by Ashby, R. C.
“I do,” I said, “but you don’t know Molly. If she can’t use her spells she won’t come, and she’s half gipsy and very vengeful. I wouldn’t care to cross her.”
“Or double-cross her!” laughed Mr. Ahrman. “Well, we’ll have to fall in with her terms, I suppose. By the way, who owns the land? Whose property is this broch?”
“All the land about here,” I said, “belongs to Lord Twelvetrees, but he’s far away and I think we won’t bother about that.”
“I see,” said Mr. Ahrman, “that you’ve got all the qualities of a law-breaker!”
“Pooh!” I said. “What Northumberland lad ever feared the law?”
“Well, we’ll have to fear it up to a point,” he said. “There’s a law of treasure-trove, and we’d better be on the right side. Would your friend, Mrs. Blaik, turn nasty if I were to bring a couple of strong fellows along to help with the heavy work? I can promise her they’ll not be after her treasure. And if the Roman does show himself it’ll make the fight all the merrier.”
“A fight!” I said. “Ho-ho!”
Just at that moment Mr. Mertoun walked in and heard what I said.
“A fight?” he said. “What fight? Ahrman, you villain, what on earth are you hatching?”
Mr. Ahrman told him.
“By Jove!” he said. “It promises to be a circus. I’ve always longed to see the inside of the broch . . . and at midnight, with the prospect of heaven knows what eerie and horrible manifestations! Anything may happen. I foresee grimness unspeakable. But look here, Joan mustn’t know, because if she does she’ll insist on coming. She doesn’t realize the horrid seriousness of the situation.”
“Nobody must know——” Mr. Ahrman was beginning, when Mr. Mertoun took him up. “But Ingram, don’t you think he’ll feel left out of it if we don’t take him? You know how tireless he’s been in his search, and after all, the greater part of what we know about the apparition we got from him. What about it?”
“I don’t think Molly Blaik would mind the mad doctor being there,” I said. “He was always good to her.”
Mr. Ahrman shrugged his shoulders. “What a crowd!” he said. “But it can’t be helped. Ingram is fond of night roving; Joan won’t notice anything. . . . Well, Hamleth, will you see Mrs. Blaik and tell her she’s to meet us at the broch at . . . let me see . . . 2 a.m. the day after to-morrow; no, Saturday, isn’t it? . . . Saturday at two in the morning. How can we be sure of her?”
“I’ll see to her,” I said. “I’ll bring her.”
“And spades, Hamleth.”
“I’ll bring two,” I said, “and Molly will have one. I’ll have to tell her you think there’s money in it for her. She won’t come else, and she may give us away.”
“There’ll be money,” he said. “Is she in poor circumstances?”
“Starving,” I said.
“Take her this.” He took a pound note out of his wallet, and something else which he folded and gave to me. “For you,” he said. “You’re my liaison officer, Hamleth.” That’s French and I know how to spell it. When I got outside there was a five-pound note. I liked Mr. Ahrman better than any gentleman I ever met.
After that I went down to the Red Buck and got round Lily to give me some dinner. She was very glad to see me after such a long time.
After dinner I went back to Molly Blaik and told her that Mr. Ahrman and I were going to get her treasure out for her, but it was against the law and if she told anybody or played any tricks on us we’d go free but she’d go to prison for the rest of her life. Then I gave her five shillings, because I knew she’d never had a whole pound in her life, and if she got one she’d very likely get merry drunk and brag to the whole village where the money came from.
It was late in the afternoon now, and as I was coming away I saw Mr. Mertoun standing on the step of the Post Office. He stopped me.
“So you’re Winifred Goff’s brother!” he said.
I nodded.
“Where is she?” he said. “I should like to see her again some day.”
“She’s at my uncle’s farm,” I said. “It’s a long way from here.”
“I want to ask her,” he said, “about a letter she once wrote me . . . something she said. Shall you be seeing her?”
I thought it was no good pretending not, for he would find out from Mr. Ahrman that I was staying at Adam’s Cranny, so I said that I was going there now.
“Then will you take her a message?” he said. “Tell her that I don’t know how I failed her, but I didn’t mean to; that if she means I might have helped her to defend Colonel Barr from the fate which actually overtook him, then it’s a matter which causes me the bitterest regret and I hope she will believe that I did my best under very difficult circumstances. . . . Can you remember that?”
“I’ll remember,” I said.
It was clear that Mr. Ahrman had kept his word to me, and not even Mr. Mertoun knew what had really happened to the Colonel.
I went to the Institute then and played billiards, because I wasn’t anxious to go home until my uncle had gone to bed.
Walking over the moor was grand in the night, because the rain had cleared the sky and the stars were blazing round the moon as she climbed. The farm looked like a black huddle on the hillside, and the wet roof glittered under the moon. I slipped in and went up to Winifred’s room.
“Oh, Ham, you bad boy!” she said. “Where have you been?”
“You may well ask,” I said. “I’ve been doing your work.”
I sat down on the end of the bed and looked as hungry and cold as I could.
“What do you think of this?” I said. “Molly Blaik is back, and Mr. Ahrman has made up his mind to see the Roman, and there’s a buried treasure in the broch—the ruin I mean, not the big house, and we’re going with spades at dead of night to fetch it away, and Mr. Mertoun says will you please to forgive him for failing you because he hopes he’ll have better luck next time. What do you think of that?”
Her colour came and went in her face, and her eyes were big and bright where the moonlight caught them.
“Oh, Ham!” she said. “What will they find? Tell them . . . tell them all you dare!”
“I daren’t tell them a word,” I said, “but you don’t need to tell that Mr. Ahrman anything. He can read what’s in me. Him and me understand each other.”
“No, Ham?”
“He knows what I daren’t say.”
“Ham! I’m nearly frightened.”
“You needn’t be,” I said. “Not if you knew Mr. Ahrman.”
“And Mr. Mertoun?”
“He doesn’t know anything, but he thinks there’ll be some fighting at the broch.”
“Oh, God!” she said. “I hope not. That fiend must have the strength of ten!”
“I hope there’s fighting,” I said. “Winifred, it’s funny none of us ever set foot in the broch. Fright, I suppose. I wonder what we’ll find there? Mr. Ahrman spoke as if he sort of knew.”
“I nearly think I know too,” she said.
“Gold and diamonds?” I said quickly.
“Not that,” said Winifred. “No. Forget what I said. Are you really going to the broch?”
“Of course!” I said. “What have I been wasting my time telling you?”
“When?” she whispered.
“Not to-morrow night,” I said, “but the night after, at two o’clock in the morning.”
“Mr. Ahrman is a very determined man,” she said; and then we both gave a shiver and a start as we heard a board creak in the house, which shows what a pitch we’d worked ourselves to.
“It may be Uncle,” she said. “Get to bed quickly, and we’ll talk in the morning.”
So I pulled of
f my boots and tiptoed to my room under the tiles, and here I sit now writing because I can’t sleep. And don’t want to either.
May 2. At nine o’clock in the evening.
So this is the last time I shall write in my diary because I’m tired of it, but Winifred says I must finish what I began, so all that remains to tell is the doings that happened at the broch this morning before it was daylight.
I went to bed last night with the rest of the family at nine o’clock, but when the house was quiet I was quickly out again and rummaging in the dark of the barn for the two spades I’d hidden there, holding the old sheep-dog cur by the neck for fear he’d bark with excitement and give me away. Then I stepped out over the moor with a spade over each shoulder, just like a ghost myself in the starry night. I hoped somebody might see me and take me for a spirit, and then I suddenly came to my senses and thought of all the ghosts of the dead who might be watching me now, pointing their clayey fingers and shaking their clammy rags as they slid and writhed through the heather, the Border ghosts and the Scottish ghosts and the English ghosts and the Roman ghosts too with their short, sharp swords, and it was all I could do not to throw down the spades and run for my life. In the end I got to Molly’s cottage and knocked three times on the door. There wasn’t any need for me to knock three times, except that they do in books. “Come in!” she said, and when I went in she was sitting in the corner with only a candle lit and the fire a heap of white wood ashes.
“Are you ready?” I said.
“I’ve been ready for hours,” she said.
“Fetch another spade,” I said.
“It’s here.” Then I saw it lying on the floor at her feet. She pushed back her short black hair with both hands and held it up close against her head. I thought she looked like a witch.
“If it’s gold,” she said, “I’ll buy a living-waggon and go on the road. And I’m having it all, except perhaps two pieces for you, Ham. If those friends of yours try to take any I’ll claw them till they howl like dogs. You don’t know what I can do!”
“They’ll not take your gold,” I said; and we started out, but when we met the others Molly started to scream and make a terrible shindy. That was because there were six of them, Mr. Ahrman, Mr. Mertoun, the mad doctor, and three others. One of them I’d seen somewhere before, though I couldn’t just mind his face. Luckily we were in the middle of the moor and there was nobody to hear Molly yelling with rage. She thought all six of them had come to do her out of her treasure, and it was all we could do to make her believe that they’d only come to dig. So in the end there were eight of us, and we went up to the ruin in twos and threes, as stealthy as weasels.
I went just behind Mr. Ahrman and Mr. Mertoun, carrying the spades.
“You’re so thorough, Ahrman,” Mr. Mertoun was saying. “Of course I commend the virtue, but I’ve hardly seen you to speak to for two days. Wednesday you go dashing off to Heaviburgh, or farther still—I don’t know—and come back in a car at midnight; at two o’clock in the morning you leave the house again complete with ulster and shooting-stick . . . yes, I saw you, though you thought you were very clever! Back some time after dawn; Thursday morning a car drives up to fetch Mr. Ahrman; off you go; back last night at supper-time, not to talk or be decently sociable but to spend the whole night writing letters. You are the limit! I thought you’d given up business for the duration of this trip?”
“The trouble is,” said Mr. Ahrman, “that business won’t give me up. Yes, I have been busy the last two days. But why discuss it now? Heavens, man! Get yourself into the mood for treasure-hunting, can’t you?”
“I don’t give a damn for the treasure,” Mr. Mertoun said, “but I’d give my ears to see the Roman soldier. . . . By Jove, Ahrman, look there!”
“What is it?”
“The cliff-edge, and the beam from the lighthouse. Just as it was on the night when I saw him, but then there was winter in the air and to-night I can smell the earthy scents of spring. I wonder if that makes any difference. The moon’s rising too. Curse that gipsy woman and her spells, if they’re keeping him away! I could almost believe . . . I say, we’re getting close.” We were on the slope of the hill and the ruin crouched above us like a black beast. Mr. Mertoun stopped and looked down below, and there lay the Barrs’ big house, all in darkness and sharp against the sky.
“Look!” said Mr. Mertoun. “Poor old Charlie’s prison. All I’m out for is the satisfaction of telling him that he’s free at last. I’d like to have told him what we’re after to-night, but it wouldn’t do. It might raise his hopes, only to end in something worse for him. If he were with us to-night I’d be feeling a good deal more scared than I actually am.”
“That’s what I told you,” said Mr. Ahrman, “when you suggested bringing him.”
“But in spite of his letter,” Mr. Mertoun said, “I shall make another attempt to see him to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” Mr. Ahrman’s voice made my hair stand on end, the way he said that simple word. “Wait and see what to-night brings.”
“We’re in for it,” I thought. “There’ll be dead men on the heath before morning.”
They all had electric torches but Molly and me, and when we got to the top of the hill those little lights danced out and around like corpse-lights in a graveyard, flashing on the old grey stones and the tallest nettles I ever saw. Witch-nettles, Molly said they were. She was shivering like with ague, and I saw her fingers were crossed and she was saying her spells already.
“Don’t!” I said. “Save them up, or they’ll be no good when he comes.”
“They’re good spells,” she muttered.
“They’ll have lost their power,” I said, but she went on hugging herself and muttering, and the moon slowly climbed up the sky, paling out the stars and making the blackness blacker and the whiteness bright like silver. I could hear the roar of the sea beyond, and the wind hooting along the shore and rustling through the heath.
“Come in! Come in!” said Mr. Ahrman, taking the lead. “Don’t hang back. There’s nothing here but . . . well, nothing. Look for yourselves.”
“Civilization!” said Mr. Mertoun. “Step right back into the lost ages. The nettles that Adam planted, that stung Eve’s white shoulder.”
We were inside the round tower, and it was like being at the bottom of a pit. The entrance was all broken down and gaped open, and we had to climb over the fallen stones to go in. The walls were crumbled too in places, but when they were whole they must have stood thirty feet high. In the chinks, under the flash of the torches we could see the tight-curled roots of ferns, and a hazel-bush was sprouting from a gaping, earthy crack. It must have been full twenty feet across the floor of the place, not that any one of us could see the floor, if it was paved or just bare earth, for the weeds and nettles that covered it were like giants, and the dead growth of hundreds of years had made a tangled carpet underfoot.
The torches went flashing round and my head began to swim with the strangeness of it all. This was the place that as boys we’d dared one another to go to, and not one of us had ever dared. You see, it wasn’t only our own fears, it was the tales our grandfathers told. I glanced at Molly and she looked ready to fly, although she’d got seven men with her.
Suddenly Mr. Mertoun said: “Do you remember that night at the Club, Ahrman? When you . . . when I——”
“When you smashed the wireless?” Mr. Ahrman said.
“Since you put it so tactfully—yes. The fellow who spoke was describing an excavation. He said that they dug and discovered a heap of relics of the Celtic age, ornaments and weapons and such things, so it’s a fact that they do exist. It really looks as though this place had never received the attentions of the antiquarians. Has there ever been any digging here?” he added, looking at me.
“Digging!” I said. “Digging,
did you say? There’s never been but two pair of feet set down in this place since the day them that built it left it, and one was Jamesie Blaik’s, and the other belonged to the devil himself, the one that kills, the one that Mr. Ahrman calls the Roman soldier.”
Molly overheard me, and she let out a queer sort of moan, and even the men who’d come to dig, who were handling the spades I’d brought and flashing their torches, didn’t seem to like it. Then Molly began to talk a lot of gibberish like nothing I’d ever heard in my life, and the sound of it in that evil place, with the high walls and the cold moon sneaking above, was enough to set anybody’s hair on end.
“We must get to work,” said Mr. Ahrman. “You two men take two of the spades, and you the other, Hamleth. We others can hold the torches for you.”
“Where do we begin, sir?” one of the men said.
“Ah, wait a minute . . .”
But just then Molly interrupted. If they’d known her as well as I do, they’d have known that Molly Blaik would never keep herself quiet long, especially if she thought she wasn’t getting her rights. I think in the back of her mind was the idea that this was her affair and Mr. Ahrman was taking too much on himself in giving orders. So she said: “Wait a minute. I’ll tell you where to dig.”
Mr. Ahrman looked round at her, puzzled, I suppose wondering if she really did know anything.
“Last night,” she said, “I had a dream, and Blaik came to me all dressed in black and he said that nobody was to touch his treasure but me. And he showed me this place, with the nettles and the boulders and all, and he said that I was to dig . . . there!” Her finger shot out and pointed to a place.
“Oh, come!” said Mr. Ahrman. “We can’t dig on the evidence of a dream. We must sound the ground.”
“You’ll dig where I say,” said Molly, “or I’ll scream till I wake the big house and the village too. They can hear me two miles away when I scream.”
