Olde Tudor

by David Ralph Williams

  “Of course. I will make a telephone call back at the office. Are you staying locally Mister Swift?”

  “Yes, I have a room at the Red Hart Inn, in the centre of town.”

  “Good, I will contact you later. Hopefully with some good news,” Jacob replied happy to have such an enthusiastic client.

  “I hope so Mister Brierly, I am quite taken with the old place. I can see myself being very happy here. Yes, very happy.”

  2

  It was a bitter January day. Alistair Richard Swift had travelled by train from Cromer to Thornbarrow. He had been staying with his sister, Gwen whilst the house sale of Olde Tudor progressed. Finally deeds to the property were exchanged and he had organised delivery of his possessions from temporary storage at his sister’s house to Olde Tudor.

  Alistair had taken a taxi from the station to the house. On arrival, he was greeted by the sight of a small lorry parked outside his new home and blocking the road. Alistair paid the cabbie his tariff then he walked over to the lorry. The wind was getting up and it had a particularly savage bite to it. The first flurries of snow had started to fall.

  The driver of the lorry was leaning against the vehicle whilst he refilled his pipe with tobacco. “Good day, I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” apologised Alistair. The driver tipped his cap and finished lighting his pipe before he answered.

  “No Squire, been ‘ere no longer than twenty or so minutes.”

  “That’s good. The weather is starting to decline I fear,” the driver cast a glance up at the leaden sky.

  “I think there’s a lot of snow up there Squire, bout ready to drop, I’d say.” Alistair tilted his head in time for a large flat snowflake to melt on his eyeball.

  “I think you’re right about that! I’m just waiting for the agent to arrive with the keys, he shouldn’t be long.” As Alistair finished both he and the driver became aware of the sound of a motor engine just around the bend in the road. They both stood in the road to see if it was the agent and were relieved to see a green Triumph Roadster approach them. Alistair recognised the driver to be Jacob Brierly. Jacob tooted his horn before stopping just behind the lorry. Alistair walked over to greet him.

  “Good afternoon,” he said and Jacob climbed out of his car and shook his hand warmly.

  “Good afternoon Mister Swift. Your possessions are here too I see!” he said pointing to the lorry. The driver had used his fist to bang on the passenger side of the lorry and another man climbed down and helped him to untie the tarpaulin that covered two large tea chests, and a mattress.

  “Yes, not an awful lot. Living in one room at the boy’s school for all those years, I just didn’t amass much in the way of articles and furniture. Shouldn’t take them that long to get it all inside.”

  “Well, in this weather that’s a good thing,” Jacob said and he opened his satchel and handed Alistair a keyring. “There are two keys to the front of the house but only one to the back, so you might want to have another one cut. There’s also the key to the workshop.” Alistair thanked Jacob as he studied the keys.

  “Oh, did you manage to find the key to that padlock on the gate to the cave?” Alistair asked.

  “No, sorry. I did ask the vender, but they said they were never handed any gate key when they came into possession of the house following the death of the previous owner,” explained Jacob.

  “Oh, that’s a shame. Never mind, I can always find a way around that at some point. Right now I need to settle inside, get a fire on.”

  “Yes indeed Mister Swift, I hear the weather is turning bitterly cold for the next few days, and the sky looks full of snow. I did manage to get the electricity reconnected in advance of your arrival.”

  “Thank you so much for that, I wasn’t expecting everything done, you see I brought a lot of candles.” Alistair reached into the pocket of his overcoat and brought out a handful of candles for Jacob to see.”

  “There’s also a wood shed well stocked, it’s at the back of the workshop.”

  “Good! Well I shouldn’t be in need of anything for the time being. I managed to pick up a few groceries from a shop on the station, milk, eggs, bread, tea. That kind of thing,” remarked Alistair.

  The tea chests had been unloaded into the road. The two delivery men asked Alistair where he wanted them moving to. He told them to take them straight through to the main reception room. He trotted up to the main door and opened it wide, propping it open with a loose brick he found on the floor near the doorstep.

  Each crate was carefully carried into the house. Alistair paid the two men and gave them a respectable tip. Jacob Brierly wished Alistair good luck with his new home and quickly climbed back into his car to move it out of the way of the lorry so it could reverse and carry out an awkward turn and be driven back up the hill into the town. Jacob tooted his car horn again as he also departed back for the town. Rubbing his chilled hands together Alistair made his way inside Olde Tudor.

  ******

  With his bed made, the final crate emptied, and the articles within all placed into appropriate places, Alistair set about a spot of cleaning up. First he dusted all the furniture using a small soft hand brush he had found in a kitchen cupboard. Then he swept the floor several times until he was satisfied he had removed most of the dust and dirt that had settled there during the house’s period of abandonment.

  The wind had picked up considerably. One raging bluster after another pushed against the house, rattling the delicate windows. Occasionally the lights flickered during the loudest gusts. Alistair decided that he would place candles around the house keeping one or two lit just in case the storm caused a power outage. With the unpacking completed and the house cleaned to an acceptable level, Alistair decided he would get a fire lit so he set off in search of some fuel.

  The night was drawing in fast. Alistair used a small torch he had packed into one of the crates to go in search of the wood shed. He found the shed and indeed it was well stocked as Jacob had said with dried seasoned firewood. It had probably been sitting there for a few years he thought. A lot of it even had woodworm.

  Inside the shed was a large wicker basket. He filled the basket with enough wood to last the evening. He also saw a hurricane lamp hanging from a rusty nail. He unhooked it and gave it a shake. There appeared to be enough paraffin in the reservoir. He thought the lamp was a good discovery, especially in wind as strong as this tonight. He placed the lamp into the basket. He then saw a stack of old newspapers and magazines. He scooped up a handful and tucked them underneath his arm. He gripped the basket and left the shed.

  About half way back to the front of the house he heard a rattling noise. At first the wind was so strong and loud he thought he’d imagined it, but as the latest gusts died down momentarily, he heard it again. Placing the basket down and resting a loose brick on top of the stack of papers he walked around the back of the house following the noise.

  Moving his arm slowly, the weak iridescent beam of light from his torch first picked out the monolith. The grass at its base was thrashing wildly against the lichen encrusted stone. The sound of rattling persisted further. Turning away from the monolith, the torchlight picked out the shape of the cavern rocks. Alistair was a little perturbed to realise that the rattling seemed to be emanating from this feature.

  Slowly he walked over towards the cave entrance. The wrought iron gate that sealed the mouth of the cave was shaking in the wind. Relieved that he had discovered the source of the disturbing noise he turned to walk back to the house when he was startled by a dark shape that darted past his legs.

  Dropping the torch in fright he let out a brief shriek before collecting himself together and calming down. He was self-critical of his response to what he now saw to be a cat, and he cursed his foolishness. Probably a stray he thought on account that his was the only house for five miles according to Jacob Brierly. After a brief search on the ground, he picked up the torch. The front end that housed the bulb had shattered. He tossed the now usel
ess implement onto the grass.

  On his way back to the front of the house he was followed by the cat that rubbed against his legs as he retrieved the wood basket and papers. “So you want to come inside do you? Well I suppose you can, if you have no other place to go,” Alistair said, talking to the cat as it sauntered inside the front door.

  The cat continued to rub and purr against Alistair as he started to lay a fire. He tore pages of newspaper and twisted them to form a paper nest in the grate. Underneath the first newspaper was an odd leather bound book. He examined it briefly with curiosity and then placed the book on top of the mantelpiece so that he could peruse it later. Next he arranged some smaller pieces of wood on top of the paper in a pyramid and then lit the paper beneath using a match. Once the paper and kindling had caught the fire he lifted two medium sized wood logs from the basket and placed them carefully on top of the other burning wood. Satisfied with his fire building efforts, Alistair sat himself down on one of two fireside chairs that had come with the purchase of the house.

  The sleek grey moggy jumped onto Alistair’s lap and continued to purr loudly. “Friendly cat, aren’t you,” he said as he began to stroke the slate grey soft fur. “Do you have a name my little friend, eh? If only I knew your name. Maybe you don’t have a name, is that it?” the cat only continued to purr. “Well, because I don’t know who you are, I shall call you Smokey, because your fur being as grey as the smoke that now travels up the chimney of this old house!” chuckled Alistair. “Now Smokey, how about a little supper eh?”

  In the kitchen Alistair prepared a meal consisting of tinned pilchards and bread and butter for himself, and just pilchards for Smokey. He was just about to bring their supper through to the main drawing room when the electricity was suddenly cut off. The house was plunged into darkness. Placing down the food on the large dining table, he quickly went through to the drawing room and began to light the candles he had prepared earlier for such an eventuality. Damn the wind, he thought.

  Once the house had sufficient light, he brought through the supper he’d prepared. He set Smokey’s pilchards down next to the hearth; Smokey gobbled them up greedily. Walking over to the front window, Alistair peered outside. Branches of the large ash tree were bending by the force of the wind, that seemed to be growing even stronger. The heavens had finally decided to release their cargo of snow, and it was settling fast. Alistair feared snow drifts due to the wind, but as there was nothing he could do about it he closed the old mottled curtains and settled down to eat his supper.

  After his meal, Alistair decided to try and call the electricity board. He lifted the receiver on the black Bakelite telephone that was connected in the hallway, then used the rotary dial to call an operator. When he placed the receiver to his ear he couldn’t hear any dial tone. He realised that the storm had apparently knocked out his phone line as well as his electricity supply. He made his way back to the drawing room to tell Smokey. He had nobody else to share the bad news with.

  Alistair had eventually settled himself in bed. He had brought with him the curious leather covered book he had found mixed amongst the old newspapers and magazines in the wood shed. Smokey was curled up on the end of the bed. Alistair wondered how many people had slept in the bed he now occupied, it was quite a stately bed and he guessed it to be dating from the seventeenth century, or maybe even earlier.

  A candle burned on a bedside table; the light was adequate to enable the reading of a book. The wind continued to rush against the bedroom window, finding its way inside through gaps where the leaded light cement had decayed and crumbled and dropped from some of the individual glass panes. Sometimes the threadbare curtain covering the window would billow distracting Alistair from his reading. Alistair began to flick through the pages of the book. It was a hand-written journal or study. The musty scent from its pages seemed to give off a trace of the soul of the person who wrote in it. The first words he read – An archaeological study of Thornbarrow Cavern, by the Reverend George Charles Redgrave (Saint Peter’s Parish Church). There was a passage that spoke about some of the history of the cavern. Alistair found this to be most interesting.

  History of Thornbarrow cavern:

  The Cave was certainly used as a place of temporary shelter from the elements of nature. Possibly also for storing produce and meat and as refuge from criminal activity or war between neighbouring groups or tribes. Curiosity probably drove many prehistoric explorers to enter caves seeking answers to many questions concerning their length, depth, and extent and to what might be hidden inside. However, it is possible that the first few meters of the entrance to the cave, the area where sunlight would reach, might have been permanently inhabited.

  The cave has splendid examples of Palaeolithic paintings. Close to twenty paintings, mostly of animals, decorate the interior walls of the cave in impressive compositions. Horses are the most numerous, but deer, birds, and even some human forms can also be found. The art probably dates from c. 17,000 to c. 15,000 BCE.

  The art was created by the skilled hands of humans living in the area at that time. the artists used complex methods to create their paintings, using minerals as pigments for their images. The predominant colours appear to be red, yellow and black. Red was provided by hematite, either raw or as found within red clay. Yellow by iron oxyhydroxides, and black either by charcoal or manganese oxides.

  The pigments were most probably prepared by grinding, mixing, or even heating. Following the preparatory process, they were then transferred onto the cave walls. Painting techniques included drawing with fingers or charcoal, then applying the pigment with primitive kinds of brushes probably made of hair or moss. Some pigment has obviously been applied by blowing the pigment on a stencil or directly onto the wall with, for instance, a hollow bone.

  After using a paraffin lamp to light my way further along the cavern I discovered a variety of animal bones and flint and stone tools. Many of the tools I brought back to the house in order to make the sketches found in this book.

  After further exploration, I discovered some neat piles of rocks under which I discovered the bones of three hominids. One male, one female (adult), and one female (child). I believe them to be a family.

  The remains were difficult to study due to the bones being broken up quite badly. The skulls were also damaged. I believe all three had been killed as part of some prehistoric ritual sacrifice.

  The next few pages in the book were dedicated to the author’s sketches of an assortment of stone tools that were discovered. The illustrations were done in pencil and ink and Alistair was impressed by the draughtsmanship skills of the author. Each stone and flint implement was labelled as to its supposed function, material it was constructed from, and precisely where it was discovered in the cave. Each object was given a unique identifying number.

  Alistair’s eyes were growing heavy. He skipped past the lengthy sketches and discovered that a collection of pages that followed had been crudely ripped from the book. This surprised him as the author had been so careful, so meticulous prior to this event. Perhaps, he thought, that someone had actually used the pages to start a fire. What an awful thing to do when there was a stack of alternative papers in the shed.

  The first remaining unspoiled page that followed the scraps of torn pages had something written in scrappy handwriting. It was the same handwriting of the author, but less neat. There was an urgency about it. It simply said – I should have left the dead to rest in peace, my selfish prying, and intrusive curiosity has brought nothing but malignity upon me.

  On the following page, there seemed to be a prayer, written down in the same urgent handwriting:

  I run to you, Lord,

  for protection.

  So come to my rescue.

  Listen to my prayer

  and keep me safe.

  Be my mighty rock,

  the place

  where I can always run

  for protection.

  You made me suffer a lot,

  bu
t you will bring me

  back from this deep pit

  and take my sorrow away.

  The wind continued to moan throughout the night. It kept Alistair awake, but so did something else. The relentless shaking and rattling of the cavern gate as it became a plaything of the wind’s airy fingers. As he lay awake trying to entice sleep, he decided that he would attempt to break through the padlock in the morning. There surely must be adequate tools in the workshop he thought. And when he had the gate open he intended to explore the cave. The journal written by the Reverend George Charles Redgrave had wet his appetite for adventure.

  3

  Alistair awoke the next morning feeling eager to get outside and to poke around the various outbuildings, to see what he could discover. Most of all he wanted to get the gate to the cave opened.

  Before he ventured outside he cleaned the ash from the fire grate and he lay a new fire ready for the night ahead. He also set about getting the oven stoked with kindling; he didn’t fancy another cold supper of tinned pilchards. When he was finished with his morning chores, the last of which was to pour a saucer of milk for his newly acquired cat, he wrapped himself up in a thick woollen sweater, overcoat, and scarf before stepping outside.

  The snow flurries had died away during the night, replaced with sleet and icy rain. The sky however told him that the worst of the weather was yet to come. The first thing Alistair did was to stock up on logs from out of the wood shed. He piled them high just inside of the back door as he didn’t fancy another trek around the garden in the dark. His next mission was to peruse what tools and other implements had been left in the workshop.

  The workshop was cold and damp inside. The small windows created a gloomy interior. He found another hurricane lamp and also a canister of paraffin. He filled the lamp and lit the wick using matches that were left on a shelf above a large vice. The lamp provided sufficient illumination for him to look around.