The treasure of Mushroom Rock

ONE windy night in April, some five-and-twenty years ago, the young moon, peeping now and then between the scudding wisps of cloud, seemed to be maintaining a careful watch upon a little incident which was taking place outside the windows of Moseley’s school—a large brick building standing in a walled enclosure.

Save for the roaring of the wind in the elm-trees, no sound was to be heard until, presently, the clock in the old church-tower struck eleven. As if the striking of the hour had been a signal, a boy suddenly appeared, stepping softly from the shadow of the enclosure wall. Picking up a small pebble, he cast it up at one of the windows. The window opened immediately and a second boy appeared. The one below gave two clicks with his tongue; whereupon the boy above let fall from the window a white bundle, which, instead of dropping upon the ground, unfolded itself and hung suspended. In the half-darkness the object looked very like two sheets knotted together to form a rope. That it was indeed intended to serve as a rope became at once evident, for the second boy, getting astride of the window-ledge, seized the sheet with one hand, and letting go his hold of the ledge came squirming and twisting down to the ground.

Having paused for an instant to listen, the two boys tiptoed away and were presently lost in the shadow. A moment later they reappeared on the top of the wall, dropped upon the outer side, stood still again for an instant to listen and peer about, and then, seemingly satisfied that there was nobody moving, they turned their faces southward and went running, pit-pat, down the white chalk road until they vanished among the trees at the bottom of the hill.

How it came about that Percy Goodall, an American boy, and I, Tom Swayne, an English boy, were running away together that windy night in April from Moseley’s school in the south of England, what led to our flight, and what came of it, form the subjects of the tale I have set out to chronicle; having been urged to undertake the task by Percy’s father and mine, and by our kind old friend, Sir Anthony Ringwood.

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.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Percy: “we must get upon the top of the wall somehow and look down. I expect we can climb up by the ivy.”

The ivy outside was probably older than that inside the hall; at any rate it was thicker and reached higher. We therefore went outside, and choosing a spot where the mass of leaves was at least three feet in thickness and the stem of the plant about six inches in diameter, we went scrambling to the top and then made our way along the uneven surface of the broken wall until we came to the hole we were seeking, which we found to be level with the top of the wall and half concealed by the ivy.

Apparently we were no better off than before, however. We could see nothing, and we were afraid to attempt the descent of the inside of the chimney, for a fall to the bottom would pretty certainly result in some broken bones, to say nothing of a broken neck.

“Look here, Percy,” said I, “let us go back to the vicarage and bring up a rope—there is one in the gardener’s tool-house, I know—and then we will fasten it to something and climb down the chimney.”

This suggestion met with Percy’s approval; and in half an hour we were back again, rope in hand.

“Do you think you can hold it, Tom, while I go down?” asked Percy.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “The rope is rather small, and it might slip through my hands. If we can take a turn with it round something I could hold it then.”

After a short search we found, some distance below the top of the wall, a dressed stone imbedded in the masonry and projecting about eighteen inches into the dining-hall. What it was there for we did not know, nor did we care, so long as it would serve our purpose. After one or two casts I succeeded in looping the rope under the stone, when, firmly holding one end, I sat down on the edge of the chimney With my feet braced against the other side and gave the word to Percy to descend.

Having the rope to hold by, Percy found no difficulty in scrambling down the dark hole until his feet came against the uppermost of three little ledges built in the sloping wall of the chimney. Securing a firm foothold, he took from his pocket a fragment of candle, lighted it, and commenced spying up and down for an opening. None was to be seen; three of the walls, at any rate, were solid. He turned round on the ledge. There, close against his face, was a dark passage about two feet square, so cleverly placed in the overhanging wall as to be invisible either from above or below.

“Tom!” My name came booming up the chimney.

“Hallo!” I shouted in reply.

“I’ve found it!”

“Found what? The passage?”

“Yes. Right here. Can you see the candle?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, it is right in front of me; but it is as dark as pitch inside. Wait a moment; I will reach in as far as I can and see if I can see anything.”

He did so; and immediately, fluff!—out went the candle, and I heard him exclaim, “Hi! B-rrr! Get out!”

“What is it?” I shouted.

“Bats. A dozen of them. They flew right into my face.”

“I say, Percy,” I called down to him, “can you stand without the rope?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, then, let go. I’m going to tie the two ends together and come down too.”

This was soon done, and down I went, my knees braced against one side of the chimney and my shoulders against the other. Standing upon the top ledge, while Percy stood upon the lowest one, I lit my candle—for we had “annexed” a couple of candle-ends when we went down for the rope.

“That’s the passage, all right,” said I. “But how did that old buffer in the history-book ever get up to it? Ah, I see. Look here—come up a step. Do you see this big iron staple with three rusty links of chain attached to it? The chain must have hung down into the fireplace once, so that an active fellow might pull himself up by it and draw it up after him. But I suppose the rain, running down the chimney for two hundred years, has rusted it all away. These links look pretty rotten themselves.”

They were, indeed, pretty rotten; for, as I spoke, I picked up one of them and broke it to pieces with my finger and thumb quite easily. The staple itself, however, being thicker, and being placed farther inside the passage, was still perfectly sound.

“Come on,” said Percy. “Let us crawl down the passage and see where it leads to.”

After crawling for a short distance we found that the roof of the passage rose sufficiently to enable us to stand upright, and directly afterwards we came upon a flight of stone stairs ascending into the darkness. Up these we went, ten steps, emerging presently through a square hole into a little room, in which were a small fireplace and a window, the latter covered with ivy. Looking through this window we could see the school and the village, and we guessed at once that the room was built in the wall of the Keep, which we knew to be immensely thick.

As may be supposed, we were highly jubilant over our discovery. We decided at once that we would keep our secret to ourselves, if possible; that the room should be our own private den, to which nobody, on any pretence whatever, should be admitted.

The first thing to be done was to provide some ready means of access to the passage, and this we accomplished before the day was out.

Procuring from the village blacksmith a stout iron bar, we laid it across one corner of the chimney-top in receptacles made for the purpose by prying up some of the stones, and having reset the stones as well as we could, the first part of our task was completed. The next thing was to attach to the bar one half of the rope, which I had begged from my father, and after tying a short, stout piece of wood every two feet of its length, to drop it down the chimney. The other half of the rope we tied in like manner to the big staple in the entrance of the passage, and as it reached to within seven feet of the hearthstone we were able to go up or down as we liked. There was little chance that anybody would discover the end of the rope in the chimney, for, though the boys were in the habit of playing hide-and-seek about the castle, they were all aware that there was nowhere to hide in the fireplace, while the occasional tourist was unlikely to go in there at all.

As our den contained a fireplace of its own, and as the weather was chilly, for it was just after the Christmas holidays,—Percy’s second Christmas at the school,—it naturally occurred to us that we ought to have a supply of fire-wood. But fire-wood is a scarce article in England, and we were obliged to search the hedge-rows and spinneys for a long distance around for dead sticks ere we could collect a sufficient supply. With infinite labour we succeeded in getting together about a cart-load, which we hoisted in small bundles up the chimney and carried to the den; and then, of course, we must straightway light a fire to test the drawing qualities of our fireplace.

We had been standing by the fire, warming ourselves, for a quarter of an hour, or so, when Percy, happening to look out of the window, exclaimed:

“Why! What is the matter down in the village? The whole population seems to be coming up here.”

“It’s the smoke!” I cried. “It’s the smoke pouring out of the top of the Keep. They are coming up to see what is the cause of it. We must hurry out and pull up our ropes; they might find them.”

Back we went in great haste; detached the ropes and pulled them up; drew the ivy over the iron bar, and scrambled down the wall. Then, Percy taking one of the ropes and I the other, we wound them round and round our bodies and buttoned our coats over them. They made us look absurdly fat, but that could not be helped. Then we ran round the bottom of the hill and joined the procession of villagers from behind.

It was not surprising that their attention had been attracted. We had built a roaring fire in the hope of taking the chill out of the walls of the den, and some of the wood being rather damp, an immense volume of smoke was rolling away from the summit of the old tower.

The men and boys, including Percy and myself, at once dispersed all over the castle in search of the fire; every spot, likely or unlikely, was inspected, without result, and presently everybody congregated again at the base of the Keep, whence the mysterious smoke was still pouring in clouds, to discuss the meaning of this wonderful phenomenon. Percy and I were in perfect ecstasies of delight as we listened to the varied opinions of the astonished villagers; it was with the greatest difficulty we could restrain our laughter.

“Do’ee know what ’tis makes thicky smo-ak?” said one old fellow in a smock-frock. “’Tis my opinion it be gho-asts.”

“Or witches,” added another, turning pale at his own idea.

Everybody shook his head and looked serious; for the farm-labourer of the south of England firmly believed in witches at that time—and probably he does so still, for he is of a slow-moving race.

One man, however, a big young fellow in a velveteen coat, scouted the idea. He was one of Sir Anthony Ringwood’s keepers.

“Witches and ghosts!” he exclaimed, scornfully. “’Tain’t neither one nor t’other; ’tis poachers, that’s what ’tis. They’ve bin and found some room in the castle as nobody knows on, and ’tis them as is making this’ere smoke.”

But this very reasonable idea of our friend in velveteen was received with equal scorn by the others. They preferred the witch theory. I have no doubt but that every single one of them took care to stop up his keyhole that night, in case one of the witches, offended at this officious prying into her affairs, should think fit to pay him a visit.

Having concluded their fruitless search, the party returned to their homes; while Percy and I, readjusting the ropes, went back to the den, where we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting by the fire and chuckling over the mystification of the villagers.

But though the villagers had no trouble in deciding that the supernatural smoke was due to the agency of witchcraft, Sir Anthony was by no means so easily satisfied. The old Baronet was the largest landowner and chief magnate of the neighbourhood. He had been a great sportsman in his day, having shot buffaloes on the plains of America and tigers in the Indian jungles, and though he was now too old for such enterprises, he was still as keen as ever with his gun, and preserved the game upon his large estates with great strictness. Poachers were the bane of his existence; and his declaration that he would prosecute to the utmost extent of the law anyone found infringing upon his game-rights was well known to us and to everybody else in the village.

The poachers happened to be particularly active at this time, and the young keeper’s theory that some of that troublesome fraternity had discovered a secret chamber in the castle found favour with the better-educated people of the neighbourhood; Sir Anthony in particular was convinced of its correctness. In consequence, he ordered a strict examination of the old ruin to be made under the direction of the head-keeper, a very intelligent man; but Percy and I, getting wind of his intention, removed the telltale ropes, and as the ivy was not strong enough to bear the weight of a grown man, none of the keepers could get upon the top of the wall, and our secret therefore remained a secret, its value being only enhanced by the wonder which the mystery excited in the whole community.