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It came in a chapter on Okehampton, buried between a lengthy discussion of a
white-breasted bird credited with being a harbinger of death and a song, given
in the vernacular, about a young man who, vexed because his sheep had run
away, knacked his old vayther on the head and was condemned to hang.
The gold story was given as follows:
Some years ago a great fraud was committed in the neighbourhood. It was
rumoured that gold was to be found in the gozen the refuse from the mines. All
who had old mines on their land sent up specimens to London, and received
reports that there was a specified amount of gold in what was forwarded. Some,
to be sure that there was no deception, went up with their specimens and saw
them ground, washed, and analysed, and the gold extracted. So large orders
were sent up for gozen-crushing machines. These came down, were set to work,
and no gold was then found. The maker of the machines had introduced gold-dust
into the water that was used in the washing of the crushed stone.
Gold fraud.
All my nerves tingled. This was not precisely what I had been looking for to
make the pieces fall into place gozen laundering and the sale of a large
number of machines did not go far enough but by God I knew that something
about the concept of gold fraud was the key.
What, I did not know.
I devoured the rest of the book, but again, Baring-Gould had finished playing
with that shiny idea and did not return to it, not within those covers. He did
mention using the idea in a novel, but I doubted the usefulness of a fictional
development of gozen laundering. I felt like throwing the volume across the
room.
I did not. Instead, I dutifully went back and picked my way over Pethering s
remarks, the myriad tiny scratchings of his own mania. He knew nothing about
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gold, nothing about the moor, nothing about scholarship at all, I soon
decided. Nearly every remark reverted to Druidical evidence, and whenever
Baring-Gould wrote a criticism of the doctrine, it set off a tirade so intense
that Pethering had taken to writing between the lines of print to fit it all
in.
Long before I reached the end of the book, my nerve broke, and I did end up
throwing the book against the wall, upsetting the cat and bending the book s
cover irreparably. I put on my coat and went for a long walk in the freezing
air, and in the course of the walk I came to a reluctant decision: Despite the
fragile state of his health, Baring-Gould should have to be asked about gold
fraud.
I went to see Mrs Elliott when I returned, finding her as usual in the
kitchen.
I need to talk to Mr Baring-Gould, Mrs Elliott, just for a few minutes. Could
you please let me know when he s awake?
I ll not have you upsetting him, she declared, the unerring mother hen,
obviously still feeling the effects of the invasion of snotty-nosed children.
I didn t do so before, I pointed out, and I shall try my best not to do so
now, but it concerns what he brought us here to do. Ultimately, it is in his
own interest.
She seemed to find this argument specious, for which I could not blame her. It
was clearly self-serving. However, grudgingly she allowed that when he had
eaten his supper (which he would do upstairs and alone) she would ask if he
could see me briefly. I thanked her, and told her I would be in his study.
There I worked, pulling books from the shelves, thumbing methodically through
them looking for further tales of auric crime and finding nothing more than
dust. Rosemary came to tell me my own dinner was ready, and I ate it with a
book in front of me, scanning each page, unaware of its contents aside from a
lack of the word gold. It was a tedious and no doubt pointless way of doing
research, and it would take a very long time to go through the ninety or more
books of his that I had not yet read, but it gave me something to do while I
waited.
Unfortunately, the waiting was prolonged by Baring-Gould falling asleep over
his supper. Mrs Elliott refused to wake him, telling me firmly that he was
sure to awaken refreshed in two or three hours, or perhaps four, and he would
surely speak to me then.
In an agony of frustration I returned to the endless shelves, feeling like
Hercules faced with his task in the stables. Rosemary silently brought me
coffee at nine, and again before she went to bed at eleven. Jittering,
unkempt, and black-handed from the books, I waited.
At midnight I heard footsteps in the silent house. Mrs Klliott s tread sounded
on the stairway outside the study door, and faded, going into the kitchen.
When she came out, I was at the study door, waiting.
Come, dear, she said cheerfully, and then, Oh my, you do look a little the
worse for wear. Never mind, two minutes with the rector and then you can have
a nice wash and into bed.
Grimly, I followed her up the stairs and to Baring-Gould s bedroom, and there
I waited while she gave him his hot drink and medicine and plumped his pillows
and chattered cheerfully until my hands tingled with wanting to pitch her out
the window.
In the end it was Baring-Gould who broke the impasse. The light from the
single candle was not strong enough for his old eyes to pick me out, but I
must have moved, for he craned his head forward and squinted at where I stood.
Who is that? he asked sharply.
It is I, sir, I said, and stepped into the candle s glow.
Mary, it s very late. Surely you re too young to begin this habit of broken
nights.
She has a question to ask you, Rector, put in Mrs Elliott, and to my relief
took herself out of the door with the hot-water bottle.
Come, then, Mary. Sit down where I can see you, and ask. It must be
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important, not to wait until the morning. I sat down as indicated, on the bed
beside him.
I don t know how important it is, just vexatious, because I can t find any
more information. In your book on Dartmoor you mention that gold may be found
in the gravel streams of the moor.
Did I? How very irresponsible of me, he said with a complete lack of either
interest or concern.
Has it ever been found? I persisted.
Never. Ridiculous thought. I did use it in the Guavas novel, for the romance
of it, but I don t believe anyone has ever actually filled so much as a single
goose-quill from the soil of the moor. The closest to gold I have ever seen in
a lifetime of wandering Dartmoor is the moss Schistostega osmundacea, which
gleams with sparks of gold when seen in a certain light.
I see. But, in your book on Devon, the first volume of A Book of the West,
you describe a gold fraud, which involved washing gold into samples of the
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