Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/634

 626  ‘She false!—she callous and careless! Oh, great Heaven!’ he muttered.

“In a minute more we were in the middle of the Plaza, kneeling before an open grave, close to which were two rough coffins of unpainted wood. These were to receive our quivering bodies. In front of us was drawn up a firing-party, who began to handle their pieces. Our eyes were bandaged, in spite of our expostulations. We shook hands once more. I said some words of farewell, but Arthur did not answer.

I heard the clatter of hoofs as the General and his staff approached. The officer in command called out his orders. I heard the muskets rattle. ‘Fire!’ was the word, and the report of the muskets followed. I knelt, unharmed. A long pause followed. Then my eyes were unbound, and I found some one supporting me—Mr. Acworth.

‘It’s over now, Slingsby: the volley was but one of blank cartridge. When the General spared your lives it was on condition that you should suffer this cruel trick; but now it is over. Heavens! What has happened? Lake has fainted!’

“Worse than that—he was dead—stone dead, though not slain by bullets. The poor lad’s heart, overtortured, had given way. That is why I left Mexico—pah! I hate the very name of it. Tom, let’s go upstairs, and ask your wife for a cup of tea.”

“ search as for hid treasures” is an expression which loses much of its strong significance when it falls on English ears. It is so long since invasion or oppression rendered hiding in the earth necessary, that the idea of such concealed wealth or of earnest search for it has died out amongst us.

Very recently, however, a treasure trove has occurred even in our long-tilled, tunnel-burrowed England. A month or two ago, a labourer, ploughing at Mountfield, in Sussex, raised to the surface a chain of golden links a yard long, attached to each end of which was a horn or “trumpet,” as he called it, of the same precious metal. The peasant showed it to his master, who gave no directions about it, only observing that he did not know what it was; and Butcher retained his trouvaille. A neighbour, called Silas Thomas, examined it, and as when cleaned and polished it shone brightly, he took it for brass, and offered sixpence a pound to the finder for it. This offer William Butcher accepted, selling 11 lbs. of solid gold, worth 550l., for 5s. 6d.

Silas Thomas carried the chain to Hastings, and showed it to his brother-in-law, Stephen Willett, a cab driver, who, having been a gold digger in California, at once recognised the value of the prize, and purchased it of his kinsman. He then sold the gold to Messrs. Brown and Wingrove, of Cheapside, for 529l, and invested 300l. of the money in a Hastings bank.

But the fact of his possessing so much money, and the amount of ready cash exhibited by himself and his brother-in-law, roused suspicion.

Another piece of the metal which Butcher had found was shown to a blacksmith, who, testing it with aqua fortis, found it was gold. The affair was talked of; and finally Mr. Egerton, the Lord of the Manor, where the trouvaille was made, communicated the circumstance to the Treasury.

Inquiries were instantly instituted. The notes paid into the Hastings bank were traced back, and found to have been received by Willett, from Messrs. Glyn’s bank, in payment of a cheque given by the gold dealers. Thus the secret of Willett’s sudden wealth was discovered, and the buried treasure traced.

By an old law of Edward I.’s reign, treasure trove becomes the property of the Crown, if, after an inquest held on it, no owner is found in existence. The coroner of the Rape of Hastings was consequently called on to inquire touching this long-buried treasure, and he pronounced it the property of the Queen.

We are not told whether the chain and horns have escaped the melting-pot or not. It is to be feared, however, that they have not; as mention is made of “three bars of the gold, which have been preserved and examined by several eminent antiquaries, by whom it is believed the treasure has lain hidden in the field for 2000 years.”

It was, it appears, a Druidical ornament. Probably part of the sacerdotal habiliments on festival days. With those golden horns the high priest of the Britons may have called them to the solemn gathering of the mistletoe, or to the awful human sacrifice by which they would have averted the invasion that caused the final hiding of the golden chain and its appendages. What a loss for our Museum! Ulterior proceedings are, we understand, to be taken against Willett for his fraudulent conduct.

But whilst we blame this man, who could grow rich by imposing on an ignorant neighbour, we can scarcely wonder that the concealment of valuable treasure trove should be common.

It is difficult to make the peasantry comprehend manorial rights. A man who finds a treasure in his own ground, and that treasure, one which can have no living owner, naturally looks on himself as its rightful possessor. He has probably never heard of King Edward’s law, and a natural sense of justice does not guide him rightly in the matter.

If a liberal reward were given—nearly the metal value of the trouvaille—it is quite possible that we might have become possessed of many precious relics which now are broken up and consigned to the melting-pot.

A circumstance tending to prove this occurred while the Danish antiquary, Professor Worsoae, was in Edinburgh, some few years ago. A man came to him, and with much secresy offered him a splendid armlet, a massive serpent coil of great value, which he said he had found in his own field, and which he wished to sell privately, as otherwise it would be taken from him. The Professor declined the purchase under such circumstances, though the bracelet was proffered at half its real value; but he gave information of the discovery to his antiquarian friends in Edinburgh, and every effort was made instantly to trace the