The Hidden Treasure of Glaston

by Eleanore M Jewett

  Hugh put a meaningful hand on Dickon’s arm and started to climb the wall as quietly as possible. Dickon followed and the two managed to find sufficient footing to stand, clinging with their hands also, where they could peer through the hole into the room. A man stood in the center of it, a man so large that he seemed almost to fill it, his head nearly touched the low ceiling and the sound of his voice made the very walls tremble as if it were seeking to push them out and get more space. He had sparse white hair and a scraggly white beard and he was dressed in a long, flowing, dirty, white garment, girdled with a rope from which hung an old metal bell. Beside him, on the floor, stood a stone lantern or cresset, which gave forth a dim, uncertain light and cast the shadow of his huge person upon the opposite wall, magnified and contorted and wavering. He stopped singing, and the bell jangled as he moved across the floor toward the chest whereon the black sword still lay. Grasping the blade near the hilt, he held the heavy weapon high, hilt up so that it looked like a cross, then he kissed it very reverently and laid it back, handling its great weight as easily as if it had been a child’s toy. And as he replaced it on the chest he began to chant again, low at first and rhythmically, like devotional intoning, then his voice rose into a song as wild and triumphant as a pagan paean. The words were unintelligible, partly because of the reverberation in the close walled space, but even after the voice became lower again, they had a strange, outlandish sound. Dickon was too terrified to know whether they were Latin, English, or mere gibberish, but Hugh, whose mind had been trained in the study of other languages, realized at least that they were words, though in a different tongue from any he had ever heard before.

  The singing stopt again as suddenly as before. The old man turned to another chest. He muttered to himself, and the bell at his waist clanged as he opened the lid and bent over it. Slowly he drew out the jeweled altar. Dickon’s fear gave place for the moment to indignation and an angry exclamation almost escaped his lips, but he choked it back, his eyes still fastened on the huge figure in the room. He had taken the altar out and now placed it carefully upon the chest beside the sword. Then he studied it minutely and in silence. Not a sound broke the underground stillness save the faint trickle of the stream running across the floor of the cave beneath the boys.

  It was at that moment that Hugh’s strength gave out. He had been clinging with both hands to a rough, protruding stone in the wall, easing thereby the weight on his lame foot which rested on an insecure foothold. His other leg and foot ached with the strain and his fingers were growing numb. Or perhaps the stone to which he was clinging slipped a little. However it was, he suddenly lost his grip and fell down onto the floor of the cave with a heavy thud and the clattering of loose rubble after him.

  The man in the secret room gave a startled cry, then a shout. “Who goes there? Who goes there?”

  Only echoes and then silence answered. Dickon had climbed quickly and quietly down to where Hugh was lying. They crouched there in the darkness, neither answering the cry nor daring to move.

  Suddenly the light issuing from the aperture above them vanished, there was a rasping sound as of rusty, creaking iron, then stillness and dark.

  “Art thou hurt, Hugh?” Dickon whispered huskily, his ears still listening as acutely for any further sound that might come from the treasure chamber as for the boy’s reply. Hugh could not be hurt, he just could not, or however would they get out of this place!

  “Nay,” Hugh whispered back stoutly, “not much anyway, I just couldn’t hold on any longer. What has happened, think you? Has he put out his light and is he waiting for us in the dark? Or has he gone down the passageway with it?”

  “He can’t get out if he has done that,” declared Dickon positively.

  Again they both listened, scarcely breathing. Not a sound.

  “Climb up and look through the hole again,” whispered Hugh. “Here, I will get the candle lit.”

  In a moment Dickon, grasping the light, had climbed the wall and peered into the treasure room. It was empty.

  “Now what shall we do?” said he, returning to Hugh. “You—you aren’t hurt too much to go back to the well?”

  The boy pulled himself shakily up. He was bruised and sore and his lame leg was aching painfully, but he squared his shoulders and set his lips. “I can get along all right,” said he, “but Dickon, I could not get out of that well; we neither of us could, without help. We’ll have to go back into the treasure room and out through the passage to the moor—even if we meet that queer giant of a man inside it.”

  Dickon said nothing for a moment, and Hugh continued. “There is really no reason to be afraid of him, is there? He looks like a hermit, and this place doesn’t belong to him any more than to us, so why should he mind our being here?”

  “Surely! it’s the main highway from Glaston to the sea!” said Dickon sarcastically. “Why shouldn’t one meet all one’s friends and the world and his wife too?” The thought of his secret being in the possession of uninvited others still rankled in the boy’s heart. “Anyway, I think he is mad,” he continued after a pause. “Nobody who was sane would go on the way he did, chanting and all, down here in this queer place. It isn’t natural.”

  Hugh could not but agree with him. However, there was nothing one could do about it. “Come on,” said he, starting slowly and painfully to climb the wall to the hole. “We’ve got to go this way, anyhow.”

  Dickon followed close upon his heels, holding the candle which was fast diminishing. Once in the room they looked about more carefully. The sword was still on the chest, the sapphire altar beside it. Evidently the man had left in too much haste to replace the latter. With hearts beating more fearfully than either cared to admit, the two approached the arched entrance to the passageway and looked into it as far as the light from the candle would penetrate. No one was there.

  They moved quietly. With every turn of the underground way they held their breath, expecting surely to see the large form of the mysterious stranger filling the cramped space, turning on them, possibly in a rage of anger or insanity. He must be without a light himself, for no competing glimmer shone ahead of their own candle. Slowly, cautiously, they advanced, saying no word, breathing deep with relief as each further turn of the passage opened up and showed itself empty.

  At last they reached the cleft in the moor, extinguished their light and scrambled out. Hugh threw himself on the ground panting a little, as much from exhaustion as relief. Dickon’s round eyes were fairly bulging.

  “He isn’t human!” said he. “There just isn’t any way for him to have got out! He must be fey, or a devil in the form of a man, and have just vanished like a puff of smoke.”

  Hugh laughed. “Not that man,” said he reassuringly. “He was as much flesh and blood as you or I, and there was too much of him to vanish!”

  “But a devil could take any form,” argued Dickon. “And, I tell you, there is not any way a man could have got out!”

  “Well, he just didn’t look like a devil, or anything but an old man. There must be some other way. Let’s go in again as soon as we’re both free and find out!”

  Dickon crossed himself. Somehow the action seemed to give him more courage. “We will do that, Brother,” said he.

  Hugh got up and they started back in the direction of the abbey.

  “I guess we don’t have to wait to be errant knights to find adventure!” said Hugh. “We’re right in the middle of one now.”

  “I told you anything could happen in our Glaston!” declared the other.

  7. The Mad Master of Beckery

  A FEW DAYS later, after the office of Prime, when the brothers were all walking from the big church of St. Mary to the cloisters, in their customary silence, Hugh suddenly found Dickon at his elbow. The boy was evidently much excited and bursting to talk, but the arm of the novice master, who was close behind them, would have descended upon him with unpleasant force if he had broken the rule of quiet, so he contented himself with making signs which
only Hugh would notice and understand. They had agreed upon certain meanings and motions early in their friendship, for the daily occupations of each kept them far apart, Dickon being now consigned regularly to Brother Symon in the almonry and Hugh always at the heels of Brother John in the north cloister, or at work in the kitchen. When they did come together, so often, as now, it was at a period when all talking was forbidden. So, when Dickon shook hands with himself, inconspicuously but firmly, as he was doing at that moment, it meant, “I shall be free this afternoon; meet me in the churchyard beside old St. Joseph’s Chapel.”

  But Hugh with a downward thrust of his palm indicated the discouraging answer, “No, I can’t possibly get off at all today.”

  Dickon choked in a vain effort to swallow his words and finally breathed between clenched teeth, “You’ve just got to! I must tell you about something!” He felt the eyes of the novice master burning a hole in his back, so moved away from Hugh entirely, but not before he had seen him shrug his shoulders and nod at the same time, signifying that he did not know how, but he would try to manage it.

  Luck was with him. That afternoon Brother John, who had intended to set Hugh a task of copying abbey accounts on a set of freshly scraped parchments, found some errors in them and bade the boy leave him alone till he could get the matter straightened out.

  Hugh ran gleefully off to the old churchyard. And if he had been minded to think of the matter, he would have been pleased and rather astonished at the growing ease with which he could run. The Glastonbury atmosphere, the quiet and friendliness, or perhaps the absence of the fear and unhappiness that had so often overshadowed him at home, something at any rate, was slowly working in his body toward healing and strength.

  He found Dickon waiting for him. “Let’s go down to the apple orchard beyond the grange,” said he. “I have much to tell you and we must not be interrupted.”

  Hugh nodded his agreement and they set off together.

  “I have seen that mad giant of a man we found in our secret treasure chamber,” Dickon began at once.

  “You have?” Hugh stood still in his astonishment. “Where? Who is he? Where does he belong?”

  “Wait till I tell you the whole thing.” Dickon moved on again. “He lives all by himself—a hermit—out in the marshes on a sort of island of firm ground called Beckery. That’s where St. Bridget once stayed, and I’ve been there. I noticed a little tumbled-down sort of hut in among the ruins of an old chapel, but I never thought of anybody living there now. Well, he does live there, though just how nobody seems to know. Once in a great while he comes to the almonry and begs a little food, but scarce enough to feed a kitten, and then he is gone again for ever so long.”

  “The almonry!” Hugh broke in. “Then Brother Symon knows about him?”

  “Yes, and he came to the gate only yesterday. He had a gash on his head; may have got it crashing into something when he ran away from that underground room.”

  “Do you suppose I scared him by the noise I made falling?” giggled Hugh. “I thought we were the scared ones! But go on!”

  “Brother Symon made him come in and get the cut dressed, and I helped him put ointment on, and bind it up. His name is Bleheris, and he is mad all right. He kept muttering and talking or humming to himself, the way he did in the treasure chamber, the whole time. I could catch only a word or two now and then, for it was mostly in a language I could not understand—Welsh, Brother Symon said it was. But, Hugh, this is the exciting part—he wants to find something, wants it desperately! While Brother Symon was caring for his cut, he suddenly stood up—and he is so tall, you know, and the almoner is a little man—and he seized the brother by his two shoulders and fairly lifted him off the ground.

  “‘Where is it?’ he cried, and his voice sounded as if he would sob in a minute. ‘Where is it? You must know, if anyone does. And it is here, it must be here, buried, forgotten, hidden away, under the ruins, under the earth, somewhere! They hid it because of the great wickedness of men; he said they did—he who wrote the book. Here! Here in this sacred spot! I must see it, hold it in these two hands before I die! O God, let me behold it! Let me behold it!’”

  Dickon, who had a natural gift for mimicry told his story with a dramatic intensity that made Hugh feel as if he were actually present at the scene in the almonry.

  “And then he did sob,” the boy went on, “cried like a child, great tearing sobs. I tell you, Hugh, I was frightened when he laid his powerful hands on Brother Symon, but when he broke down that way, a big giant of a man, with tears running down his face, I could have cried myself, I was so sorry, for him!”

  “He must have meant the Sacred Cup, the Holy Grail!” breathed Hugh.

  “That is what came into my head, of course.”

  “Did he say anything more? Did Brother Symon say anything?”

  “Brother Symon was very quiet—he always is. He looked up for a minute, the way he does, and you know he is praying a little prayer for the person before him, and then he soothed the old hermit as one would a sick baby, his voice all gentle. Told him that he must not grieve, for if it were God’s will and he asked in humility, his prayer would surely be answered and he would see his heart’s desire before he died. By and by the hermit went off, contentedly humming, and I asked Brother Symon more about him.”

  “And did you say anything about the Cup?”

  “Not directly, but I asked if he knew what the old fellow had been talking about; what he had lost that he wanted so badly.”

  And what did he say?”

  “He gave me a funny look as if he did not quite want to tell all he knew, or else was doing some wondering of his own. ‘Not for a surety,’ he said, ‘but sometimes the good God hides things from the wise and reveals them to the childlike and foolish.’ And that was all he would say, which does not mean much.”

  “Oh, but it does!” Hugh took him up quickly. “I think it might mean a great deal! Maybe the mystery of the hidden Cup is a tradition that some of the brothers hold among themselves; maybe they consider it too sacred a thing, too important a secret, to talk about to just anybody. And maybe Brother Symon thought he—the hermit—what was his name?”

  “Bleheris.”

  “That Bleheris might be the one to find it; that God might even reveal it to him rather than to anybody else, just because he—his mind—. You know, folks think anybody whose mind is not right is especially beloved and protected by God.”

  “That might all be!”

  By this time the boys had reached the orchard and were sitting under the shade of a gnarled old tree. Hugh continued:

  “And, if that is what is so much on his mind, he might have been hunting for the Cup when we saw him underground.”

  “But how did he get into that room and how did he get out? That is what I want to know, first of all!” Again Dickon’s thoughts went back to the impossibility of a large man going through an opening in the rocks scarcely wide enough to admit a thin boy.

  “This whole thing needs thinking out,” declared Hugh and they sat silent for awhile, chewing blades of grass.

  “There just must be some other way into your treasure chamber,” he continued at length. “It is not only the large man we have to account for but those chests and the big cupboard against the wall opposite the entrance. And what does it all mean, anyway? Take the well underground in the cave; that was certainly made—partly at least—by men’s hands; and then that treasure chamber with no way into it except the small broken place in the wall and the long passageway coming out on the moor by the north gate? I just can’t make sense out of any of it.”

  “And that well with the niche in the wall where we came out, you know?” Dickon broke in. “Do you know what that is, and where?”

  Hugh shook his head.

  “That is called Blood Spring and it lies between the monastery grounds and Chalice Hill, south of the abbey. That means, when we went underground near the north gate and came out, after all the climbing through rive
r beds and caves and drains, into Blood Spring, we went from north to south of the conventual buildings and probably right under some of them.”

  “Chalice Hill!” Hugh caught him up. “Is that the name of it? Why, Dickon, whoever named that hill might have been thinking of the sacred cup, the Holy Chalice!”

  They looked at each other silently as the thought struck home, then Hugh continued:

  “It begins to fit into place a little! Look here now; suppose long ago the monks of Glaston were threatened by the Danes or heathen or something—and we know they were; and suppose they dug down into the earth, found where the spring water went down into a natural cave, the very cave we were in—”

  “But why should they dam up the water and make a real well underground?” interrupted Dickon.

  “So they could have a water supply and live under there if they had to, while the enemy laid siege.”

  “That might be—well, go on.”

  “They would take all their sacredest treasures down with them—the small ones they could carry while the Danes hammered at the gates. Then, when they found how useful such a place could be, maybe the brothers later dug through to the north gate, so they could escape themselves and take stuff with them to a port on the sea.”

  Dickon nodded, but with a critical frown on his face. “But that means there must have been a man-sized way down to the Cave of the Well—and a man-sized way out near the north gate—and there just isn’t! And that brings us right back to the original question; how did those monks in the old days get in and get out? How did Bleheris get in and get out? Do you realize that he vanished like smoke that day we found him there?”

  “Look,” said Hugh. “Let’s draw a picture of what we have found so far.”

  He chose a spot of bare earth under the shade of one of the big apple trees and, taking a stick, began to outline a plan in it.

  “Here’s the cleft near the north gate; here’s the Blood Spring, and here’s the treasure chamber underground somewhere in between, with one entrance from the passageway. The other three sides have unbroken walls except for that hole which let us into a cave which is part of a river bed. Here is the stream—I’ll draw it zig-zag—that comes from the Cave of the Well—much too cramped and narrow for the passage of a lot of monks with treasure to hide. Now, over here I’ll draw the Cave of the Well with another stream bed behind it, a little to the right, leading back, and up to that queer niche in the wall of the Blood Spring.”