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[Illustration: "HE TOOK OFF HIS HAT AT THE LAST WORDS AND SWEPT IT, WITH
A FLOURISH, NEARLY TO THE GROUND." (_See page 217._)]
THE
HOUSE OF ARDEN
A STORY FOR CHILDREN
BY
E. NESBIT
AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF THE AMULET,"
"THE TREASURE SEEKERS," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY H. R. MILLAR
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
Adelphi Terrace
1908
TO
JOHN BLAND
Dymchurch, 1908.
(_All rights reserved._)
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
ARDEN'S LORD 13
CHAPTER II
THE MOULDIWARP 45
CHAPTER III
IN BONEY'S TIMES 76
CHAPTER IV
THE LANDING OF THE FRENCH 97
CHAPTER V
THE HIGHWAYMAN AND THE ---- 112
CHAPTER VI
THE SECRET PANEL 136
CHAPTER VII
THE KEY OF THE PARLOUR 162
CHAPTER VIII
GUY FAWKES 184
CHAPTER IX
THE PRISONERS IN THE TOWER 214
CHAPTER X
WHITE WINGS AND A BROWNIE 238
CHAPTER XI
DEVELOPMENTS 262
CHAPTER XII
FILMS AND CLOUDS 291
CHAPTER XIII
MAY-BLOSSOM AND PEARLS 308
CHAPTER XIV
THE FINDING OF THE TREASURE 327
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"HE TOOK OFF HIS HAT AT THE LAST WORDS AND SWEPT IT, WITH A
FLOURISH, NEARLY TO THE GROUND" _Frontispiece_
PAGE
"THEY WENT SLOWLY UP THE RED-BRICK-PAVED SIDEWALK" 25
"'AYE,' HE SAID, 'YOU'RE AN ARDEN, FOR SURE'" 35
"THEY WERE TURNING ITS PAGES WITH QUICK, ANXIOUS HANDS" 41
"THE CHILDREN WENT IN THE CARRIER'S CART" 55
"'HOITY-TOITY,' SAID THE OLD LADY, VERY SEVERELY; 'WE FORGET OUR
MANNERS, I THINK'" 73
"'I'VE BROUGHT YOU SOME TEA AND SUGAR,' SHE SAID" 89
"THE MOULDIWARP MADE A LITTLE RUN AND A LITTLE JUMP, AND ELFRIDA
CAUGHT IT" 95
"'DO YOU THINK THE FRENCH WILL LAND TOMORROW IN LYMCHURCH BAY?'
EDRED ASKED" 103
"THEY SAT DOWN ON THE CLOSE WHITE LINE OF DAISIES" 117
"'COME, SEE HOW THE NEW SCARF BECOMES THY BET. IS IT NOT VASTLY
MODISH?'" 121
"'IF YOU AIM AT ME YOU SHOOT THE CHILD'" 131
"BETTY HANDED HIM THE CANDLE" 137
"'NOW,' SAID A DOZEN VOICES, 'THE TRUTH, LITTLE MISS'" 143
"ELFRIDA WAS OBLIGED TO SHAKE HIM" 153
"EDRED AND THE BIG CHAIR FELL TO THE FLOOR" 159
"SHE SAW THAT THE NAME WAS 'E. TALBOT'" 167
"THE ROOM SEEMED FULL OF CIRCLING WINGS" 171
"A LADY IN CRIMSON AND ERMINE WITH A GOLD CROWN" 181
"THE WALLS SEEMED TO TREMBLE AND SHAKE AND GO CROOKED" 193
"'THOU'RT A FINE PAGE, INDEED, MY DEAR SON,' SAID THE LADY.
'STAND ASIDE AND TAKE MY TRAIN'" 199
"OLD PARROT-NOSE HAD ELFRIDA BY THE WRIST" 207
"THEY FOUND THEIR HOUSE OCCUPIED BY AN ARMED GUARD" 211
"'I WILL CONVEY HIM TO OUR COACH, GOOD MASTERS,' SHE SAID TO THE
GUARD" 231
"'YOU'VE NO MANNERS,' IT SAID TO THE NURSE" 235
"THE STREAM CAME OUT UNDER A ROUGH, LOW ARCH OF STONE" 253
"'SOLDIERS!' SHE CRIED, 'AND THEY'RE AFTER US'" 257
"MRS. HONEYSETT WAS SITTING IN A LITTLE LOW CHAIR AT THE BACK
DOOR PLUCKING A WHITE CHICKEN" 263
"'AH,' SAID OLD NEALE ADMIRINGLY, 'YOU'LL BE A-BUSTING WITH
BOOK-LARNIN' AFORE YOU COME TO YOUR TWENTY-ONE, I LAY'" 279
"IT HELD CLOTHES FAR RICHER THAN ANY THEY HAD SEEN YET" 287
"'NOW RUN!' SHE SAID, AND HERSELF LED THE WAY" 315
"EDRED AND ELFRIDA AND RICHARD SAT DOWN ON THE MINUTE HAND" 325
"THE HOUSES WERE MADE OF GREAT BLOCKS OF STONE" 337
The House of Arden
CHAPTER I
ARDEN'S LORD
It had been a great house once, with farms and fields, money and
jewels--with tenants and squires and men-at-arms. The head of the house
had ridden out three days' journey to meet King Henry at the boundary of
his estate, and the King had ridden back with him to lie in the tall
State bed in the castle guest-chamber. The heir of the house had led his
following against Cromwell; younger sons of the house had fought in
foreign lands, to the honour of England and the gilding and regilding
with the perishable gold of glory of the old Arden name. There had been
Ardens in Saxon times, and there were Ardens still--but few and
impoverished. The lands were gone, and the squires and men-at-arms; the
castle itself was roofless, and its unglazed windows stared blankly
across the fields of strangers, that stretched right up to the foot of
its grey, weather-worn walls. And of the male Ardens there were now
known two only--an old man and a child.
The old man was Lord Arden, the head of the house, and he lived lonely
in a little house built of the fallen stones that Time and Cromwell's
round-shot had cast from the castle walls. The child was Edred Arden,
and he lived in a house in a clean, wind-swept town on a cliff.
It was a bright-faced house with bow-windows and a green balcony that
looked out over the sparkling sea. It had three neat white steps and a
brass knocker, pale and smooth with constant rubbing. It was a pretty
house, and it would have been a pleasant house but for one thing--the
lodgers. For I cannot conceal from you any longer that Edred Arden lived
with his aunt, and that his aunt let lodgings. Letting lodgings is one
of the most unpleasant of all possible ways of earning your living, and
I advise you to try every other honest way of earning _your_ living
before you take to that.
Because people who go to the seaside and take lodgings seem, somehow,
much harder to please than the people who go to hotels. They want ever
so much more waiting on; they want so many meals, and at such odd times.
They ring the bell almost all day long. They bring in sand from the
shore in every fold of their clothes, and it shakes out of them on to
the carpets and the sofa cushions, and everything in the house. They
hang long streamers of wet seaweed against the pretty roses of the new
wall-papers, and their washhand basins are always full of sea anemones
and shells. Also, they are noisy; their boots seem to be always on the
stairs, no matter how bad a headache you may have; and when you give
them their bill they always think it is too much, no matter how little
it may be. So do not let lodgings if you can help it.
Miss Arden could not help it. It happened like this.
Edred and his sister were at school. (Did I tell you that he had a
sister? Well, he had, and her name was Elfrida.) Miss Arden lived near
the school, so that she could see the children often. She was getting
her clothes ready for her wedding, and the gentleman who was going to
marry her was coming home from South America, where he had made a
fortune. The children's father was coming home from South America, too,
with the fortune that he had made, for he and Miss Arden's sweetheart
were partners. The children and their aunt talked whenever they met of
the glorious time that was coming, and how, when father and Uncle
Jim--they called him Uncle Jim already--came home, they were all going
to live in the country and be happy ever after.
And then the news came that father and Uncle Jim had been captured by
brigands, and all the money was lost, too, and there was nothing left
but the house on the cliff. So Miss Arden took the children from the
expensive school in London, and they all went to live in the cliff
house, and as there was no money to live on, and no other way of making
money to live on except letting lodgings, Miss Arden let them, like the
brave lady she was, and did it well. And then came the news that father
and Uncle Jim were dead, and for a time the light of life went out in
Cliff House.
This was two years ago; but the children had never got used to the
lodgers. They hated them. At first they had tried to be friendly with
the lodgers' children, but they soon found that the lodgers' children
considered Edred and Elfrida very much beneath them, and looked down on
them accordingly. And very often the lodgers' children were the sort of
children on whom anybody might have looked down, if it were right and
kind to look down on any one. And when Master Reginald Potts, of
Peckham, puts his tongue out at you on the parade and says, right before
everybody, "Lodgings! Yah!" it is hard to feel quite the same to him as
you did before.
When there were lodgers--and there nearly always were, for the house was
comfortable, and people who had been once came again--the children and
their aunt had to live in the very top and the very bottom of the
house--in the attics and the basement, in fact.
When there were no lodgers they used all the rooms in turn, to keep them
aired. But the children liked the big basement parlour room best,
because there all the furniture had belonged to dead-and-gone Ardens,
and all the pictures on the walls were of Ardens dead and gone. The
rooms that the lodgers had were furnished with a new sort of furniture
that had no stories belonging to it such as belonged to the old polished
oak tables and bureaux that were in the basement parlour.
Edred and Elfrida went to school every day and learned reading, writing,
arithmetic, geography, history, spelling, and useful knowledge, all of
which they hated quite impartially, which means they hated the whole
lot--one thing as much as another.
The only part of lessons they liked was the home-work, when, if Aunt
Edith had time to help them, geography became like adventures, history
like story-books, and even arithmetic suddenly seemed to mean something.
"I wish you could teach us always," said Edred, very inky, and
interested for the first time in the exports of China; "it does seem so
silly trying to learn things that are only words in books."
"I wish I could," said Aunt Edith, "but I can't do twenty-nine thousand
and seventeen things all at once, and----" A bell jangled. "That's the
seventh time since tea." She got up and went into the kitchen. "There's
the bell again, my poor Eliza. Never mind; answer the bell, but don't
answer _them_, whatever they say. It doesn't do a bit of good, and it
sometimes prevents their giving you half-crowns when they leave."
"I do love it when they go," said Elfrida.
"Yes," said her aunt. "A cab top-heavy with luggage, the horse's nose
turned stationward, it's a heavenly sight--when the bill is paid and----
But, then, I'm just as glad to see the luggage coming. Chickens! when my
ship comes home we'll go and live on a desert island where there aren't
any cabs, and we won't have any lodgers in our cave."
"When I grow up," said Edred, "I shall go across the sea and look for
your ship and bring it home. I shall take a steam-tug and steer it
myself."
"Then I shall be captain," said Elfrida.
"No, I shall be captain."
"You can't if you steer."
"Yes, I can!"
"No, you can't!"
"Yes, I can!"
"Well, do, then!" said Elfrida; "and while you're doing it--I _know_ you
can't--I shall dig in the garden and find a gold-mine, and Aunt Edith
will be rolling in money when you come back, and she won't want your
silly old ship."
"Spelling next," said Aunt Edith. "How do you spell 'disagreeable'?"
"Which of us?" asked Edred acutely.
"Both," said Aunt Edith, trying to look very severe.
When you are a child you always dream of your ship coming home--of
having a hundred pounds, or a thousand, or a million pounds to spend as
you like. My favourite dream, I remember, was a thousand pounds and an
express understanding that I was not to spend it on anything useful. And
when you have dreamed of your million pounds, or your thousand, or your
hundred, you spend happy hour on hour in deciding what presents you will
buy for each of the people you are fond of, and in picturing their
surprise and delight at your beautiful presents and your wonderful
generosity. I think very few of us spend our dream fortunes entirely on
ourselves. Of course, we buy ourselves a motor-bicycle straight away,
and footballs and bats--and dolls with real hair, and real china
tea-sets, and large boxes of mixed chocolates, and "Treasure Island,"
and all the books that Mrs. Ewing ever wrote, but when we have done that
we begin to buy things for other people. It is a beautiful dream, but
too often, by the time it comes true--up to a hundred pounds or a
thousand--we forget what we used to mean to do with our money, and spend
it all in stocks and shares, and eligible building sites, and fat cigars
and fur coats. If I were young again I would sit down and write a list
of all the kind things I meant to do when my ship came home, and if my
ship ever did come home I would read that list, and---- But the parlour
bell is ringing for the eighth time, and the front-door bell is ringing
too, and the first-floor is ringing also, and so is the second-floor,
and Eliza is trying to answer four bells at once--always a most
difficult thing to do.
The front-door bell was rung by the postman; he brought three letters.
The first was a bill for mending the lid of the cistern, on which Edred
had recently lighted a fire, fortified by an impression that wood could
not burn if there were water on the other side--a totally false
impression, as the charred cistern lid proved. The second was an inquiry
whether Miss Arden would take a clergyman in at half the usual price,
because he had a very large family which had all just had measles. And
the third was THE letter, which is really the seed, and beginning, and
backbone, and rhyme, and reason of this story.
Edred had got the letters from the postman, and he stood and waited
while Aunt Edith read them. He collected postmarks, and had not been
able to make out by the thick half-light of the hall gas whether any of
these were valuable.
The third letter had a very odd effect on Aunt Edith. She read it once,
and rubbed her hand across her eyes. Then she got up and stood under the
chandelier, which wanted new burners badly, and so burned with a very
unlighting light, and read it again. Then she read it a third time, and
then she said, "Oh!"
"What is it, auntie?" Elfrida asked anxiously; "is it the taxes?" It had
been the taxes once, and Elfrida had never forgotten. (If you don't
understand what this means ask your poorest relations, who are also
likely to be your nicest, and if they don't know, ask the washerwoman.)
"No; it's not the taxes, darling," said Aunt Edith; "on the contrary."
I don't know what the contrary (or opposite) of taxes is, any more than
the children did--but I am sure it is something quite nice--and so were
they.
"Oh, auntie, I _am_ so glad," they both said, and said it several times
before they asked again, "What is it?"
"I think--I'm not quite sure--but I think it's a ship come home--oh,
just a quite tiny little bit of a ship--a toy boat--hardly more than
that. But I must go up to London to-morrow the first thing, and see if
it really is a ship, and, if so, what sort of ship it is. Mrs. Blake
shall come in, and you'll be good as gold, children, won't you?"
"Yes--oh, yes," said the two.
"And not make booby traps for the butcher, or go on the roof in your
nightgowns, or play Red Indians in the dust-bin, or make apple-pie beds
for the lodgers?" Aunt Edith asked, hastily mentioning a few of the
little amusements which had lately enlivened the spare time of her
nephew and niece.
"No, we really won't," said Edred; "and we'll truly try not to think of
anything new and amusing," he added, with real self-sacrifice.
"I must go by the eight-thirty train. I wish I could think of some way
of--of amusing you," she ended, for she was too kind to say "of keeping
you out of mischief for the day," which was what she really thought.
"I'll bring you something jolly for your birthday, Edred. Wouldn't you
like to spend the day with nice Mrs. Hammond?"
"Oh, _no_," said Edred; and added, on the inspiration of the moment,
"Why mayn't we have a picnic--just Elf and me--on the downs, to keep my
birthday? It doesn't matter it being the day before, does it? You said
we were too little last summer, and we should this, and now it is this
and I have grown two inches and Elf's grown three, so we're five inches
taller than when you said we weren't big enough."
"Now you see how useful arithmetic is," said the aunt. "Very well, you
shall. Only wear your old clothes, and always keep in sight of the road.
Yes; you can have a whole holiday. And now to bed. Oh, there's that bell
again! Poor, dear Eliza."
A Clapham cub, belonging to one of the lodgers, happened to be going up
to bed just as Edred and Elfrida came through the baize door that shut
off the basement from the rest of the house. He put his tongue out
through the banisters at the children of the house and said, "Little
slaveys." The cub thought he could get up the stairs before the two got
round the end of the banisters, but he had not counted on the long arm
of Elfrida, whose hand shot through the banisters and caught the cub's
leg and held on to it till Edred had time to get round. The two boys
struggled up the stairs together and then rolled together from top to
bottom, where they were picked up and disentangled by their relations.
Except for this little incident, going to bed was uneventful.
Next morning Aunt Edith went off by the eight-thirty train. The
children's school satchels were filled, not with books, but with buns;
instead of exercise-books there were sandwiches; and in the place of
inky pencil-boxes were two magnificent boxes of peppermint creams which
had cost a whole shilling each, and had been recklessly bought by Aunt
Edith in the agitation of the parting hour when they saw her off at the
station.
They went slowly up the red-brick-paved sidewalk that always looks as
though it had just been washed, and when they got to the top of the hill
they stopped and looked at each other.
"It can't be wrong," said Edred.
"She never told us not to," said Elfrida.
"I've noticed," said Edred, "that when grown-up people say 'they'll see
about' anything you want it never happens."
"I've noticed that, too," said Elfrida. "Auntie always said she'd see
about taking us there."
"Yes, she did."
"We won't be mean and sneaky about it," Edred insisted, though no one
had suggested that he _would_ be mean and sneaky. "We'll tell auntie
directly she gets back."
"Of course," said Elfrida, rather relieved, for she had not felt at all
sure that Edred meant to do this.
"After all," said Edred, "it's _our_ castle. We _ought_ to go and see
the cradle of our race. That's what it calls it in 'Cliffgate and its
Envions.' I say, let's call it a pilgrimage. The satchels will do for
packs, and we can get half-penny walking-sticks with that penny of
yours. We can put peas in our shoes, if you like," he added generously.
"We should have to go back for them, and I don't expect the split kind
count, anyhow. And perhaps they'd hurt," said Elfrida doubtfully. "And I
want my penny for----" She stopped, warned by her brother's frown. "All
right, then," she ended; "you can have it. Only give me half next time
you get a penny; that's only fair."
"I'm not usually unfair," said Edred coldly. "Don't let's be pilgrims."
"But I should like to," said Elfrida.
Edred was obstinate. "No," he said, "we'll just walk."
So they just walked, rather dismally.
The town was getting thinner, like the tract of stocking that surrounds
a hole; the houses were farther apart and had large gardens. In one of
them a maid was singing to herself as she shook out the mats--a thing
which, somehow, maids don't do much in towns.
"Good luck!" says I to my sweetheart,
"For I will love you true;
And all the while we've got to part,
My luck shall go with you."
"That's lucky for us," said Elfrida amiably.
[Illustration: "THEY WENT SLOWLY UP THE RED-BRICK-PAVED SIDEWALK."]
"We're not her silly sweetheart," said Edred.
"No; but we heard her sing it, and he wasn't here, so he couldn't.
There's a sign-post. I wonder how far we've gone? I'm getting awfully
tired."
"You'd better have been pilgrims," said Edred. "_They_ never get tired,
however many peas they have in their shoes."
"I will now," said Elfrida.
"You can't," said Edred; "it's too late. We're miles and miles from the
stick shop."
"Very well, I shan't go on," said Elfrida. "You got out of bed the wrong
side this morning. I've tried to soft-answer you as hard as ever I could
all the morning, and I'm not going to try any more, so there."
"Don't, then," said Edred bitterly. "Go along home if you like. You're
only a girl."
"I'd rather be only a girl than what _you_ are," said she.
"And what's that, I should like to know?"
Elfrida stopped and shut her eyes tight.
"Don't, don't, don't, don't!" she said. "I won't be cross, I won't be
cross, I won't be cross! Pax. Drop it. Don't let's!"
"Don't let's what?"
"Quarrel about nothing," said Elfrida, opening her eyes and walking on
very fast. "We're always doing it. Auntie says it's a habit. If boys are
so much splendider than girls, they ought to be able to stop when they
like."
"Suppose they don't like?" said he, kicking his boots in the thick,
white dust.
"Well," said she, "I'll say I'm sorry first. Will _that_ do?"
"I was just going to say it first myself," said Edred, in aggrieved
tones. "Come on," he added more generously, "here's the sign-post. Let's
see what it says."
It said, quite plainly and without any nonsense about it, that they had
come a mile and three-quarters, adding, most unkindly, that it was eight
miles to Arden Castle. But, it said, it was a quarter of a mile to
Ardenhurst Station.
"Let's go by train," said Edred grandly.
"No money," said Elfrida, very forlornly indeed.
"Aha!" said Edred; "now you'll see. _I'm_ not mean about money. I
brought my new florin."
"Oh, Edred," said the girl, stricken with remorse, "you _are_ noble."
"Pooh!" said the boy, and his ears grew red with mingled triumph and
modesty; "that's nothing. Come on."
So it was from the train that the pilgrims got their first sight of
Arden Castle. It stands up boldly on the cliff where it was set to keep
off foreign foes and guard the country round about it. But of all its
old splendour there is now nothing but the great walls that the grasses
and wild flowers grow on, and round towers whose floors and ceilings
have fallen away, and roofless chambers where owls build, and brambles
and green ferns grow strong and thick.
The children walked to the castle along the cliff path where the
skylarks were singing like mad up in the pale sky, and the bean-fields,
where the bees were busy, gave out the sweetest scent in the world--a
scent that got itself mixed with the scent of the brown seaweed that
rises and falls in the wash of the tide on the rocks at the cliff-foot.
"Let's have dinner here," said Elfrida, when they reached the top of a
little mound from which they could look down on the castle. So they had
it.
Two bites of sandwich and one of peppermint cream; that was the rule.
And all the time they were munching they looked down on the castle, and
loved it more and more.
"Don't you wish it was real, and we lived in it?" Elfrida asked, when
they had eaten as much as they wanted--not of peppermint creams, of
course; but they had finished them.
"It is real, what there is of it."
"Yes; but I mean if it was a house with chimneys, and fireplaces, and
doors with bolts, and glass in the windows."
"I wonder if we could get in?" said Edred.
"We might climb over," said Elfrida, looking hopefully at the enormous
walls, sixty feet high, in which no gate or gap showed.
"There's an old man going across that field--no, not that one; the very
green field. Let's ask him."
So they left their satchels lying on the short turf, that was half wild
thyme, and went down. But they were not quite quick enough; before they
could get to him the old man had come through the field of young corn,
clambered over a stile, and vanished between the high hedges of a
deep-sunk lane. So over the stile and down into the lane went the
children, and caught up with the old man just as he had clicked his
garden gate behind him and had turned to go up the bricked path between
beds of woodruff, and anemones, and narcissus, and tulips of all
colours.
His back was towards them. Now it is very difficult to address a back
politely. So you will not be surprised to learn that Edred said, "Hi!"
and Elfrida said, "Halloa! I say!"
The old man turned and saw at his gate two small figures dressed in what
is known as sailor costume. They saw a very wrinkled old face with snowy
hair and mutton-chop whiskers of a silvery whiteness. There were very
bright twinkling blue eyes in the sun-browned face, and on the
clean-shaven mouth a kind, if tight, smile.
"Well," said he, "and what do _you_ want?"
"We want to know----" said Elfrida.
"About the castle," said Edred, "Can we get in and look at it?"
"I've got the keys," said the old man, and put his hand in at his door
and reached them from a nail.
"I s'pose no one _lives_ there?" said Elfrida.
"Not now," said the old man, coming back along the garden path. "Lord
Arden, he died a fortnight ago come Tuesday, and the place is shut up
till the new lord's found."
"I wish _I_ was the new lord," said Edred, as they followed the old man
along the lane.
"An' how old might _you_ be?" the old man asked.
"I'm ten nearly. It's my birthday to-morrow," said Edred. "How old are
you?"
"Getting on for eighty. I've seen a deal in my time. If you was the
young lord you'd have a chance none of the rest of them ever had--you
being the age you are."
"What sort of chance?"
"Why," said the old man, "don't you know the saying? I thought every one
knowed it hereabouts."
"What saying?"
"I ain't got the wind for saying and walking too," said the old man, and
stopped; "leastways, not potery." He drew a deep breath and said--
"When Arden's lord still lacketh ten
And may not see his nine again,
Let Arden stand as Arden may
On Arden Knoll at death of day.
If he have skill to say the spell
He shall find the treasure, and all be well!"
"I _say_!" said both the children. "And where's Arden Knoll?" Edred
asked.
"Up yonder." He pointed to the mound where they had had lunch.
Elfrida inquired, "What treasure?"
But that question was not answered--then.
"If I'm to talk I must set me down," said the old man. "Shall we set
down here, or set down inside of the castle?"
Two curiosities struggled, and the stronger won. "In the castle," said
the children.
So it was in the castle, on a pillar fallen from one of the chapel
arches, that the old man sat down and waited. When the children had run
up and down the grassy enclosure, peeped into the ruined chambers,
picked their way along the ruined colonnade, and climbed the steps of
the only tower that they could find with steps _to_ climb, then they
came and sat beside the old man on the grass that was white with
daisies, and said, "Now, then!"
"Well, then," said the old man, "you see the Ardens was always great
gentry. I've heard say there's always been Ardens here since before
William the Conker, whoever _he_ was."
"Ten-sixty-six," said Edred to himself.
"An' they had their ups and downs like other folks, great and small. And
once, when there was a war or trouble of some sort abroad, there was a
lot of money, and jewlery, and silver plate hidden away. That's what it
means by treasure. And the men who hid it got killed--ah, them was
unsafe times to be alive in, I tell you--and nobody never knew where the
treasure was hid."
"Did they ever find it?"
"Ain't I telling you? An' a wise woman that lived in them old ancient
times, they went to her to ask her what to do to find the treasure, and
she had a fit directly, what you'd call a historical fit nowadays. She
never said nothing worth hearing without she was in a fit, and she made
up the saying all in potery whilst she was in her fit, and that was all
they could get out of her. And she never would say what the spell was.
Only when she was a-dying, Lady Arden, that was then, was very took up
with nursing of her, and before she breathed her lastest she told Lady
Arden the spell." He stopped for lack of breath.
"And what is the spell?" said the children, much more breathless than
he.
"Nobody knows," said he.
"But where is it?"
"Nobody knows. But I've 'eard say it's in a book in the libery in the
house yonder. But it ain't no good, because there's never been a Lord
Arden come to his title without he's left his ten years far behind him."
Edred had a queerer feeling in his head than you can imagine; his hands
got hot and dry, and then cold and damp.
"I suppose," he said, "you've got to be _Lord_ Arden? It wouldn't do if
you were just plain John or James or Edred Arden? Because my name's
Arden, and I would like to have a try?"
The old man stooped, caught Edred by the arm, pulled him up, and stood
him between his knees.
"Let's have a look at you, sonny," he said; and had a look. "Aye," he
said, "you're an Arden, for sure. To think of me not seeing that. I
might have seen your long nose and your chin that sticks out like a
spur. I ought to have known it anywhere. But my eyes ain't what they
was. If you _was_ Lord Arden---- What's your father's name--his
chrissened name, I mean?"
"Edred, the same as mine. But father's dead," said Edred gravely.
"And your grandf'er's name? It wasn't George, was it--George William?"
"Yes, it was," said Edred. "How did you know?"
The old man let go Edred's arms and stood up. Then he touched his
forehead and said--
"I've worked on the land 'ere man and boy, and I'm proud I've lived to
see another Lord Arden take the place of him as is gone. Lauk-alive,
boy, don't garp like that," he added sharply. "You're Lord Arden right
enough."
"I--I can't be," gasped Edred.
"Auntie said Lord Arden was a relation of ours--a sort of
great-uncle--cousin."
"That's it, missy," the old man nodded. "Lord Arden--chrissen name
James--'e was first cousin to Mr. George as was your grandf'er. His son
was Mr. Edred, as is your father. The late lord not 'avin' any sons--nor
daughters neither for the matter of that--the title comes to your branch
of the family. I've heard Snigsworthy, the lawyer's apprentice from
Lewis, tell it over fifty times this last three weeks. You're Lord
Arden, I tell you."
"If I am," said Edred, "I shall say the spell and find the treasure."
"You'll have to be quick about it," said Elfrida. "You'll be over ten
the day after to-morrow."
"So I shall," said Edred.
"When you're Lord Arden," said the old man very seriously,--"I mean,
when you grow up to enjoy the title--as, please God, you may--you
remember the poor and needy, young master--that's what you do."
"If I find the treasure I will," said Edred.
"You do it whether or no," said the old man. "I must be getting along
home. You'd like to play about a bit, eh? Well, bring me the keys when
you've done. I can trust you not to hurt your own place, that's been in
the family all these hundreds of years."
"I should think you could!" said Edred proudly. "Goodbye, and thank
you."
"Goodbye, my lord," said the old man, and went.
"I say," said Edred, with the big bunch of keys in his hand,--"if I _am_
Lord Arden!"
"You are! you are!" said Elfrida. "I am perfectly certain you are. And I
suppose I'm Lady Arden. How perfectly ripping! We can shut up those
lodging-children now, anyhow. What's up?"
Edred was frowning and pulling the velvet covering of moss off the big
stone on which he had absently sat down.
[Illustration: "'AYE,' HE SAID, 'YOU'RE AN ARDEN, FOR SURE.'"]
"Do you think it's burglarish," he said slowly, "to go into your own
house without leave?"
"Not if it _is_ your own house. Of course not," said Elfrida.
"But suppose it isn't? They might put you in prison for it."
"You could tell the policeman you thought it was yours. I say, Edred,
let's!"
"It's not vulgar curiosity, like auntie says; it's the spell I want,"
said the boy.
"As if I didn't know that," said the girl contemptuously. "But where's
the house?"
She might well ask, for there was no house to be seen--only the great
grey walls of the castle, with their fine fringe of flowers and grass
showing feathery against the pale blue of the June sky. Here and there,
though, there were grey wooden doors set in the grey of the stone.
"It must be one of those," Edred said. "We'll try all the keys and all
the doors till we find it."
So they tried all the keys and all the doors. One door led to a loft
where apples were stored. Another to a cellar, where brooms and spades
and picks leaned against the damp wall, and there were baskets and piles
of sacks. A third opened into a tower that seemed to be used as a
pigeon-cote. It was the very last door they tried that led into the long
garden between two high walls, where already the weeds had grown high
among the forget-me-nots and pansies. And at the end of this garden was
a narrow house with a red roof, wedged tightly in between two high grey
walls that belonged to the castle.
All the blinds were down; the garden was chill and quiet, and smelt of
damp earth and dead leaves.
"Oh, Edred, do you think we ought?" Elfrida said, shivering.
"Yes, I do," said Edred; "and you're not being good, whatever you may
think. You're only being frightened."
Elfrida naturally replied, "I'm not. Come on."
But it was very slowly, and with a feeling of being on tiptoe and
holding their breaths, that they went up to those blinded windows that
looked like sightless eyes.
The front door was locked, and none of the keys would fit it.
"I don't care," said Edred. "If I am Lord Arden I've got a right to get
in, and if I'm not I don't care about anything, so here goes."
Elfrida almost screamed, half with horror and half with admiration of
his daring, when he climbed up to a little window by means of an
elder-tree that grew close to it, tried to open the window, and when he
found it fast deliberately pushed his elbow through the glass.
"Thus," he said rather unsteadily, "the heir of Arden Castle re-enters
his estates."
He got the window open and disappeared through it. Elfrida stood
clasping and unclasping her hands, and in her mind trying to get rid of
the idea of a very large and sudden policeman appearing in the garden
door and saying, in that deep voice so much admired in our village
constables, "Where's your brother?"
No policeman came, fortunately, and presently a blind went up, a French
window opened, and there was Edred beckoning her with the air of a
conspirator.
It needed an effort to obey his signal, but she did it. He closed the
French window, drew down the blind again, and----
"Oh, don't let's," said Elfrida.
"Nonsense," said Edred; "there's nothing to be frightened of. It's just
like our rooms at home."
It was. They went all over the house, and it certainly was. Some of the
upper rooms were very bare, but all the furniture was of the same kind
as Aunt Edith's, and there were the same kind of pictures. Only the
library was different. It was a very large room, and there were no
pictures at all. Nothing but books and books and books, bound in yellowy
leather. Books from ceiling to floor, shelves of books between the
windows and over the mantelpiece--hundreds and thousands of books. Even
Edred's spirits sank. "It's no go. It will take us years to look in them
all," he said.
"We may as well look at some of them," said Elfrida, always less daring,
but more persevering than her brother. She sat down on the worn carpet
and began to read the names on the backs of the books nearest to her.
"Burton's Atomy of Melon something," she read, and "Locke on
Understanding," and many other dull and wearying titles. But none of the
books seemed at all likely to contain a spell for finding treasure.
"Burgess on the Precious Metals" beguiled her for a moment, but she saw
at once that there was no room in its closely-printed, brown-spotted
pages for anything so interesting as a spell. Time passed by. The
sunlight that came through the blinds had quite changed its place on the
carpet, and still Elfrida persevered. Edred grew more and more restless.
"It's no use," he kept saying, and "Let's chuck it," and "I expect that
old chap was just kidding us. I don't feel a bit like I did about it,"
and "Do let's get along home."
But Elfrida plodded on, though her head and her back both ached. I wish
I could say that her perseverance was rewarded. But it wasn't; and one
must keep to facts. As it happened, it was Edred who, aimlessly running
his finger along the edge of the bookshelf just for the pleasure of
looking at the soft, mouse-coloured dust that clung to the finger at the
end of each shelf, suddenly cried out, "What about this?" and pulled out
a great white book that had on its cover a shield printed in gold with
squares and little spots on it, and a gold pig standing on the top of
the shield, and on the back, "The History of the Ardens of Arden."
In an instant it was open on the floor between them, and they were
turning its pages with quick, anxious hands. But, alas! it was as empty
of spells as dull old Burgess himself.
It was only when Edred shut it with a bang and the remark that he had
had jolly well enough of it that a paper fluttered out and swept away
like a pigeon, settling on the fireless hearth. And it was the spell.
There was no doubt of that.
Written in faint ink on a square yellowed sheet of letter-paper that had
been folded once, and opened and folded again so often that the fold was
worn thin and hardly held its two parts together, the writing was fine
and pointed and ladylike. At the top was written: "The Spell Aunt Anne
Told Me.--December 24, 1793."
And then came the spell:--
"Hear, Oh badge of Arden's house,
The spell my little age allows;
Arden speaks it without fear,
Badge of Arden's house, draw near,
Make me brave and kind and wise,
And show me where the treasure lies."
"To be said," the paper went on, "at sun-setting by a Lord Arden between
the completion of his ninth and tenth years. But it is all folly and not
to be believed."
"This is it, right enough," said Edred. "Come on, let's get out of
this." They turned to go, and as they did so something moved in the
corner of the library--something little, and they could not see its
shape.
[Illustration: "THEY WERE TURNING ITS PAGES WITH QUICK, ANXIOUS HANDS."]
Neither drew free breath again till they were out of the house, and out
of the garden, and out of the castle, and on the wide, thymy downs, with
the blue sky above, where the skylarks sang, and there was the sweet,
fresh scent of the seaweed and the bean-fields.
"Oh," said Elfrida, then, "I am so glad it's not at midnight you've got
to say the spell. You'd be too frightened."
"I shouldn't," said Edred, very pale and walking quickly away from the
castle. "I should say it just the same if it was midnight." And he very
nearly believed what he said.
Elfrida it was who had picked up the paper that Edred had dropped when
that thing moved in the corner. She still held it fast.
"I expect it was only a rat or something," said Edred, his heart beating
nineteen to the dozen, as they say in Kent and elsewhere.
"Oh, yes," said Elfrida, whose lips were trembling a little; "I'm sure
it was only a rat or something."
When they got to the top of Arden Knoll there was no sign of sunset.
There was time, therefore, to pull oneself together, to listen to the
skylarks, and to smell the bean-flowers, and to wonder how one could
have been such a duffer as to be scared by a "rat or something." Also
there were some bits of sandwich and crumbled cake, despised at
dinner-time, but now, somehow, tasting quite different. These helped to
pass the time till the sun almost seemed to rest on a brown shoulder of
the downs, that looked as though it were shrugging itself up to meet the
round red ball that the evening mists had made of the sun.
The children had not spoken for several minutes. Their four eyes were
fixed on the sun, and as the edge of it seemed to flatten itself against
the hill-shoulder Elfrida whispered, "Now!" and gave her brother the
paper.
They had read the spell so often, as they sat there in the waning light,
that both knew it by heart, so there was no need for Edred to read it.
And that was lucky, for in that thick, pink light the faint ink hardly
showed at all on the yellowy paper.
Edred stood up.
"Now!" said Elfrida, again. "Say it now." And Edred said, quite out loud
and in a pleasant sort of sing-song, such as he was accustomed to use at
school when reciting the stirring ballads of the late Lord Macaulay, or
the moving tale of the boy on the burning deck:--
"'Hear, Oh badge of Arden's house,
The spell my little age allows;
Arden speaks it without fear,
Badge of Arden's house, draw near,
Make me brave and kind and wise,
And show me where the treasure lies.'"
He said it slowly and carefully, his sister eagerly listening, ready to
correct him if he said a word wrong. But he did not.
"Where the treasure lies," he ended, and the great silence of the downs
seemed to rush in like a wave to fill the space which his voice had
filled.
And nothing else happened at all. A flush of pink from the sun-setting
spread over the downs, the grass-stems showed up thin and distinct, the
skylarks had ceased to sing, but the scent of the bean-flowers and the
seaweed was stronger than ever. And nothing happened till Edred cried
out, "What's that?" For close to his foot something moved, not quickly
or suddenly so as to startle, but very gently, very quietly, very
unmistakably--something that glittered goldenly in the pink, diffused
light of the sun-setting.
"Why," said Elfrida stooping, "why, it's----"