holding it out as lightly and firmly as if it was a pencil. I saw two of the men look at each other with a grin of appreciation and astonishment.
“You may be right, Professor; I should not care to say that you may not be right. Eh, eh,—but allow me. Give me your arm, Jenkins.”
Very slowly the old man ascended the side of the mound.
“Dear Dean!” cried Miss Macwardle, “do be careful, dear Dean! Oh, Professor Reisby, don’t let him do anything dangerous!” She turned aside to Mrs. Ellingham. “Isn’t he too perfectly wonderful? Like the Apostle Paul, or a saint, or a Druid, I always think.”
Ingleworth paused, leaning heavily on the man’s arm. In his faltering hand he waved an ebony walking-stick with a golden head.
“There—under that clump of bracken. I distinctly remember seeing a very considerable protrusion—”
“Displacement,” said Mr. Goy impatiently.
The old man looked at him with a tremulous disdain tempered by extreme feebleness. At that moment I hated Mr. Goy. But Reisby took up arms in defence of the Dean.
“Displacement, Goy!—displacement! Ho, ah! Tuffle, Tuffle, Tuffle!—let it be duly recorded in the book of the dig that Mr. Wilberforce Goy has duly observed a displacement, a lapsus lapidis! Yes, sir,” addressing the Dean, “you are right. I shall certainly dig in the place you have indicated. I will make a special dig, sir, and it shall be known as the Dean’s Traverse; it shall be entered in the book of Tuffle as the Dean’s Traverse. You agree with me, Professor Ellingham, do you not?”
“Certainly,” said Ellingham. “I noticed the place myself some years ago.”
Reisby looked at him sharply. Then he took a pick and swung it with a clean, ringing stroke into the patch of charcoal.
A puff of whitish powder came away from the point of impact.
“There you are!” he cried. “The edge of a passage or chamber.”
“Megalithic,” said Mr. Goy.
At the same time the workers in Trench B announced the discovery of two upright slabs forming a right angle. Dean Ingleworth had arrived at the critical moment. We were about to make the first discoveries.
Ellingham was extremely busy with his camera. He seemed to be taking dozens of pictures, not only of the excavated parts, but also of the untouched portions of the mound. I considered that so many pictures, taken at such an early stage of our proceedings, could serve no useful purpose; but I was completely mistaken.
Apart from the taking of these photographs, there was nothing in Ellingham’s behaviour, up to that point, which could be regarded as peculiar. He assisted the others with pick or spade, though he was careful to watch every stage of the digging in both trenches. I got the impression, which proved to be quite correct, that he would not be keenly interested until we got to the centre of the mound.
Reisby, who always conducted his digs with rigorous discipline, suspended operations at one o’clock sharp. There was to be an interval of exactly an hour and a half for rest and refreshment. And I would here point out that the labour of opening a barrow is infinitely more severe and arduous than any ordinary labour, except, possibly, that of miners or quarrymen. Masses of tenacious earth, bound and intermixed with roots and fibres, have to be removed; ponderous blocks of stone have to be shifted with caution, and often with immense effort; a clutter of heavy debris is methodically cleared away to a proper distance. I want this to be remembered by the reader who has no personal knowledge of such things, because it is a matter of importance for the understanding of this narrative.
When we knocked off at lunch-time, we had exposed the sides and the covering-stones of two burial-chambers. Everybody (except the mutely smiling Mrs. Goy) was decidedly thrilled, and we looked forward with eagerness to the opening of the sepulchres.
During the interval, Mr. Tuffle nimbly manipulated his pegs, his tapes or chains, plotting, measuring and recording the stones, and entering all the observed particulars in his book.
We had some very curious talk, at lunch, from Miss Priscilla Macwardle, who prided herself on being what is called psychic. I think she was merely mad, poor lady! But I may have a prejudice in these matters.
“You know,” she said, turning suddenly to Mr. Goy, “I saw Sir Lancelot by the mere at Glastonbury.”
“Yes?” replied Mr. Goy, looking hot and embarrassed.
“I knew it was Sir Lancelot,” Miss Priscilla continued, “because of the blazon upon his mighty shield. I know the blazons of all King Arthur’s knights. He stood quite still with his right hand resting upon the hilt of a great sword and his eyes fixed upon the ground. It was a sign. Do you suppose it was a sign for me, or a sign for the whole nation?”
“I have no idea,” said Mr. Goy, and he looked it.
“No, it was not a sign for the whole nation. My dear Uncle Richard was with me, and I said, ‘Look, Uncle, there is the noble knight Sir Lancelot by the mere.’ So Uncle Richard looked where I was pointing, and he said, ‘My dear, I can see nothing at all, except a bit of an old willow by the water.’ So then I knew it was not a sign for the whole nation. I looked again, and lo! Sir Lancelot was gone.”
“Ah, yes!” said Mr. Goy, trying hard to be polite.
At this point, another diversion was caused, perhaps mercifully, by Mrs. Goy—a diversion of a totally different kind.
“Something, something, B,” she said, “and something, something, something, R. ‘He went about in fleece and leather lining, while overhead a tropic sun was shining.’ Whatever can it be? Can anyone make a suggestion? I think it must be some kind of an animal—fleece and leather, you see. Or is it Napoleon in Egypt?”
It was quite an amusing lunch, and we started work again at half-past two, refreshed and enthusiastic.
I do not wish to bore the reader with archaeological details, but, as I have observed more than once, I cannot omit anything which is essential. And it is necessary to explain, in simple terms, what was discovered on the first day of the digging.
Reisby paid Mr. Goy the compliment of putting him in charge of the excavation in Trench B, while he himself conducted operations at Trench A.
As the work had now become a matter for professionals, Peter and I decided to be mere spectators, and the experts were now in two groups: Reisby and Ellingham at Trench A, Tuffle and Goy at Trench B. The Dean, lingering for a while, tottered about with the aid of his servant from one group to the other, petulantly questioning the wisdom of every procedure and the accuracy of every diagnosis. Mrs. Goy, who was a veteran spectator of excavations, mutely moved from her cross-word to the digging and from the digging to her cross-word. The Misses Macwardle presently drove home to their mother. The other ladies watched with interest the unearthing of our first discoveries.
To me, the whole thing was exciting.
The first burial-chamber was on ground level, about half way between the edge and the middle of the mound. It was partly covered by a great slab of granite, which had tilted a little outwards. Reisby stretched out his enormous arms, gripped the edges of the stone, and with a single powerful movement slid it off the top of the chamber.
“There you are!” he cried.
“I am surprised to see you put the stone there,” said the Dean in his frail, complaining voice. “I should have slanted it over the corner if I had been doing it myself.”
But we paid no attention to him. We all crowded up and looked inside the chamber.
It was a kind of stone enclosure, full of earth and rubble, charcoal, bits of crackled flint, a scattered mass of burnt bones.
“There you are!” Reisby repeated, with a peculiar note of triumph. “The pot, my dear fellows—the inverted pot!”
I myself could see no sign of a pot, but he flicked away some grit with the blade of his knife, and there was a disc (or so it appeared) of reddish-grey pottery.
“Inverted cinerary.” Mr. Goy had come up from the other trench.
“You are quite right, my lad,” said the Professor. “And now we had better sift the filling and collect it in the usual way. The bones are those of a youthful person, a pig, a horse and a stag.”
“Elk,” said Mr. Goy, picking up what looked like a fragment of antler.
“You are too positive, gentlemen,” observed Ingleworth, “you are far too positive. I should not like to say so much until I had made a very minute examination in the study.”
“What is the difference between elk and stag?” said Peter. His frivolous question was ignored.
The filling was carefully taken out, and we saw a big urn, slightly cracked, standing base-uppermost on a level block of granite.
This very interesting discovery gave rise to a lot of technical argument which need not be recorded. What is to be noted is the fact of such a burial being typical of the later stages of the Bronze Age—quite an ordinary form of cremated sepulture.
There was an exciting moment when Professor Reisby lifted the urn gently and firmly, while Mr. Tuffle adroitly slipped under it a thick sheet of cardboard.
“By Jove!” cried Mr. Tuffle, “I believe there’s a little one inside it.”
He was right. Inside the mouth of the urn there was a pottery bowl about the size of a teacup, with holes in the rim and a pretty geometrical pattern. There was also a heap of cremated bones, which the Professor said were those of an adult male and a female about sixteen years old.
“Ah, ha, ho! Very pretty, very pretty indeed! You are lucky, Mr. Goy. It is one of the prettiest things we have got, and one of the most typical cremation-groups of Period VI that I have ever seen.”
“Is this typical of Period VI?” asked Peter irreverently. He had picked up something in the bottom of the grave.
It was a sixpenny-piece bearing the effigy of Queen Victoria.
“Ha, what?” said Reisby, not without a flash of pardonable irritation. “Sixpenny bit? Have any of you fellows lost a sixpenny bit?”
“It was under that little heap of rubbish,” said Peter, “I swear it was.”
“Oh, it’s been worked down from above!” replied Mr. Goy, loyally coming to the rescue of Period VI. “Rats, rabbits, weasels—common occurrence. Dated 1878? May have been fifty years getting down to it. You see, the top stone was tilted away from that side—”
“It’s remarkably clean,” said Peter.
“Then put it in your pocket, my dear boy!” thu
ndered Reisby, half angry, half jocular, “put it in your pocket for luck.”
And he went on with his examination of the relics.
The episode of the sixpenny-piece was quickly forgotten by most of us. I accepted Mr. Goy’s eminently sensible explanation, and thought no more of it—for the time.
In the meanwhile, another chamber was revealed in Trench B. There was no covering-stone, and two of the sides had fallen in. It had evidently been wrecked, intentionally or otherwise.
Here we found the usual scattered remains of a series of cremations, and the broken shards of more than one pot. There were also several pieces of haematite, a broken bronze ring, three discs or buttons of jet, and a fine flint arrowhead.
These discoveries were precisely what you may expect to find in a burial-place of the Bronze Age, but the group at Trench A was unusually perfect.
Ellingham and Reisby both drew our attention to the fact that the chamber containing the group was evidently connected with a larger grave in the centre of the barrow: there was an overlapping of the side-stones which proved this conclusively. Apparently the central chamber had been disturbed and the covering-stones were not in position; however, in view of the size of this chamber and its obvious importance, we anticipated a dig of exceptional interest—and we were certainly not disappointed.
Work for the day ended at six o’clock, just after the edge of the middle sepulchre had been exposed.
5
I had been aware, during our dig, of occasional hovering figures, either among the trees on the edge of the plantation, or down on the slope under the barrow. We were evidently being watched by the people of Aberleven, with a furtive curiosity that was definitely hostile.
Soon after our return to the hotel I had a word with Mr. Morgan, who was looking rather grave.
“Well, sir,” he said, “you know what these folk think about it. Mind, I don’t think there’s any of ’em would interfere, seeing who’s on the job. But I shall be glad when you’ve done.”
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