THE END
WHAT a triumph for little lame Dickie of Deptford!
* * * * *
You think, perhaps, that he was happy as well as proud, for proud he
certainly was, with those words and those cheers ringing in his ears. He
had just done the best he could, and tried to help Beale and the dogs,
and the man who had thought himself to be Lord Arden had said, "I am
proud that he should be the head of our house," and all the Arden folk
had cheered. It was worth having lived for.
The unselfish kindness and affection of the man he had displaced, the
love of his little cousins, the devotion of Beale, the fact that he was
Lord of Arden, and would soon be lord of all the old acres--the
knowledge that now he would learn all he chose to learn and hold in his
hand some day the destinies of these village folk, all loyal to the name
of Arden, the thought of all that he could be and do--all these things,
you think, should have made him happy.
They would have made him happy, but for one thing. All this was won at
the expense of those whom he loved best--the children who were his dear
cousins and playfellows, the man, their father, who had moved heaven and
earth to establish Dickie's claim to the title, and had been content
quietly to stand aside and give up title, castle, lands, and treasure to
the little cripple from Deptford.
Dickie thought of that, and almost only of that, in the days that
followed.
The life he had led in that dream-world, when James the First was King,
seemed to him now a very little thing compared with the present glory,
of being the head of the house of Arden, of being the Providence, the
loving over-lord of all these good peasant folk, who loved his name.
Yet the thought of those days when he was plain Richard Arden, son of
Sir Richard Arden, living in the beautiful house at Deptford, fretted at
all his joy in his present state. That, and the thought of all he owed
to him who had been Lord of Arden until he came, with his lame foot and
his heirship, fretted his soul as rust frets steel. These people had
received him, loved him, been kind to him when he was only a tramp boy.
And he was repaying them by taking away from them priceless possessions.
For so he esteemed the lordship of Arden and the old lands and the old
Castle.
Suppose he gave them up--the priceless possessions? Suppose he went away
to that sure retreat that was still left him--the past? It was a
sacrifice. To give up the here and now, for the far off, the almost
forgotten. All that happy other life, that had once held all for which
he cared, seemed thin and dream-like beside the vivid glories of the
life here, now. Yet he remembered how once that life, in King James's
time, had seemed the best thing in the world, and how he had chosen to
come back from it, to help a helpless middle-aged ne'er-do-weel of a
tramp--Beale. Well, he had helped Beale. He had done what he set out to
do. For Beale's sake he had given up the beautiful life for the sordid
life. And Beale was a new man, a man that Dickie had made. Surely now he
could give up one beautiful life for another--for the sake of these, his
flesh and blood, who had so readily, so kindly, so generously set him in
the place that had been theirs?
More and more it came home to Dickie that this was what he had to do. To
go back to the times when James the First was King, and never to return
to these times at all. It would be very bitter--it would be like leaving
home never to return. It was exile. Well, was Richard Lord Arden to be
afraid of exile--or of anything else? He must not just disappear either,
or they would search and search for him, and never know that he was
gone forever. He must slip away, and let the father of Edred and Elfrida
be, as he had been, Lord Arden. He must make it appear that he, Richard
Lord Arden, was dead. He thought over this very carefully. But if he
seemed to be dead, Edred and Elfrida would be very unhappy. Well, they
should not be unhappy. He would tell them. And then they would know that
he had behaved well, and as an Arden should. Don't be hard on him for
longing for just this "little human praise." There are very few of us
who can do without it; who can bear not to let some one, very near and
dear, know that we have behaved rather decently on those occasions when
that is what we have done.
It took Dickie a long time to think out all this, clearly, and with no
mistakes. But at last his mind was made up.
And then he asked Edred and Elfrida to come up to the cave with him,
because he had something to tell them. When they were all there, sitting
on the smooth sand by the underground stream, Dickie said--
"Look here. I'm not going on being Lord Arden."
"You can't help it," said Edred.
"Yes, I can. You know how I went and lived in King James's time. Well,
I'm going there again--for good."
[Illustration: "'I'VE THOUGHT OF NOTHING ELSE FOR A MONTH,' SAID DICKIE"
_Page 304_]
"You shan't," said Elfrida. "I'll tell father."
"I've thought of all that," Dickie said, "and I'm going to ask the
Mouldiwarps to make it so that you _can't_ tell. I can't stay here and
feel that I'm turning you and your father out. And think what Edred did
for me, in this very cave. No, my mind's made up."
It was, and they could not shake it.
"But we shan't ever see you again."
Dickie admitted that this was so.
"And oh, Dickie," said Elfrida, with deep concern, "you won't ever see
us again either. Think of that. Whatever will you do without us?"
"That," said Dickie, "won't be so bad as you think. The Elfrida and
Edred who live in those times are as like you as two pins. No, they
aren't really! Oh, don't make it any harder. I've got to do it."
There was that in his voice which silenced and convinced them. They felt
that he had, indeed, to do it.
"I could never be happy here--never," he went on; "but I shall be happy
there. And you'll never forget me, though there are one or two things I
want you to forget. And I'm going now."
"Oh, not now; wait and think," Elfrida implored.
"I've thought of nothing else for a month," said Dickie, and began to
lay out the moon-seeds on the smooth sand.
"Now," he said, when the pattern was complete, "I shall hold Tinkler and
the white seal in my hand and take them with me. When I've gone, you can
put the moon-seeds in your pocket and go home. When they ask you where I
am, say I am in the cave. They will come and find my clothes, and
they'll think I was bathing and got drowned."
"I can't bear it," said Elfrida, bursting into sobs. "I can't, and I
won't."
"I shan't be really dead, silly," Richard told her. "We're bound to meet
again some day. People who love each other can't help meeting again. Old
nurse told me so, and she knows everything. Good-bye, Elfrida." He
kissed her. "Good-bye, Edred, old chap. I'd like to kiss you too, if you
don't mind. I know boys don't, but in the times I'm going to men kiss
each other. Raleigh and Drake did, you know."
The boys kissed shyly and awkwardly.
"And now, good-bye," said Richard, and stepped inside the crossed
triangles of moon-seeds.
"I wish," he said slowly, "oh, dear Mouldiwarps of Arden, grant me these
last wishes. I wish Edred and Elfrida may never be able to tell what I
have done. And I wish that in a year they may forget what I have done,
and let them not be unhappy about me, because I shall be very happy. I
know I shall," he added doubtfully, and paused.
"Oh, Dickie, _don't_," the other children cried out together. He went
on--
"I wish my uncle may restore the Castle, and take care of the poor
people so that there _aren't_ any poor people, and every one's
comfortable, just as I meant to do."
He took off his cap and coat and flung them outside the circle, his
boots too.
"I wish I may go back to James the First's time, and live out my life
there, and do honor in my life and death to the house of Arden."
The children blinked. Dickie and Tinkler and the white seal were gone,
and only the empty ring of moon-seeds lay on the sand.
* * * * *
"Shocking bathing fatality," the newspapers said. "Lord Arden drowned.
The body not yet recovered."
It never was recovered, of course. Elfrida and Edred said nothing. No
wonder, their elders said. The shock was too great and too sudden.
The father of Edred and Elfrida is Lord Arden now. He has done all that
Dickie would have done. He has made Arden the happiest and most
prosperous village in England, and the stream beside which Dickie bade
farewell to his cousins flows, a broad moat round the waters of the
Castle, restored now to all its own splendor.
There is a tablet in the church which tells of the death by drowning of
Richard, Sixteenth Lord Arden. The children read it every Sunday for a
year, and knew that it did not tell the truth. But by the time the
moon-seeds had grown and flowered and shed their seeds in the Castle
garden they ceased to know this, and talked often, sadly and fondly, of
dear cousin Dickie who was drowned. And at the same time they ceased to
remember that they had ever been out of their own time into the past, so
that if they were to read this book they would think it all nonsense and
make-up, and not in the least recognize the story as their own.
But whatever else is forgotten, Dickie is remembered. And he who gave up
his life here for the sake of those he loved will live as long as life
shall beat in the hearts of those who loved him.
* * * * *
And Dickie himself. I see him in his ruff and cloak, with his little
sword by his side, living out the life he has chosen in the old England
when James the First was King. I see him growing in grace and favor,
versed in book learning, expert in all noble sports and exercises. For
Dickie is not lame now.
I see the roots of his being taking fast hold of his chosen life, and
the life that he renounced receding, receding till he can hardly see it
any more.
I see him, a tall youth, straight and strong, lending the old nurse his
arm to walk in the trim, beautiful garden at Deptford. And I hear him
say--
"When I was a little boy, nurse, I had mighty strange dreams--of another
life than this."
"Forget them," she says; "dreams go to the making of all proper men. But
now thou art a man; forget the dreams of thy childhood, and play the man
to the glory of God and of the house of Arden. And let thy dreams be of
the life to come, compared to which all lives on earth are only dreams.
And in that life all those who have loved shall meet and be together
forevermore, in that life when all the dear and noble dreams of the
earthly life shall at last and forever be something more than dreams."
THE END
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
List of Illustrations, "HUMPREYS" changed to "HUMPHREYS" (HERE,
HUMPHREYS, PUT THESE)
Page 6, "pennorth" changed to "penn'orth" (gimme a penn'orth)
Page 249, "two" changed to "too" (only too well)