The Salisbury Manuscript Read Free Page B

noticed the inscription before without paying much attention to it or wondering greatly at its meaning. But, one morning, walking briskly down the cloister, he stopped and read the words on the tablet more carefully and saw how they had an odd application to his discovery.
    The inscription was from Chapter 11 of Ecclesiastes. When he got back to his house, the man wrote out the inscription from memory. He stared at it for a long time. He realized that the verse provided not only a strange allusion to his discovery but an even stranger one to himself. The man wasn’t especially superstitious but he’d grown into the habit of looking for little signs and markers. It was enough to determine his course. He would go back to Todd’s Mound and open up the cavity in the burrow once more and bring out the objects.
    As soon as he was free of duties – the next afternoon as it transpired – he slipped out of the cathedral close and, once on the edge of the city, he donned the rough coat and hat which might cause him to be mistaken for an itinerant labourer and walked rapidly into the surrounding country. The sky was overcast and he was glad that there were few people about. The only person who had taken any notice of him was the shepherd striding downhill on the western slope of Todd’s Mound.
    Now, a couple of hours later when it was dark outside, he sat in the stuffy burrow by the light of the oil lamp, hefting the sack which contained the treasure hoard. He took another swig from his flask. He had almost forgotten that someone, or something, had intruded on the burrow in his absence. Then the sight of the bones casually thrown to one side reminded him that the burial chamber had been visited. The idea of waiting for first light was not an appealing one.
    He prepared to leave, looking round to make sure that he’d gathered up all his implements. He doused the oil lamp. He waited while his eyes adjusted to the near-absolute dark inside the burial-chamber. The entrance showed as a slightly less dark shape in the gloom. He unscrewed the flask for a final draught. Whether it was that he was no longer so absorbed in his task or whether the absence of light had somehow sharpened his senses, the man abruptly stopped in the action of returning the flask to his pocket and listened.
    What was that sound from outside? A kind of rushing noise. The wind, no doubt. And that flicker of movement across the mouth of the burrow, like a curtain being drawn? The man scrabbled to get clear of the confined space as if afraid that the entrance was about to be sealed up for ever. He emerged into the open on his hands and knees, drawing in lungfuls of cold air. Still crouching, he looked from side to side. Nothing to see beyond the great bulk of the beech tree on the slope below him and the blotted shapes of the yews. The rain had stopped and the sky was clear apart from some scudding clouds and the starlight which shone stronger in the absence of the moon. He gazed up at the rapidly shifting sky and there came to him another line from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 11: he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap .
    The man reached back into the burrow and dragged out the bag containing his spoils. He stood up, momentarily unsteady on his feet after being confined for so long. He looked out at the few scattered lights of the city and the silhouette of the cathedral spire. He put the bag over his shoulder. It was heavy. He would be exhausted by the time he got back to the security of the close. He would have to take care returning through the town even though he would be threading its streets in the dead hours of morning. And he knew its streets and alleys well.
    The man was still standing near the entrance to the burial chamber. A few feet to his left was the branch which he had earlier thrown to one side. He was reluctant to leave the burrow exposed so he shuffled across to lay hold of the branch and tugged it back to conceal the entrance. Breathing deeply from