Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers | Page 2

of secreted treasure. Blow out all the

fingers at one puff, and you had the money.] such a one as tradition
tells us yet burns in Rochester Castle every St. Mark's Eve. Many are
the daring individuals who have watched in Gundulph's Tower, hoping
to find it, and the treasure it guards; but none of them ever did.
"This way, Emmanuel!" and a flame of peculiar radiance streamed
from her little finger as it pointed to the pathway leading to the
churchyard.
Saddleton shouldered his tools and followed in silence.
The cemetery of St. Bridget's was some half-mile distant from the
Clerk's domicile, and adjoined a chapel dedicated to that illustrious
lady, who, after leading but a so-so life, had died in the odor of sanctity.
Emmanuel Saddleton was fat and scant of breath, the mattock was
heavy, and the Saint walked too fast for him: he paused to take second
wind at the end of the first furlong.
"Emmanuel," said the holy lady, good-humoredly, for she heard him
puffing: "rest awhile Emmanuel, and I'll tell you what I want with you."
Her auditor wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and looked all
attention and obedience.
"Emmanuel," continued she "what did you and Father Fothergill, and
the rest of you, mean yesterday by burying that drowned man so close
to me? He died in mortal sin, Emmanuel; no shrift, no unction, no
absolution: why he might as well have been excommunicated. He
plagues me with his grinning, and I can't have any peace in my shrine.
You must howk him up again, Emmanuel."
"To be sure, madame,--my lady,--that is, your holiness," stammered
Saddleton, trembling at the thought of the task assigned him. "To be
sure, your ladyship; only--that is--"
"Emmanuel," said the saint, "you'll do my bidding; or it would be better
you had!" and her eye changed from a dove's eye to that of a hawk, and
a flash came from it as bright as the one from her little finger. The
Clerk shook in his shoes; and, again dashing the cold perspiration from
his brow, followed the footsteps of his mysterious guide.
The next morning all Chatham was in an uproar. The Clerk of St.
Bridget's had found himself at home at daybreak, seated in his own
armchair, the fire out,--and--the tankard of ale out too! Who had drunk
it?--where had he been?--how had he got home?--all was mystery!--he
remembered "a mass of things, but nothing distinctly;" all was fog and

fantasy. What he could clearly recollect was, that he had dug up the
Grinning Sailor, and that the Saint had helped to throw him into the
river again. All was thenceforth wonderment and devotion. Masses
were sung, tapers were kindled, bells were tolled; the monks of St.
Romuald had a solemn procession, the abbot at their head, the sacristan
at their tail, and the holy breeches of St. Thomas a Becket in the centre;
--Father Fothergill brewed a XXX puncheon of holy water. The Rood
of Gillingham was deserted; the chapel of Rainham forsaken; every one
who had a soul to be saved, flocked with his offering to St. Bridget's
shrine, and Emmanual Saddleton gathered more fees from the
promiscuous piety of that one week, than he had pocketed during the
twelve preceding months.
Meanwhile, the corpse of the ejected reprobate oscillated like a
pendulum between Sheerness and Gillingham Reach. Now borne by the
Medway into the Western Swale,--now carried by the refluent tide back
to the vicinity of its old quarters,--it seemed as though the River god
and Neptune were amusing themselves with a game of subaqueous
battledore, and had chosen this unfortunate carcass as a marine
shuttlecock. For some time the alternation was kept up with great spirit,
till Boreas, interfering in the shape of a stiffish "Nor'- wester," drifted
the bone (and flesh) of contention ashore on the Shurland domain,
where it lay in all the majesty of mud. It was soon discovered by the
retainers, and dragged from its oozy bed, grinning worse than ever.
Tidings of the godsend were of course carried instantly to the castle; for
the Baron was a very great man; and if a dun cow had flown across his
property unannounced by the warder, the Baron would have pecked
him, the said warder, from the topmost battlement into the bottommost
ditch,--a descent of peril, and one which "Ludwig the Leaper," or the
illustrious Trenck himself, might well have shrunk from encountering.
"An't please your lordship--" said Peter Periwinkle.
"No, villain! it does not please!" roared the Baron.
His lordship was deeply engaged with a peck of Faversham oysters,--he
doted on shellfish, hated interruption at meals, and had not yet
despatched more than twenty dozen of the "natives."
"There's a body, my lord, washed ashore in the lower