Cornwall's Wonderland

by Mabel Quiller-Couch

"Come, man, come," shrieked the ghost in a perfectly awful voice. "Ezekiel Grosse, I command thee." And with that Ezekiel, by a power stronger than his own, was forced to rise and to follow the old man wheresoever he led him.

Out through the hall they went, down through the park, and on and on by ways the attorney did not know, until at last they arrived at a little dell. The night was pitchy dark, and nothing could Ezekiel see but the ghostly figure gliding along ahead of him, all lit by a weird phosphorescent light. In the dell was a small granite cairn, and here the ghost stopped and looked around for the attorney.

"Ezekiel Grosse," said he, when Ezekiel had come up and was standing on the other side of the cairn. "Ezekiel Grosse, thou longest for gold. So did I! I won the prize, but I found no pleasure in it. Beneath those stones lies treasure enough to make thee richer than thou hast ever dreamed of. Dig for it, it is yours. Obtain it and keep it all to yourself, and be one of the rich men of the earth, and when thou art happiest I will come and look upon you."

With that the spectre disappeared, and Ezekiel, overcome with fright and amazement, was left alone by the cairn.

"Well," he said at last, recovering his courage, "I don't care if you are ghost or devil, I will soon find out if you are telling me lies or not!" A harsh laugh sounded through the darkness, as though in answer to his brave words, and once again the attorney trembled with fear.

He did not begin his search that night, but taking careful note of the exact spot, he returned to his house to think over all that had happened; and what he decided was that he was not going to let any squeamishness stand in the way of a fortune.

"I'll tip over that old cairn," he said, with a great show of coolness, "and I'll search every foot of ground under it and around it, and it shall not be my fault if the treasure is not found!"

So, a night or two later, armed with a crowbar and other tools, away he started secretly, and found his way again to the lonely dell, where he soon dispersed the stones of the cairn and began his digging. The ground was hard and flinty, and the work anything but easy, but he had not far to dig before he came across something, something hard and round, which increased his excitement until it nearly suffocated him.

Feverishly he dug and dug, and cleared away the earth until at last he had laid bare a large metallic urn sunk deep in the ground, an urn so large and heavy that though he used his utmost strength, and his strength by that time was almost that of a madman, he could not move it, much less carry it home with him; and having brought no light he could not even examine it. So all he could do that night was to cover it over again with earth, and replace the stones on the top so that no one, coming upon it, should guess that the cairn had been touched. Ezekiel scarcely knew how to live through the next twenty-four hours, and as soon as it was dark on the following evening he crept out of his house, with a dark lantern concealed beneath his cloak.

He knew his way to the dell so well now that he reached there very quickly, and with very little trouble he threw down the cairn and laid bare the urn again. By the light of the lantern he soon forced open the lid, in spite of the trembling of his eager, covetous fingers. The lid off he went to plunge his hand in boldly, when to his unspeakable delight he found the thing full to the brim of gold coins of all sorts and sizes, and from all countries, coins of the rarest and most valuable description!