“Decidedly interesting,” he murmured. “I shall take a series of photographs. We are not far from home, and shall be in good time for supper.”
He was an expert and rapid photographer, and he quickly took eight or nine photographs of the mound. I could not for the life of me see why he should take so much trouble over a heap of earth and stones, when he had resisted all my appeals to get some really fine pictures of the moors, the rocks and the river. He did not enlighten me.
We all had a jolly supper at the Professor’s house, and in the course of our conversation afterwards Ellingham mentioned our visit to the Devil’s Hump, but I observed that he said nothing about his photographs.
Professor Reisby did not seem particularly interested.
“Eh? The Devil’s Hump? No doubt of the same date as the tumuli on Seidal Moor, several of which I have already opened. Later Bronze Age, with incinerated burials; pottery of a type which I have ventured to classify tentatively, according to my own system, as Period XIV B. Rather an unusual site for a barrow. It has been damaged, perhaps by the unintelligent zeal of treasure-hunters.”
“But the damage is not very extensive, sir.”
“No, sir: it is not very extensive. Do you suggest that a careful opening of the barrow might reveal something of interest?”
“Well, sir, it is larger than the other tumuli, and one may certainly suppose—”
“Yes, Ellingham, I agree with you entirely. In fact, I should very much like to dig it out myself. But these unlearned barbarians of the north—I speak, Ellingham, of my neighbours—have a kind of superstitious regard for that mound, and this attitude is treated with sympathy—a most regrettable thing!—by old Macwardle, who is the owner of the land. How obstinate, how unconquerable, is a superstition! How invincible the creed of ignorance! La-di-dee! In the south of England, everything is Roman; in the north, everything is Danish. That mound, if you please, is the tomb of a Danish leader, easily identified, in the northern imagination, with the devil. That is to say, to the illiterate he is the devil, to the learned (but equally ignorant) he is a Dane. What is the use of talking archaeology to these boors? Try it on Macwardle—he will think you are a lunatic.”
Reisby looked round on his company in a mood of genial intolerance. He went on booming away about the credulity, the folly of the people. Even the Dean—Dean Ingleworth—who had so many of the advantages of learning, could not see the difference between a Period XI pot and a Period XVI pot.
I listened with delight to this amusing and impressive man. Again his vast, enveloping personality dominated my judgment; his conversation flowed out in large, rebounding waves of humour, geniality and learning; no one, I felt sure, could resist for long this pervading candour, this exuberance of manly wit and wisdom! I felt ashamed of myself for having admitted even the shadow of a doubt. I realised the fantastic absurdity of such a doubt, and I was astounded by the vagaries of a mind so powerful as that of Ellingham.
But a glance at Ellingham threw me back into a state of misty bewilderment. He was listening politely, without enthusiasm, rubbing his chin, and from time to time emitting a slow cloud of tobacco smoke.
Youth is not the time for reflection, it is the time for heedless enjoyment. I determined, before the evening was over, that I would not bother myself with conjectures about inscrutable personalities, but would have a jolly good holiday.
Chapter III
1
On Monday morning, in dull and variable weather, our party assembled at the earthwork of Caer Carrws.
It was the first time I had been at an affair of this kind, and I thought it vastly entertaining. The principal workers were Joe Lloyd, the boy from the garden and three gamekeepers from Aberleven Manor. But a regular dump of picks, bars and shovels had been taken up to the camp, and all the men of the party (excluding our two visitors, Macwardle and the Dean) did their bit of digging or hewing.
Professor Reisby, rolling up the sleeves of his grey shirt and exposing arms of Herculean proportion, attacked the rampart with a pick. His energy was almost alarming. He struck a piece of hard stone, and the head of the pick flew off in a shower of splinters. He jabbed a spade into a tough section of the embankment, and the spade crumpled up as if it was only a tin imitation. Then he gripped an enormous block of granite and flung it far behind him, so that it nearly fell upon the incautious toes of the Dean. Apologising for his clumsiness, he rammed a crowbar under the parapet and in one heave dislodged about half a ton of soil and rubble.
“I am surprised at you digging there,” said the Dean with petulance, “I should have begun just yonder,” and he flung a stone vaguely into the air.
The Dean—the Reverend Peter Ingleworth—was a man with a thin, cross, agitated face, who rarely spoke without being disagreeable. He wore a straw hat, of the mottled black and yellow variety often worn by the more liberal clergy of that period.
“Tra-di-la-di-da!” cried Reisby, plunging his bar into the ground with an awful thud, “one place is really as good as another, my dear fellow! But if you fancy that particular traverse—”
“No, no, no!—I mean there,” said the Dean, peevishly taking up another stone and flinging it in another direction.
“What!—there?” said Reisby, flinging a stone in his turn.
“No, sir!” replied the Dean, and presently they were both chucking stones all over the place, to the huge amusement of the rest of the party.
Old Arthur Macwardle, the owner of the great estate of Aberleven Manor, chuckled with good-humoured enjoyment of the scene. He was a man who had made money in business. In fact, he regarded the making of money as the proper aim of rational human endeavour and the only true reward of all human ambitions, looking on those who thought otherwise or who used their wits for any other purpose as eccentric and futile persons of no importance. It goes without saying that Mr. Macwardle was not a man of high intelligence or of distinguished breeding or of any culture, but his good nature and kindliness did much to redeem his rather blatant vulgarity. In appearance he was ruddy, slightly alcoholic and apoplectic, but invariably jocular. He was now looking at the Professor and the Dean with an air of condescending indulgence.
“It beats me, what you fellows can see in this,” he said. “Why, nobody would give you half a crown for anything you found, would they?”
Dean Ingleworth, a scholar and a gentleman, treated this remark with silent though visible contempt, but Reisby answered:
“Ho, ho! We labour for the advance of learning, not for corruptible lucre, not for that expensive dirt which you call money! See how this parapet is constructed, see the primitive skill in the facing of the inner wall. You had no idea of this until I revealed it by a process of orderly demolition. Observe the corners of the guard-house, now being uncovered by these energetic men. Pass your eye along the slowly emergent line of that long enclosure. And then—hullo, Ellingham! Have you got something there?”
“Some pottery down here by the foot of the wall, and a bit of iron.”
“Now, Macwardle, what do you say to that? Some pottery and a bit of iron! Treasures, my dear sir; the treasures of antiquity!”
Macwardle liked the Professor. He looked on him as a man who “had done well in his own line,” and though he had only the vaguest idea of what was meant by science, and no idea at all of what was meant by genetics, he regarded the post of a university professor as one which need not be entirely despised. He thought little of a “mere schoolmaster,” such as Ellingham, who was not likely to be making more than £500 a year. Mr. Macwardle therefore contented himself with crying:
“Ah, Reisby! You are trying to pull my leg!”
I was enjoying myself. There is a strange fascination about the digging up of hidden, venerable things, even if these things are mere scraps and fragments. Before lunch time we had unearthed one or two unbroken pots, a multitude of shards, a bronze ring, and a mess of charcoal
.
There was a lively discussion between Reisby and Ingleworth.
“But my dear fellow!” roared the Professor, “look at the rim, the unmistakable rim! Who in his right mind could possibly regard that rim as Halstatt? Ho, no, no! Let me assure you, dear Dean, it is typical, absolutely typical, of what I have presumed to call Northumbrian VIII Series D.”
To this gibberish Ingleworth replied (and I thought he did so very properly):
“I should consider myself too impulsive, Professor Reisby, if I based a theory of any importance upon a fragment which, to my mind, is of a somewhat indeterminate nature.”
“Indeterminate, my worthy friend! Tol-di-rol-di-dido! But look at the association—what, what?—look at the association! If that be no Northumbrian pot, pray tell me, sir, what have we got?”
And the Professor waved his enormous hand in the direction of a dirty little earthenware vessel placed carefully on the top of the bank.
“Don’t you think, sir,” said Eric, who was examining the debatable fragment, “that it really might be a bit of Halstatt after all?” I considered this a little indiscreet, but I did not anticipate what followed.
“No, I don’t,” replied the Professor, huffing up in a moment, “and I should advise young gentlemen not to think they know more than their elders, unless they have any particular reason—and you certainly have not—for believing that to be the case.”
This abrupt and explosive change of manner, jarring so unpleasantly upon the general good-humour of the whole affair, had an immediate and a very painful effect. My poor cousin was completely taken aback; he blushed, and could only mutter something about “intending to make a mere suggestion.” Hilda Reisby was standing near him, and I saw her quietly touch his hand.
“That was very unwise of you,” she said, smiling at Eric, but her cheeks were flushed with a vivid red almost as deep as his own.
To me the episode was unaccountable. It was foolish of Eric to question the views of an expert, but I did not see why the Professor should have blazed up in a manner so rude and unprovoked, so disproportionately fierce. Ellingham was looking closely at the group, and he came forward.
“I agree with you,” he said to the Professor, “and I think our friend was misled by some detail which appears to be common to more than one type. I will answer for it, that he never intended to assert his own opinion. Have you seen this curious fragment of bronze which has just been found in the trench by the gateway? It is not unlike the end of a torque.”
Reisby had been staring at the bit of pottery in his hand, and he now started like a man coming out of a dream. In a second he appeared to regain his good-humour and kindliness.
“Foster!” he cried, “I beg your pardon. I was frightfully rude. Eh? These Northumbrian pots have got on my nerves—for, in spite of what you say, Dean, they are Northumbrian—and I have been for many years endeavouring to give them a recognised archaeological status. But what does it matter? It is all a solemn trifling with unimportant relics, a mere pastime for learned idlers. Macwardle is right—there’s nothing in it! I repeat, Foster, I am sorry for what I said—indeed I am.”
“Please don’t say anything of the kind, sir,” replied Eric, who was now more embarrassed than ever. “It was awfully stupid of me—downright impertinent—”
“No, no, Foster! All the stupidity was mine. But let’s have done with it, eh? And now, Ellingham, what about this torque of yours?”
To all outward seeming, our harmony was restored; and yet the memory of this disturbing incident lingered in my mind.
Lunch, provided by Macwardle and the Reisbys, was a cheery business, and a bottle or two of splendid claret (from the famous bins of Aberleven Manor) played their part in stimulating or reviving cordiality. Even the Dean was less acidulous, and less eager to wrangle over his pots or pieces. After lunch, Mrs. Reisby went home.
The afternoon brought an important visitor—Mr. Wilberforce Goy, the curator of the Northport Museum. He came on a motor bicycle, which he left at the foot of the hill.
We need not examine the uneventful and respectable history of Mr. Wilberforce Goy, who, at that time, was about thirty-three. He will appear again, an unconscious though not idle participant in the Reisby drama, and it is enough to know that he was an intellectual and rather delicate person who had come to Northport, only a year or two previously, from Oxford. You could see that he was a man with a private income. His clothes were not only neat and correct, they were expensive; the cut of his breeches, the fit of his Norfolk jacket, were both irreproachable. His teeth protruded slightly below the edge of his yellow fluffy moustache, and he wore gold-rimmed pince-nez.
Mr. Goy smiled in a grave, neutral and rather patronising manner as he walked slowly and confidently towards our group.
“Ah, ho, Goy!” the Professor thundered, “have you got any labels with you? Here is a pretty little problem for your curatorial sapience. Spot the pot, my lad!—spot the pot! Ha, ha, diddle-di-da! Here—this one—eh?”
“La Tène,” said Mr. Goy.
And he proceeded, in a sedate, aristocratic manner to shake hands with Macwardle and the Dean.
This cryptic utterance on the part of Mr. Goy (presumably an allusion to some archaeological period) almost immediately drew upon him the united fire of the other experts.
“Halstatt!” cried the Dean, shrill and querulous.
“Northumbrian!” bellowed the Professor.
“La Tène,” replied Mr. Goy in a colourless, placid voice, which implied a firm belief in the superiority of his own knowledge, a belief secretly or openly entertained by every archaeologist who knows his job. “I have an exactly similar piece from Sodwick in the museum.”
“Tell me, Goy, tell me, sapient Goy,” retorted the Professor, “how could La Tène pottery be found in association with these rude northern wares?”
“Or with Halstatt vessels,” added the Dean.
“Imported,” said Mr. Goy.
This, as I found later, is the proper way of getting round almost any archaeological problem.
“Dumty-dee! Imported grandmother!” shouted Reisby with jocose vehemence. “Here, Foster—”
He looked round for Eric, but Eric had disappeared.
An expression which might have indicated annoyance or bewilderment or suspicion flickered over the Professor’s face, and then he turned again, in a bantering style, towards the imperturbable Goy.
2
The absence of Eric, who must have slipped away soon after Mrs. Reisby left, made me feel once again a vague uneasiness. I said that I had a letter to write in time for the evening post, and I went down to the hotel. I did, indeed, write a letter, but it only took me a few minutes, and in less than half an hour I was on the way to Reisby’s house.
I trust it is not in my nature to spy upon people, although I am a lawyer. I was extremely fond of Eric, and I felt, in my confused, youthful way, that he was getting into a scrape and I ought to help him. God knows, I had not the least intention of doing anything which might embarrass him or expose him to annoyance.
Probably it was about five o’clock when I came through the white gate at the end of the Scarweather drive. It so happened that I was wearing a pair of old tennis-shoes, and I padded swiftly over the hard surface of the drive without making a sound. The day was ending in a sultry calm. I could hear the pattering and chirruping of the birds in the shrubbery, the tiny piping of gnats in the air. Ellingham said afterwards that I must have been listening intently, but I deny emphatically that such was the case. It was one of those tense, breathless evenings when every sound, however slight or distant, appears to have a magnified audibility.
At any rate, I was quickly speeding along the drive when I heard the sound of voices, and something in the tone of those voices made me stop. Below the drive there was a kind of wild shrubbery, with a path running through it down to the creek
. Two people, concealed from my view, had evidently been standing in silence on the path, and they began to talk just as I was passing above them. The voices were those of my cousin Eric and Hilda Reisby.
“But why should you stay any longer,” said Eric, “if what you say is really true?”
“My dearest boy,” said Mrs. Reisby, “you mustn’t talk to me like that. Can’t you see? Can’t you understand? I do love you—in a way—perhaps better than you know, and that is why I cannot do what you ask me to do. Please don’t think I’m pretending to be wiser than you are. Oh, my dear, my dear! How can I tell you—”
The voices faded. But I had no wish to hear anything more. I turned and walked back along the drive with a quickening pulse and a buzzing of blood in my ears.
Here was a pretty affair! I had been suspecting it, but the youthful mind is generous, and I could not believe that Eric would make a fool of himself with a married woman. As it was, I felt that I could trust the good sense and the fine character of Mrs. Reisby, in spite of what she had just been saying—or perhaps because of it. But Eric, with his romantic ideas, might very well be capable of some fatal extravagance, a freak of undiscerning behaviour, a weak surrender to impulse. He was a queer, excitable fellow, terribly sensitive, and entirely unmoved by danger.
My own impulse was to run away from the problem, and I did so literally by going back to the hotel. I would do nothing before consulting Ellingham, and I knew that he would soon return in order to have a bath and change before supper.
When Ellingham did return he was full of good stories about the digging at the camp, but he observed my gravity. I do not mean that my ordinary demeanour, even at twenty-one, was frivolous—far from it—but I was now deeply distressed.
“What’s the matter?” said Ellingham, with an unusual quality of gentleness in his voice. He was standing by the window in my room and pushing away the imitation lace curtains in order to get a view of the sea. “Are you tired? I thought you were rather overdoing it with that shovel.”
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