The treasure of Mushroom Rock

by Sidford F. Hamp

Percy’s father was the American Consul at one of the large seaport towns on the English Channel. His duties, of course, obliged him to live on the spot, but thinking that a smoky town, swarming with rough sailors of all nations and with many undesirable characters, was not the best place for a boy, he cast about for a good school to which he might send his son. After many and careful inquiries he settled upon Moseley’s, and accordingly, at the end of one Christmas holidays, Percy being then fourteen years old, his father took him up there and left him, a forlorn little scrap of humanity, alone in a land of strangers.

He was not alone for long, however, nor did he long continue to feel like a stranger, for on the following day we boys all came trooping back to school. There were about sixty of us, varying in ages from nine to nineteen. Most of us boarded in the houses of the different masters, but a few were day-boys, whose homes were in the village. Of these, I, Tom Swayne, the vicar’s son, was one.

As soon as it was discovered that there was a new boy, and that boy an American, Percy became a centre of attraction to the whole school. None of us had ever seen an American before, and we therefore inspected the newcomer with great interest. We found a sturdy, active, bright-eyed youngster, who, instead of being arrayed, as we had half expected, in striped trousers, a star-spangled coat, and a “chimney-pot” hat with the fur all turned the wrong way, was clothed like any of ourselves. In fact, except for the mispronunciation—as it seemed to us—of a few words, we could not see wherein an American differed from anybody else.

Percy and I very soon became friends. We had our desks next to each other in school, and we were put into the same class, occupying at first the two bottom places; an arrangement, however, which did not last very long, for Percy, as soon as he “got the hang of things,” to use his own expression, began to move up in the class, leaving me to occupy my accustomed place at the bottom by myself. He was quick at learning Latin and Greek; whereas I never could do anything in the classical languages—and unfortunately for me Latin and Greek formed the backbone of our studies at Moseley’s.

But though in the matter of scholarship there was a good deal of difference between Percy and me, that fact did not prevent us from becoming the best of friends; for in most other respects there were many points of resemblance between us. We were both fond of all kinds of athletic exercise, and both were good at any game requiring strength and agility. Many a time did the spirit of adventure get us into scrapes with Sir Anthony Ringwood’s keepers; many an exploring expedition did we make together, far out upon Salisbury Plain in one direction, and down to the New Forest in the other; and, to be honest, I fear I must admit that when any particularly ingenious piece of mischief was reported to old Moseley, the Head-master, it was pretty sure to have been Percy who had thought of it, and the pair of us who had taken the lead in carrying it out.

Of all the attractive places in the neighbourhood, however, the one to which we most resorted was Hengist’s Castle, a handsome old ruin standing on a small elevation about a mile from Moseley’s; and there is one incident connected with our explorations of this ancient edifice which is so closely associated with our subsequent adventures that I must not pass it over in silence.

My father and mother took a great liking for my American chum—they admired his brightness and his transparent honesty—and both of them, my mother especially, to make him feel that though a stranger in the land he was not exactly a foreigner, as a French boy would have been, made him welcome to the vicarage whenever he chose to come, and as we were always together, that was pretty often. On one of these occasions, a wet Saturday afternoon, Percy, poking about among the neglected volumes on the top shelves of the library, came upon a musty old leather-bound history of Hengist’s Castle. Among the many anecdotes scattered through this book there was one in particular which attracted his attention. It told how, “once upon a time,” a certain Sir Gregory Powlett had taken refuge in the castle; how he was at supper in the dining-hall one evening, when there came a clank of mailed feet and a thundering at the door, and the soldiers of that vengeful tyrant, Richard III., had burst upon the scene; and how Sir Gregory had but time to fly to the fireplace, whence, though there was a fire burning at the time, he had succeeded in gaining the secret passage.

This story set Percy thinking. If there had been a secret passage in the days of Richard III., why should it not be there yet? He communicated his idea to me, and we determined to set about a systematic search for it. From the diagrams and pictures with which the history was embellished we made out the situation of the dining-hall and the fireplace, and one half-holiday, without a word of our intention to anybody, we commenced our exploration.

Of the original walls of the dining-hall there was but one left standing; the others had been knocked to pieces by Cromwell’s men. This wall abutted against the ancient Keep, a square tower of considerable altitude, and was itself some seven feet thick and thirty feet high; covered, in many places to the top, with a heavy mat of ivy. In the thickness of the wall the chimney was built, a shaft five feet square at the bottom, but diminishing in size a short distance from the ground to one half those dimensions.

Standing in the fireplace, Percy and I peered about for an opening somewhere, but could see none. There was no stone panel working on a hinge, which was what we had rather expected to find, nor anything in the nature of steps by which we might climb the chimney. Overhead all was dark, for the shaft, besides contracting suddenly, had in it a bend which prevented us from seeing out at the top.