{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_69438/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_69438","id":"gutenberg_69438","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69438","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Ghost stories, English","Jesus College (University of Cambridge) -- Fiction","Short stories, English"],"text":"TEDIOUS BRIEF TALES OF GRANTA\n                             AND GRAMARYE.\n\n                            [Illustration:\n\n                      E. Joyce Shillington Scales\n                                 1919.\n\n                  _Entrance Gateway, Jesus College._]\n\n\n\n\n                        TEDIOUS BRIEF TALES OF\n                          GRANTA AND GRAMARYE\n\n                                  BY\n\n                              \u201cINGULPHUS\u201d\n                (ARTHUR GRAY, Master of Jesus College)\n\n\n                        _With illustrations by_\n                      E. JOYCE SHILLINGTON SCALES\n\n\n                \u201cMerry and tragical, tedious and brief:\n              That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.\u201d\n\n                     _A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream._\n\n\n                              CAMBRIDGE:\n                         W. HEFFER & SONS LTD.\n         LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LTD.\n\n\n\n\n                   FIRST PUBLISHED, DECEMBER, 1919.\n\n\nFor permission to reprint these tales, which originally appeared in\n_The Cambridge Review_, _The Gownsman_ and _Chanticlere_ (the Jesus\nCollege Magazine), the writer thanks the editors and proprietors of\nthose papers.\n\n\n\n\n                               Contents\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\n  I. TO TWO CAMBRIDGE MAGICIANS                                     viii\n\n  II. THE EVERLASTING CLUB                                             1\n\n  III. THE TREASURE OF JOHN BADCOKE                                    9\n\n  IV. THE TRUE HISTORY OF ANTHONY FFRYAR                              19\n\n  V. THE NECROMANCER                                                  28\n\n  VI. BROTHER JOHN\u2019S BEQUEST                                          37\n\n  VII. THE BURDEN OF DEAD BOOKS                                       48\n\n  VIII. THANKFULL THOMAS                                              67\n\n  IX. THE PALLADIUM                                                   76\n\n  X. THE SACRIST OF SAINT RADEGUND                                    84\n\n\n\n\n                         List of Illustrations\n\n\n  I. ENTRANCE GATEWAY, JESUS COLLEGE                      _Frontispiece_\n\n  II. DOORWAY, COW LANE                                                5\n\n  III. ORIEL WINDOW OF HALL AND ENTRANCE TO \u201cK\u201d STAIRCASE             11\n\n  IV. OLD HALL, MASTER\u2019S LODGE                                        17\n\n  V. NORTH-WEST CORNER OF CLOISTERS                                   20\n\n  VI. THE MASTER\u2019S STALL                                              23\n\n  VII. MAIN GATEWAY AND PORTER\u2019S LODGE                                31\n\n  VIII. ON \u201cA\u201d STAIRCASE                                              33\n\n  IX. FIREPLACE IN MASTER\u2019S LODGE                                     41\n\n  X. A CORNER OF THE LIBRARY                                          51\n\n  XI. CHAPEL DOORWAY IN MASTER\u2019S GARDEN                               57\n\n  XII. NORMAN GALLERY, NORTH TRANSEPT                                 71\n\n  XIII. SOUTH-WEST PIER OF TOWER                                      74\n\n  XIV. IN THE FENS                                                    83\n\n  XV. ENTRANCE TO CHAPTER HOUSE                                       87\n\n  XVI. THE CHANCEL SQUINT                                             90\n\n\n\n\n                      To Two Cambridge Magicians\n\n\n  In London lanes, uncanonized, untold\n  By letter\u2019d brass or stone, apart they lie,\n  Dead and unreck\u2019d of by the passer-by.\n  Here still they seem together, as of old,\n  To breathe our air, to walk our Cambridge ground,\n  Here still to after learners to impart\n  Hints of the magic that gave Faustus art\n  To make blind Homer sing \u201cwith ravishing sound\n  To his melodious harp\u201d of Oenon, dead\n  For Alexander\u2019s love; that framed the spell\n  Of him who, in the Friar\u2019s \u201csecret cell,\u201d\n  Made the great marvel of the Brazen Head.\n  Marlowe and Greene, on you a Cambridge hand\n  Sprinkles these pious particles of sand.\n\n\n\n\n                         The Everlasting Club\n\n\nThere is a chamber in Jesus College the existence of which is probably\nknown to few who are now resident, and fewer still have penetrated into\nit or even seen its interior. It is on the right hand of the landing on\nthe top floor of the precipitous staircase in the angle of the cloister\nnext the Hall--a staircase which for some forgotten story connected\nwith it is traditionally called \u201cCow Lane.\u201d The padlock which secures\nits massive oaken door is very rarely unfastened, for the room is bare\nand unfurnished. Once it served as a place of deposit for superfluous\nkitchen ware, but even that ignominious use has passed from it, and it\nis now left to undisturbed solitude and darkness. For I should say that\nit is entirely cut off from the light of the outer day by the walling\nup, some time in the eighteenth century, of its single window, and such\nlight as ever reaches it comes from the door, when rare occasion causes\nit to be opened.\n\nYet at no extraordinarily remote day this chamber has evidently been\ntenanted, and, before it was given up to darkness, was comfortably\nfitted, according to the standard of comfort which was known in college\nin the days of George II. There is still a roomy fireplace before which\nlegs have been stretched and wine and gossip have circulated in the\ndays of wigs and brocade. For the room is spacious and, when it was\nlighted by the window looking eastward over the fields and common, it\nmust have been a cheerful place for a sociable don.\n\nLet me state in brief, prosaic outline the circumstances which account\nfor the gloom and solitude in which this room has remained now for\nnearly a century and a half.\n\nIn the second quarter of the eighteenth century the University\npossessed a great variety of clubs of a social kind. There were\nclubs in college parlours and clubs in private rooms, or in inns\nand coffee-houses: clubs flavoured with politics, clubs clerical,\nclubs purporting to be learned and literary. Whatever their professed\nparticularity, the aim of each was convivial. Some of them, which\nincluded undergraduates as well as seniors, were dissipated enough, and\nin their limited provincial way aped the profligacy of such clubs as\nthe Hell Fire Club of London notoriety.\n\nAmong these last was one which was at once more select and of more evil\nfame than any of its fellows. By a singular accident, presently to be\nexplained, the Minute Book of this Club, including the years from 1738\nto 1766, came into the hands of a Master of Jesus College, and though,\nso far as I am aware, it is no longer extant, I have before me a\ntranscript of it which, though it is in a recent handwriting, presents\nin a bald shape such a singular array of facts that I must ask you to\naccept them as veracious. The original book is described as a stout\nduodecimo volume bound in red leather and fastened with red silken\nstrings. The writing in it occupied some 40 pages, and ended with the\ndate November 2, 1766.\n\nThe Club in question was called the Everlasting Club--a name\nsufficiently explained by its rules, set forth in the pocket-book. Its\nnumber was limited to seven, and it would seem that its members were\nall young men, between 22 and 30. One of them was a Fellow-Commoner of\nTrinity: three of them were Fellows of Colleges, among whom I should\nspecially mention a Fellow of Jesus, named Charles Bellasis: another\nwas a landed proprietor in the county, and the sixth was a young\nCambridge physician. The Founder and President of the Club was the\nHonourable Alan Dermot, who, as the son of an Irish peer, had obtained\na nobleman\u2019s degree in the University, and lived in idleness in the\ntown. Very little is known of his life and character, but that little\nis highly in his disfavour. He was killed in a duel at Paris in the\nyear 1743, under circumstances which I need not particularise, but\nwhich point to an exceptional degree of cruelty and wickedness in the\nslain man.\n\nI will quote from the first pages of the Minute Book some of the laws\nof the Club, which will explain its constitution:--\n\n\u201c1. This Society consisteth of seven Everlastings, who may be Corporeal\nor Incorporeal, as Destiny shall determine.\n\n2. The rules of the Society, as herein written, are immutable and\nEverlasting.\n\n3. None shall hereafter be chosen into the Society and none shall cease\nto be members.\n\n4. The Honourable Alan Dermot is the Everlasting President of the\nSociety.\n\n5. The Senior Corporeal Everlasting, not being the President, shall be\nthe Secretary of the Society, and in this Book of Minutes shall record\nits transactions, the date at which any Everlasting shall cease to\nbe Corporeal, and all fines due to the Society. And when such Senior\nEverlasting shall cease to be Corporeal he shall, either in person or\nby some sure hand, deliver this Book of Minutes to him who shall be\nnext Senior and at the time Corporeal, and he shall in like manner\nrecord the transactions therein and transmit it to the next Senior. The\nneglect of these provisions shall be visited by the President with fine\nor punishment according to his discretion.\n\n6. On the second day of November in every year, being the Feast of All\nSouls, at ten o\u2019clock _post meridiem_, the Everlastings shall meet\nat supper in the place of residence of that Corporeal member of the\nSociety to whom it shall fall in order of rotation to entertain them,\nand they shall all subscribe in this Book of Minutes their names and\npresent place of abode.\n\n7. It shall be the obligation of every Everlasting to be present at the\nyearly entertainment of the Society, and none shall allege for excuse\nthat he has not been invited thereto. If any Everlasting shall fail\nto attend the yearly meeting, or in his turn shall fail to provide\nentertainment for the Society, he shall be mulcted at the discretion of\nthe President.\n\n8. Nevertheless, if in any year, in the month of October and not less\nthan seven days before the Feast of All Souls, the major part of the\nSociety, that is to say, four at the least, shall meet and record in\nwriting in these Minutes that it is their desire that no entertainment\nbe given in that year, then, notwithstanding the two rules last\nrehearsed, there shall be no entertainment in that year, and no\nEverlasting shall be mulcted on the ground of his absence.\u201d\n\nThe rest of the rules are either too profane or too puerile to be\nquoted here. They indicate the extraordinary levity with which the\nmembers entered on their preposterous obligations. In particular, to\nthe omission of any regulation as to the transmission of the Minute\nBook after the last Everlasting ceased to be \u201cCorporeal,\u201d we owe the\naccident that it fell into the hands of one who was not a member of the\nsociety, and the consequent preservation of its contents to the present\nday.\n\nLow as was the standard of morals in all classes of the University in\nthe first half of the eighteenth century, the flagrant defiance of\npublic decorum by the members of the Everlasting Society brought upon\nit the stern censure of the authorities, and after a few years it was\npractically dissolved and its members banished from the University.\nCharles Bellasis, for instance, was obliged to leave the college,\nand, though he retained his fellowship, he remained absent from it\nfor nearly twenty years. But the minutes of the society reveal a more\nterrible reason for its virtual extinction.\n\nBetween the years 1738 and 1743 the minutes record many meetings of\nthe Club, for it met on other occasions besides that of All Souls\nDay. Apart from a great deal of impious jocularity on the part of the\nwriters, they are limited to the formal record of the attendance of\nthe members, fines inflicted, and so forth. The meeting on November\n2nd in the latter year is the first about which there is any departure\nfrom the stereotyped forms. The supper was given in the house of the\nphysician. One member, Henry Davenport, the former Fellow-Commoner of\nTrinity, was absent from the entertainment, as he was then serving\nin Germany, in the Dettingen campaign. The minutes contain an entry,\n\u201cMulctatus propter absentiam per Presidentem, Hen. Davenport.\u201d An entry\non the next page of the book runs, \u201cHenry Davenport by a Cannon-shot\nbecame an Incorporeal Member, November 3, 1743.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: _Doorway, Cow Lane._]\n\nThe minutes give in their own handwriting, under date November 2, the\nnames and addresses of the six other members. First in the list, in\na large bold hand, is the autograph of \u201cAlan Dermot, President, at\nthe Court of His Royal Highness.\u201d Now in October Dermot had certainly\nbeen in attendance on the Young Pretender at Paris, and doubtless\nthe address which he gave was understood at the time by the other\nEverlastings to refer to the fact. But on October 28, five days\n_before_ the meeting of the Club, he was killed, as I have already\nmentioned, in a duel. The news of his death cannot have reached\nCambridge on November 2, for the Secretary\u2019s record of it is placed\nbelow that of Davenport, and with the date November 10: \u201cthis day was\nreported that the President was become an Incorporeal by the hands of\na french chevalier.\u201d And in a sudden ebullition, which is in glaring\ncontrast with his previous profanities, he has dashed down \u201cThe Good\nGod shield us from ill.\u201d\n\nThe tidings of the President\u2019s death scattered the Everlastings like\na thunderbolt. They left Cambridge and buried themselves in widely\nparted regions. But the Club did not cease to exist. The Secretary\nwas still bound to his hateful records: the five survivors did not\ndare to neglect their fatal obligations. Horror of the presence of the\nPresident made the November gathering once and for ever impossible:\nbut horror, too, forbade them to neglect the precaution of meeting\nin October of every year to put in writing their objection to the\ncelebration. For five years five names are appended to that entry in\nthe minutes, and that is all the business of the Club. Then another\nmember died, who was not the Secretary.\n\nFor eighteen more years four miserable men met once each year to\ndeliver the same formal protest. During those years we gather from\nthe signatures that Charles Bellasis returned to Cambridge, now, to\nappearance, chastened and decorous. He occupied the rooms which I have\ndescribed on the staircase in the corner of the cloister.\n\nThen in 1766 comes a new handwriting and an altered minute: \u201cJan. 27,\non this day Francis Witherington, Secretary, became an Incorporeal\nMember. The same day this Book was delivered to me, James Harvey.\u201d\nHarvey lived only a month, and a similar entry on March 7 states that\nthe book has descended, with the same mysterious celerity, to William\nCatherston. Then, on May 18, Charles Bellasis writes that on that day,\nbeing the date of Catherston\u2019s decease, the Minute Book has come to\nhim as the last surviving Corporeal of the Club.\n\nAs it is my purpose to record fact only I shall not attempt to describe\nthe feelings of the unhappy Secretary when he penned that fatal\nrecord. When Witherington died it must have come home to the three\nsurvivors that after twenty-three years\u2019 intermission the ghastly\nentertainment must be annually renewed, with the addition of fresh\nincorporeal guests, or that they must undergo the pitiless censure of\nthe President. I think it likely that the terror of the alternative,\ncoupled with the mysterious delivery of the Minute Book, was\nanswerable for the speedy decease of the two first successors to the\nSecretaryship. Now that the alternative was offered to Bellasis alone,\nhe was firmly resolved to bear the consequences, whatever they might\nbe, of an infringement of the Club rules.\n\nThe graceless days of George II. had passed away from the University.\nThey were succeeded by times of outward respectability, when religion\nand morals were no longer publicly challenged. With Bellasis, too, the\npetulance of youth had passed: he was discreet, perhaps exemplary. The\nscandal of his early conduct was unknown to most of the new generation,\ncondoned by the few survivors who had witnessed it.\n\nOn the night of November 2nd, 1766, a terrible event revived in the\nolder inhabitants of the College the memory of those evil days. From\nten o\u2019clock to midnight a hideous uproar went on in the chamber of\nBellasis. Who were his companions none knew. Blasphemous outcries and\nribald songs, such as had not been heard for twenty years past, aroused\nfrom sleep or study the occupants of the court; but among the voices\nwas not that of Bellasis. At twelve a sudden silence fell upon the\ncloisters. But the Master lay awake all night, troubled at the relapse\nof a respected colleague and the horrible example of libertinism set to\nhis pupils.\n\nIn the morning all remained quiet about Bellasis\u2019 chamber. When his\ndoor was opened, soon after daybreak, the early light creeping through\nthe drawn curtains revealed a strange scene. About the table were drawn\nseven chairs, but some of them had been overthrown, and the furniture\nwas in chaotic disorder, as after some wild orgy. In the chair at the\nfoot of the table sat the lifeless figure of the Secretary, his head\nbent over his folded arms, as though he would shield his eyes from\nsome horrible sight. Before him on the table lay pen, ink and the red\nMinute Book. On the last inscribed page, under the date of November\n2nd, were written, for the first time since 1742, the autographs of\nthe seven members of the Everlasting Club, but without address. In the\nsame strong hand in which the President\u2019s name was written there was\nappended below the signatures the note, \u201cMulctatus per Presidentem\npropter neglectum obsonii, Car. Bellasis.\u201d\n\nThe Minute Book was secured by the Master of the College, and I believe\nthat he alone was acquainted with the nature of its contents. The\nscandal reflected on the College by the circumstances revealed in it\ncaused him to keep the knowledge rigidly to himself. But some suspicion\nof the nature of the occurrences must have percolated to students and\nservants, for there was a long-abiding belief in the College that\nannually on the night of November 2 sounds of unholy revelry were\nheard to issue from the chamber of Bellasis. I cannot learn that the\noccupants of the adjoining rooms have ever been disturbed by them.\nIndeed, it is plain from the minutes that owing to their improvident\ndrafting no provision was made for the perpetuation of the All Souls\nentertainment after the last Everlasting ceased to be Corporeal. Such\nsuperstitious belief must be treated with contemptuous incredulity.\nBut whether for that cause or another the rooms were shut up, and have\nremained tenantless from that day to this.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                     The Treasure of John Badcoke\n\n\nAs this narrative of an occurrence in the history of Jesus College\nmay appear to verge on the domain of romance, I think it proper to\nstate by way of preface, that for some of its details I am indebted to\ndocumentary evidence which is accessible and veracious. Other portions\nof the story are supplied from sources the credibility of which my\nreaders will be able to estimate.\n\nOn the 8th of November, 1538, the Priory of St. Giles and St. Andrew,\nBarnwell, was surrendered to King Henry VIII. by John Badcoke, the\nPrior, and the convent of that house. The surrender was sealed with the\ncommon seal, subscribed by the Prior and six canons, and acknowledged\non the same day in the Chapter House of the Priory, before Thomas Legh,\nDoctor of Laws.[1]\n\nDr. Legh and his fellows, who had been deputed by Cromwell to visit the\nmonasteries, had too frequent occasion to deplore the frowardness of\nreligious households in opposing the King\u2019s will in the matter of their\ndissolution. Among many such reports I need only cite the case of the\nPrior of Christ Church, Canterbury, mentioned in a letter to Cromwell\nfrom one of his agents, Christopher Leyghton.[2] He tells Cromwell\nthat in an inventory exhibited by the Prior to Dr. Leyghton, the\nKing\u2019s visitor, the Prior had \u201cwilfullye left owte a remembraunce of\ncertayne parcells of silver, gold and stone to the value of thowsandys\nof poundys\u201d; that it was not to be doubted that he would \u201celoyne owt\nof the same howse into the handys of his secret fryndys thowsandes of\npoundes, which is well knowne he hathe, to hys comfort hereafter\u201d; and\nthat it was common report in the monastery that any monk who should\nopen the matter to the King\u2019s advisers \u201cshalbe poysenyde or murtheryde,\nas he hath murthredde diverse others.\u201d\n\nFar different from the truculent attitude of this murderous Prior\nwas the conduct on the like occasion of Prior John Badcoke. Dr. Legh\nreported him to be \u201chonest and conformable.\u201d He furnished an exact\ninventory of the possessions of his house, and quietly retired on the\npittance allowed to him by the King. He prevailed upon the other canons\nto shew the same submission to the royal will, and they peaceably\ndispersed, some to country incumbencies, others to resume in the\nColleges the studies commenced in earlier life.\n\nJohn Badcoke settled in Jesus College. The Bursar\u2019s Rental of 1538-39\nshows that his residence there began in the autumn of the earlier year,\nimmediately after the surrender of the monastery. Divorced from the\nPriory he was still attached to Barnwell, and took up the duties of\nVicar of the small parish church of St. Andrew, which stood close to\nthe Priory gate. So long as Henry VIII. lived, and the rites of the old\nreligion were tolerated, he seems to have ministered faithfully to the\nspiritual needs of his parishioners, unsuspected and unmolested.\n\nMore than twelve months elapsed before the demolition of the canons\u2019\nhouse was taken in hand, and, for so long, in the empty church the\nPrior still offered mass on ceremonial days for the repose of the souls\nof the Peverels and Peches who had built and endowed the house in long\nbygone days, and were buried beside the High Altar. In the porter\u2019s\nlodge remained the only occupant of the monastery--a former servant of\nthe house, who, from the circumstance that in his secular profession he\nwas a mason, had the name of Adam Waller. Occasional intruders on the\nsolitude of the cloister or the monastic garden sometimes lighted on\nthe ex-Prior pacing the grass-grown walks, as of old, and generally in\ncompany with a younger priest.\n\n[Illustration: Oriel Window of Hall & Entrance to \u2018K\u2019 Staircase]\n\nThis companion was named Richard Harrison. He was not one of the\ndispossessed canons, but came from the Priory of Christ Church,\nCanterbury, of which mention has been made. He was the youngest and\nlatest professed of the monks there, a nephew of the Prior, as also of\nJohn Badcoke. He had not been present at the time of Dr. Leyghton\u2019s\nvisitation, as he happened then to be visiting his uncle at Barnwell.\nAs the Canterbury monks were ejected in his absence he had remained\nat Barnwell, and there he shared his uncle\u2019s parochial duties. He,\ntoo, became a resident at Jesus, and he occupied rooms in the College\nimmediately beneath those of Badcoke.\n\nLate in the year 1539 the demolition of Barnwell Priory was begun. Adam\nWaller was engaged in the work. One incident, which apparently passed\nalmost unnoticed at the time, may be mentioned in connection with this\nbusiness. The keys of the church were in the keeping of Waller, who\nhad been in the habit of surrendering them to the two ecclesiastics\nwhenever they performed the divine offices there. On the morning when\nthe demolition was to begin, it was found that the stone covering\nthe altar-tomb of Pain Peverel, crusader and founder of the Priory,\nhad been dislodged, and that the earth within it had been recently\ndisturbed. Waller professed to know nothing of the matter.\n\nThe account rolls of the College Bursars in the reigns of Henry\nVIII. and Edward VI. fortunately tell us exactly the situation of\nthe rooms occupied by Badcoke and Harrison, and as, for the proper\nunderstanding of subsequent events, it is necessary that we should\nrealise their condition and relation to the rest of the College, I\nshall not scruple to be particular. They were on the left-hand side of\nthe staircase now called K, in the eastern range of the College, and\nat the northern end of what had once been the dormitory of the Nuns of\nSt. Radegund. Badcoke\u2019s chamber, which was on the highest floor, was\none of the largest in the College, and for that reason the Statutes\nprescribed that it should be reserved \u201cfor more venerable persons\nresorting to the College\u201d; and Badcoke, being neither a Fellow nor a\ngraduate, was regarded as belonging to this class. Below his chamber\nwas that of Harrison, and on the ground-floor was the \u201ccool-house,\u201d\nwhere the College fuel was kept. Between this ground-floor room and L\nstaircase--which did not then exist--there is seen at the present day a\nrarely opened door. Inside the door a flight of some half-dozen steps\ndescends to a narrow space, which might be deemed a passage, save that\nit has no outlet at the farther end. On either side it is flanked, to\nthe height of two floors of K staircase, by walls of ancient monastic\nmasonry; the third and highest floor is carried over it. Here, in the\ntimes of Henry VIII. and the Nunnery days before them, ran or stagnated\na Stygian stream, known as \u201cthe kytchynge sinke ditch,\u201d foul with scum\nfrom the College offices. Northward from Badcoke\u2019s staircase was \u201cthe\nwood-yard,\u201d on the site of the present L staircase. It communicated by\na door in its outward, eastern wall with a green close which in the old\ndays had been the Nunnery graveyard. In Badcoke\u2019s times it was still\nuneven with the hillocks which marked the resting-places of nameless,\nunrecorded Nuns. The old graveyard was intersected by a cart-track\nleading from Jesus Lane to the wood-yard door. The Bursar\u2019s books show\nthat Badcoke controlled the wood-yard and coal-house, perhaps in the\ncapacity of Promus, or Steward.\n\nNow when Badcoke and Harrison came to occupy their chambers on K\nstaircase, Jesus, like other Colleges in those troublous times, had\nfallen on evil days. Its occupants comprised only the Master, some\neight Fellows, a few servants, and about half-a-dozen \u201cdisciples.\u201d\nNearly half the rooms in College were empty, and the records show\nthat many were tenantless, _propter defectum reparacionis_; that is,\nbecause walls, roofs and floors were decayed and ruinous. Badcoke,\nbeing a man of means, paid a handsome rent for his chambers, not less\nthan ten shillings by the year, in consideration of which the College\nput it in tenantable repair; and, as a circumstance which has some\nsignificance in relation to this narrative, it is to be noted that the\nBursar--the accounts of the year are no longer extant--recorded that\nin 1539 he paid a sum of three shillings and fourpence \u201cto Adam Waller\nfor layyinge of new brick in y\u1d49 cupboard of Mr. Badcoke\u2019s chamber.\u201d\nThe cupboard in question was seemingly a small recessed space, still\nrecognisable in a gyp-room belonging to the chambers which were\nBadcoke\u2019s. The rooms on the side of the staircase opposite to those of\nBadcoke and Harrison were evidently unoccupied; the Bursar took no\nrent from them. The other inmates of the College dwelt in the cloister\ncourt.\n\nIn this comparative isolation Badcoke and Harrison lived until the\ndeath of Henry VIII. in 1546. In course of time Harrison became a\nFellow of the College; but Badcoke preferred to retain the exceptional\nstatus of its honoured guest. To the Master, Dr. Reston, and the\nFellows, whose religious sympathies were with the old order of things,\ntheir company was inoffensive and even welcome. But trouble came upon\nthe College in 1549, when it was visited by King Edward\u2019s Protestant\nCommissioners. It stands on record, that on May 26th \u201cthey commanded\nsix altars to be pulled down in the church,\u201d and in a chamber, which\nmay have been Badcoke\u2019s, \u201ccaused certayn images to be broken.\u201d Mr.\nBadcoke \u201chad an excommunicacion sette uppe for him,\u201d and was dismissed\nfrom the office, whatever it was, that he held in the College. Worse\nstill for his happiness, his companion of many years, Richard Harrison,\nwas \u201cexpulsed his felowshippe\u201d on some supposition of trafficking with\nthe court of Rome.[3] He went overseas, as it was understood, to the\nCatholic University of Louvain in Flanders.\n\nIn 1549 Badcoke must have been, as age went in the sixteenth century,\nan old man. His deprivation of office, the loss of his friend, and\nthe abandonment of long treasured hopes for the restitution of the\nreligious system to which his life had been devoted, plunged him in\na settled despondency. The Fellows, who showed for him such sympathy\nas they dared, understood that between him and Harrison there passed\na secret correspondence. But in course of years this source of\nconsolation dried up. Harrison was dead, or he had travelled away\nfrom Louvain. With the other members of the College Badcoke wholly\nparted company, and lived a recluse in his unneighboured room. By the\nwood-yard gate, of which he still had a key, he could let himself\nout beyond the College walls, and sometimes by day, oftener after\nnightfall, he was to be seen wandering beneath his window in the Nuns\u2019\ngraveyard, his old feet, like Friar Laurence\u2019s, \u201cstumbling at graves.\u201d\nAn occasional visitor, who was known to be his pensioner, was Adam\nWaller. But, though Waller was still at times employed in the service\nof the College, his character and condition had deteriorated with\nyears. He was a sturdy beggar, a drunkard, sullen and dangerous in his\ncups, and Badcoke was heard to hint some terror of his presence. At\nlast the Master learnt from the ex-Prior that he was about to quit the\nCollege, and none doubted that he would follow Harrison to Louvain.\n\nShortly after this became known, Badcoke disappeared from College. He\nhad lived in such seclusion that for a day or two it was not noticed\nthat his door remained closed, and that he had not been seen in his\ncustomary walks. When the door was at last forced it was discovered\nthat he had indeed gone, but, strangely, he had left behind him the\nwhole of his effects. Adam Waller was the last person who was known to\nhave entered his chamber, and, being questioned, he said that Badcoke\nhad informed him of his intention to depart three days previously,\nbut, for some unexplained reason, had desired him to keep his purpose\nsecret, and had not imparted his destination. Badcoke\u2019s life of\nseclusion, and his known connection with English Catholics beyond sea,\ngave colour to Waller\u2019s story, and, so far as I am aware, no enquiries\nwere made as to the subsequent fate of the ex-Prior. But a strange fact\nwas commented on--that the floor of the so-called cupboard was strewn\nwith bricks, and that in the place from which they had been dislodged\nwas an arched recess of considerable size, which must have been made\nduring Badcoke\u2019s tenancy of the room. There was nothing in the recess.\nAnother circumstance there was which called for no notice in the then\ndilapidated state of half the College rooms. Two boards were loose in\nthe floor of the larger chamber. Thirty feet below the gap which their\nremoval exposed, lay the dark impurities of the \u201ckytchynge sinke ditch.\u201d\n\nAdam Waller died a beggar as he had lived.\n\nA century after these occurrences--in the year 1642--the attention of\nthe College was drawn by a severe visitation of plague to a much-needed\nsanitary reform. The black ditch which ran under K staircase was\n\u201ccast,\u201d that is, its bed was effectually cleaned out, and its channel\nwas stopped; and so it came about that from that day to this it has\npresented a clean and dry floor of gravel. Beneath the settled slime of\ncenturies was discovered a complete skeleton. How it came there nobody\nknew, and nobody enquired. Probably it was guessed to be a relic of\nsome dim and grim monastic mystery.\n\nNow whether Adam Waller knew or suspected the existence of a treasure\nhidden in the wall-recess of Badcoke\u2019s chamber, and murdered the\nex-Prior when he was about to remove it to Louvain, I cannot say.\nOne thing is certain--that he did not find the treasure there. When\nBadcoke disappeared he left his will, with his other belongings, in\nhis chamber. After a decent interval, when it seemed improbable that\nhe would return, probate was obtained by the Master and Fellows, to\nwhom he had bequeathed the chief part of his effects. In 1858 the wills\nproved in the University court were removed to Peterborough, and there,\nfor aught I know, his will may yet be seen. The property bequeathed\nconsisted principally of books of theology. Among them was Stephanus\u2019\nLatin Vulgate Bible of 1528 in two volumes folio. This he devised \u201cof\nmy heartie good wylle to my trustie felow and frynde, Richard Harrison,\nif he shal returne to Cambrege aftyr the tyme of my decesse.\u201d Richard\nHarrison never returned to Cambridge, and the Bible, with the other\nbooks, found its way to the College Library.\n\nNow there are still in the Library two volumes of this Vulgate Bible.\nThere is nothing in either of them to identify them with the books\nmentioned in Badcoke\u2019s will, for they have lost the fly-leaves which\nmight have revealed the owner\u2019s autograph. Here and there in the\nmargins are annotations in a sixteenth-century handwriting; and in the\nsame handwriting on one of the lost leaves was a curious inscription,\nwhich suggests that the writer\u2019s mind was running on some treasure\nwhich was not spiritual. First at the top of the page, in clear\nand large letters, was copied a passage from Psalm 55: \u201cCor meum\nconturbatum est in me: et formido mortis cecidit super me. Et dixi,\nQuis dabit pennas mihi sicut columbae, et volabo et requiescam.\u201d (My\nheart is disquieted within me: and the fear of death is fallen upon\nme. And I said, O that I had wings like a dove: for then would I fly\naway, and be at rest.) Then, in lettering of the same kind, came a\nportion of Deuteronomy xxviii. 12: \u201cAperiet dominus thesaurum suum,\nbenedicetque cunctis operibus tuis.\u201d (The Lord will disclose his\ntreasure, and will bless all the works of thy hands.) Under this, in\nsmaller letters, were the words, \u201cVide super hoc Ezechielis cap. xl.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: Old Hall, Master\u2019s Lodge.]\n\nIf in the same volume the chapter in question is referred to, a\nsingular fact discloses itself. Certain words in the text are\nunderscored in red pencil, and fingers, inked in the margin, are\ndirected to the lines in which they occur. Taken in their consecutive\norder these words run: \u201cEcce murus forinsecus ... ad portam quae\nrespiciebat viam orientalem ... mensus est a facie portae extrinsecus\nad orientem et aquilonem quinque cubitorum ... hoc est gazophylacium.\u201d\nThis may be taken to mean, \u201cLook at the outside wall ... at the gate\nfacing towards the eastern road ... he measured from the gate outwards\nfive cubits (7\u00b9\u2044\u2082 feet) towards the north-east ... there is the\ntreasure.\u201d\n\nThe outer wall of the College, the wood-yard gate and the road through\nthe Nuns\u2019 cemetery must at once have suggested themselves to Richard\nHarrison, had he lived to see his friend\u2019s bequest, and he must have\ntaken it as an instruction from the testator that a treasure known\nto both parties was hidden in the spot indicated, close to Badcoke\u2019s\nchamber. And the first text cited must have conveyed to him that his\nfriend, in some deadly terror, had transferred the treasure thither\nfrom the place where the two friends had originally laid it. But\nthe message never reached Harrison, and it is quite certain that no\ntreasure has been sought or found in that spot. If the Canterbury or\nany other treasure was deposited there by Badcoke it rests there still.\n\nTo those who are curious to know more of this matter I would say:\nfirst, ascertain minutely from Loggan\u2019s seventeenth-century plan of the\nCollege the position of the wood-yard gate; and, secondly, which indeed\nshould be firstly, make absolutely certain that John Badcoke was not\nmystifying posterity by an elaborate jest.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Cooper, _Annals_, I., p. 393.\n\n[2] _The Suppression of the Monasteries_ (Camden Society\u2019s\nPublications), p. 90.\n\n[3] Cooper, _Annals_, II. p. 29.\n\n\n\n\n                  The True History of Anthony Ffryar\n\n\nThe world, it is said, knows nothing of its greatest men. In our\nCambridge microcosm it may be doubted whether we are better informed\nconcerning some of the departed great ones who once walked the confines\nof our Colleges. Which of us has heard of Anthony Ffryar of Jesus?\nHistory is dumb respecting him. Yet but for the unhappy event recorded\nin this unadorned chronicle his fame might have stood with that of\nBacon of Trinity, or Harvey of Caius. _They_ lived to be old men:\nFfryar died before he was thirty--his work unfinished, his fame unknown\neven to his contemporaries.\n\nSo meagre is the record of his life\u2019s work that it is contained in a\nfew bare notices in the College Bursar\u2019s Books, in the Grace Books\nwhich date his matriculation and degrees, and in the entry of his\nburial in the register of All Saints\u2019 Parish. These simple annals I\nhave ventured to supplement with details of a more or less hypothetical\ncharacter which will serve to show what humanity lost by his early\ndeath. Readers will be able to judge for themselves the degree of care\nwhich I have taken not to import into the story anything which may\nsavour of the improbable or romantic.\n\nAnthony Ffryar matriculated in the year 1541-2, his age being then\nprobably 15 or 16. He took his B.A. degree in 1545, his M.A. in 1548.\nHe became a Fellow about the end of 1547, and died in the summer of\n1551. Such are the documentary facts relating to him. Dr. Reston was\nMaster of the College during the whole of his tenure of a Fellowship\nand died in the same year as Ffryar. The chamber which Ffryar occupied\nas a Fellow was on the first floor of the staircase at the west end\nof the Chapel. The staircase has since been absorbed in the Master\u2019s\nLodge, but the doorway through which it was approached from the\ncloister may still be seen. At the time when Ffryar lived there the\nnave of the Chapel was used as a parish church, and his windows\noverlooked the graveyard, then called \u201cJesus churchyard,\u201d which is now\na part of the Master\u2019s garden.\n\n[Illustration: _North West Corner of Cloisters._]\n\nFfryar was of course a priest, as were nearly all the Fellows in his\nday. But I do not gather that he was a theologian, or complied more\nthan formally with the obligation of his orders. He came to Cambridge\nwhen the Six Articles and the suppression of the monasteries were of\nfresh and burning import: he became a Fellow in the harsh Protestant\ndays of Protector Somerset: and in all his time the Master and the\nFellows were in scarcely disavowed sympathy with the rites and beliefs\nof the Old Religion. Yet in the battle of creeds I imagine that he\ntook no part and no interest. I should suppose that he was a somewhat\nsolitary man, an insatiable student of Nature, and that his sympathies\nwith humanity were starved by his absorption in the New Science which\ndawned on Cambridge at the Reformation.\n\nWhen I say that he was an alchemist do not suppose that in the middle\nof the sixteenth century the name of alchemy carried with it any\nassociations with credulity or imposture. It was a real science and\na subject of University study then, as its god-children, Physics and\nChemistry, are now. If the aims of its professors were transcendental\nits methods were genuinely based on research. Ffryar was no visionary,\nbut a man of sense, hard and practical. To the study of alchemy he was\ndrawn by no hopes of gain, not even of fame, and still less by any\ndesire to benefit mankind. He was actuated solely by an unquenchable\npassion for enquiry, a passion sterilizing to all other feeling. To\nthe somnambulisms of the less scientific disciples of his school, such\nas the philosopher\u2019s stone and the elixir of life, he showed himself a\nchill agnostic. All his thought and energies were concentrated on the\ndiscovery of the _magisterium_, the master-cure of all human ailments.\n\nFor four years in his laboratory in the cloister he had toiled at\nthis pursuit. More than once, when it had seemed most near, it had\neluded his grasp; more than once he had been tempted to abandon it as\na mystery insoluble. In the summer of 1551 the discovery waited at his\ndoor. He was sure, certain of success, which only experiment could\nprove. And with the certainty arose a new passion in his heart--to make\nthe name of Ffryar glorious in the healing profession as that of Galen\nor Hippocrates. In a few days, even within a few hours, the fame of his\ndiscovery would go out into all the world.\n\nThe summer of 1551 was a sad time in Cambridge. It was marked by a more\nthan usually fatal outbreak of the epidemic called \u201cthe sweat,\u201d when,\nas Fuller says, \u201cpatients ended or mended in twenty-four hours.\u201d It\nhad smouldered some time in the town before it appeared with sudden\nand dreadful violence in Jesus College. The first to go was little\nGregory Graunge, schoolboy and chorister, who was lodged in the College\nschool in the outer court. He was barely thirteen years old, and known\nby sight to Anthony Ffryar. He died on July 31, and was buried the\nsame day in Jesus churchyard. The service for his burial was held in\nthe Chapel and at night, as was customary in those days. Funerals in\nCollege were no uncommon events in the sixteenth century. But in the\ndeath of the poor child, among strangers, there was something to move\neven the cold heart of Ffryar. And not the pity of it only impressed\nhim. The dim Chapel, the Master and Fellows obscurely ranged in their\nstalls and shrouded in their hoods, the long-drawn miserable chanting\nand the childish trebles of the boys who had been Gregory\u2019s fellows\nstruck a chill into him which was not to be shaken off.\n\nThree days passed and another chorister died. The College gates were\nbarred and guarded, and, except by a selected messenger, communication\nwith the town was cut off. The precaution was unavailing, and the boys\u2019\nusher, Mr. Stevenson, died on August 5. One of the junior Fellows,\nsir Stayner--\u201csir\u201d being the equivalent of B.A.--followed on August\n7. The Master, Dr. Reston, died the next day. A gaunt, severe man was\nDr. Reston, whom his Fellows feared. The death of a Master of Arts on\nAugust 9 for a time completed the melancholy list.\n\nBefore this the frightened Fellows had taken action. The scholars were\ndismissed to their homes on August 6. Some of the Fellows abandoned the\nCollege at the same time. The rest--a terrified conclave--met on August\n8 and decreed that the College should be closed until the pestilence\nshould have abated. Until that time it was to be occupied by a certain\nRobert Laycock, who was a College servant, and his only communication\nwith the outside world was to be through his son, who lived in Jesus\nLane. The decree was perhaps the result of the Master\u2019s death, for he\nwas not present at the meeting.\n\nGoodman Laycock, as he was commonly called, might have been the sole\ntenant of the College but for the unalterable decision of Ffryar\nto remain there. At all hazards his research, now on the eve of\nrealisation, must proceed; without the aid of his laboratory in College\nit would miserably hang fire. Besides, he had an absolute assurance of\nhis own immunity if the experiment answered his confident expectations,\nand his fancy was elated with the thought of standing, like another\nAaron, between the living and the dead, and staying the pestilence with\nthe potent _magisterium_. Until then he would bar his door even against\nLaycock, and his supplies of food should be left on the staircase\nlanding. Solitude for him was neither unfamiliar nor terrible.\n\n[Illustration: _The Master\u2019s Stall._]\n\nSo for three days Ffryar and Laycock inhabited the cloister, solitary\nand separate. For three days, in the absorption of his research,\nFfryar forgot fear, forgot the pestilence-stricken world beyond the\ngate, almost forgot to consume the daily dole of food laid outside his\ndoor. August 12 was the day, so fateful to humanity, when his labours\nwere to be crowned with victory: before midnight the secret of the\n_magisterium_ would be solved.\n\nEvening began to close in before he could begin the experiment which\nwas to be his last. It must of necessity be a labour of some hours,\nand, before it began, he bethought him that he had not tasted food\nsince early morning. He unbarred his door and looked for the expected\nportion. It was not there. Vexed at the remissness of Laycock he waited\nfor a while and listened for his approaching footsteps. At last he took\ncourage and descended to the cloister. He called for Laycock, but heard\nno response. He resolved to go as far as the Buttery door and knock.\nLaycock lived and slept in the Buttery.\n\nAt the Buttery door he beat and cried on Laycock; but in answer he\nheard only the sound of scurrying rats. He went to the window, by the\nhatch, where he knew that the old man\u2019s bed lay, and called to him\nagain. Still there was silence. At last he resolved to force himself\nthrough the unglazed window and take what food he could find. In the\ndeep gloom within he stumbled and almost fell over a low object, which\nhe made out to be a truckle-bed. There was light enough from the window\nto distinguish, stretched upon it, the form of Goodman Laycock, stark\nand dead.\n\nSickened and alarmed Ffryar hurried back to his chamber. More than ever\nhe must hasten the great experiment. When it was ended his danger would\nbe past, and he could go out into the town to call the buryers for the\nold man. With trembling hands he lit the brazier which he used for his\nexperiments, laid it on his hearth and placed thereon the alembic which\nwas to distil the _magisterium_.\n\nThen he sat down to wait. Gradually the darkness thickened and the\nsole illuminant of the chamber was the wavering flame of the brazier.\nHe felt feverish and possessed with a nameless uneasiness which, for\nall his assurance, he was glad to construe as fear: better that than\nsickness. In the college and the town without was a deathly silence,\nstirred only by the sweltering of the distilment, and, as the hours\nstruck, by the beating of the Chapel clock, last wound by Laycock. It\nwas as though the dead man spoke. But the repetition of the hours told\nhim that the time of his emancipation was drawing close.\n\nWhether he slept I do not know. He was aroused to vivid consciousness\nby the clock sounding _one_. The time when his experiment should have\nended was ten, and he started up with a horrible fear that it had been\nruined by his neglect. But it was not so. The fire burnt, the liquid\nsimmered quietly, and so far all was well.\n\nAgain the College bell boomed a solitary stroke: then a pause and\nanother. He opened, or seemed to open, his door and listened. Again\nthe knell was repeated. His mind went back to the night when he had\nattended the obsequies of the boy-chorister. This must be a funeral\ntolling. For whom? He thought with a shudder of the dead man in the\nButtery.\n\nHe groped his way cautiously down the stairs. It was a still, windless\nnight, and the cloister was dark as death. Arrived at the further side\nof the court he turned towards the Chapel. Its panes were faintly\nlighted from within. The door stood open and he entered.\n\nIn the place familiar to him at the chancel door one candle flickered\non a bracket. Close to it--his face cast in deep shade by the light\nfrom behind--stood the ringer, in a gown of black, silent and absorbed\nin his melancholy task. Fear had almost given way to wonder in the\nheart of Ffryar, and, as he passed the sombre figure on his way to the\nchancel door, he looked him resolutely in the face. The ringer was\nGoodman Laycock.\n\nFfryar passed into the choir and quietly made his way to his accustomed\nstall. Four candles burnt in the central walk about a figure laid on\ntrestles and draped in a pall of black. Two choristers--one on either\nside--stood by it. In the dimness he could distinguish four figures,\nerect in the stalls on either side of the Chapel. Their faces were\nconcealed by their hoods, but in the tall form which occupied the\nMaster\u2019s seat it was not difficult to recognise Dr. Reston.\n\nThe bell ceased and the service began. With some faint wonder Ffryar\nnoted that it was the proscribed Roman Mass for the Dead. The solemn\nintroit was uttered in the tones of Reston, and in the deep responses\nof the nearest cowled figure he recognised the voice of Stevenson, the\nusher. None of the mourners seemed to notice Ffryar\u2019s presence.\n\nThe dreary ceremony drew to a close. The four occupants of the\nstalls descended and gathered round the palled figure in the aisle.\nWith a mechanical impulse, devoid of fear or curiosity, and with a\nhalf-prescience of what he should see, Anthony Ffryar drew near and\nuncovered the dead man\u2019s face. He saw--himself.\n\nAt the same moment the last wailing notes of the office for the dead\nbroke from the band of mourners, and, one by one, the choristers\nextinguished the four tapers.\n\n\u201cRequiem aeternam dona ei, Domine,\u201d chanted the hooded four: and one\ncandle went out.\n\n\u201cEt lux perpetua luceat ei,\u201d was the shrill response of the two\nchoristers: and a second was extinguished.\n\n\u201cCum sanctis tuis in aeternum,\u201d answered the four: and one taper only\nremained.\n\nThe Master threw back his hood, and turned his dreadful eyes straight\nupon the living Anthony Ffryar: he threw his hand across the bier\nand held him tight. \u201cCras tu eris mecum,\u201d[4] he muttered, as if in\nantiphonal reply to the dirge-chanters.\n\nWith a hiss and a sputter the last candle expired.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe hiss and the sputter and a sudden sense of gloom recalled Ffryar\nto the waking world. Alas for labouring science, alas for the fame\nof Ffryar, alas for humanity, dying and doomed to die! The vessel\ncontaining the wonderful brew which should have redeemed the world had\nfallen over and dislodged its contents on the fire below. An accident\nreparable, surely, within a few hours; but not by Anthony Ffryar.\nHow the night passed with him no mortal can tell. All that is known\nfurther of him is written in the register of All Saints\u2019 parish. If\nyou can discover the ancient volume containing the records of the\nyear 1551--and I am not positive that it now exists--you will find it\nwritten:\n\n  \u201cDie Augusti xiii\n      Buryalls in Jhesus churchyarde\n          Goodman Laycock  }\n          Anthony Ffryar   } of y\u1d49 sicknesse\u201d\n\nWhether he really died of \u201cthe sweat\u201d I cannot say. But that the living\nman was sung to his grave by the dead, who were his sole companions\nin Jesus College, on the night of August 12, 1551, is as certain and\nindisputable as any other of the facts which are here set forth in the\nhistory of Anthony Ffryar.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[4] Samuel xxvii. 19.\n\n\n\n\n                            The Necromancer\n\n\nThis is a story of Jesus College, and it relates to the year 1643. In\nthat year Cambridge town was garrisoned for the Parliament by Colonel\nCromwell and the troops of the Eastern Counties\u2019 Association. Soldiers\nwere billeted in all the colleges, and contemporary records testify\nto their violent behaviour and the damage which they committed in\nthe chambers which they occupied. In the previous year the Master of\nJesus College, Doctor Sterne, was arrested by Cromwell when he was\nleaving the chapel, conveyed to London, and there imprisoned in the\nTower. Before the summer of 1643 fourteen of the sixteen Fellows were\nexpelled, and during the whole of that year there were, besides the\nsoldiers, only some ten or twelve occupants of the college. The names\nof the two Fellows who were not ejected were John Boyleston and Thomas\nAllen.\n\nWith Mr. Boyleston this history is only concerned for the part which\nhe took on the occasion of the visit to the college of the notorious\nfanatic, William Dowsing. Dowsing came to Cambridge in December, 1642,\narmed with powers to put in execution the ordinance of Parliament\nfor the reformation of churches and chapels. Among the devastations\ncommitted by this ignorant clown, and faithfully recorded by him in his\ndiary, it stands on record that on December 28, in the presence and\nperhaps with the approval of John Boyleston, he \u201cdigg\u2019d up the steps\n(_i.e._ of the altar) and brake down Superstitions and Angels, 120\nat the least.\u201d Dowsing\u2019s account of his proceedings is supplemented\nby the Latin History of the college, written in the reign of Charles\nII. by one of the Fellows, a certain Doctor John Sherman. Sherman\nrecords, but Dowsing does not, that there was a second witness of\nthe desecration--Thomas Allen. Of the two he somewhat enigmatically\nremarks: \u201cThe one (_i.e._ Boyleston) stood behind a curtain to witness\nthe evil work: the other, afflicted to behold the exequies of his Alma\nMater, made his life a filial offering at her grave, and, to escape the\nhands of wicked rebels, laid violent hands on himself.\u201d\n\nThat Thomas Allen committed suicide seems a fairly certain fact:\nand that remorse for the part which he had unwillingly taken in\nthe sacrilege of December 28 prompted his act we may accept on the\ntestimony of Sherman. But there is something more to tell which Sherman\neither did not know or did not think fit to record. His book deals\nonly with the college and its society. He had no occasion to remember\nAdoniram Byfield.\n\nByfield was a chaplain attached to the Parliamentary forces in\nCambridge, and quarters were assigned to him in Jesus College, in the\nfirst floor room above the gate of entrance. Below his chamber was\nthe Porter\u2019s lodge, which at that time served as the armoury of the\ntroopers who occupied the college. Above it, on the highest floor of\nthe gate-tower \u201ckept\u201d Thomas Allen. These were the only rooms on the\nstaircase. At the beginning of the Long Vacation of 1643 Allen was the\nonly member of the college who continued to reside.\n\nSome light is thrown on the character of Byfield and his connection\nwith this story by a pudgy volume of old sermons of the Commonwealth\nperiod which is contained in the library of the college. Among the\nsermons which are bound up in it is one which bears the date 1643 and\nis designated on the title page:\n\n A FAITHFUL ADMONICION of the Baalite sin of _Enchanters & Stargazers_,\n preacht to the Colonel Cromwell\u2019s Souldiers in Saint Pulcher\u2019s\n (_i.e._ Saint Sepulchre\u2019s) church, in Cambridge, by the fruitfull\n Minister, _Adoniram Byfield_, late departed unto God, in the yeare\n 1643, touching that of _Acts_ the seventh, verse 43, _Ye took up the\n Tabernacle of Moloch, the Star of your god Remphan, figures which ye\n made to worship them; & I will carrie you away beyond Babylon_.\n\nThe discourse, in its title as in its contents, reveals its author\nas one of the fanatics who wrought on the ignorance and prejudice\nagainst \u201ccarnal\u201d learning which actuated the Cromwellian soldiers in\ntheir brutal usage of the University \u201cscholars\u201d in 1643. All Byfield\u2019s\nlearning was contained in one book--_the_ Book. For him the revelation\nwhich gave it sufficed for its interpretation. What needed Greek to the\nman who spoke mysteries in unknown tongues, or the light of comment to\nhim who was carried in the spirit into the radiance of the third heaven?\n\nNow Allen, too, was an enthusiast, lost in mystic speculation. His\nspeculation was in the then novel science of mathematics and astronomy.\nEven to minds not darkened by the religious mania that possessed\nByfield that science was clouded with suspicion in the middle of the\nseventeenth century. Anglican, Puritan, and Catholic were agreed in\nregarding its great exponent, Descartes, as an atheist. Mathematicians\nwere looked upon as necromancers, and Thomas Hobbes says that in his\ndays at Oxford the study was considered to be \u201csmutched with the black\nart,\u201d and fathers, from an apprehension of its malign influence,\nrefrained from sending their sons to that University. How deep the\nprejudice had sunk into the soul of Adoniram his sermon shows.\nThe occasion which suggested it was this. A pious cornet, leaving\na prayer-meeting at night, fell down one of the steep, unlighted\nstaircases of the college and broke his neck. Two or three of the\ntroopers were taken with a dangerous attack of dysentery. There was\ntalk of these misadventures among the soldiers, who somehow connected\nthem with Allen and his studies. The floating gossip gathered into a\nsettled conviction in the mind of Adoniram.\n\nFor Allen was a mysterious person. Whether it was because he was\nengrossed in his studies, or that he shrank from exposing himself\nto the insults of the soldiers, he seldom showed himself outside\nhis chamber. Perhaps he was tied to it by the melancholy to which\nSherman ascribed his violent end. In his three months\u2019 sojourn on\nAllen\u2019s staircase Byfield had not seen him a dozen times, and the\nmystery of his closed door awakened the most fantastic speculations\nin the chaplain\u2019s mind. For hours together, in the room above, he\ncould hear the mumbled tones of Allen\u2019s voice, rising and falling in\nceaseless flow. No answer came, and no word that the listener could\ncatch conveyed to his mind any intelligible sense. Once the voice\nwas raised in a high key and Byfield distinctly heard the ominous\nejaculation, \u201cAvaunt, Sathanas, avaunt!\u201d Once through his partly open\ndoor he had caught sight of him standing before a board chalked with\nfigures and symbols which the imagination of Byfield interpreted\nas magical. At night, from the court below, he would watch the\nastrologer\u2019s lighted window, and when Allen turned his perspective\nglass upon the stars the conviction became rooted in his watcher\u2019s mind\nthat he was living in perilous neighbourhood to one of the peeping and\nmuttering wizards of whom the Holy Book spoke.\n\n[Illustration: _Main Gateway & Porter\u2019s Lodge._]\n\nAn unusual occurrence strengthened the suspicions of Byfield. One\nnight he heard Allen creep softly down the staircase past his room;\nand, opening his door, he saw him disappear round the staircase foot,\ncandle in hand. Silently, in the dark, Byfield followed him and saw\nhim pass into the Porter\u2019s lodge. The soldiers were in bed and the\narmoury was unguarded. Through the lighted pane he saw Allen take down\na horse-pistol from a rack on the wall. He examined it closely, tried\nthe lock, poised it as if to take aim, then replaced it and, leaving\nthe lodge, disappeared up the staircase with his candle. A world of\nsuspicions rushed on Byfield\u2019s mind, and they were not allayed when the\nsoldiers reported in the morning that the pistols were intact. But one\nof the sick soldiers died that week.\n\nBrooding on this incident Adoniram became more than ever convinced of\nthe Satanic purposes and powers of his neighbour, and his suspicions\nwere confirmed by another mysterious circumstance. As the weeks passed\nhe became aware that at a late hour of night Allen\u2019s door was quietly\nopened. There followed a patter of scampering feet down the staircase,\nsucceeded by silence. In an hour or two the sound came back. The\npatter went up the stairs to Allen\u2019s chamber, and then the door was\nclosed. To lie awake waiting for this ghostly sound became a horror to\nByfield\u2019s diseased imagination. In his bed he prayed and sang psalms to\nbe relieved of it. Then he abandoned thoughts of sleep and would sit\nup waiting if he might surprise and detect this walking terror of the\nnight. At first in the darkness of the stairs it eluded him. One night,\nlight in hand, he managed to get a glimpse of it as it disappeared at\nthe foot of the stairs. It was shaped like a large black cat.\n\nFar from allaying his terrors, the discovery awakened new questionings\nin the heart of Byfield. Quietly he made his way up to Allen\u2019s door.\nIt stood open and a candle burnt within. From where he stood he could\nsee each corner of the room. There was the board scribbled with\nhieroglyphs: there were the magical books open on the table: there were\nthe necromancer\u2019s instruments of unknown purpose. But there was no live\nthing in the room, and no sound save the rustling of papers disturbed\nby the night air from the open window.\n\nA horrible certitude seized on the chaplain\u2019s mind. This Thing that he\nhad caught sight of was no cat. It was the Evil One himself, or it was\nthe wizard translated into animal shape. On what foul errand was he\nbent? Who was to be his new victim? With a flash there came upon his\nmind the story how Phinehas had executed judgment on the men that were\njoined to Baal-peor, and had stayed the plague from the congregation of\nIsrael. He would be the minister of the Lord\u2019s vengeance on the wicked\none, and it should be counted unto him for righteousness unto all\ngenerations for evermore.\n\nHe went down to the armoury in the Porter\u2019s lodge. Six pistols, he\nknew, were in the rack on the wall. Strange that to-night there were\nonly five--a fresh proof of the justice of his fears. One of the five\nhe selected, primed, loaded and cocked it in readiness for the wizard\u2019s\nreturn. He took his stand in the shadow of the wall, at the entrance of\nthe staircase. That his aim might be surer he left his candle burning\nat the stair-foot.\n\n[Illustration: _On \u2018A\u2019 Staircase._]\n\nIn solemn stillness the minutes drew themselves out into hours while\nAdoniram waited and prayed to himself. Then in the poring darkness he\nbecame sensible of a moving presence, noiseless and unseen. For a\nmoment it appeared in the light of the candle, not two paces distant.\nIt was the returning cat. A triumphant exclamation sprang to Byfield\u2019s\nlips, \u201cGod shall shoot at them, suddenly shall they be wounded\u201d--and he\nfired.\n\nWith the report of the pistol there rang through the court a dismal\noutcry, not human nor animal, but resembling, as it seemed to the\nexcited imagination of the chaplain, that of a lost soul in torment.\nWith a scurry the creature disappeared in the darkness of the court,\nand Byfield did not pursue it. The deed was done--that he felt sure\nof--and as he replaced the pistol in the rack a gush of religious\nexaltation filled his heart. That night there was no return of the\npattering steps outside his door, and he slept well.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNext day the body of Thomas Allen was discovered in the grove which\ngirds the college--his breast pierced by a bullet. It was surmised\nthat he had dragged himself thither from the court. There were tracks\nof blood from the staircase foot, where it was conjectured that he had\nshot himself, and a pistol was missing from the armoury. Some of the\ninmates of the court had been aroused by the discharge of the weapon.\nThe general conclusion was that recorded by Sherman--that the fatal act\nwas prompted by brooding melancholy.\n\nOf his part in the night\u2019s transactions Byfield said nothing. The grim\nintelligence, succeeding the religious excitation of the night, brought\nto him questioning, dread, horror. Whatever others might surmise, he\nwas fatally convinced that it was by his hand that Allen had died. Pity\nfor the dead man had no place in the dark cabin of his soul. But how\nwas it with himself? How should his action be weighed before the awful\nThrone? His lurid thought pictured the Great Judgment as already begun,\nthe Book opened, the Accuser of the Brethren standing to resist him,\nand the dreadful sentence of Cain pronounced upon him, \u201cNow art thou\ncursed from the earth.\u201d\n\nIn the evening he heard them bring the dead man to the chamber above\nhis own. They laid him on his bed, and, closing the door, left him and\ndescended the stairs. The sound of their footsteps died away and left\na dreadful silence. As the darkness grew the horror of the stillness\nbecame insupportable. How he yearned that he might hear again the\nfamiliar muffled voice in the room above! And in an access of fervour\nhe prayed aloud that the terrible present might pass from him, that\nthe hours might go back, as on the dial of Ahaz, and all might be as\nyesterday.\n\nSuddenly, as the prayer died on his lips, the silence was broken. He\ncould not be mistaken. Very quietly he heard Allen\u2019s door open, and\nthe old, pattering steps crept softly down the stairs. They passed his\ndoor. They were gone before he could rise from his knees to open it. A\nmomentary flash lighted the gloom in Byfield\u2019s soul. What if his prayer\nwas heard, if Allen was not dead, if the events of the past twenty-four\nhours were only a dream and a delusion of the Wicked One? Then the\nhorror returned intensified. Allen was assuredly dead. This creeping\nThing--what might it be?\n\nFor an hour in his room Byfield sat in agonised dread. Most the thought\nof the open door possessed him like a nightmare. Somehow it must be\nclosed before the foul Thing returned. Somehow the mangled shape within\nmust be barred up from the wicked powers that might possess it. The\nfancy gripped and stuck to his delirious mind. It was horrible, but it\nmust be done. In a cold terror he opened his door and looked out.\n\nA flickering light played on the landing above. Byfield hesitated.\nBut the thought that the cat might return at any moment gave him a\ndesperate courage. He mounted the stairs to Allen\u2019s door. Precisely\nas yesternight it stood wide open. Inside the room the books, the\ninstruments, the magical figures were unchanged, and a candle, exposed\nto the night wind from the casement, threw wavering shadows on the\nwalls and floor. At a glance he saw it all, and he saw the bed where,\na few hours ago, the poor remains of Allen had been laid. The coverlet\nlay smooth upon it. The dead necromancer was not there.\n\nThen as he stood, footbound, at the door a wandering breath from the\nwindow caught the taper, and with a gasp the flame went out. In the\nblack silence he became conscious of a moving sound. Nearer, up the\nstairs, they drew--the soft creeping steps--and in panic he shrank\nbackwards into Allen\u2019s room before their advance. Already they were\non the last flight of the stairs; and then in the doorway the darkness\nparted and Byfield saw. In a ring of pallid light that seemed to\nemanate from its body he beheld the cat--horrible, gory, its foreparts\nhanging in ragged collops from its neck. Slowly it crept into the room,\nand its eyes, smoking with dull malevolence, were fastened on Byfield.\nFurther he backed into the room, to the corner where the bed was laid.\nThe creature followed. It crouched to spring upon him. He dropped\nin a sitting posture on the bed and as he saw it launch itself upon\nhim, he closed his eyes and found speech in a gush of prayer, \u201cO my\nGod, make haste for my help.\u201d In an agony he collapsed upon the couch\nand clutched its covering with both hands. Beneath it he gripped the\nstiffened limbs of the dead necromancer, and, when he opened his eyes,\nthe darkness had returned and the spectral cat was gone.\n\n\n\n\n                        Brother John\u2019s Bequest\n\n\nOn a certain morning in the summer of the year 1510 John Eccleston,\nDoctor in Divinity and Master of Jesus College in Cambridge, stood\nat the door of his lodge looking into the cloister court. There\nwas a faint odour of extinguished candles in the air, and a bell\nautomatically clanked in unison with its bearer\u2019s step. It was\ncarried by a young acolyte, who lagged in the rear of a small band\nof white-robed figures who were just disappearing from sight at the\ncorner of the passage leading to the entrance court. They were the five\nFellows of the newly-constituted College.\n\nAs they disappeared, the Master, with much deliberation, spat into the\ncloister walk.\n\nTo spit behind a man\u2019s back might be accounted a mark of disgust,\ncontempt, malice--at least of disapproval. Such were not the feelings\nof Dr. Eccleston.\n\nIt is a fact known all over the world, Christian and heathen, that\nvisitants from the unseen realm cannot endure to be spat at. The\nMaster\u2019s action was prophylactic. For supernatural visitings of the\ntransitory, curable kind the rites of the Church are, no doubt,\nefficacious. In inveterate cases it is well to leave no remedy untried.\n\nWith bell, book and candle the Master and Fellows had just completed\na lustration of the lodge. The bell had clanked in the Founder\u2019s\nChamber and in the Master\u2019s oratory. The Master\u2019s bedchamber had been\nwell soused with holy water. The candle had explored dark places in\ncupboards and under the stairs. If It was there before it was almost\ninconceivable that It remained there now. But one cannot be too careful.\n\nTwo days previously a funeral had taken place in the College. It\nwas a shabby affair. The deceased, John Baldwin, late a brother of\nthe dissolved Hospital of Saint John, was put away in an obscure\npart of the College churchyard--now the Master\u2019s garden--behind some\nelder bushes which grew in the corner bounded by the street and the\n\u201cchimney.\u201d The mourners were the grave-digger, the sexton and the\nparson of All Saints\u2019 Church. Though brother John had died in a college\nchamber the society of Jesus marked its reprobation of his manner of\nliving by absenting themselves from his obsequies.\n\nBrother John had been a disappointment: uncharitable persons might say\nhe was a fraud. He had got into the College by false pretences. In life\nhe had disgraced it by his excesses, and, when he was dead, he had\nperpetrated a mean practical joke on the society. It is not well for a\nman in religious orders to joke when he is dead.\n\nHow did it come that brother John Baldwin, late Granger of the\nAugustinian Hospital of Saint John, died in Jesus College?\n\nThe Hospital of Saint John was dissolved in the year 1510, to make\nroom for the new college designed by the Lady Margaret. Bishops of\nEly for three centuries and more had been its patrons and visitors,\nand dissolute James Stanley, bishop in 1510, fought stoutly for its\nmaintenance. But circumstances were too strong for the bishop. The\nancient Hospital was hopelessly bankrupt. The buildings were ruinous:\nthere was not a doit in the treasury chest: the household goods were\npawned to creditors in the town. The Master, William Tomlyn, had\ndisappeared, none knew whither, and only two brethren were left in the\nplace. One of them was John Baldwin: the other was the Infirmarer, a\ncertain Bartholomew Aspelon.\n\nOn the eve of the dissolution, bishop Stanley wrote a letter to the\nMaster and Fellows of the other Cambridge society of which he was\nvisitor, namely, Jesus College. He commended to their charitable\ncare brother John Baldwin, an aged man of godly conversation who was\ndisposed to bestow his worldly goods for the comfort and sustenance of\nthe Master and Fellows in consideration of their maintenance of him in\nCollege during the remaining years of his earthly pilgrimage. It was\na not uncommon practice in those days for monasteries and colleges to\naccept as inmates persons, clerical or lay, who wished to withdraw\nfrom the world and were willing, either during life or by testamentary\narrangements, to guarantee their hosts against pecuniary loss.\n\nReport said that, though the Hospital was penniless, brother John in\nhis private circumstances was well-to-do and even affluent. It did not\nbefit the Master and Fellows to enquire how he had come by his wealth.\nThey were wretchedly poor, and the bishop\u2019s certificate of character\nwas all that could be desired. They thanked the bishop for his\nprudent care for their interests and covenanted to give the religious\nman a domicile in the College with allowance for victuals, barber,\nlaundress, wine, wax and all other things necessary for celebrating\nDivine service, as to any Fellow of the College. Brother John promptly\ntransferred himself to his new quarters, which were in a room called\n\u201cthe loft,\u201d on the top floor above the Founder\u2019s Chamber in the\nMaster\u2019s lodge.\n\nThe Master and Fellows were disappointed in brother John\u2019s luggage. It\nconsisted simply of two brass-bound boxes, heavy but unquestionably\nsmall, even for a man of religion. An encouraging feature about them\nwas that they bore the monogram of Saint John\u2019s Hospital. Brother John\nand his former co-mate of the Hospital, Bartholomew Aspelon, constantly\naffirmed that the missing Master, William Tomlyn, had decamped with\nthe contents of the Hospital treasury. But the society of Jesus hoped\nthat they were not telling the truth. Brother John kept the two boxes\nunder his bed. They were always carefully locked, but brother John\nthrew out vague hints that their contents were destined for a princely\nbenefaction to his hospitable entertainers.\n\nIn other respects brother John\u2019s equipment was not such as would\nbetoken a man of wealth. Rather it savoured of monastical austerity.\nHis only suit of clothing was ancient, and even greasy. It was never\nchanged, night or day. Brother John was apparently under a religious\nobligation to abstain from washing.\n\nAs a man of godly conversation brother John was unfortunate in his\npersonal appearance. It was presumably a stroke of paralysis which had\ndrawn up one side of his face and correspondingly depressed the other.\nHis mouth was a diagonal compromise with the rest of his features. One\neye was closed, and the other was bleared and watery. His nose was red,\nbut the rest of his face was of a parchment colour.\n\nBrother John was an elderly person, and continued ill health\nunfortunately confined him to his chamber, above the Master\u2019s. He\nexpressed a deep regret that he could not share the society of the\nFellows in the Hall at their meals of oatmeal porridge, salt fish, and\nthin ale. His distressing ailments necessitated a sustaining diet of\ncapons and oysters, supplied to him in his chamber by the College. He\nwas equally debarred from attending services in the Chapel, but the\nwine with which the society had covenanted to supply him was punctually\nconsumed at the private offices which he performed in his chamber. A\nsuitable pecuniary compensation was made to him on the ground that his\ndomestic arrangements rendered the services of the College laundress\nunnecessary.\n\nBartholomew Aspelon, who lodged in an alehouse in the town, was the\nconstant and affectionate attendant at brother John\u2019s sick bed: for,\nindeed, he seldom got out of it. From a neighbouring tavern he brought\nto him abundant supplies of the ypocras and malmsey wine which were\nrequisite for the maintenance of the invalid\u2019s failing strength.\nBrother Bartholomew was an individual of a merry countenance and gifted\nwith cheerful song. In the sick room the Fellows would often hear him\ntrolling a drinking catch, to which the invalid joined a quavering\nnote. So constant and familiar was the lay that John Bale, one of the\nFellows, remembered it thirty years afterwards, and put it in the mouth\nof a roystering monk whom he introduced as one of the characters in his\nplay, _King Johan_. The words ran thus:\n\n  Wassayle, wassayle, out of the mylke payle,\n  Wassayle, wassayle, as whyte as my nayle,\n  Wassayle, wassayle, in snow, frost and hayle,\n  Wassayle, wassayle, with partriche and rayle,\n  Wassayle, wassayle, that much doth avayle,\n  Wassayle, wassayle, that never wyll fayle.\n\nThe invasion of the college silences by this unusual concert was marked\nby the Fellows with growing disapproval: and they were not comforted\nwhen they discovered that the new robe which they had contracted to\nsupply to their guest had been pledged to the host of the Sarazin\u2019s\nHead in part payment of an account rendered. But they possessed their\nsouls in patience as they noted that the health of their venerable\nguest was declining with obvious rapidity. With some insistence they\npointed out to the Master the desirability of having a prompt and clear\nunderstanding about brother John\u2019s testamentary dispositions. Dr.\nEccleston was entirely of the Fellows\u2019 mind in the matter.\n\n[Illustration: _Fireplace in Master\u2019s Lodge._]\n\nOne evening in June, some three months after brother John had begun\nhis residence in the College, it seemed to Dr. Eccleston that the time\nhad come to sound him about his intentions. The patient was very low,\nand brother Bartholomew was much depressed. With inkhorn and pen the\nMaster went upstairs to the sick man\u2019s chamber. Nuncupatory wills were\nin those days accepted as legal obligations, and the Master was minded\nthat he would not leave brother John until he had obtained, from his\ndictation, a statement of his intentions as to the disposal of his\ngoods.\n\nObviously brother John\u2019s mind was wandering when the Master entered the\nroom, for he greeted his arrival with a snatch of the old scurvy tune,\n\n  Wassayle, wassayle, that never wyll fayle,\n\nand feebly added \u201cArt there, bully Bartholomew? Bear me thy hand to the\nbottle, for I am dry.\u201d\n\n\u201cBrother John, brother John,\u201d said the Master, \u201cbestir thee, and think\nof thy state. It is time for thee to consider of thy world\u2019s gear and\nhow thou wilt bestow it according to thy promise to our poor company,\nfor their tendance of thee.\u201d Brother John raised himself in his bed\nand opened his serviceable eye. Something like a grin puckered up his\nsloping mouth. \u201cArt thou of that counsel, goodman Doctor?\u201d said he:\n\u201cthen have with thee. I were a knave if I did not thank you for your\nkindness, and, trust me, ye shall not be the losers for your pains.\nTake quill and write. I will dictate my will in two fillings of thy\npen. Write\u201d: and the Master wrote.\n\n\u201cTo the Master and Fellows of Jesus College I give and bequeath that\nchest that lieth beneath my bed and is marked with a great letter A,\nand all that is in it. To brother Bartholomew Aspelon, late of the\nHospital of Saint John, in like manner I bequeath that other chest that\nis marked B.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs that all?\u201d asked the Master. \u201cGogswouns, it is all I have,\u201d said\nbrother John. \u201cYet stay, good Master. Nothing for nothing is a safe\ntext. Thou shalt write it as a condition, on pain of forfeiting my\nbequest, that ye shall bury me in the aisle of your church, immediately\nbefore the High Altar: that ye shall keep my obit, or anniversary,\nwith _placebo_ and _dirige_ and mass of requiem; and that once each\nweek a Fellow that is a priest shall pray and sing for the soul of\nJohn Baldwin, the benefactor of the College. Is it rehearsed, master\ndoctor?\u201d \u201cIt is written,\u201d said the Master. \u201c_Ite, missa est_,\u201d said\nthe invalid, \u201cand fetch me a stoup of small ale, good Master.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA few days later John Baldwin made his unimproving, unregretted end.\nBrother Bartholomew carried off his portion of the legacy. The other\nchest was deposited on the table in the Founder\u2019s Chamber and opened by\nthe Master before the assembled Fellows.\n\nIt contained half a dozen bricks, a fair quantity of straw and\nshavings, and nothing else--nothing except a small scrap of torn and\ndirty paper at the bottom of the box. With one voice the Master and\nFellows decreed that their unworthy guest should be buried in the least\nrespectable portion of the churchyard. Which thing was done, as I have\nalready mentioned.\n\nOf course the dirty paper under the straw was scrutinized by the\nMaster and Fellows. But it was of no importance. It looked like a deed\nor a will, in which the deceased, in return for nursing in sickness,\nproposed to give some unspecified property to his disreputable\nfriend, Aspelon, and apparently stipulated that he should be buried\nin the choir of the Hospital chapel. But it was not witnessed: it had\nobviously been torn up, and all that was left of it was the part on the\nscribe\u2019s right hand. It ran thus:\n\n  ego Johannes Baldewyn nuper frat\n  rigiam do lego et confirmo domino\n  u pro mea in egritudine relevaci\n  domino Bartolomeo Aspelon confrat\n  ne quod habeat uter prior invener\n  am in tumulo sepultus subter quen\n  parte chori in sacello Hospitalis\n  theshede\n\nThe last word, if rightly read, was unintelligible.\n\nBut the College had by no means done with brother John. On the evening\nafter his burial, as the Master and Fellows were leaving the Chapel,\ntheir steps were suddenly arrested as they heard the familiar Wassail\nstave raised in a thin and tuneless voice. It came from the open\nwindow of the deceased brother, and unquestionably the voice was not\nAspelon\u2019s. In consternation they listened till it died ineffectually\naway in an attempted chorus strain. After brief deliberation they\nresolved to visit the \u201cloft\u201d in a body--Master, Fellows, \u201cdisciples\u201d\nand servants--and see what this thing might mean. They found the place\nas blank and silent as it remained when the deceased had been taken out\nto his burial. But before they reached the stair-foot in their descent\nthe thin piping strain fell on their ears again, and this time none\nwere bold enough to go back. After that, at all times of night and\nday, the interminable ditty was fitfully renewed, and panic held the\nCollege. At night the \u201cdisciples\u201d huddled in one room, and the Fellows\nlay two in a bed.\n\nUnfortunately for Dr. Eccleston, he was condemned to the solitude of\nthe lodge, deserted even by his _famulus_, the sizar who attended\nhim. He sat up all night and studied works of divinity, in the hope\nthat theology, if it did not put the songster to rout, would at least\ndistract his own thoughts from the devilish roundelay in the garret\nabove his head. On the second night he began to congratulate himself on\nthe success of his experiment, for the singer relapsed into silence. In\nhis exhaustion he might even have slept, but that the door of his study\nhad a gusty habit of flying open unexpectedly and closing with a bang.\nHe had actually begun to drowse over his folio when a sharp pressure\non his right shoulder aroused him. Hastily turning his head he saw\nthe papery countenance of the dead brother gazing on him with all the\naffection that one eye could testify, the chin planted on the Master\u2019s\nshoulder, and the mouth slewed into a simulation of innocent mirth. Dr.\nEccleston read no more divinity that night.\n\nEarly next morning a College meeting was summoned by the Master. It\nwas resolved by the unanimous voice of the society that brother John\u2019s\nremains should be exhumed and re-interred in the middle of the chancel\naisle, in accordance with the stipulation of the deceased: and there\nwas no delay in carrying the resolution into effect. The Master also\ninsisted that the whole society should help in the purgation of his\nlodge and the loft above it, in accordance with the ritual of the\nChurch in that case applying: and this too was incontinently done, as\nI have already described. The consideration of the performance of the\nrest of the contract entered into by the Master with the late brother\nwas deferred until it should be ascertained how far the deceased was\nsatisfied with the measures already adopted.\n\nWhether John Baldwin acquiesced in this somewhat lame execution of\nhis wishes, or whether his perturbed spirit was laid to rest by the\nrites of exorcism it is impossible to say. It is quite certain that he\ntroubled the College no more.\n\nBut in the afternoon following his re-interment an incident happened\nwhich possibly had some connection with the placation of his shade.\nBartholomew Aspelon had not attended brother John\u2019s funeral in the\nchurchyard. In truth, he was filled with a moral resentment at his late\nfriend\u2019s lack of feeling and good taste which was only equalled by\nthat of the society of Jesus: and the motive was the same. On opening\nthe treasure chest bequeathed to him he had found it filled with\nbricks and straw, just like the other. If the Fellows were indignant\nBartholomew was more so: for, from private sources of information which\nhe possessed as a member of the dissolved Hospital, he was assured\nthat brother John had prospered in its service to the extent of \u00a3200,\nat the least, and he was profoundly convinced that the whole sum had\ngone into the treasury of Jesus College. Under the straw he had found\na morsel of paper, which was, indeed, too fragmentary to give any\nconnected clue to its drift, but which, nevertheless, rather plainly\nindicated on the part of the deceased an intention of bequeathing to\nthe College a certain treasure, the whereabouts of which, owing to the\nimperfection of the document, were not stated. He was confirmed in his\ninterpretation of the manuscript by the honourable interment given to\nbrother John\u2019s remains in the Chapel.\n\nFilled with resentment at the ingratitude of the patient whom he had so\ntenderly nursed and at the duplicity of the \u201cdons\u201d who had robbed him\nof the reward of his devoted service, Bartholomew sought the Master\u2019s\nlodge. He used no language of studied courtesy in representing to Dr.\nEccleston the nature of his grievance: and the Master, whose temper\nwas severely tried by want of sleep and the disagreeable nature of\nthe interment ceremony in which he had just unwillingly participated,\nreplied with equal vehemence.\n\n\u201cYe are robbers all,\u201d cried Bartholomew: \u201cyou cheated him in his\nweakness into signing his property away from the friend who smoothed\nhis pillow in his dying hours.\u201d\n\n\u201cThou naughty knave,\u201d retorted the Master, \u201ctalk not to me of bricks\nand straw. It was gold that was contained in thy box, and the devil\nknows by what scurvy arts thou didst cozen us of our promised reward.\nHis own paper convicts thee of the fraudulent attempt to get him to\nwill his goods to thee. See what he left in the bottom of our box.\u201d And\nthe Master threw the scrap above-transcribed upon the table. \u201cTake it\nand never let me see thy rogue\u2019s face again.\u201d\n\nBrother Bartholomew leaped in his skin as he grabbed the document. He\nmade no ceremony of leave-taking, but bolted down the stairs. When he\ngot into the cloister outside he took from his pouch a dingy scrap of\npaper, which was the fellow of that which the Master had thrown to him.\nWhat he read on it was this:\n\n  Sciant omnes presentes et futuri quod\n  er Hospitalis Divi Johannis apud Canteb\n  doctori Ecclyston et sociis Collegii Jes\n  one equaliter inter se dividendum aut\n  ri meo in antedicto Hospitali ea racio\n  it totum thesaurum meum ita ut extat cl\n  dam lapidem iacentem in septentrionali\n  eiusdem cuius istud signum extat a dea\n\nThen brother Bartholomew put the two pieces together, and it was thus\nthat he translated the continuous lines:\n\n  Know all men present and to come that | I, John Baldwin, late a broth\n  er of the Hospital of Saint John at Camb | ridge, give, grant and bequeath to master\n  doctor Eccleston and the fellows of the College of Jes | u for my relief during sick\n  ness, equally to be divided among them, or | to master Bartholomew Aspelon, a brother\n  of mine in the aforesaid Hospital, provid | ed that he shall have it who is first fin\n  der, all my treasure as it now lies pri | vily buried in a tomb under a cert\n  ain stone lying on the northern | side of the choir in the chapel of the Hospital\n  aforesaid, of which this is the sign, a dea | th\u2019s head.\n\nOf what further pertains to brother John Baldwin and his bequest I\nhave no more to say than that his name is not included in the Form\nfor the Commemoration of Benefactors of Jesus College. Also that for\ntwenty years after the events here recorded a cheerful individual, in\na lay habit, might be seen, seated of custom on the ale-bench at the\nSarazin\u2019s Head. He drank of the best, paid in cash and never lacked for\nmoney. He could tell a good tale and he sang a good song. His Wassail\nsong was always in request at the Sarazin\u2019s Head.\n\n\n\n\n                       The Burden of Dead Books\n\n\nBy its air of reverend quiet, its redolence of dusty death, in the\nmarshalled lines of its sleeping occupants, and in the labels that\nbriefly name the dead author and his work, an ancient repository of\nbooks, such as a college library, suggests the, perhaps, hackneyed\nsimilitude of a great cemetery. Here and there, among the vast\nmajority of the undistinguished dead, we detect names that are still\nfamiliar. Here and there are the monuments of men who have at least\nbeen the ancestors of a surviving family of scholars and scientists.\nSome names will awake memories, not for the individual achievement of\ntheir bearers, but for the cause in which they worked. Royalist and\nRepublican, Anglican, Romanist and Puritan here have laid down the\narms which they bore against each other, and together sleep the sleep\nfrom which there is no rising. Though the issues for which these men\nfought are dead things now, their spirit is with us and their works\nfollow them. But with the majority it is not so. Outnumbering all\nothers are the hand-labourers of whose names the catalogue has no\nrecord. Their daywork, paid or unpaid, was commanded by more ambitious\nmasters, who absorbed whatever temporary measure of credit attended\nthe collaboration. Over the ashes of these unnamed toilers we waste\nno regrets: they sleep well. It is the fallen ambitions, the wasted\nenergies, the mistaken aims of the master-craftsmen in letters that are\nfood for ironical contemplation.\n\nI do not know that in such a cemetery of small and great, the servant\nand his master, a more dismal corner exists than that which is reserved\nfor the stillborn. They are a great host, and they are mostly of the\nfamily of Theology. Of one such product of fruitless travail I have\nto speak. It has rested undisturbed in the library of Jesus College\nfor over 300 years, and in all that time, perhaps, no human being,\nexcept the official who transcribed its title in the catalogue, has\never had occasion to recall its existence. Its author was one Matthew\nMakepeace, S.T.P., a Fellow of the College in the last quarter of the\nsixteenth century. Its elaborate title is: \u201cSpeculum Archimagiae, sive\nStraguli Babyloniaci Direptio, necnon Offuciarum et Praestigiarum\nRomano-papisticarum Apocalypsis liberrima\u201d: from which I conclude that\nthe Pope received some hard knocks in it, and that the Babylonian\nlady of the Book of Revelation was left in pitiful disarray by the\nlearned doctor\u2019s assault. The title-page informs us that the book was\nprinted at London by Melchisedeck Bradwell, for John Bill, in the year\n1604: furthermore, that it had been \u201cperused and approved by publike\nauthoritie.\u201d That it was ever perused I do not believe. Only in the\nmost cursory way I have perused it myself, and I do not think that\nany other man has done as much. To our patient ancestors a book was\na book, let it be ever so dull. They glossed it, annotated it, added\ntheir approving or inimical comments. But nobody has been at the pains\nto add his marginal notes to the text of Matthew Makepeace. Its cover\nis unworn, its pages as clean as on the day when it first saw light.\nThis only: on a loose scrap of paper, contained between its pages, I\nhave discovered a name written in Greek characters and a short Greek\nquotation.\n\nLet me get done with this dull book as fast as I can. It is, of course,\nwritten in Latin, and its style does not suggest that the author had\na facile Latinity. The extensive list of authors cited indicates that\nhe had read widely, but digested little of what he read, in Patristic\nand Rabbinical literature. The purpose of the book is to discredit the\nclaim of the Roman Church to the possession of supernatural gifts. The\nsubjects dealt with are naturally the Roman sacraments and hagiology.\nThe learned author arrives at the conclusion, on grounds which I\nhave not had the patience to investigate, that the human exercise of\nmiraculous powers ceased at the precise date, A.D. 430.\n\nOf the writer, Doctor Makepeace, I can find little more information\nthan is supplied in the History of Jesus College, written by John\nSherman in the reign of Charles II. This work, composed in the fulsome\nLatin which was esteemed elegant in the seventeenth century, gives\nbrief biographical notes of each of the Fellows from the date of the\nfoundation of the College. There are various manuscript versions of the\nHistory, some ampler than others, and if you wish to read the original\nLatin, of which I subjoin a translation, you must search out the single\ncopy which contains the full note of his life and work. It may be\nrendered:\n\n\u201cMatthew Makepeace, S.T.P., of the county of Northumberland, succeeded\nto a fellowship in 1565: a most learned investigator of theological\nmatters (_rei theologicae indagator_), especially of the writings of\nthe Fathers: a chastiser of the Pope (_Papomastix_): he illuminated by\nhis knowledge the College and the University, most fearlessly attacking\nthe unclean practices of the Babylonian harlot. He had one much-loved\npupil, Marmaduke Dacre, first-born son of the lord baron Dacre, of the\ncounty of Cumberland. The same having disappeared from the College in\na fashion as yet unknown (_modo adhuc inscibili_) the old man, seized\nwith a phrenetic malady, gradually declined (_contabuit_), often\nasserting that he was that same pupil whom he had lost. Dying at the\nage of sixty years, he was buried in the chapel, September 8th, 1604.\u201d\n\nTo the information given by Sherman I can only add the evidence of a\nblue flagstone--unhappily removed in the course of chapel restoration,\nin 1863--which lay in the floor of the south transept. Its simple\ninscription was: \u201c_Matthaeus Makepeace, S.T.P., decessit, 1604_.\u201d\n\nWith the evidence as to the date of the death of Dr. Makepeace,\nfurnished by Sherman and the old gravestone, it is difficult to\nreconcile a curious entry in the register of burials in All Saints\u2019\nParish Churchyard. The entry is dated April 13, 1654, and it runs:--\n\n\u201cMatthew Makepeace, an oldman y\u1d57 lodged with y\u1d49 widow Pearson in Jesus\nLane, of y\u1d49 age of about three score years and ten. He was burried in\nPoorman\u2019s Corner, by y\u1d49 parish.\u201d\n\nThe date, the age of the deceased, the place of burial, the fact that\nthis Makepeace was evidently a pauper and a stranger to Cambridge, all\nwould seem to make it certain that he could not be the same man who is\nmentioned by Sherman. Nevertheless, I have my doubts, and the story\nwhich I have to unfold will explain the reason.\n\n[Illustration: _A Corner of the Library._]\n\nThe story begins on August 16th, 1604, the very day on which the\nlearned _Speculum_ made its first appearance, bound and complete, on\nthe table of Matthew Makepeace. The doctor\u2019s chamber was on an upper\nfloor of the staircase at the western end of the chapel nave, and it\noverlooked what was then called Fair Yard, a plot of ground since\nannexed to the Master\u2019s garden. August 16th happened to be the last of\nthe three days of Garlick Fair, the ancient fair which, since the days\nof King Stephen, had been associated with the Church of Saint Radegund,\nand took place under the chapel walls.\n\nMatthew Makepeace was alone. It was Long Vacation, and his sole pupil,\nMarmaduke Dacre, who shared his chamber, had been allowed a day\u2019s\nouting. Heavy books of divinity lined the walls of the chamber, which\nhad little of comfort about it and no elegance. The doctor\u2019s high bed,\nwith curtains of faded say, the pupil\u2019s truckle-bed, a hanging cupboard\nfor clothes, a rough deal stand on which was set an ewer and basin of\ncoarse earthenware, a chair, two stools and a large oaken table in\nthe middle of the room--these were the doctor\u2019s principal household\neffects. There was but one window, of bottle-green glass, and its\nlattice was open to admit the air and sunlight of the August afternoon.\n\nOn the table lay the doctor\u2019s new book, brave in its stamped leather\nand gilded label: but it was unopened. It was the outcome of five and\ntwenty years of incessant study, and the single offspring of Matthew\u2019s\nlucubration. And now that it was brought to birth he was in a mood to\nstifle it. It had been begun in the white heat of the controversies\nwith Rome and Spain, and it lingered in parturition until the fire\nhad burnt low, and the readers who should have applauded it were in\ntheir graves. Its author was not very sure that its contentions were\ntrue, and he was very sure that they were addressed to deaf ears.\nHad he gone out into the world he might have learnt what the world\nwas interested in--what battles remained to fight, what causes were\nalready finished. But Matthew\u2019s world consisted of books, and his books\nwere out of date. Of recent political developments, of the growth of\nscientific knowledge, of the blossoming of a native literature he had\nno more knowledge than a child. The work which had been begun with\nenthusiasm had been completed in mechanical drudgery, and too late he\nwas conscious of the fact.\n\nHow well he recollected the enthusiasms of 1579! How ardent his friends\nwere that his immense learning should signalise itself in the great\nnational strife with the powers of darkness! If he could only live his\nlife again with the old enthusiasm and the added knowledge of a life\nthat should combine learning and action! The boy, Dacre, blessed with\ngenius, wealth, high birth and noble aspirations--how wide the horizon\nthat opened before him! For Matthew Makepeace it rested only to be\nforgotten before he died.\n\nIt was a strange bird of passage that had dropped the seed from which\nMatthew\u2019s book grew. Alessandro Galiani was a medical doctor of Padua\nUniversity when he came to Cambridge, and for a few months resided in\nJesus College. Why he came nobody precisely knew; but he claimed to be\na Protestant refugee, and he was certainly profoundly learned in many\nlanguages, as well as in medicine. He brought letters of introduction\nfrom the Chancellor, Lord Burleigh, and it was surmised that he was an\nagent of the Government, engaged to report on the University. But his\ntalk and conduct were so equivocal that the suspicion presently arose\nthat his Protestantism was simulated, and that he was a papal spy. The\nsentiments to which he gave expression were certainly Macchiavellian in\nthe highest degree--intolerable to English ears. Wherefore his sojourn\nat Cambridge ended abruptly after a few months, and he passed away into\nthe same mysterious spaces from which he had come. He was a man of\nextraordinary powers of observation and suggestion, and from a chance\nhint that he once let fall Makepeace got the idea of writing his book.\nIt was Galiani who directed his attention to the Jewish and Arabic\nauthors whom he consulted. But how little of the force and insight of\nthe Italian entered into the completed book, Makepeace knew only too\nwell.\n\nSo the book lay on the table and Matthew had no heart to open it.\nThrough the window came sounds of merriment from the Fair Yard without.\nRegularly as August came round Makepeace had heard those sounds for\nforty years past, but until to-day he had regarded them only as a\ntroublesome distraction, and closed his casement against them. To-day\na profound lassitude made him draw his stool from the table, where lay\nthe slighted volume, to the open window. His attention was especially\ndrawn by a strident voice which came from near his chamber. Looking out\non the Fair Yard he saw a platform of a few planks, mounted on casks,\nimmediately beneath his window. On it a vagabond charlatan was loudly\nadvertising to a group of gaping rustics the merits of a wonderful\nheal-all.\n\n\u201cCome buy, my masters, come buy,\u201d he cried. \u201cBuy the infallible salve\nof the famous doctor Pinchbeck, the ointment that heals the ague, the\nrheum, the palsy, the serpigo. Let him that goes on one leg but buy,\nand with thrice laying on he shall go on two. Let him that goes with\ncrutches buy, and he shall dance home in a coranto. One groat only for\nthe learned doctor\u2019s ointment that shall quit you of the cramp, the\ngout, the quotidian and the tertian. An it rid you not in two days come\nagain and Pinchbeck shall restore you fourfold.\u201d\n\nFrom time to time an ague-ridden swain mounted the platform, haggled\nwith the quack, reluctantly parted with his groat and departed, dubious\nof his purchase. On the whole, Dr. Pinchbeck seemed to be doing a\nfair trade, when, late in the afternoon, an old man, bent double with\nrheumatism, raised a loud expostulation. He affirmed that he had\npurchased a box of the ointment on the first day of the fair, and had\napplied it thrice without the promised result.\n\nHe demanded the fourfold restitution of his money, and the mountebank\nstoutly resisted the claim. Angry cries arose from the bystanders,\nand it might have gone ill with the empiric, had not a diversion\nbeen effected by one of the crowd. This was a tall middle-aged man\nof somewhat dark complexion and foreign appearance, whose dress\ndistinguished him as a gentleman and possibly a practiser of medicine.\nHe stepped on the platform, spoke a few words to the ointment-vendor,\nand then, beckoning the old man to him, made him sit on a stool. He\ngazed fixedly for a few moments in the patient\u2019s eyes, made some\nmysterious motions of the hands before his face, whispered in his ear,\nand then, with a few more passes of his hands, bade him stand. The old\nfellow stood erect without effort; then, at the stranger\u2019s bidding,\nwalked a few easy steps, and with a pleased and puzzled look descended\nto join his friends in the crowd. Loud applause greeted the wonderful\ncure, and patients crowded to receive the stranger\u2019s ministrations.\nThe same operations in each case were attended with the same result.\nNever had there been seen such a wonder at the fair.\n\nMost of all it wrought wonder in Matthew Makepeace. This unknown\nindividual--was he possessed of those miraculous gifts of healing which\nMakepeace in 400 quarto pages had proved to be extinct? He would accost\nhim and, if possible, learn from his lips whether what he had seen were\nthe operation of nature or of the magic art. Descending in the majesty\nof his doctor\u2019s robes he mingled in the crowd, and mildly laid his hand\non the stranger\u2019s arm. \u201cPardon, learned sir,\u201d said he, \u201cthe curiosity\nof a scholar--alas! too ignorant of books and all unskilled in the\nmanual acts of healing. I would fain question with you of these same\ncures that by chance I have witnessed from my chamber.\u201d The stranger\nwas engaged in giving parting words of counsel to some of his patients.\nHe turned at the touch of the doctor\u2019s hand, surveyed him up and down\nfor a moment, and said, \u201cAnon, Master Makepeace, anon: I will be with\nyou presently.\u201d\n\nDr. Makepeace started to hear his name and threw a sharp look on the\nspeaker. No; he was a complete stranger, and his accent betrayed him\nas a foreigner. Dr. Makepeace had certainly never seen him in his life\nbefore. He began to explain where his chamber was to be found.\n\n\u201cI know it,\u201d interrupted the stranger, \u201cI know it. Bear with me for a\nmoment and I will seek you there.\u201d\n\nMakepeace was a little ruffled that the speaker, knowing his name, did\nnot give him his academic title. \u201c_Doctor_ Makepeace,\u201d he said; \u201cask\nfor _Doctor_ Makepeace.\u201d\n\n\u201cSurely, surely,\u201d replied the stranger carelessly: \u201cyet _Master_\nMakepeace, methinks, served you then.\u201d\n\nMore than ever perplexed the doctor sought his room. Only a few minutes\nhad passed when he heard his visitor mounting with no faltering step to\nhis door, and Makepeace opened to him before he knocked. The stranger\nglanced rapidly round. He seemed to find something familiar in each\narticle of furniture. He ran his eye, with a look of some amused\ncontempt, over the array of worn volumes that lined the walls. \u201cOld\nbooks, doctor Makepeace,\u201d he said, \u201cold books. I think you have not\nchanged one these thirty years.\u201d\n\n\u201cOld books are old friends,\u201d said the doctor with a touch of resentment\nat his tone: \u201cI would not change them.\u201d\n\n\u201cOld friends die, doctor,\u201d observed the stranger, \u201cthey die, and then\nwe have no use for them but to bury them.\u201d\n\n\u201cSir,\u201d said the doctor with a quick reminiscence of his wasted studies,\n\u201cI _have_ buried my friends: but I love them still. But,\u201d he went on,\n\u201cit is not of old notions that I have to speak with you. You have shown\nme this afternoon something newer and,\u201d he added sadly, \u201cit may be,\nsomething better than all that old books tell. I ask you to impart\nto me no secret that might hurt you by the telling. Until now I have\nmaintained that nothing exists in this present world that is not of\nnatural course. If it be an honest mystery that you exercise, tell me,\nthe humblest and poorest of scholars, whether it be the miraculous\nworking of God\u2019s power in human hands or simply the exercise of human\nart.\u201d\n\nThe stranger seated himself, uninvited, in the doctor\u2019s chair, and the\ndoctor took a stool. \u201cEverything,\u201d said the stranger, \u201cis miracle to\nhim who does not know.\u201d\n\n\u201cGreat heavens,\u201d cried Makepeace, \u201cthat is the beginning of my\nquotation from the learned Theodorus Gazophylacius. I never heard of\nthe great Gazophylacius until Galiani told me of him: nobody that I\nknow had heard of him. A marvellous scholar, truly, was Gazophylacius,\nbut a pagan at heart, albeit a Byzantine Christian--and sadly drowned\nin superstition. Shall I show you the passage in the original Greek.\u201d\nAnd he feverishly turned the pages of the _Speculum_ to find it?\n\n\u201cYou may spare yourself that trouble,\u201d said the stranger composedly.\n\u201cShall I finish the quotation? Shall I write it for you?\u201d And he\nunceremoniously tore a corner from one of the immaculate leaves, took\na quill and wrote. \u201cThere,\u201d said he, \u201cthere, I have written in Greek\nwhat follows in your quotation, and I have added my name that you may\nremember the writer.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: _Chapel Doorway in Master\u2019s Garden._]\n\nThe doctor took it and read the delicate Greek characters: \u201cDemetrius\nCommagenus. All things are possible to him who knows and wills with\nearnestness.\u201d\n\nMakepeace was stupified. \u201cCommagenus,\u201d he said: \u201cthat is a Greek\nname, I take it. And yet I would have sworn that the handwriting was\nGaliani\u2019s, and Galiani was an Italian. Besides, Galiani is dead, or he\nis sixty years old, less or more, by now: and you--I cannot think that\nyou are past forty.\u201d\n\nIndifferently the self-styled Commagenus replied: \u201cGaliani or\nCommagenus--what matters? What I wrote then I write now; and always I\nam your humble servant and the poor scholar who drew wisdom from the\nlips of the divine Gazophylacius.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe talk in dreams,\u201d said Matthew: \u201cGaliani told me--_you_ told me, if\nyou are he--that Gazophylacius died at Rome, ten years after the Turks\nentered Constantinople: and that was a hundred and fifty years ago.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d answered Commagenus, \u201che died--the more is the pity; for he\nmight have lived, had he chosen to use his own wisdom. Instead of that\nhe imparted it on his death-bed to me. What care had he to live, an\noutcast in strange lands? But this world lost its wisest man; for I am\nno Gazophylacius. Only I am always learning.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, this is as strange a maze as ever man trod,\u201d cried Makepeace.\n\u201cYou tell me that your master died a hundred and forty years ago, and\nthat you, Galiani, were with him at the time.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot Galiani, but Commagenus,\u201d said the stranger in complacent\namusement at the doctor\u2019s bewilderment: \u201cthat was my name then. I was a\nyouth, twenty years old, when I first came to Constantinople from the\ncountry which gave me my name--three years before the siege. There I\nbecame the favourite pupil of the great student of natural and medical\nscience, Theodorus Gazophylacius.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, that makes you a hundred and seventy years old,\u201d feebly\nremonstrated Makepeace. \u201cAre you then the Wandering Jew?\u201d\n\n\u201cDoctor, I am shocked,\u201d said Commagenus. \u201cAre such fables the stuff\nof which the _Speculum_ is made? I tell you there is nothing in this\nworld that is not natural. That was my master\u2019s constant teaching:\nalso that to know and to will makes man master of nature. That much I\nlearnt from him while he taught at Constantinople, and it was in my\nnoviciate that I gathered from him the art to work such simple cures as\nyou saw this afternoon. To prolong mere existence by keeping disease at\nbay--that he esteemed a vulgar art. To live long and die old, feeble\nand foolish--what gain is that to the man or his fellow-men? To live\nalways, always to be young, always eager, always to be growing in\nwisdom and power--that was the secret for which he spent a lifetime\u2019s\nsearch, and with his dying breath he told me that he had sought it in\nvain. Death, the last disease, is incurable: there is a stronger will\nthan man\u2019s. But he told me of a door of escape. In his last moments\nhe was possessed with a dread that his discovery would perish in the\ngeneral eclipse of learning which he foresaw as the result of the\ndisappearance of the Byzantine schools, and, with solemn admonition\nas to its use, he imparted it to me. Death, the mere accident of the\nflesh, is transferable with the flesh. With will and knowledge, the\nspirit--all that you call character, intelligence, consciousness,\nmemory--may pass from form to form, unchanged in the transition and\nalways capable of growth and ripening. Alas, that I have not made\nbetter use of my master\u2019s prescriptions! But it has been my evil fate.\nAnother might do better.\u201d\n\n\u201cThese are heathen imaginings--snares and delusions of Satan,\u201d cried\nMakepeace. \u201cWhat talk is this of tampering with the divine in us? Man,\nare you a Christian?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am what I am,\u201d replied Commagenus: \u201cbut that this is waking fact\nand no delusion my history shall show you. After my beloved master\u2019s\ndeath I set up in medical practice in a certain city of Dalmatia. The\nfame of my unusual healing powers spread in all the neighbourhood.\nUnfortunately it reached the ears of the bishop of the diocese. He was\na sincere, well-meaning man, kind in all his relations with the laity\nof his diocese, but a trifle superstitious. He concluded that I was a\nnecromancer and condemned me to be burnt alive. Until the moment when\nI found myself in a dungeon and on the eve of execution I had never\nthought to avail myself of the secret communicated to me by my master,\nand had even questioned its efficacy. The prospect of burning was so\nextremely repugnant to my feelings that I resolved to make practical\ntrial of it. Shall I show you how it is done? No, you need not shrink\nfrom me. I have no wish to pass into simple old Matthew Makepeace. I\ncan do better. Be assured that the will goes not with the act.\u201d\n\nCommagenus rose and fastened his gaze on Matthew. As he did so it\nseemed to the doctor that he grew and grew to a bulk and stature\nineffable and dim. But that, he reasoned with himself, was an illusion\nof the sense, and for the moments when the fascinating glare was fixed\non him he retained his consciousness. Slowly, deliberately, that\nMatthew might follow every movement in succession, he moved his hands\nand arms in gyrations and waves more intricate than any that Matthew\nhad witnessed when the Greek stood on the mountebank\u2019s platform that\nafternoon. Then he stooped over the table, and with extraordinary\ndistinctness of articulation whispered in his ear one word. What that\nword was I do not know. Matthew Makepeace remembered it once, and\nforgot it for all the years that he lived afterwards.\n\nThe Greek took up his tale again. \u201cMy excellent master had informed me\nthat, whether the subject were waking or asleep, the will and the word\nhad equal effect. My gaoler slept in the condemned cell with me and the\noccasion seemed to me a particularly happy one for testing the accuracy\nof my master\u2019s conclusions. Though I did not doubt the intensity of my\nwill, in prospect of such an undesirable event as being burnt alive,\nI confess that I was surprised and more than gratified by the issue\nof the experiment. I had the satisfaction of leading my gaoler to the\nstake on the following morning.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat,\u201d cried Makepeace: \u201cdo you tell me that the man was burnt?\nTrue,\u201d he added, as a mitigating consideration suggested itself to his\nbewildered brain, \u201che was a papist. But, after all, what were you?\u201d\n\nCommagenus answered with the resignation of a parent satisfying an\ninquisitive child. \u201cYes, Matthew Makepeace, when your raiment is past\nyour own use you make a gift of it to some humble dependent. When\n_he_ has worn it threadbare, what happens? It is burnt. You do not\nburn it: I did not burn him. Besides, this common man in ages to come\nwill be held in reverence--in another name, I admit--as a martyr to\nmedical science. Nevertheless I was little pleased, as you may think,\nwith the integument which my brutal gaoler had left me. In my new and\nhumble sphere of life I had few opportunities of self-improvement,\nand, taking the first that offered, I installed myself in the person\nof a Dominican friar. I am disposed to doubt whether I really bettered\nmyself by my change of profession. I found that it required much\ningenuity to sustain the part of crass ignorance which was associated\nwith my new character, and the man\u2019s companions were deplorable\npeople. An accident, which had nearly proved fatal, relieved me of\nthe disagreeable situation. In the course of my professional duties\nI was directed to take ship for Spain, where the Dominican order had\nan especial interest in the Office of the Holy Inquisition. On the\nvoyage we fell in with a vessel belonging to a respectable merchant\nof Marseilles. The merchant, who was likewise the ship\u2019s captain, was\nin the habit, when occasion offered, of diversifying the routine of\ncommerce by piratical enterprise. With his crew he boarded and took\npossession of our vessel, informing us that we were his prisoners. As\nhe had a reputation for probity to sustain at Marseilles, he judged\nit prudent to throw the whole of the crew and passengers of our\nvessel into the waves. However, learning that there was a clergyman\non board, he seized the opportunity of making confession first and\nreceiving plenary absolution from him of an outstanding balance of\nprior delinquencies. It was natural to avail myself of the opportunity\nfor transferring myself into his person. It was pleasant to see him\nflounder in the sea with the rest, and I returned--if that is the right\nword--to Marseilles, in circumstances sufficiently ample to warrant\nretirement from a profession the ambiguous character of which offended\nmy moral sense. But my experiences in the three careers of life which\nmy destiny had recently forced upon me gave me an indelible prejudice\nagainst the Western Church. On the whole I am a Protestant.\n\n\u201cI need not detain you with my subsequent transmigrations. The merchant\nwas elderly and so oppressively respectable that I was glad to exchange\ninto the superior rank of a French marquisate. Since then, from\nTrebizond to Tarifa, I have studied men and manners in many capacities.\nPerhaps the time which was pleasantest to me, as a man of science, was\nspent in Peru with Pizarro, whom I attended as a captain of cavalry.\nBut a fatal wound, inflicted by a poisoned arrow, compelled my return\nto Spain in the office of a ship\u2019s boatswain. After all my wanderings\nmy conscience reproached me with my culpable neglect of the art in\nwhose elements I had been grounded by the ever-revered Gazophylacius.\nI resumed the medical studies which I was convinced were best suited\nto my bent and upbringing, by adopting the features and the status\nof a freshman in the University of Padua. As the freshman, under no\npossible circumstances, could have passed his examinations you will see\nthat I conferred on him no small obligation by the assistance which I\nrendered. In my first year I obtained advancement to the person and\nprofessorial chair of Galiani. I am grieved to tell you that I left\nhim seriously unwell at Salerno, ten years ago; and his decease, which\nfollowed almost immediately after, proved to me how wise had been my\ncourse in transferring myself into the healthy frame of the brother\nprofessor who attended him in the earlier phases of his malady. Come,\ndoctor, you have let me chatter on with these tiresome details till I\nsee you are three parts asleep.\u201d\n\n\u201cAsleep!\u201d roared Makepeace, who had been filled with rage, disgust and\nhatred by the shameless recital. \u201cAsleep! Wretch, thief, assassin,\ndefiler of the sanctuary of man! Begone, skirr, fly! Would that I could\ncrush your basilisk head on the floor as I stand! But stay. I will\nfetch the University bedel. He shall clap you in the lowest hold of the\nCastle gaol.\u201d\n\n\u201cMarry, good words, master doctor,\u201d said the imperturbable stranger.\n\u201cYour bedel, possibly, is a family man; and conscience forbids that,\nexcept in the last resort, I should lay a father of a family in a\ndungeon for crimes that, you are pleased to assert, are of my doing:\nand, except that I do not propose myself for the office of bedel, it\nwere an easy thing for me to do so. But hearken, my honest friend.\nI wish you well--no man better. Getting old is a sad affair, sadder\neven than dying. I think that you are sixty, and I don\u2019t think that\njust now you are quite in your best health. Has the world gone very\nwell with you? In five years, ten years, will it go better? You have\nwritten a silly book that nobody will read, and you are ashamed of it.\nYou have wasted your years of manhood in twisting ropes of sand. And\nthe solitude, Matthew! My heart bleeds to think what your solitude\nwill be. What friend have you to smooth the downhill course? Who cares\nfor the friend of dead books? Altogether, you have very little use now\nfor Matthew Makepeace. Who is it that should sleep in yonder bed?\u201d he\nasked, pointing to the truckle used by Marmaduke Dacre. \u201cIs he young?\nIs he comely? Has he friends to love him and be loved? Is he of a quick\nspirit and a high hope? Matthew Makepeace, you know the acts and the\nword. The door lies open to you. Take wisdom, and be young.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe door lies open to _you_,\u201d shouted Makepeace, throwing it open as\nhe spoke. \u201cPass out of it, and avoid the chamber of a Christian man:\nand the foul fiend fly away with you and your abominable suggestions!\u201d\n\n\u201cDoctor Makepeace, I wish you a very good evening,\u201d said his visitor.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe night was far advanced, and Matthew Makepeace had no mind for bed.\nA dim rush candle, set on a stool in a corner of the apartment, cast\nflickering shadows on the walls and floor. In an opposite dark corner\nhis pupil slept. But for the dread of awaking him, Makepeace would have\npaced the room in his perplexity. As it was, he sat bent double on the\nstool by the window.\n\nOne thing was clear enough. If what he had seen and heard was not a\nfiction or the delusion of his senses, the _Speculum_ was a colossal\nstupidity. Even if the rejuvenations of Commagenus were as much in the\ncourse of nature as he affirmed them to be, did they not warrant the\nPope\u2019s most arrogant pretensions? But it was with himself that he was\nmost concerned. Was it not the fact that, as Commagenus had declared,\nhis life had been most miserably wasted? And the mistake was past\nrepair. If only his youth had known! And his mind went back to a short,\nhappy time, just after he had taken his degree, when he had served as\nchaplain in his far-away northern country, at the ancestral castle\nof the Dacres. His pupil then had been the present Lord, Marmaduke\u2019s\nfather; and the pupil had had so much to teach his master about hawks\nand horses and hounds that the master had little leisure to repay it\nin Greek and Latin. Those were happy days when they had roamed the\nCumbrian fells together. And now this Lord Dacre was great in the\ncouncils of his sovereign, the wise and respected ruler of a barony\nthat was almost a kingdom in itself. And in his trusting confidence he\nhad committed his son to the care of his old master at Cambridge; and\nthat son in course of years would naturally succeed to his father\u2019s\nstation.\n\nHad Commagenus indeed sat in that chamber, only a few hours since,\nand unfolded to him the secret of perpetual youth? Yes: there was the\nevidence of the written scrap lying on the open page of the _Speculum_.\nTrue, Commagenus had made a detestable use of his wonderful power. But\nwith Makepeace it would be different. He was conscious of his sobriety\nand virtue, and there were the noble traditions of the house of Dacre\nto keep him in the right way. He had abilities, if only he had youth\nand opportunity to use them, and the experience of sixty years was a\nbetter guarantee for their proper employment than any that a callow\nyouth could offer. Clearer, louder than the voices of conscience or\ncalculation there came back to him, like the drumming burden of an\niterated song, the words \u201cThe door is open. Be young.\u201d Was it fancy\nthat a door seemed to open in the dark book-press opposite, and that\nthrough it he looked out on a sunny haze enveloping blue hills and\nwaters and the towers of Dacre Castle? And cool breaths from heathery\nheights took up the refrain, and whispered to him \u201cBe young.\u201d\n\nMatthew Makepeace crept quietly to the dark corner where his pupil lay.\nHis will was intense as he had never known it before. He took care that\nhis shadow should not fall on the sleeper\u2019s face and arouse him. He\nmade the wonderful passes--with what extraordinary clearness they were\nprinted on his recollection! He stooped and whispered in his pupil\u2019s\near the mysterious word.\n\nIf Matthew had expected a flash of lightning, the apparition of the\nEvil One, the jubilations of triumphant fiends on the success of\nhis experiment, he was agreeably disappointed. Nothing of the kind\nhappened. Only in the dim light of the candle he saw a grey shadow\nof weary age steal over his pupil\u2019s face, and he felt the vigour and\nvitality of youth invade his own limbs as with the intoxication of\nwine. Then the wick suddenly flickered in the candle-socket and went\nout. He heard Marmaduke turn over in his bed with an uneasy sigh.\n\nThen Makepeace woke to reason and a horrible dread. He dared not\nrelight the candle for fear of rousing the sleeper. In the dark, before\nhe was discovered, he must repeat the process which should restore each\nto his own person. In the dark, as nearly as he could, he went through\nthe magical passes, and with extraordinary vehemence he willed himself\nback into Matthew Makepeace. But the word! Great heavens! It had passed\nfrom him as suddenly and completely as the light of the extinguished\ncandle. In vain he racked his memory of every language, living or dead.\nIt had no meaning in any language, living or dead: of that he felt\nsure, and he was sure of nothing else. For an hour, by his pupil\u2019s\nbedside, he tore his hair in desperate efforts to recall it. For an\nhour he alternately cursed Commagenus and prayed that he might return\nbefore day to give him the forgotten word. Then the grey morning light\nbegan to creep through the casement, and the birds woke and sang.\n\nThere could be no shadow of doubt about it. There lay Matthew Makepeace\nbefore him, and the old man was drowsily stirring his limbs as the\nlight broadened into day. And young Dacre, in a doctor\u2019s gown, was\nlooking down upon him, tortured with horrible thoughts. One thing was\ncertain. He could never pass himself off as Marmaduke. Conscience,\ngratitude, affection forbade it. Besides, the thing was impossible.\nHe, the torpid pedant, could never play the part of the young and\nchivalrous heir of the Dacres: and there would be Marmaduke to convict\nthe imposture. Before his pupil woke, before the discovery was made, he\nmust disappear from Cambridge. Quietly and in haste he took down his\npupil\u2019s clothes from the closet where they hung, and exchanged for them\nhis doctor\u2019s robes. Then he descended his stairs and stepped out into\nthe cool shadows of the August morning. The porter was just opening the\ngate. He nodded familiarly to young Dacre as he passed. That was the\nlast which any soul in Jesus College saw of Matthew Makepeace.\n\nUnless, indeed, it were that same Matthew Makepeace who, with the\nhoming instinct of a dying animal, crept back to Cambridge in poverty\nand wretchedness, and died in widow Pearson\u2019s house in 1654. In any\ncase the flagstone in the chapel transept told a lie: it was Marmaduke\nDacre that lay beneath it.\n\nOne thing further I have to mention. When I first took down the\n_Speculum_ from its shelf in the college library I found it in the same\nvirgin condition in which it had lain on the table of Matthew Makepeace\non that fatal afternoon in August, 1604. No living soul had disturbed\nits repose for over 300 years. It was evidently the same copy: perhaps\nno other was ever issued. As I turned its pages a scrap of paper\nfluttered to the floor. It had been torn from the bottom corner of\npages 273-4. On it was written in minute Greek letters an inscription\nwhich I translate:\n\n\u201cDemetrius Commagenus. All things are possible to him who knows and\nwills with earnestness.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                           Thankfull Thomas\n\n\nA passage in the lately edited _Diary of George Evans_, 1649-1658, has\ncalled my attention to a singular and, I believe, unrecorded episode in\nthe history of Jesus College.\n\nWith Mr. Evans himself the story is not concerned. It is sufficient\nto say that he was appointed to a fellowship at Jesus in 1650 by the\nCommittee for Reforming the Universities, in place of an expelled\nPresbyterian. He was, as his name suggests, a Welshman, of the county\nof Radnor, and, of course, an Independent. He vacated his fellowship,\non his marriage, in 1654, and retired to the living of Marston Monceux,\nco. Salop. He held the incumbency until his death, in 1672, having\nconformed at the Restoration.\n\nThe portion of his diary which has awaked my interest relates to the\ndate June 11, 1652. For its explanation it is necessary to state that\nten years previously, just before the outbreak of the Civil War,\nthe College had taken a quantity of its plate from the Treasury and\ndelivered it to a certain Mr. John Poley, by him to be conveyed to His\nMajesty, who was then at Nottingham. As the whole society was under\nmenace of expulsion before the end of 1642, they took the precaution,\nbefore quitting the College, of concealing the rest of the plate, as\nwell as the chapel organ. This organ had been introduced in 1634 by\nthe Master, Richard Sterne, who was Archbishop Laud\u2019s chaplain, and\nhad actively promoted his plans for the re-organisation of church\nritual in the University. It was a small chamber instrument, easily\ntransportable. When the new society, consisting of Presbyterians\nintroduced by the Earl of Manchester, entered the College in January,\n1643, they noted in the Treasury Book that they could only discover\nthree pieces of plate. Entries in the Bursar\u2019s Book in the year 1652\nrecord that the rest of the plate was discovered in that year, and at a\nrather later date the organ was brought to light.\n\nSome further notes respecting the Chapel in Commonwealth days will\nserve to explain certain points in the history which I have been able\nto unravel. The older of the two existing bells in the tower was cast\nby Christopher Gray in 1659. It took the place of another which was\nof pre-Reformation date and had probably served the Nunnery of Saint\nRadegund. This was a heavy tenor bell, and had apparently belonged to a\nset of four, named after the evangelists. It bore the emblem of Saint\nMark, a lion, and the inscription in ancient lettering--\n\n  =Celorvm Marce resonet tvvs ympnvs in Arce.=\n\nThis bell, for many years previous to 1652, had been disused owing to\nthe weakness of its frame and of the supporting floor.\n\nThe passage, above referred to, in George Evans\u2019 diary runs as follows:\n\n \u201cJune 11 [1652]. Present y\u1d49 Master, Mr. Woodcocke and Mr. Machin,\n fellows, with Mr. Thomas Buck, Thankfull Thomas and Robert Hitchcock\n digging, we digged up y\u1d49 treasury plate hidd in y\u1d49 Masters orchard.\n In all were seventeen peeces (then follows a list). Searched till\n prayers. But Quaerendm whether there be not yit other peeces and y\u1d49\n treasure hidd by y\u1d49 former societie. Thomas saith Mr. Germyn cld\n avouch for more.\u201d\n\nOn reading this extract, the name--for such it seemed to be--Thankfull\nThomas, at once arrested my attention. It reminded me of a partially\nobliterated inscription on a flat gravestone which lies at the crossing\nof the transepts, close to the south-west pier of the tower--that one\nwhich is distinguished from the other piers by a dog-tooth moulding.\nThe letters are so worn by treading that they can only be distinguished\nin certain lights, and indeed have altogether disappeared on the side\nof the stone which is furthest from the pier-base. What remains is to\nbe read:--\n\n  =nkfull\n     mas=\n\nfollowed by a date of which the figures =652= are legible.\n\nI have searched the Register of the College for such a name, but,\nthough it is complete for the years preceding 1652, I have been unable\nto find it. But in the College Order Book I have found, among other\nappointments of the year 1650, an entry, \u201cThomas constitutus est Custos\nTempli.\u201d From which it would seem that Thomas was the surname of the\nIndependent official corresponding to a verger or chapel-clerk. It is\nsingular that he should have been buried, among Masters and Fellows, in\nsuch a conspicuous place in the Chapel.\n\nThe discovery of the plate in the Master\u2019s orchard--brought about\nthrough the agency of Mr. Thomas Buck, of Catharine Hall, who was\none of the Esquire Bedells--was matter for disappointment as much\nas congratulation to the Master and Fellows. They had a convinced\nbelief that a much larger quantity of treasure remained concealed in\nsome quarter of the College, and, as the passage in the diary shows,\nThankfull Thomas suggested that Mr. Germyn probably knew something of\nthe matter. Of him it is necessary to say a few words.\n\nGervase Germyn, of the county of Huntingdon, was admitted to the\nCollege in 1621, and in 1652 must have been a man of middle age. He\nwas a Master of Arts, unmarried, and resided in Cambridge. He was not\none of the expelled Fellows. He had acted as organist and choir-master\nin the mastership of Richard Sterne, and was passionately devoted to\nchurch music. After the removal of the organ and the installation of\nthe new Master and Fellows, in 1643, his connection with the College\nceased. He was miserably poor and supported himself by teaching music.\nHis small, spare figure was ordinarily dressed in a thread-bare garb of\nsemi-clerical appearance, and he had a quaintness of manner and speech\nwhich induced the belief that he was not of ordinary sanity.\n\nThankfull Thomas particularly disliked him. Gervase had a tone of\nsuperiority in addressing him which was the more galling because what\nhe said was only remotely intelligible to the sexton; and he had a\ndisagreeable habit of meddling with what he considered to be the duties\nand prerogatives of his office. Germyn must have possessed a key to the\nChapel, for he was constantly presenting himself there at unexpected\ntimes, often late in the evening. He had a distracting habit of roaming\nabout the building, and, as Thomas thought, spying on his actions from\nunseen quarters. Thomas had seen him looking down on him from the Nuns\u2019\ngallery in the north transept, or high up in the tower arcade.\n\nThomas took note of these circumstances and kept his knowledge to\nhimself. His cupidity was aroused by the thought of the hidden\ntreasure, and he was perfectly convinced that the clue to its discovery\nlay with Germyn. As it was useless to question him directly he resorted\nto a system of counter-espial.\n\nHis attention was particularly drawn to the Chapel tower, where he had\nmore than once detected Germyn\u2019s presence. The arcaded storey beneath\nthe belfry is reached by a dark, winding stair in the wall at the\nnorth-east angle of the north transept. The staircase emerges, at a\nconsiderable height, on a Norman gallery, which, at the time of which\nI am speaking, was not protected on the transept side by a railing.\nThomas was a timid man, and he made this alarming passage clutching\neach pillar as he passed it. Then another stair in the tower pier led\nup to the arcaded gallery, and there the inner communication stopped. A\ndoor in the north arcade opened on the roof of the transept, from which\na dizzy ladder ascended to the belfry window. The ladder gave Thomas\npause. It was old, weather-worn and crazy, and, unless by the light\nfigure of Germyn, had perhaps never been scaled for a generation. The\nsilent belfry above, encompassed by wheeling jackdaws, was a terror\nto his weak nerves. Even from the floor below he could see the gaping\nrottenness of its rafters: so he let it alone.\n\nSecure on the Chapel floor he began his researches. In his vacant\nmoments he roamed about chancel, transepts and nave, beating the walls\nand trampling the flags, if perchance he might light on some recess\nwherein the treasure was contained. At first his curiosity was excited\nby certain crosses graved on the nave floor. He did not know that they\nmarked the processional path of the Saint Radegund nuns. But he could\ndetect no sound of hollowness beneath them. Finally, he fastened his\nmind on a large, unmarked stone, next the south-west pier of the tower.\nHere, and in no other part of the Chapel, there was distinct evidence\nthat a vault of some kind existed. Above it the disused bell-rope was\nattached to the pier.\n\n[Illustration: _Norman Gallery, North Transept._]\n\nOften, when the Chapel was closed after service hours, he scrutinised\nthis stone. It had no mark of recent disturbance, but in ten years it\nwas likely that any such indication had been obliterated. One summer\nevening in 1652 he was so engaged, and kneeling on the stone, when he\nwas startled by the sudden falling of a shadow. He sprang to his feet\nand beheld Gervase Germyn.\n\n\u201cGood evening, friend,\u201d said Germyn. \u201cYou work late. I was visiting\nsome old friends that lie under the stones here, having a word with\nhim or him that I have known, a remembered jest with one, a snatch of\nold song with another--who knows what? And here are you at the like\nbusiness. And who, pray, is your friend?\u201d\n\n\u201cMaster Germyn,\u201d replied Thomas stiffly, \u201can idle man may talk to dead\nmen, if he will: a sexton has other business with them. How often am I\nto bid you not to meddle in my affairs?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are very right,\u201d said Germyn, \u201cand now I perceive this is no man\u2019s\ngrave--yet. Perhaps the sexton is looking to make it one. And which,\npray, of my friends, the new Fellows, has gone to his audit? Or is it\nto be mine, perhaps, or thine: and I think it be thine indeed, for I\nfind thee lying on it. But you don\u2019t know the Prince of Denmark: else\nI should ask you the clown\u2019s riddle, \u2018What is he that builds stronger\nthan either the mason, the ship-wright, or the carpenter?\u2019 It is a\npretty riddle to ask within walls that are five hundred years old.\u201d\n\n\u201cI make no graves,\u201d answered Thomas, \u201cand I have no time or patience\nfor your riddles. I only ask you to begone.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs the trade then so slack, friend Thomas, and is there none to give\nthe sexton employment?--none of all that dig for death as for hid\ntreasure, and some, perhaps, who dig for treasure and find death.\u201d\n\nThomas was startled at the hint that his purpose was detected. He\nlooked dubiously on the speaker, and the thought dawned on him that\nperhaps Germyn was offering himself as a confederate. \u201cTreasure,\u201d he\nsaid slowly; \u201cyes, if you talk of treasure there is more sense in you\nthan I thought. I don\u2019t know but what we might find it together; and\na poor man, such as you, might have his fair share, and none be the\nwiser.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are wholly mistaken,\u201d said Germyn, \u201cif you think that I know\nanything of the treasure that you are looking for: and, if I knew, God\nforbid that I should rob the dead of their trust. No, let them keep it\nuntil the day of restitution, when their friends claim it of them. You\nare a bold man, Thomas, to think of the dead as if they had no sense of\nwhat happens to-day. For my part, though we talk as old friends, I have\na dreadful awe of them: they can do so much, and I can\u2019t hurt them, if\nI would. It is a marvel to me that you can walk and work at such an\nhour in a place that is so full of voices and presences. A holy man you\nshould be! Do you know how Goodman Deane, the last man who held your\noffice, died?\u201d\n\n\u201cThey tell me he died distracted. But I don\u2019t trouble myself with\nfancies.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was in August, two years since. What had he seen? What had he\nheard? They say that in his wanderings he often repeated \u2018I should have\nrung, I should have rung.\u2019 And I think I see his meaning. It is an old\nbelief--God knows what of truth there is in it--that at the ringing of\nthe church bell the congregations of the dead break up and give place\nto the living. Poor Deane! Mark could not speak for him: he has been\ndumb these twenty years, though one day, please God, he will speak\nagain for his friends--of whom you are not one. And there is another\nold fancy that belongs to this church, and perhaps had something to do\nwith Deane\u2019s matter. It used to be told among the old society, that\nare scattered or dead now, that the festival of the Name of Jesus was\na great day with the old dead folk. Each year at midnight on that day,\nwhich is the seventh of August, they assemble--men or women, I know not\nwhich--here in the church to observe the hour of Lauds. It was said\nthat you could hear them trooping down from their chambers outside by a\nstair that does not exist, and they came through the church wall by a\ndoor that is unseen. Then, each in order, they rank themselves on the\ncrosses that mark this pavement, and go round the church in darkness,\nfor they need no lights. Their singing has been often heard, but I do\nnot know that living eye has seen their procession, unless it were\nDeane\u2019s, and, it seems, he did not live long after.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is a curious fancy, truly,\u201d said Thomas, \u201cif one could credit it.\nBut I don\u2019t know why you tell it me, as I never visit the church after\nnightfall. And little as I believe your tale, I believe you less when\nyou tell me that you know nothing of this treasure. But I spoke of it\nat a venture, and it is none of my business. So I leave you to your\nghosts.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThankfull Thomas was not courageous, but his fears were not of a\nsentimental order. He was more than ever convinced that Germyn knew\nthe secret of the hidden treasure, and that his story was a device to\nprevent him from continuing his search for it; and he had made up his\nmind that it lay under the stone where Germyn had interrupted him. At\nnight he would be secure from his interference, and would have time to\nlift the stone and replace it in such a manner as to leave no trace of\nits disturbance. And as the date which Germyn had mentioned had passed\nout of his mind, it so happened that August 7 was the night which he\nchose for his enterprise.\n\n[Illustration: _South West Pier of Tower._]\n\nIt was past eleven when he entered the church with lantern and tools.\nThe stone was heavy, and it took a considerable time to dislodge and\nlift it. Beneath it he saw a vault, some five feet deep. He lowered his\nlamp into it. Great was his disappointment to find it blankly empty. He\nhad so fastened his expectations on this particular spot that hardly\nyet could he think himself mistaken. He let himself down into the vault\nthat he might explore for some recess in its walls or floor.\n\nHe was still groping in semi-gloom when, above his head, he caught the\nsound of quiet treading, and then a waft of strange music. He was too\nunskilled to tell what the instrument might be, but the sound of it was\nsoft and pleasant. It rose, and died away, and rose again in fitful\nstrains. Then it went on in a continuous melody and was taken up by a\nvoice peculiarly sweet and clear--so clear that the words were plainly\ndistinguishable. \u201cWhen the Lord turned again the captivity of Sion then\nwere we like unto them that dream.\u201d\n\nThomas listened in amazement till the psalm ended and silence returned.\nThen he heard the shuffling of descending steps, and with a sudden\nhorror he remembered the story of the dead men\u2019s staircase and the\nphantom procession. He heard a door softly open in the dark transept,\nand he sprang wildly to the bell-rope above his head. One frightful\nclang: Mark spoke again after twenty years of silence: a rumble and\na roar: the heavy bell splintered itself on the floor beneath, and\nThankfull Thomas, in a pool of blood, lay in the grave of his own\nmaking.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn a corner of the belfry, where the floor was not broken by the\nfalling bell, they discovered the organ, which had been hidden there\nsince 1642.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Restoration brought back a few survivors of the expelled Society\nof 1642, and with them Gervase Germyn. But in 1664 I find that George\nLoosemore was master of the College choristers, and Germyn was dead.\nAt what precise date he died I cannot say. But one thing is known.\nThe Chapel, after long neglect and misappropriation, was repaired,\ndecorated and restored to Anglican usage about the year 1663. The\nreconciliation of the Church was marked by a choral service, and Germyn\noccupied his old seat at the organ. Among the psalms chosen for the\nservice was the 126th, _In convertendo captivitatem Sion_. The singers\nhad reached the last verse--\u201cHe that now goeth on his way weeping and\nbeareth forth good seed: shall doubtless come again with joy and bring\nhis sheaves with him.\u201d There the organ accompaniment faltered, failed,\ndied, and left the choir to chant the _Gloria_ unassisted. The grey\nhead of Gervase Germyn lay on the key-board, and the College had to\nseek a new organist.\n\n\n\n\nThe Palladium\n\n\nOn an unspecified morning in the year 1026, in the reign of Cnut, king,\nof happy memory, Aethelstan, abbat of Ramsey, delivered to the monks of\nhis Benedictine household, in chapter assembled, an address which had\nnotable consequences.\n\nThe reverend father took as the text of his discourse the verse, _in\nlibro Regum tertio_, which in our Authorised Version is expressed--Know\nye not that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not\nout of the hand of the King of Syria?\n\nWith the ghostly lessons to be drawn from this passage we need not\nconcern ourselves: indeed they were but lightly touched upon by the\nabbat. He turned almost directly to practical matters.\n\nHe dwelt feelingly on the palpable evidences of the poverty of their\nhousehold--the bell-tower of their church, which had fallen in sudden\nruin, and which the means of their household did not permit them\nto rebuild: the indecent sordidness of their chapter-house, within\nwhose mud-built walls they were then assembled: the meagreness of the\nmonastic diet, of which his brethren were the last to complain, but\nwhich reflected unfavourably on the coldness of Christian charity in\nthe laity of the neighbourhood. And incidentally he contrasted these\nconditions with the splendour of the new temple, adorned with goodly\nstones and gifts, which their beloved friends at Ely had erected since\nthe Danish wars had ended: the ephods of purple and scarlet affected\nby the ministers in Saint Etheldreda\u2019s church: and the proverbial\nmagnificence of Ely feasts.\n\nHe asked himself the cause of this contrast, and with humility he\nconfessed that it lay in the remissness of himself and his venerable\npredecessors in the abbatial seat of Ramsey. He commended to the\nattention of his hearers a text, _in fine libri Josue_, in which it\nwas recorded that the children of Israel had brought up the bones\nof Joseph with them from Egypt, and that the said bones had become\nthe inheritance of the children of Joseph: and he enlarged on the\nadvantages, pecuniary as well as spiritual, which undoubtedly rewarded\nthose children.\n\nWhat had Ramsey done to emulate an example so worthy? Nothing, or next\nto nothing. At a cost relatively small they had, indeed, procured\nfrom an ignorant rustic, who had dug them up at the town of Slepe,\nsome bones which competent authority declared to be those of the\nPersian bishop, Saint Yvo. But, whether or not the cause lay in some\nlack of orthodoxy in this oriental prelate, it must be confessed\nthat his remains had not been so miraculously effectual in procuring\nthe liberality of the laity as had been anticipated. He ventured to\nsuggest that the relics of a local saint might be more successful. He\ncasually drew their attention in this matter to the example of the holy\nbrethren of Ely. Not content with their heritage of the bones of Saint\nEtheldreda and the virgins, her relatives, they had recently forcibly\ndetained and appropriated a consignment of the remains of Aednoth,\nbishop of Dorchester, addressed to Ramsey Abbey and belonging of right\nto it. While he did not defend the methods of their Ely brethren, he\nmust applaud their conspicuous and practical piety.\n\nThe abbat deplored the circumstance that the vicinity of their abbey\nhad produced no saint of such eminent merits as to transmit to his\nremains the powers that should evoke the faith and the funds so\nnecessary to their present needs. As an illustration of the spirit\nwhich he would like to find among his own brethren he again invited\ntheir attention to the religious activity of their friends at Ely,\nwho had despatched a naval and military force as far as Dereham, in\nNorfolk, and with tumult of war had abstracted from the church there\nthe shrine and body of Saint Withburga, virgin. In fact the pious\nsolicitude of their friends had sometimes carried them to lengths\nwhich, making the widest allowance for the purity of their motives,\nthe abbat could not regard as otherwise than regrettable. In the\nrecent Danish troubles the brethren of Saint Alban\u2019s had committed to\nthe safe keeping of the Ely monks the shrine containing the relics of\nthe great Protomartyr of Britain. At the restoration of peace the Ely\npeople had, indeed, returned the chest, but they afterwards maintained\nthat they had substituted in it the remains of a less sacred person and\nhad kept Saint Alban in their church. The Saint Alban\u2019s brotherhood\non their part asserted that, from a conscientious regard for the\nsanctity of their trust, they had thought well not to part with the\nveritable person of their tutelar saint, but to employ the pardonable\nstratagem of enclosing an inferior substitute in the shrine despatched\nto Ely. But the point in dispute was immaterial, inasmuch as the Ely\nrelics, to whomsoever they had originally appertained, had contributed\nlargely to the prosperity of that household, while the event proved\nthat the proprietary interests of Saint Alban\u2019s had been in no degree\nprejudiced. Blind Isaac bestowed the same blessing of earth\u2019s fatness\non supplanting Jacob and on first-born Esau. Charity and prudence\nalike dictated that, in the hearing of the giver, there should be no\ncontention between brotherly households about a birth-right which, for\nall practical uses, each of them possessed in its integrity.\n\nTo what did the abbat\u2019s observations tend? At the obscure church of\nSoham, Cambs., unworthy receptacle of so divine a treasure, rested\nwhat had been mortal of Saint Felix, bishop and evangelist of the East\nAngles. The bishop of the diocese in which Ramsey was situated, at\nthe abbat\u2019s instance, had procured royal letters patent authorising\nthe Ramsey monks to transfer the sacred remains to their conventual\nchurch. Far be it from him to suggest such violent courses as had, in\nsome measure, clouded the effulgent zeal of their Ely neighbours. The\nSoham folk, if properly approached, would, no doubt, show themselves\ncompliant to the King\u2019s will, and would be eager to collaborate in a\nwork so happily inspired. He requested the chapter to express its views\nas to the proper methods of attaining their pious object of putting the\nbell-tower in a condition of permanent stability.\n\nPrior Alfwin rose and, protesting veneration for his Superior, ventured\nto offer some remarks which, he trusted, would not be regarded as\nderogating from the respect due to the abbatial chair. Fraternal\naffection had, in his opinion, betrayed the Lord Abbat into an estimate\nof the character of the Ely people which was not warranted by the\nfacts. The prior regarded them as sons of Belial. By what instinct of\nthe Devil the holy father, Saint Aethelwold, had induced King Edgar to\nendow their monastery with wealth so disproportioned to their merits\nit was not for him to surmise. Among the estates so granted was the\nmanor of Soham. There could be no doubt that, if they got wind of the\nproposed translation of their saint, the Soham men would fight. It\nwould ill become their sacred calling to employ the carnal weapons to\nwhich the Ely brigands had resorted. \u201cLet us rather,\u201d said the prior,\n\u201cattain our ends by friendly gifts and such arts as are permissible to\nour peaceful profession--wine, for instance, or beer.\u201d The rest of the\nprior\u2019s observations were directed to a discussion of the properties of\npoppy, mandragora and other soporific herbs.\n\nAfter general discussion it was agreed that a letter should be\ndespatched to the reeve of Soham, announcing the intention of the abbat\nand prior of paying their observance at the shrine of Saint Felix on\nan appointed day: that the abbey boat-carls should be in attendance to\nconvey those officials thither from Erith hithe in the household barge:\nand that the cellarer should make such provision for the entertainment\nof the residents in Soham as might seem to his prudence expedient.\n\nBrother Brihtmer, lately professed, added the observation that he knew\na man or two--servants or tenants of the Abbey--Oswi, the miller, for\ninstance, who carried off the ram for wrestling at Bury fair. With a\nfew such at Erith he thought that he might be trusted to discuss the\nsituation with the Ely men, if they got so far. He would also provide\nten stout carls to row the barge from Erith to Soham and to undertake\nwhat else might be required of them at the latter place.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was a notable day in the annals of the little town of Soham when the\nRamsey barge, propelled by ten rowers, five a side, clad in the abbey\nuniform of bare arms and legs and a loose gown of green falding, was\nsighted on the far side of Soham mere. Quite a considerable throng of\nthe principal inhabitants watched it from the wooden jetty, to which\nwere moored the cobbles of the Soham fishermen. The reeve, in a murrey\ncoat and blue hood, was an important figure in the group, and was\naccompanied by a select party of the leading sokemen. The local clergy\nwere in attendance with a hastily improvised band of thurifers and\nchoristers. These, with some of the better class of artificers, smiled\nwith conscious importance, as specially nominated guests at the feast\nwhich the Ramsey monks brought with them for their entertainment in the\nparish gild-hall. The rest of the crowd, consisting of mariners and\nfarm churls, were curious rather than enthusiastic, and more suspicious\nthan curious: for Ramsey is far from Soham, and ancient adage told\nthem that _f\u00fdnd synt feorb\u00faend_--far-dwellers are enemies. At the\nfirst landing of the venerable passengers a temporary disturbance was\ncaused by Grim, the fisherman of Ely monastery, who provocatively bit\nhis thumb at the starboard bow oar of the abbat\u2019s crew. When this\ndifference had been adjusted by the intervention of the district\nhundred-man the procession was started for the church. At the tail of\nit, behind the boat-carls, stalked a black-avised monk of Ely, Peter by\nname, who pointedly withdrew from an official part in the ceremonies.\n\nThe banquet in the gild-hall was altogether a splendid affair. In the\nwhole of their official experience the reeve, the hundred-man, and the\nlocal clergy had never received so warm a welcome or participated in\nsuch royal cheer. No thin English vintage this that was passed to them\nin the loving cup, fresh from dignified and consecrated lips, but rich\nold wine, warmed by Greek suns and cooled in the caverns of Ramsey\ncellars. The cottars who were admitted at the lower board had never\nknown what it was to have so much ale, and so good, as the monastic\nvats supplied. Brother Peter of Ely looked on from the door, but took\nno part in the entertainment. He remarked that the Ramsey dignitaries\nwere modest drinkers, and that the boat-carls looked at their blisters\nand passed the can to their Soham neighbours with the merest pretence\nof absorption.\n\nAs the liquor in the wassail bowls ebbed a gradual silence crept on\nthe festal party. One after other, official and reverend heads declined\nupon the board: rustic bodies dropped from their benches on the floor,\nand stertorous slumber filled the hall. Only the abbat and prior sat\nerect and looked about them with ferret eyes, and the boat-carls spat\non their hands and inspected their blisters. Brother Peter withdrew to\nthe mere-strand, and by the lapping waters mused on the weakness of\nhuman heads and the shocking aspect of intemperance in which one has\nnot participated.\n\nWhat is this spectacle which presents itself to Brother Peter,\nmeditative on the muddy margin of Soham mere, at the grey hour when\ncountry cocks do crow and bells do toll? A procession, silent but\nsolid, actual not ghostly, of ten men bearing a coffer strung upon\npoles. Two dignified figures, their heads wrapt from the raw air in\ntheir hoods, bring up the rear. So our friends are making an early and\nunannounced departure! This is no time to ask the wherefore. Brother\nPeter tucks up his frock and runs his fleetest to the church. When he\nlooks back from the porch he sees a vessel launched on the shimmering\nlake, with a broadening track of broken water in its wake.\n\nThe abbat and his men are two miles away over the mere when a strange\nclamour reaches their ears. Horns are blown; a church bell clangs;\ncries of \u201cHaro\u201d echo over the water; lights flash upon the strand. The\nboat-carls rest upon their oars; the abbat smiles; the prior chuckles.\n\u201cTwo miles: impossible!\u201d says he; \u201cand, as lay-brother Oswald was so\nprudent as to hide the oars of the Ely boat in the church tower, they\nwon\u2019t get started in a hurry.\u201d\n\nThe prior sits in the sternage and directs the vessel\u2019s course. Between\nhim and the abbat Saint Felix reposes in his box. As they quit the mere\nand enter the narrow channel which connects it with the Ouse the abbat\nsuggests a psalm and raises _Jubilate Deo_. The bow oars respond with a\nthree-man glee in the fen-men\u2019s fashion.\n\nSleeping Barway they pass, well out of hearing of their pursuers, and\nthen they take the right hand fork of the river, and follow the Ouse\nstream which we now call the West River. Here they find themselves in\na maze of willow-fringed islets and wandering channels which quit and\nre-enter the main stream. The sopping, gurgling freshets that drain\nthe shallow meres on either hand, as the tidal waters drop, warn them\nof the perils of a divergence from the river\u2019s course. But prior Alfwin\nknows what he is about, and holds on in the channel that in ten miles\nwill bring them to Erith bank. Nevertheless their transit, impeded by\nsnags and shallows and fallen trees, is of necessity slow. Under such\ncircumstances one must think it an unwarranted security that induced\nsome of the boat-carls to open a spare beer jar and beguile their toil\nwith ill-timed refreshment. Three comatose bodies under the thwarts\nimpose a severe addition of labour on the more self-respecting members\nof the crew.\n\nIt is the hour of prime, and alas! brother Alfwin, where are we now?\nIndubitably we are stuck in the mud, and the water is falling. We\nland on soggy banks, and with labour the boat-carls lift and pole the\nbarge into deeper waters. The operation is repeated several times.\nFaint cries of \u201cHaro\u201d are borne by the breeze over the fens, and the\nLord Abbat shudders with cold and fright. Praised be the saints, at\nlast we are back in the main stream. But what is this? Is not this the\nidentical snag on which we nearly wrecked ourselves the best part of an\nhour ago? _Deus in adjutorium!_ Here is the black prow of the Ely barge\nrounding the corner, not a hundred yards away, and Monk Peter stands\nin the bows, raucously shouting and shaking his fist at us! Half-naked\nfigures start up out of the fen and run, hopping from tuft to tuft, on\nthe bank, cheering and waving as they run--friends, foes, or simple\nspectators, who knows?\n\nThe long sweeps of the boat-carls churn the water into oozy froth as\nthey bend themselves with frenzied energy to their task. Foot by foot\nthe Ely men gain upon their predecessors. The game is up unless, as the\nstroke oars suggest, they lighten ship by heaving Saint Felix into the\nriver. Rather a muddy death than so! Courage! We are less than a mile\nfrom Erith.\n\nLauded be the good Saint Felix, who miraculously interposes for our\nsalvation from the jaws of destruction. Sudden, mysterious, a blanket\nof white fog rises from the fens and envelopes the river banks.\nBlotted out are the runners: they cry and wave no more. The Ely prow\nis swallowed up in vacuous whiteness: the swish of the Ely oars is\nsilenced, and Monk Peter\u2019s voice is raised in objurgation. They have\nrun upon that willow that grows aslant the brook, and it is to be\ndoubted that their bows are staved in. Were it not a Christian act\nto hail them with a loud _Benedicite_ in parting? And here is Erith\nstrand and Brother Brihtmer and the Ramsey men. Brother Alfwin, it will\nbe proper for you to give direction to the kitchener for a suitable\ncongratulation for the brethren at supper to-night. To-morrow we will\ndeliberate on the matter of the bell-tower.\n\n\u201cCandid reader,\u201d says the Ramsey chronicler, \u201cthis is a queer tale.\nThe authority for it is ancient but shaky--_fluctuans veterum nobis\ntradidit relatio_. I by no means require you to believe it, provided\nonly that in any case you have unhesitating faith that the relics of\nSaint Felix were translated from the aforesaid town of Soham to Ramsey\nchurch, and that there the saint confers inestimable benefits on his\nworshippers.\u201d Ramsey abbey is gone: the shrine of Saint Felix is gone.\nThe tale of the boat race remains. I ask you to believe it, if you can.\n\n[Illustration: _In the Fens._]\n\n\n\n\n                     The Sacrist of Saint Radegund\n\n\nOn a certain day in mid June in the year 1431 the tolling of the bell\nin St. Radegund\u2019s church tower announced to the neighbours of the\nPriory that a nun was to be buried that day.\n\nIn an interval between church services the nuns wander in the garden,\nwhich is also the graveyard of St Radegund\u2019s, and lies sequestered\nnext the chancel walls. To-day they are drawn thither by a new-made\nempty grave; for a funeral is a mildly exciting incident in conventual\nroutine. But three sisters sit in the cloister on the stone bench next\nthe chapter door. Also a small novice is curled up on the paved floor\nwith her back against the bench. The day is warm, and the church wall\ncasts a grateful shadow where they sit. And, because labour and silence\nare enjoined in the cloister, they rest, and two of them gossip, and\nAgnes Senclowe, the novice, listens and lays to heart.\n\nThe two who gossip are Joan Sudbury, succentrix, and Elizabeth Daveys,\nwho is older than Joan, and holds no office in the monastery. With them\nsits, and half dozes, Emma Denton, who is very old and very infirm. She\ndoes not gossip, for she has hardly spoken a word of sense these forty\nyears past. She is a heavy affliction to the cloister society. She\nlives mainly in the infirmary, and does not attend church. She knows\nwhen it is the hour for a meal, and she knows very little else. If she\nspeaks an intelligible word, it is about something that happened forty\nyears ago. She remembers the great pestilence in 1390.\n\nWhat ailed poor sister Emma to bring her to this sad pass? When she\nwas young she was something of a religious enthusiast, and because\nenthusiasm was rare in the cloister, she was promoted by her sisters to\nhigh station. When they made her Sacrist she had her one and dearest\nwish. To have the charge of the beautiful church, of the books,\nvestments and jewels of the sanctuary, to live in the holy place,\nwith holy thoughts for companions, and in the unfailing round of holy\nduties--was not that a happy lot? Dignified too the office was; for in\nthe little cloister world the Prioress herself was scarcely a greater\nlady than the Sacrist. The Sacrist did not sleep with the other nuns in\nthe dormitory; her constant duties did not allow her ordinarily to take\nher meals in the refectory. Like the Prioress, she had her own servant\nto attend her, her own house to dwell in. Her habitation was built\nagainst the northern chancel wall, and consisted of two chambers. From\nthe upper room, through a hole pierced in the wall, she watched the\nnever-dying light that hung before the High Altar.\n\nBut it was not good to be Sacrist for long. The unvarying routine of\nduty produces torpidity; holy thoughts uncommunicated end in cessation\nof thought; the solitude was deadly. The office was not coveted by the\nsisterhood, and was seldom held for more than a year or two together.\nWherefore they rejoiced when Emma Denton held it for nine years. For\nnine years she trimmed the sacred lamp. During nine years her own light\ndwindled out, and at last the world became dark to sister Emma.\n\nThe crazy belfry rocked with the swaying of the bell, which, being\ncracked, was doubly dolorous. The sound of it roused old sister Emma\nto a dim consciousness of what was passing, and she spoke to nobody in\nparticular.\n\n\u201cThe bell,\u201d she said, \u201cthe bell again! Last week it tolled, and we\nburied two. Now there are two more in the dead-house.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe saints protect us!\u201d said sister Joan; \u201cshe is at her old talk of\nthe pestilence year.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was Assumption Day,\u201d continued the old nun, \u201cwhen we buried them.\nWe had no Mass that day. To-day it is the cellaress and sister Margery\nCailly--God pardon her for a sinful woman. No; Margery is sick, not\ndead; and I forget, I forget.\u201d\n\n\u201cMargery Cailly,\u201d cried Joan Sudbury, \u201cwhat quoth she of Margery\nCailly, that goes to her grave to-day? Margery Cailly, that has been\nour most religious Sacrist ever since yonder poor thing fell beside her\nwits.\u201d\n\n\u201cReligious you may call her,\u201d said Elizabeth Daveys, \u201cbut God knows,\nand sister Emma knows, that of her which we know not. Thirty years have\nI lived in St Radegund\u2019s, and I remember not the time when any but\nMargery was our Sacrist, and well I know that the sacristy has been her\nprison all those days. But I have heard sister Emma say in her dull way\nthat Margery once knew the convent prison too.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, twelve years I have spent here, and never had speech with the\nSacrist. Once I was alone in the church when it was dark, and the\ndaylight only lingered aloft in the roof, and of a sudden I lighted on\nher in the chancel, busied in her office. Her pale face in her black\nhood showed like a spirit\u2019s, and I thought it was the blessed Radegund\nthat had come down from her window, and I was horribly afraid.\u201d\n\n\u201cI think that from the sacristy window her eye followed me about the\ngarden as I walked there,\u201d said Elizabeth. \u201cIt follows me still, and it\nmakes my flesh creep. What good woman would shun her sisters so? Heaven\nrest her soul, for be sure she has much to answer for. If she has\nconfessed herself, it is not to our confessor or the Prioress, for I\nthink she has hardly spoken these many years to any but Alice Portress\nthat waits on her.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, Alice was with her at the end. It was Alice that dug the grave;\nAlice rings the knell; Alice laid her out in her Sacrist\u2019s chamber, and\nshe has placed two white roses on the dead woman\u2019s breast.\u201d\n\n\u201cRoses?\u201d said Elizabeth Daveys; \u201croses are not for dead nuns. Whence\ngot she roses?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat I can tell you,\u201d said the novice, glad to take her part in\nthe conversation, \u201cfor Alice told me herself. She got them from the\nchurchyard of St Peter\u2019s on the hill.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe office for the dead was said, the empty grave was filled, and Alice\nthe Portress was closeted with the Prioress.\n\n\u201cTo you, lady Prioress--not to the Nuns in Chapter--I confess the sin\nof my youth; not to them, nor yet to you while sister Margery lived.\nShe is gone, and why should I remain? Forty years we shared the\nsecret. She is past censure or forgiveness. On me let the blame rest. I\nask no pardon, but only to be dismissed from the house of St Radegund,\nthat I have so unworthily served.\n\n[Illustration: _Entrance to Chapter House._]\n\n\u201cThere is none but myself and poor sister Emma that remembers St\nRadegund\u2019s before the pestilence year. I was but a child then, and my\nmother was Portress before me. My mother often brought me to the lodge,\nand I used to play with the novices, or sit at the gate when my mother\nwas away. Margery had but lately come to St Radegund\u2019s--seventeen,\nperhaps, or eighteen years of age she was. Hers was a proud family--the\nCaillys of Trumpington, and they were rich, and good to St Radegund\u2019s.\nThey are gone and forgotten now, but often have I heard old Thomas\nKey tell of them, for he was a Trumpington man, and he knew the De\nFreviles of Shelford too. There are De Freviles at Shelford yet, but I\nthink that none there remembers young Nicholas De Frevile that was Sir\nRobert\u2019s son.\n\n\u201cI had a child\u2019s thought--that Margery was the most beautiful creature\nin the wide world--most beautiful and best. And because she was young\nand fair and gracious in speech even our hard sisters loved her, and\nthought it pity of the world when her fair tresses were shorn and she\ntook the ugly veil. For Margery was not religious. God pardon me for\nmy sinful words, but I think she was meant for better things than\nreligion and a cloister. And though she was good and kind to all,\nMargery did not take to our sisters. There was some trouble--I know\nnot what, for she never told--and for some family reason she was sent\nto St Radegund\u2019s, and ill she liked it. So she went about her work in\ncloister and church, grieving; and there was talk of her among the\nsisters. Some thought, some said, that they knew, but Margery said\nnothing.\n\n\u201cIt is all forgotten now, for the pestilence wiped out the memory of\nthose days. Scarcely twelve months had gone since she took the veil\nwhen Margery Cailly disappeared from the Priory. You may think what\nbabble of tongues there was in our parlour--how they who were wisest\nhad always known how it would be, and the rest rebuked them for not\ntelling them beforehand. And so for another twelvemonth she was lost to\nus, and some sisters, who were kind, hoped that she would come back,\nand some who were kinder, hoped she would not.\n\n\u201cThen, one day in the year before the pestilence, comes an apparitor\nwith our lost Margery, and a letter to the Prioress from the Lord\nBishop of Ely. The letter is to say that the Archbishop of Canterbury,\nin his visitation of Lincoln diocese, has found Margery there, living\na secular life; and because secular life is sin to those who have\nentered the religious order, he commits her to his brother of Ely, in\norder that the lost sheep may be restored to the fold where she was\nprofessed. And his Lordship of Ely--Heaven help him for a blundering\nbachelor!--directs that she shall be committed to the convent\nprison-house until she repents of her wickedness, and when she is\nloosed from it, shall make public confession in Chapter, and implore\nthe pardon of the sisters for her enormities.\n\n\u201cOur Prioress was kinder to Margery than the Bishop meant--who\ncould not be kind to her? Her prison life was no longer than would\nsatisfy the Bishop\u2019s enquiries, and as for the confession in the\nChapter-house--it never happened. There were some, though they liked\nnot confession for themselves, who thought an opportunity was missed,\nand blamed the Prioress; for cloister talk is dull if we know not one\nanother\u2019s failings. Still, the sisters were kind to Margery, and very\nkind when they wanted to get the secret from her. But she said never\na word about it, unless it were to the Prioress. Beautiful she was\nas ever, but grief and humiliation were on her, heavy as death, and\nbecause she confided in none, she lost the friendship of the sisters.\nTo me, who was but a child, she would talk, but scarcely to another,\nand her talk with me was never about herself.\n\n\u201cOne other there was with whom sometimes she had speech, and that was\nold Thomas Key, maltster and trusty servant in general matters of the\nPriory. Him she had known in happier days when he was a tenant of the\nCaillys at Trumpington. Her family was too proud and too pious to\nremember the disgraced nun, and they never visited her; but from Thomas\nshe learnt something of home and the outside world.\n\n\u201cThen came the dreadful year when the pestilence raged in Cambridge\ntown. The nuns had been used to get leave from the Prioress to go out\ninto the town, but there was no gadding now. The gate was closely\nbarred, and none were admitted from outside except Thomas Key. We\ncarried the Host in procession about the Nuns\u2019 Croft and--laud be to\nthe saints!--it protected our precincts from the contagion. And while\nthe sinful world without died like the beasts that perish, we sat\nsecure, but frightened, in our cloister, and blessed our glorious saint\nfor extending the protection of her prayers over the pious few who did\nher service in St Radegund\u2019s.\n\n\u201cYou have heard how the parish clergy died that year. One, two,\nsometimes three died in one parish, and the Bishop found it hard to\nprovide successors. Boys that had barely taken the tonsure a week\nbefore were sent in haste to anoint the sick and bury the dead in\nplaces where the plague had left an unshepherded flock. Sir John Dekyn,\npriest of St Peter\u2019s church on the hill, was one that died, and his\nsuccessor did not live a fortnight after him. Then we heard from Thomas\nKey that a mere youth had taken the place, one Sir Nicholas of the\nShelford De Frevile family, who had but lately been ordered priest at\nEly. And we were told that he worked with a feverous zeal among the\npoor, the sick, and the dying of his parish.\n\n[Illustration: _The Chancel Squint._]\n\n\u201cNow when this news was brought to sister Margery by Thomas Key, it\nwas to her as a summons from death to life. Her eye brightened and\nher cheek glowed when she heard of the heroic goodness of this young\npriest. While the sisters shuddered and shrank at each morning\u2019s fatal\nnews, she was consumed with a passionate desire to know what was\npassing in the plague-stricken town, and she plied my mother and Thomas\nKey with incessant questionings. \u2018Who was sick of the townsfolk? Were\nany of the clergy visited? How went it with the poor in St Peter\u2019s,\nwhere the pestilence was hottest?\u2019 For some weeks she heard that the\nlight burned still at night in St Peter\u2019s parsonage, and that the\npriest was unscathed, incessant in his ministrations and blessed by his\nparishioners. And it seemed as though the sickness was abating.\n\n\u201cThen, late one afternoon in early August, there came a call for\nMargery. Thomas Key brought it, and whether it was his own tidings, or\na message from some other, I cannot say; Margery never told me. But\nthis I know, that she took me apart in the cloister and spoke to me,\nand she was terribly moved and her voice was choked. \u2018Little Alice,\u2019\nshe said, \u2018as you love me, get me the gate-key after Lauds to-night.\nIt is life or death to me to go out into the town. Only do it, and say\nnothing--no, not to your mother.\u2019 Young as I was, I knew how the nuns\nwere used to humour my mother into letting them pass the gate; but that\nwas in day-time. At night, in our besieged state, with the death-bells\ntolling all around, it seemed a terrible thing to venture. But I asked\nno questions. Say it was the recklessness of a girl--say it was the\nlove that I bore to Margery. I stole the key and gave it to her after\nsundown.\n\n\u201cWhat happened afterwards I will tell you as it was told to me by\nThomas Key, who waited for her outside the gate. They passed along the\ndark, deserted streets. The plague-fires burnt low in the middle of the\nroadway, but there were none to tend them, and no living thing they saw\nbut the starving dogs, herded at barred doors. They crossed the bridge\nand mounted to St Peter\u2019s church. The priest\u2019s manse--you know it--is a\nlow house next the church. A white rose, still in flower, clambered on\nits walls, and, half hidden by its sprays, a taper gleamed through the\nopen window; but there was no sound of life within. They pushed open\nthe door and entered.\n\n\u201cStretched on his pallet, forsaken and untended, lay the young priest\nof St Peter\u2019s, the pangs of death upon him. Margery threw herself on\nher knees by his bed-side, and Thomas watched and waited. For a time\nthere was silence, for Margery had no voice to pray. Only at times the\ndying man grumbled and wandered in his talk; but little he said that\nThomas understood.\n\n\u201cThen after a long time, he stirred himself uneasily and uttered one\nword, \u2018Margery.\u2019 And she--alas the day!--put out her arm and laid it on\nhis shoulder. In an instant the dying man half raised himself on his\nbed and turned his eyes on her, and there was recognition in them. And\none arm he threw about her neck, and felt blindly for the fair locks\nthat had been shorn long since, and he said heavily and painfully,\n\u2018Margery, _belle amie_, let us go to the pool above the mill, where the\ngreat pike lie, and sun and shadow lie on the deep water.\u2019 So Thomas\nknew that they were boy and girl again by the old mill at Trumpington.\n\n\u201cThat was all, and the end came soon. They two laid him decently\nbeneath his white sheet, and Margery plucked two white roses from the\nspray that straggled across his window, and laid them on the dead man\u2019s\nbreast. So they left him, with the candle still burning out into the\ndark.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cThere was a horrible dread in St Radegund\u2019s when, four days later,\nsister Margery sickened of the pestilence; and it was worse when we\nlearnt soon after that Thomas Key was visited--then that he was dead.\nThat was the beginning of our sorrows. You have heard, Lady Prioress,\nhow three sisters died before August was out, how most of the others\ndeserted the house, and some never returned to it. Our prayers were\nunheard, and to us who remained it seemed as if the saints slept, or\nGod were dead.\n\n\u201cSo it happened that when the plague abated, and the first meeting\nwas held in St Radegund\u2019s Chapter-house, about St Luke\u2019s day in the\nautumn, there were only three to attend it--the Prioress, the Sacrist\n(Emma Denton), and Margery Cailly. For--wonderful it seems--Margery,\nwho least needed to live, was the one spared of those who were taken\nwith the pestilence. Presently some old sisters returned, and new\nones took the place of the departed. But the sword of the pestilence\ncut off the memory of the old days, and the sins and sufferings, the\nvirtues and the victories of the former sisterhood were a forgotten\ndream when the cloister filled again. So when Emma Denton passed into\nher lethargy, and Margery Cailly earnestly petitioned to fill her place\nin the Sacristy, there was not a sister to question her character and\ndevoutness.\n\n\u201cNot yesterday, but forty years ago, Margery Cailly passed out of life;\nfor you know that, save to me, she has spoken few words since. And\nthough I have waited on her for most of those years she never breathed\nto me the name of Nicholas De Frevile, never hinted at the story of her\nunhappy girlhood. But once in the springtime, just after she entered\nher Sacrist prison-house, she entreated me to plant a white rose-bush\non the grave of the young priest of St Peter\u2019s. I did so, and have\nrenewed it since, and one day, by your grace, I shall plant a spray\nof the same roses where she lies apart from him. I have confessed my\nwrong in stealing the key and bringing death into the cloister. If\nyou can forgive me, so; if not, all I ask is that you let your sinful\nservant depart in peace.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a curious aperture in the outer northern wall of the chancel\nof the nuns\u2019 church which is now Jesus College Chapel. If it is\nexamined its purpose is evident. It was the lychnoscope, through which\nthe Sacrist watched by night the light before the High Altar. It is the\nsole abiding memorial of Margery Cailly, Sacrist of St Radegund.\n\n[Illustration: Prosperum iter facias]\n\n\n\n\n                              PRINTED BY\n                         W. HEFFER & SONS LTD.\n                           104, HILLS ROAD,\n                          CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND.\n\n\n\n                          Transcriber\u2019s Notes\n\nErrors in punctuation have been fixed.\n\nPage 63: \u201cMy heart bleed\u201d changed to \u201cMy heart bleeds\u201d\n\nPage 78: \u201cpardonable strategem\u201d changed to \u201cpardonable stratagem\u201d\n\nPage 86: \u201cI thing she\u201d changed to \u201cI think she\u201d","title":"Tedious brief tales of Granta and Gramarye","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":30497}