The two girls carried out their plan beautifully. Marion crept
softly up the tower staircase as far as the window. Then, crouching
down, she managed to peep between the dusty panes and the side of the
staircase, and saw the top of the librarian’s head, which moved from
side to side as he scanned the pages of a discolored MS.
Suddenly, ringing down the corridor came a cry in a high, girlish
voice, which caused Amos to start and mechanically to hide away under
his coat the paper he was reading. Marion noted this action with a
suspicious eye.
“Mr. Goodhare, Mr. Goodhare! Where are you? Come! Quick!” the second
young conspirator was crying lustily.
“Here I am, your ladyship, at your service,” called out the librarian,
as the girl’s voice sounded nearer and nearer.
At the same moment he opened the old chest he had been ransacking, and
thrust the document he had been reading deep down among a mass of
other old papers, from which the dust rose in a cloud as his hand
moved them. To Lady Marion’s delight, he had dropped the last page on
the ground. But she had scarcely congratulated herself on the fact
when, turning, he perceived the missing leaf, and, not having time to
put it into the chest with the rest, dropped it into his pocket. Then
he hastened out of his corner to meet the young girl, and addressed
her in his usual suave, respectful and dignified manner:
“What can I do for your ladyship?”
“I want you to help me with my Latin exercise. There are some
dreadfully hard words in it this time.”
“I shall be delighted,” said he, as he followed the young girl
downstairs.
But in his grave and beautifully modulated voice Lady Marion detected
a tone of impatience at the trivial cause of this interruption. She
was by this time already in the nook under the stairs, making the most
of her time, for she guessed that it would not be long before Amos
would find an excuse for returning to the occupation which had
absorbed him so deeply. She flung open the chest with violence, which
caused its old hinges to creak and little splinters to fly off the
worm-eaten wood, while she, half choked by the dust, groped blindly
among the mass of mouldering, musty parchments, pamphlets and papers.
It was some minutes before the air was clear enough, and her eyes
sufficiently used to the obscurity of the ill-lighted corner, for her
to begin her search in earnest. Deep down into the withered-looking
heap she dived, and, after many a futile plunge, fished up at last a
crumpled paper, which she felt sure was the one on which Amos had been
engaged.
It was part of an old letter, undated, but bearing every sign, in its
yellowish paper, faded ink, old-fashioned handwriting, and voluminous
style, of having been written long before the introduction of the
penny post. The page containing the signature was missing, but the
commencement, “My dear Oswin,” showed that it was written to one of
her ancestors--Oswin being a family name--and internal evidence proved
that it was from one intimate friend to another.
The writer began by regretting that his own health was so bad, not
having been improved by a long voyage he had recently taken to improve
it, that he was unable to come to see his friend Oswin, who, he was
sorry to hear, was also far from well. He wrote in the strain of a man
who thinks the end of his own life approaching.
“And now,” so the letter went on, “before the end of my own days shall
come, I have somewhat on my mind which I would fain impart to you. Of
late, being unable to follow my accustomed pursuits, and compelled to
endure a sedentary life which suits me but ill, I have been studying
the history of our own land, and more especially such part of it as
concerns the reign of our late martyred King Charles, of blessed
memory. In the course of my researches (if I may bestow on my poor
studies so honorable a name) I have read much of the valiant defence
of your own fair Castle of Carstow, that now lies ruined, and have
noted a thing that may have escaped your eyes. You know, doubtless,
being well versed in the history of this notable and loyal fortress,
that shortly before the siege by the rebels, under Essex, the Queen
Henrietta Maria did send to her own country of France a trusty
messenger, charged straightly to entreat the king for help for her and
her lord, and also bearing certain rich jewels of hers for sale in the
Netherlands, that the proceeds thereof might be used for payment of
troops. And it is known that this messenger did return in safety to
England, and that he did reach Carstow, and was there detained by the
siege on his way to join the king. But what became further of that
noble, the Lord Hugh of Thirsk, never was known, nor was ever aught
heard of the treasure he brought back or of the treasure he carried
away with him. Yet was he as valiant, and trusty, and honorable a
knight and gentleman as ever drew sword, nor was capable of any
treachery nor unfair dealing whatsoever. But no mention of moneys
reaching the king about this time was ever made, but that he was hard
pressed and had to borrow and beg from his faithful courtiers is
certain. Now, we know that there has always been among men, during all
time, a great and most marvellous avidity for lost treasure, which
appeals to the imagination most strangely, and that little of such
treasure has ever been recovered. Yet, since we know that here is
plain evidence of a knight, bearing treasure, reaching your Castle of
Carstow; and since we have no evidence whatsoever of his being seen
thereafter, or the riches he carried, is it not just to suppose that
such treasure may never have left the precincts of the castle, which
was then so close besieged, but that it may have been concealed from
the besiegers, and thereafter either forgotten, or, the concealer
being killed, its existence not known? You, with your grave
discernment, not carried away by impulse, may judge my plan fantastic
and unworthy your thought. But I pray you consider the suggestion I
have to set before you. It is founded on a study of the castle as I
made it minutely some years ago, and may lead, I think, to a discovery
of importance. You will remember that, on passing under the great
gateway, with its square tower to the south, you have before you a
wide open space, now grass-grown, which----”
Here the bottom of the second sheet was reached, and here Marion, who
was devouring the MS. with its crooked and sprawling handwriting, in
the same state of feverish excitement as the librarian had suffered,
was forced to a standstill.
“And the rest is in his pocket,” she said to herself, with fiery
impatience. “The most interesting part, too, the plan he had conceived
for the finding of this treasure! I must go and find Amos Goodhare; I
must force him to give it to me.”
But she was spared that trouble. Springing to her feet, for she had
sat down upon a pile of lumber to consider the dazzling prospect which
the letter opened to her girlish imagination, she found herself face
to face with the librarian himself.
The sun had gone down low in the sky while she was occupied in making
out slowly, letter by letter, the old-fashioned spelling and scrawling
handwriting. Now there came, through the corner of the window, the
last red rays of the sunset. They fell on the face of the librarian,
gave a lurid light to his grey eyes, and a diabolical cast to his
complexion; so that Lady Marion, seeing him thus unexpectedly, belied
her assumption of strength of mind by uttering a shrill cry. Perhaps
it was the heat into which the letter had thrown her imagination;
perhaps it was only the effect of the shadows thrown by the ivy
outside; but it seemed to the girl that his features were distorted by
passion so violent as to render him for the time scarcely human; she
actually cowered as she stood, afraid that he would strike her, or
that his very look would work upon her some mischief. She went through
a moment of horror which she never mentioned, yet never forgot, in
which the tall, spare man, with his flashing eyes and threatening
attitude, the brown rafters overhead, the great piles of lumber on
either side, and the thick, choking dust over all, were stamped upon
her mind in a weird and vivid picture.
The next moment, as if in a dissolving view, the picture had faded
away, and Amos Goodhare, the grave and courteous librarian, stood
before her with his head bent and his usual stoop, in a most
respectful attitude.
“I have found some papers here to-day, Lady Marion, which I believe
will interest you greatly,” said he in his bland, measured voice.
But Lady Marion had received a shock from which she could not in a
moment recover.
“I--I--thank you. You can show me presently,” she said, with dry mouth
and unsteady voice.
“Can you not stay one moment, just to see one part of a letter
which--ah, you have it in your hand. Have you read it? I am afraid the
handwriting is not very easy to make out. Will you let me----”
“Thank you, I--I made it out,” said the girl, not yet mistress of
herself.
“Dear me! I am afraid I frightened you just now when I came in. I was
so astonished myself to find any one in this forsaken corner, that in
the dusk my imagination ran away with me, and I thought--well, I don’t
know exactly what I thought--but I certainly had no idea it was your
ladyship who sprung up suddenly like a fairy in the darkness.”
“Didn’t you?” said Lady Marion, who was recovering her self-command,
and had decided to come to an understanding with him at once. “I never
knew that there was anything in this little recess until to-day, when
I saw you come out of it to join my sister. I have read this
letter--or rather the first two pages of it--and now I want you to
give me the third, if you please.”
There was now no mistaking the malevolence in Goodhare’s eyes as he
answered:
“Unfortunately I haven’t got it,” he said in the humblest and most
deprecatory of tones. “Like a serial story, it breaks off just when
one is mad for it to go on. But we must hunt and search and ransack
until we find it.”
“And supposing, Mr. Goodhare,” suggested Lady Marion, whose temper was
rising, “that you ransack first in your own pocket.”
For a moment he was taken aback. The next, he smilingly turned out the
contents of his coat pockets. Whether he had already stowed away the
missing leaf in a safe place, or whether by some skilful sleight of
hand he concealed it about his own person before her eyes, it is
certain that he pulled out the lining of the very pocket into which he
had so hastily thrust it, but the paper had disappeared.
“I don’t know what can have made you think I had the rest of your
letter, your ladyship,” he said with dignity and a shade of contempt.
“Any documents found in this house are the property of your family,
and I hope you would scarcely accuse me of taking what is not mine. A
lady’s caprices must be gratified, and so I have done my best to
gratify yours. At the same time I believe you will agree on
reflection, that I should not be too exacting if I expected an
apology.”
“I do apologise, Mr. Goodhare,” said Lady Marion drily. “You are so
much cleverer than I thought, that I can’t think of taking up any more
of your time in making notes for my poor work.”
And she gave him a little stiff bow as she went out.
The librarian made no answer, but a murmur of most deeply respectful
apology and regret; when she had gone, however, his face puckered up
with a look of malice, followed by one of anxiety.
“He would hardly dare--hardly dare, to dismiss me, I should think;
and, even if he does, perhaps it may not matter now.”
Again the grave, reserved face lighted up with an almost indescribable
expression, in which fierce passions of hunger and yearning seemed to
burst the bonds of long-continued repression and to shine forth out of
a demon’s eyes.
Lady Marion in the meantime had carried her grievance against the
librarian straight to her mother, who, although not passionately
attached to her daughters, was kind and indulgent to them. After
hearing the story, she agreed to use her influence to procure the
dismissal of Amos Goodhare, the more readily as she herself shared the
popular prejudice against him.
“I don’t promise that your father will listen to me, my dear,” she
said. “I dare say you are old enough to guess that Goodhare is a
connection of the family, though, of course, we don’t talk about it.
He has to be provided for somehow, and I think your father looks upon
him as rather a dangerous man--one whom he likes to keep under his own
eye. Perhaps I am wrong, but that has always been my impression. And
I don’t suppose your father will think there is much in the story of
the lost treasure.”
Lady St. Austell was right. The earl pronounced the story to be “all
nonsense,” and said that at the beginning of the last century, to
which period he assigned the letter when the first part was shown to
him, people went mad on the subject of buried money, and would even
fit out ships to go in search of hoards said to have been left by
pirates on distant islands. However, he listened attentively to
Marion’s account of how she saw the librarian secrete part of the
letter in his own pocket. Although he said nothing on the subject to
Goodhare, perhaps he thought that his MSS. were not in safe keeping.
Shortly afterwards he established a public library in the little town
of Carstow, dowered it with a handsome supply of books and appointed
Amos Goodhare custodian, with a small furnished house rent free and a
more than ample salary.
Goodhare received news of the change in his position with his usual
dignified modesty, and declared that he was entirely at the earl’s
service always, and was happy provided he was allowed to remain near
the old town and castle of which he had grown so fond.
On learning a new regulation which Lord St. Austell, at the instance
of the countess, about this time established at the old castle, Amos
Goodhare, however, showed himself less submissive. The earl, who
preserved all the ruins on his estates with scrupulous care, left each
in charge of a keeper, who kept the key and admitted visitors on
payment of a small fee. In the case of Carstow, the keeper lived in a
tower of the castle itself, close to the gate. She was a respectable
widow, with a family of children, and the new rule was that no person
whatever should be allowed to go over any part of the ruins
unaccompanied either by herself or by one of her children. The only
exceptions to this regulation were the Pennant family, for whom Marion
procured this privilege; and any deviation from the rule, except in
their case, was to be punished by dismissal from the charge of the
gate. When Amos Goodhare heard of this, he ventured, in his usual
respectful manner, to suggest that this piece of favoritism would
offend all the other families in the neighborhood; but the earl, who,
having promised to satisfy this whim of his wife’s, was not the man to
go back from his word, simply said that it was known that, having no
sons of his own, he took an especial interest in the Pennants; and
that the regulation would be enforced in such a manner as not to
interfere with the enjoyment of anybody. The rule had become necessary
in consequence of the dangerous state of part of the ruins; and this
reason should be published. The librarian could say no more.
But when the days grew shorter, and the black shadows of the night
began to lengthen out under the grey walls early in the evening, Amos
Goodhare, now installed in his little house adjoining the new library
of Carstow, would spend his every spare hour in rambles round the old
fortress, now this, now the other side of the winding river. Walking
slowly, with eyes always cast down, and feet that appeared reluctant
to rise, even for a moment, from the precious earth, he seemed to
worship each blade of grass, each broken stone. It was a beautiful
devotion, people said, that made a man so well known for learning and
accomplishments linger so lovingly about the grey ruin, never even
caring to go within the walls, but always hovering about it, scarcely
letting himself go beyond the limited area within which he could keep
its rugged and broken towers in view. Why, there could scarcely be a
foot of ground within a mile of the castle that he didn’t know, they
said.
And they were right. Under the beams of the rising sun, when the
laborer was going to his work in the fields; at midday, in sun, or
wind, or rain; at evening time, when his work was done, and he was
free to wander restlessly until far into the night, the tall, gaunt,
stooping figure, with its keen, hungry eyes, stalked, like a starving
ghoul, about the precincts of the castle. It passed its long, lean
fingers searchingly over the very stones and among the clinging ivy
that hung in ragged bunches round the bases of the towers. It crept
along over the ground with shuffling, searching feet. It returned,
night after night, savage and disappointed, like a starving rat to its
hole.
So the winter passed.
At last, one evening in April, when every rood had been well trodden
by his restless feet, Amos Goodhare gave in.
“It can’t be done alone,” he said to himself, bitterly. “I must have
help--help.”
And as he went home he made up his mind whose it should be.