Bones in the Barrow by Josephine Bell

probably in the Middle Ages, we thought, from a few much later remains of tools we found there. Looking for gold, as usual. We left it and decided there was nothing of sufficient interest left on the site. It was about the time young Chambers discovered the Saxon farmhouse in the woods over at Flitton Marsh. The society had tumbled on something really thrilling, and Duckington Barrows have been out of fashion ever since.”
    â€œBut Mr. Hilton would not know that.”
    â€œHe would not.”
    The second pause was longer than the first. This time the vicar ended it, speaking more to himself than to his wife.
    â€œI shall send these bits of pottery to Jackson for an opinion. If they are genuine I will bring the report up at our next meeting. In the meantime I think we might go for a walk on the downs tomorrow and see how much damage Hilton has wrought on our site. Because we might have to go over it again.”
    â€œNot tomorrow,” said Mrs. Symonds briskly. “I’ve got Miss Wills giving a special demonstration of glovemaking at the Institute. It was hard enough to get her at all, and tomorrow is her only free date for months. Everyone has been warned to turn up. So I can’t possibly miss it just to go for a walk with you, can I?”
    She looked at him lovingly, and the vicar reached for her hand across the gap between their two armchairs.
    â€œI suppose not. Then I will put off my walk until later in the week. I should like to have you with me.”
    â€œI should like to come. But I won’t have you digging by yourself and straining another muscle. Let’s wait till Saturday and get Robin to come along and some of the others.”
    Thanks to the vicar’s enthusiasm and Mrs. Symonds’s voluble persistence the whole of Duckington heard of the project, and a considerable number of amateur archaeologists mustered at the week end outside the vicarage and tramped up the down to the formerly abandoned site. They were followed by a small crowd of interested onlookers, and by a reporter from the local Press who had listened to Joe’s description at the Royal Arms of this sequel to his girl friend’s misadventure with a piece of pottery.
    The dig was handsomely rewarding. Mr. Hilton’s neatly replaced turfs were once more taken off, and his excavation continued down the length of the barrow. Former diggings, including the original desecration, had destroyed the lay-out of the grave. But there were finds, in the shape of an ulna and radius from a left arm, and a breast bone with rib cartilages attached. Besides these human relics Mr. Symonds himself sifted out two more fragments of pottery.
    If Hilton had found these, the vicar thought, perhaps his jug would have been complete, and his loss in consequence the greater. But a few days later the vicar read a letter from Jackson, the expert to whom he had forwarded the later finds as well as Daisy’s fragments. And he then decided that if Hilton had indeed found them, he would not have left any of the valuable material standing about on a small hotel bedroom table, under a window. For the jug was genuine and rather rare. A pity, Jackson wrote, that it had been broken in getting it out. This was an implied criticism of the local society that made Mr. Symonds smile ruefully. There was a similar specimen in the British Museum, the expert said, but he knew of none other found in this particular type of burial. He suggested that the bones found at the same time as the later fragments be sent to a friend of his called Wilson, who would be particularly interested to see them. He pointed out that the jug was of a period several thousand years later than finds dug out of the neighbouring barrows; this suggested a later use of the same site. It was strange that they had not been discovered before, as they must have been nearer the surface all the time.
    Mr. Symonds, on receiving this letter, again used his own initiative as secretary