It was a hard pull now, though we all gave a hand to it. Three o’clock had struck, when at last, exhausted and agitated, we drew the little cart cautiously up to the study window, and unloaded it of its weightest burden, leaving the rest temporarily outside while we examined our haul.
The box had been stoutly fastened and secured; but the wood being shrunk away from its clamps rendered our task an easy one. A little wrenching with forceps, and the whole lid came apart, sinking upon the floor with a dusty clang. And then——
Sleeking and glinting through a dust of perished rags—piled to the throat, and kept burnished by the sand that had filtered in—a glut of gold!
Gold in rouleaux and ingots; gold in sovereigns and ryals; gold in angels and rose-nobles—near all of Henry the Seventh’s and Henry the Eighth’s reigns, and of incalculable antiquarian, apart from their intrinsic, value; gold in patens; gold and more in a jewelled ciborium; chased gold and ivory in an exquisite chalice with handles, and little queer figures of saints in rich enamel; gold in such wealth as we had never dreamt.
The vessels had been wrapped, it appeared, in soft skins of suckling-calf vellum, which had long crumpled into a floury meal, keeping all bright as blossoms preserved in sand, and easy to dust and blow away, We felt fairly drunk with the sight, as we gazed down spell-bound into that brimming reservoir of all wealth.
And then suddenly Mr. Sant had fallen upon his knees.
“O Lord!” he prayed, in a low half-agonized tone; “teach thy servant to deal rightly with this, converting it to fair uses, and justifying himself of Thy generosity.”
A little dead silence followed; and at the end Joshua bowed his head, and raising his hands clasped together, cried twice, in a firm voice—
“Amen!”
And so at last was consummated that wonderful and tragic tale of mystery and fatality, which had begun for me in the old court house of Ipswich. Truly, other things than hanging and wiving go by destiny.