"It is easy to see how my cousin got into that place," he said to Relf, pointing to my helm, which was sorely dinted.
The big thane looked and laughed.
"That is what felled him. But I knew not of this pit," he said, looking past me into the house where Spray and the men stood round the hole.
Then the smith said:
"Nor did I, master. But this has been found by the forest men--here are their tools."
And when we looked, all the floor of the house was broken up, and the stone paving was piled in corners, and a pick or two lay on them with a spade and crowbar.
"They have been digging for treasure," said Relf, "and that has kept them from my house. There are always tales of gold hidden in these old places. I have seen that they have done the like elsewhere in the village."
"Aye," said Spray, "they have heard some of our tales, and they have dug where we would not, for it spoils a house, and the wife's temper also, to meddle with the good stone floor."
Now it seemed to me that here was a likelihood that there was truth in the old tales, and that I had lit on the lost hiding place of which some memory yet remained even from the days when OElla's men took the town from the iron workers five hundred years and more ago, when the might of Rome had passed.
"There is somewhat that I have found in this place," I said. "Come and see what it is."