North Yorkshire Folk Tales (4 page)

‘There really is treasure!’ he breathed. Walking carefully, trying to avoid the huge rocks, he moved towards the light. On the table was a great horn of ivory, bound with silver and inlaid with gold. Next to it was a magnificent sword in a richly decorated scabbard. Jewels flashed in the hilt: blood-red rubies, amethysts the colour of violets, topazes as yellow as the sun.

Potter Thompson’s hand went out to grasp it, but it seemed so magical that he did not quite dare. Surely, these treasures were not for a poor man like himself? And, more importantly, surely they were guarded by someone or something? He looked around fearful of some unseen threat and as his eyes passed over the rock-strewn floor, he realised that the stones were not rocks at all, but men, huge sleeping men in armour. The strange sound was their soft rhythmic breathing.

In a sudden flash Potter knew who they were. His grandmother had often told him how, after the Battle of Camlann, King Arthur and his men had been put into a magic sleep inside a cave to await the day when they would arise to help Britain in the hour of her greatest need. He could remember clearly the firelight flickering on his grandmother’s face and hear her soft old voice respond when he asked the location of the cave. ‘Why, some folk think it were right here in Richmond! In a big cavern under the castle!’

He was so excited that he actually laughed, but so alarmingly the sound echoed off the walls that he was afraid it would wake the sleepers. Instinctively, he knew that if there was one thing he must not do, it was to awaken them. Their breathing was soft, but it was the only soft thing about them for it was clear that they were men of war. Each man was at least seven feet tall. They were wearing coats of mail with their swords laid to their hands and their shields under their heads. Helmets, some ornamented with boars’ tusks and some with horse tails, lay nearby. Their hands were the scarred fists of warriors and their faces, though relaxed in sleep, were stern. The magic in which they were wrapped was so strong that Potter Thompson could feel it prickling his skin, making him shiver.

Lying in the centre of the men was another, larger and older than the rest. He was clean-shaven, and had such an air of sorrow about him that Potter Thompson felt his own eyes filling with tears as he looked at him. On the man’s head was a golden crown. There was no mistaking him.

‘King Arthur his very self!’ breathed Potter Thompson. ‘And me, Potter Thompson! I’ve seen him! Me, who’s never done aught before! Just think of it! So much for your opinion!’ he said, thinking of his wife. ‘You can keep your great flapping trap shut from now on!’ He began to imagine telling her of his discovery and straight away his joy diminished. ‘She’ll never credit it,’ he thought. ‘No more will the others.’ He could almost hear the jeering of his drinking mates. ‘I’ll have to take something back with me as proof.’ But what?

The obvious choice lay on the table. ‘Excalibur!’ he gasped. ‘I’ll take ‘em Excalibur!’

He turned again to the table, holding his breath as he put out his hand. As he grasped the hilt, it was as though all the years of his adulthood flowed backwards and he was a daring schoolboy again. To draw Excalibur! What an adventure!

As he began to ease the sword out of its scabbard, all of the sleepers began to stir and breathe more quickly. In terror, he thrust it back again. After a brief, horrible moment, the sleepers relaxed again and the regular breathing filled the cavern once more.

Reluctantly Potter Thompson realised that he would have to abandon Excalibur. ‘I’ll take that horn at any rate,’ he said to himself, reaching out for it. This time it was worse. As soon as he touched it, the warriors began to stir again. Some muttered in their sleep and one or two even began to sit up and fumble for their swords.

It was too much for Potter Thompson. He dropped the horn, turned and ran. Down the long tunnel he crashed, blundering into walls and banging his head. As he ran he heard a voice singing, though whether it was behind him or in the walls themselves he could not tell. The words remained burned into his memory:

Potter Thompson, Potter Thompson

If thou hadst either drawn

The sword or wound the horn

Then thou hadst been the luckiest man

That ever yet was born!

His wife was amazed when he came home shaking and bleeding from a hundred scrapes and scratches. For once she did not scold him but put him to bed with a hot brick at his feet. He slept like a log for a whole day.

His wife’s kindness proved just a temporary lapse, but Potter Thompson himself was never quite the same man again, though his life seemed to go back to its normal dull routine. His friends did not exactly believe his story, but they could not help feeling a little proud of him and there were few weeks when he was not to be found sitting in the alehouse, a free pint in his fist, being encouraged to tell his tale to wondering strangers.

‘You wait,’ he used to say to his friends, ‘one day I’ll go back in there and bring you proof!’ But he could never find the entrance again and they are all still waiting …

On top of Richmond rock stands not just the town of Richmond but a fine medieval castle, built, it is said, by William the Conqueror. Long after it ceased to be used to guard the city it got a new lease of life as the home of the local militia. A barracks was built inside the curtain walls and the echoes of trumpets were once again thrown back by the ancient stone.

Everyone knew Potter Thompson’s story by this time, though he himself was long dead. Children told each other about it and spent the summer (as my own children did 200 years later) searching for the entrance to his wonderful cave. His was not the only story they told each other, though – there was said to be a treasure hidden beneath the Gold Hole tower and the secret tunnel that leads to Easby Abbey. If only you could get into the castle itself, they thought, who knows what you might find? If only the soldiers were not there …

The soldiers heard these stories too and were just as keen as the children to search for some way into the secret places of the rock. One day a group of soldiers was sent down to the dungeons to clear space for the storage of gunpowder. The opportunity to explore was too good to miss: they had plenty of candles with them and, once they had moved some of the rubbish accumulated over centuries, they started to search in good earnest for secret passages.

‘What would you do if we found the cave? Take the sword or blow the horn?’Fred asked Bill.

‘I don’t mind,’ said Bill, ‘as long we wake up some decent soldiers. Happen they’ll fight the French instead of us.’

‘Well, I hope those old fellers down there know how to fire a musket, then!’ laughed Fred.

‘I don’t want to wake the old knights,’ chipped in the twelve-year-old drummer boy named Georgie, who was searching with them. ‘I just want to become the luckiest person that ever was born!’ They went from cellar to cellar, dungeon to dungeon, lower and lower until they could go no further.

‘I reckon we’ve had it now,’ said another of the soldiers. ‘There’s no more doors. Let’s get back. It’s almost muster time.’

‘What’s that behind that old pillar?’ said another. They held their candles closer.

‘Damn me if it isn’t a hole!’ said Bill. ‘And look, you can just see that it’s living rock beyond, not squared stones!’ They all knelt and jostled for a good view.

Fred whistled. ‘I think it widens out. This is it, lads. We’ve found the way in!’

‘And how do you think we’re going to explore it, mate?’ Fred said, gloomily. ‘You’ll never squeeze your fat belly in there, and neither will I!’ The men all looked at each other in dismay. One or two lay down and tried to edge themselves through the narrow hole, but it was a tight fit and no one dared take the risk of ending up in the dark, unable to squeeze back out.

‘Who’s the smallest of us?’ asked Fred. All eyes slowly turned to Georgie. He was certainly smaller than any of the adults, and rather puny for his age.

‘Now’s your chance, lad!’ said Bill. ‘Go in and bring us back some treasure!’

Georgie looked at the black hole and gulped. ‘Isn’t that the trumpet for muster?’ he stammered. ‘I’ll go tomorrow.’

‘Nay, lad,’ the others said. ‘Tomorrow’ll be too late. We’ll never be let down here again. It’s now or never. Where’s your courage?’

‘Where’s
your
courage!’ he retorted, but at the same time he was becoming more excited, for it was true, he was the only one small enough to squeeze through the hole. What a story to tell his mates! He’d be a hero. ‘Well, all right,’ he said, ‘but I need some snap and some candles.’

A soldier ran to fetch what he needed, sneaking a loaf of bread and a black bottle of beer from the quartermaster’s stores. The others added whatever candles they had left. Soon Georgie’s feet slithered out of sight and the men pushed the pack after him.

‘What’s it like?’ they asked.

‘I can stand up,’ came the muffled reply. ‘Wait while I light the candle.’ They heard him striking his flint and steel, and a few minutes later they all heard him say, ‘There’s a tunnel goes right on, horrible and dark. I’m frit though. I’m coming back.’ The soldiers groaned.

‘Wait, lad,’ said Bill. ‘That’s no good. Don’t you want to know where it goes? Look, I’ll push your drum through. You can play that, marching like, and it’ll stop you being frit. Give us a few minutes to go outside and with any luck, we’ll be able to hear you. That way we can follow you above ground and see where you stop.’ He pushed the drum through the hole and heard it bang against the tunnel wall as Georgie slung it around his neck.

‘How can I hold the candle and drum as well?’

‘Stick the candle on your hat like a miner,’ someone suggested. ‘Come on, Georgie. We’ll all be so proud of you. Just think, no one has gone inside this rock since the days of Potter Thompson, and he were never as brave and clever as you.’

‘Aye, I’ve done that then,’ said Georgie, after a moment. ‘Stuck it on the peak of my cap. I can see better now. Well, I’ll be off. I’ll come back here if I get stuck. I’m going to beat the Advance.’

He began to drum, playing the call known as the Advance: rat-tat-tat
ta
-tat rat-tat-tat and the listening soldiers heard him move off down the tunnel. They ran up to the light of the courtyard and listened. Yes! Distantly they could still hear the drum below their feet: rat-tat-tat
ta
-tat rat-tat-tat. It headed across the yard and through the gate into the town.

‘Happen he’s found the tunnel that goes to Easby,’ Bill guessed. But alas, they were all soldiers with duties inside the walls of the castle, not free men who might go wherever they wanted. The sentry on guard at the gate refused to let them leave, despite their pleas, and their officer, coming up, threatened them all with a flogging if they did not get to muster immediately.

In the evening when they were off duty, they tried to locate the sound of the drum again, wandering about the ancient town, pressing their ears to walls or the ground. Folk stared at them, but they did not care. Every so often, they would hear a rat-tat-tat, always in a different place, as though the boy were wandering round and round. Now it was right next to the castle, now near the town gate or beneath the Buck Inn. Fred sneaked back down to the cellars and shouted himself hoarse down the narrow hole into which the poor lad had disappeared, but there was no response.

The soldiers tried the next day and the next. The drumming, when they caught the sound of it, seemed still to continue as strongly as before. It was as though Georgie needed no rest. Day after day, they pursued the sound, quite prepared to try digging him out if only he would stop, but he never ceased to beat or to move forward. Georgie the drummer boy was never seen again by anyone in Richmond, nor by his distraught family in Swaledale.

As the years went by, local folk would hear the sound of the drum from time to time and would put their fingers in their ears as their blood ran cold; surely, the poor little lad must have died of hunger and thirst long ago? It is said that even now on still winter evenings, when the shops are shut and all the visitors and their cars have gone home, you may hear, deep beneath you feet, the sound of a lonely drum playing the Advance: rat-tat-tat
ta
-tat rat-tat-tat, as Georgie continues his solitary march …

Long before the Paralympic games, disabled people had to develop great physical skill and stamina just to survive. With only simple aids, such as crutches, they had to find work, or beg, or starve. There were few alternatives, for life was very hard. It is not surprising, therefore, that when Lame Haverah of Knaresborough met John of Gaunt by chance he grasped his opportunity with both hands.