The Clay Pipe

By Harry Riley

(This story is fiction and resemblance to anyone living or dead is co-incidental)

“Are we there yet?”

Young Richard Parsons was getting too excited as he fidgeted on the back seat of his Uncle Bob’s shooting brake. This antique vehicle with its metal panels and polished wooden framing was an early form of estate car called ‘The Morris Traveller’ Richard loved this car with its spoked steering wheel, bulbous nose and rounded body, he thought of it as an old English bulldog, crouching and ready to pounce. He would have one just like it one day if they were still around. In the boot were a spade and a metal detector and they were off for a day’s hunting in Farmer Noake’s half-acre field by the water meadow at Findley Crags (an iron-age settlement.) Richard was ten years old and had been looking forward to this outing for weeks. They were now approaching Findley Village and this was a bright and cloudless summer day. They had permission from the

good-natured farmer to hunt for buried treasure and Richard’s head was brim full, dreaming of ancient swords, gold and silver coins.

Farmer Noakes had once stumbled upon a silver bracelet turned up by the plough, so they believed things were there, just waiting to be discovered. Uncle Bob had bought this new ‘Goldranger’ detector that could ignore the low value stuff like rusty nails and can-tops but would zone-in on any possible treasure-trove. They parked up in a lay-by and with Richard carrying the spade and Uncle Bob, clutching the detector; they swung open the five-barred gate into the grassy field.

Bob put on the headphones and with an absorbed look on his face, started quartering the field just as the salesman had instructed. Would they have beginners luck?

An hour later just as a ‘bored Richard’ was leaping over a deep waterlogged furrow, using the long handled spade as a vaulting pole, his uncle shouted out

“Hold it! We have something here.”

“What is it?”

“Shush! Quiet a minute! ‘Don’t know yet”

The sound emitting from the detector had changed from a constant tone to a more urgent beep-beep-beep.

“Here take this and give me the spade.”

Richard almost fell back into the water hole in his excitement…the hunt was on!

Uncle Bob was fit and went to work with a will. They soon had a sizeable hole and then the spade made a metallic clang. Within seconds a mud covered wooden box, the size of a small travellers case with metal strapping and clasp was brought to the surface and the catch forced open with a screwdriver. Inside was a folded piece of parchment bearing a family crest and written in what Bob explained was Latin and beneath that was a clay tobacco pipe. It was in good condition and very ornamental. The bowl of the pipe was deep and dark grey coloured, crafted at the front in the shape of an oriental man’s face with a long flowing beard and wearing a turban. The eyes were black and staring out of big white irises. The white stem was curved and slender with the tip of the mouthpiece made of yellow horn. One side of the bowl was embossed with the moon and stars and the other side featured an Arabic symbol.

Uncle bob, a life-long smoker himself, and a schoolteacher, described it as a ‘Jacob’ pipe, possibly European, about mid seventeen century and probably brought back to England by a seafaring man. He said the pipe had no real monetary value and Richard could have it as a keepsake or for blowing bubbles. In the meantime Bob would go and see an archaeologist friend of his to try and decipher the parchment. Richard was disgusted with the bubbles idea ‘that was a girl thing!’ and decided he would give the pipe to Emily, his younger sister. They found nothing else that day but a fortnight later Uncle Bob called on the Parsons, all of a fluster and asked to see the pipe. He had found out the meaning of the Latin message, it related to the antiquity of the pipe. To Richard’s parents he explained he had located the ancient family of Crosby-Smythe, by the crest on the parchment. The clay pipe had been the centre-piece of a family heirloom, an existing clay pipe collection and since it had been stolen over two centuries ago the family believed they were cursed, so much so that a ‘two hundred gold-sovereign reward’ was still on offer to the lucky finder (a substantial sum in today’s money.) As the curse went, all male heirs would die by the age of forty, and this had proved fatally true. Emily was instantly dispatched to retrieve the delicate artefact, being chased by ‘Waffles’ the pet spaniel. This item was eventually discovered deep in the garden sandpit, thankfully still intact. The full reward was paid and suitably shared out, the clay pipe was returned to pride of place in the collection and the cursed family looked forward to a blissful life of longevity and peaceful procreation.

End.