Tedious brief tales of Granta and GramaryeGray, Arthur
General
Tedious brief tales of Granta and Gramarye
Gray, Arthur
Ghost stories, English; Jesus College (University of Cambridge) -- Fiction; Short stories, English
If in the same volume the chapter in question is referred to, a
singular fact discloses itself. Certain words in the text are
underscored in red pencil, and fingers, inked in the margin, are
directed to the lines in which they occur. Taken in their consecutive
order these words run: “Ecce murus forinsecus ... ad portam quae
respiciebat viam orientalem ... mensus est a facie portae extrinsecus
ad orientem et aquilonem quinque cubitorum ... hoc est gazophylacium.”
This may be taken to mean, “Look at the outside wall ... at the gate
facing towards the eastern road ... he measured from the gate outwards
five cubits (7¹⁄₂ feet) towards the north-east ... there is the
treasure.”
The outer wall of the College, the wood-yard gate and the road through
the Nuns’ cemetery must at once have suggested themselves to Richard
Harrison, had he lived to see his friend’s bequest, and he must have
taken it as an instruction from the testator that a treasure known
to both parties was hidden in the spot indicated, close to Badcoke’s
chamber. And the first text cited must have conveyed to him that his
friend, in some deadly terror, had transferred the treasure thither
from the place where the two friends had originally laid it. But
the message never reached Harrison, and it is quite certain that no
treasure has been sought or found in that spot. If the Canterbury or
any other treasure was deposited there by Badcoke it rests there still.
To those who are curious to know more of this matter I would say:
first, ascertain minutely from Loggan’s seventeenth-century plan of the
College the position of the wood-yard gate; and, secondly, which indeed
should be firstly, make absolutely certain that John Badcoke was not
mystifying posterity by an elaborate jest.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cooper, _Annals_, I., p. 393.
[2] _The Suppression of the Monasteries_ (Camden Society’s
Publications), p. 90.
[3] Cooper, _Annals_, II. p. 29.
The True History of Anthony Ffryar
The world, it is said, knows nothing of its greatest men. In our
Cambridge microcosm it may be doubted whether we are better informed
concerning some of the departed great ones who once walked the confines
of our Colleges. Which of us has heard of Anthony Ffryar of Jesus?
History is dumb respecting him. Yet but for the unhappy event recorded
in this unadorned chronicle his fame might have stood with that of
Bacon of Trinity, or Harvey of Caius. _They_ lived to be old men:
Ffryar died before he was thirty--his work unfinished, his fame unknown
even to his contemporaries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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