II.
The cellar lay in a thick darkness on which the light of our lanthorn made but a little impression. It was a great dismal hole, hewn deep into the rock, and was damp as a garden wall in February. I could never remember that it was used for aught in my time, save that one corner of it had been set apart and prepared for a wine-cellar. It was too cold or too damp for the keeping of ale—a hogshead of October kept down there would have come out more dead than it went in. Then there was nobody but Gregory ever descended the steps, though in bygone times there must have been considerable wear of them seeing that they were hollowed out in the middle to such an extent that it was dangerous to walk down them without exceeding care.
“A dismal hole, Gregory,” says I, holding up the lanthorn and gazing round me at the damp walls, up the chiselled face of which crawled a multitude of slugs and snails that left a slimy silver track behind them. “I should not care to spend much time down here.”
“I ha’ spent many a merry hour here,” says he, glancing at the door of the wine-cellar. “’Tis a quietish spot enow, but a man gets used to that. Give me the lanthorn, Master Richard,” he says, “and look to your footing as you come after me, for the floor’s ill-paved and as slippery as mud can make it.”
As he went before me in the gloom and I followed, keeping a strict watch over my ways, I saw and heard things that made me turn cold and shiver with a nauseous dread. There was the scatter of rats amongst the old timber that lay strewn here and there, there were slimy creeping things that seemed to writhe and quiver in helpless silence under one’s foot, and more than once a foul, cold shape that had hung or crawled on the roof detached itself and fell on my face or neck.
“This cellar of yours is like to give me the horrors, Gregory,” says I. “Egad, it seems to be the home of all that’s foul—I should not wonder to see ghouls and afrites in it!”
“I never heard of them,” says he, “but, faith, Master Dick, there be things here that pass a christened man’s understanding. Look here,” says he, going a little way aside and holding his lanthorn to the floor. “What do you make of that?” says he.
I looked and saw that which turned me sick. There was a pool of black water in the floor, and on the edge of it, their staring eyes and wide mouths turned upward to the glimmer of the light, sat a row of great toads, fat and slimy, that stretched their webbed feet along the damp brink of the rock. “In with you!” says Gregory, swinging the lanthorn towards them, and they plunged in, sending the foul water in brimming beads about our feet. “They feed on the slugs,” says he, with a chuckle, “faith, there’s some nice picking down here! But that’s naught, toads and slugs is common enough, Master Dick. Now, here’s something that’s of a vast difference. Look at it, Master Richard—faith, I never can make it out!”
He turned away in another direction and swung his lanthorn over a little basin in the rock, full of clear water, that came bubbling to the surface. “It looks like a spring,” says I. “Aye, but look closer,” says he, whereupon I bent my head and saw a hundred little fishes that darted hither and thither, turning their heads towards the light. “Why, that’s curious!” says I. “But not half so curious as you shall find,” says Gregory, and bends down to scoop up a palmful of water. “Look thee there, lad,” says he, holding the light over his hand. “The Lord have mercy!” says I, as I stared; and faith, there was excuse for my fear. For the fish that he had taken up, smaller than the minnows that lads draw out o’ the streams, was blind as a bat, having a thin white skin drawn over its eyes, and ’twas pitiful to see its head dart this way and that, and the white scale that blinded it turn to the glint of the candle. “For God’s sake, Gregory!” says I, “No more o’ thy horrors. Let us to this passage, ere I go crazy. Why, man, this is the very infernal pit—to think there is a gentleman’s house above it!”
“We are a good way from the house, Master Richard,” says he; “Hark, that’s the horses stamping in the stable over us. But the passage should be here under this heap o’ timber, which we must remove.”
There was a pile of logs leaned up against the corner of the cellar, damp, rotten, falling to pieces, and giving harbour to more foul things that crept about the scaling bark. “This is a very palace of vermin!” says I, as I helped Gregory to shift the logs. “God send the passage have less of horrors than its porch!”
“You can soon find out about that,” says he, as we laid bare the boards that covered the entrance. “’Twas dry enough when I was last in it, nigh on to sixty year ago.”
The boards were damp and rotten. They came down with small effort on our part, and we were presently gazing into the mouth of the passage. It presented itself as a low-roofed tunnel of some five feet in height and four in width, hewn out of a sandstone bed which there separated itself from the rock. It was carpeted with a fine thick sand and seemed dry, though its looks were belied by a breath of foul moisture that came from it as we stood peering into its darkness. The entrance was strengthened by rude masonry that extended for some yards along the passage: it was evident that in days gone by there had been constant use of it for some purpose or other.
“There it is, master,” says Gregory, swinging his lanthorn along the walls.
“Aye,” says I, not half-liking the task that I knew I must needs undertake, “and the next thing is to find out, if ’tis possible, how far it is from this spot to Wood’s house?” I says.
“Let’s see,” says he, scratching his head. “Why, come, we are under our own stable now, and that’s a good twenty yards from our scullery window. We must be,” says he, “a hundred yards from Wood’s cellar.”
“Ah, it runs into Wood’s cellar, does it?” says I. “And how on earth are we to get out o’ that, I wonder, even if we get through the passage? You were never through it yourself, eh, Gregory?”
“No,” says he, prompt enough. “I never went along more than a dozen yards on’t, and wouldn’t now if t’were not for the fix we’re in,” he says, shaking his head.
“And why not?” says I.
“There were queer tales about it,” he says, looking elsewhere than at me.
I stood and stared at him for a full minute, during which he affected not to know that my eyes were on him. “Look here, Gregory,” says I, at last. “I’m going along this passage. Faith, queer tales or no, there can’t be more that’s horrible in it than there is in that cellar o’ yours. So give me the lanthorn,” I says, “and wait me there.”
“I’m going with thee, lad,” says he, holding the lanthorn away from me.
I reflected for a while. “Very well,” I says. “But I’ll lead the way—and here goes,” and I took the light out of his hand and advanced along the passage. “It’s a low roof for a big man,” I says. “Keep your head down, Gregory.”
The first twenty yards of the passage yielded naught in the way of adventure. The sand and dust was a foot thick on the floor, and there were great cobwebs stretched from side to side along which the spiders, big as a penny-piece, scattered and hurried as the light drew near. But there were no obstacles to surmount nor pitfalls to tumble into, and though the air was thick and musty it was possible to breathe with some slight discomfort. “If it’s all like this,” says I, “we shall do, though it’s poor work walking with your body bent double.” “Why,” says Gregory, “we can crawl on hands and knees if need be. Master Dick—we must needs expect——” But there he stopped, for I had started back and thrown out a hand behind me to keep him off. “God in Heaven!” says I, “Look there, Gregory—there—there!”
As I swung the lanthorn to the floor he poked his head over my shoulder and we stared together at the thing that lay in the dust a yard from our feet. It was the skeleton of a man that had fallen forward on his face, and now lay with outstretched arms and bony fingers that clutched the yielding sand. There were bits of ragged linen here and there, and between his arms, but rolled a little way out of their reach, lay a coffer, or box, the lid of which had burst open and revealed a quantity of jewels that sparkled dully in the light of the lanthorn. As for the bones they shone as white as if they had been bleached, and I shuddered to think of the rats in the cellar behind us whose forefathers had no doubt picked them clean.
“There’s naught to be afeard on, lad,” says Gregory after a while. “’Tis some poor body that has striven to escape with his treasure many a generation ago and had fallen here to die. But there’s matter there, Master Dick,” he says, pointing to the jewels, “that’s well worth the picking up, and you’ve a right to them, sir, for this must ha’ been a Coope in bygone days. But let’s on, lad, and see where this passage ends, for that’s the main thing after all.”
I stepped over the skeleton with a shudder, being already made squeamish by the horrible things in the cellars, and we went slowly along the passage, I half-expectant of discovering some further horror. But despite an occasional obstacle in the way of a fallen mass of stone or earth there was little to hinder us, and at last we came to where the passage narrowed and seemed to end in an approach no wider than a fox hole.
“It’s useless after all, Gregory,” says I, sore disappointed. “The tunnel has been blocked at this end. There’s no way out here that I can see.”
“Softly, lad, softly,” says he. “Let me come by you,” and he pushed his way along the rapidly narrowing passage until I thought he must have stuck fast. “By the Lord Harry!” he says, “but there is an opening here, Master Dick, and ’tis into the open air, too—I can smell it. And if so be as you’ll put out the light for a moment, I’ll lay aught we shall see a glimpse of the sky, for the moon was rising two hours ago.”
But I had no mind to put out the light, though we had flint and steel with us, so I settled matters by taking off my doublet and wrapping it about the lanthorn. “There!” says Gregory, “Said I not so?” and I looked and saw a space of grey light, the size of a man’s hand, high above us where the passage shot upward.
“What’s to be done now?” says I: “We can’t squeeze through that.”
“No,” says he, “but we can make it bigger. This is naught but soft earth that’s gradually fallen in to the mouth o’ the passage, Master Richard. Do you scoop it away at that side,” he says, “and I’ll scoop at this, and it shall go hard if we don’t make a good road on’t.”
We set to work at this without more ado and toiled hard for a good hour. “There,” says Gregory at last, “if I cannot push my shoulders through what’s left may I never lift sack of corn again i’ my life!” He gave a mighty heave and the loose soil came tumbling about him. I saw his neck twisting and turning about “May I die!” he says, as he drew it within, leaving a good two feet square of moonlit sky to fill the hole, “if it doesn’t open into Matthew Wood’s orchard! I ha’ been over this place many a time,” says he. “From without it looks like an old drain that’s been filled in long ago. And now, lad,” he says, as we drew back into the passage beneath, “there’s a free road for us. What’s to be done next?”
“Back to the Manor,” says I, and took my doublet off the lanthorn. “The road’s there, to be sure,” I says, “but whether we can persuade Mistress Alison to take it——”
“Why, Master Richard,” says he, “if she wont——”
“Aye, what?” says I.
“We must carry her through,” says he. “But I think she’ll listen to reason,” he says—and so we made our way back along the passage to where the skeleton lay white and ghostly. I picked up the coffer and hurried on—there was no time to remove the bones and inter them decently. It struck midnight as we came into the kitchen, and there was much to do before daybreak.