by Edith Nesbit
“Bide where you be, lad, bide still; ’tis only me — old Mouldiwarp of Arden. You be a bold lad, by my faith, so you be. Never an Arden better. Never an Arden of them all.”
“Oh, Mouldiwarp, dear Mouldiwarp, do help me! I led them into this — help me to get them back safe. Do, do, do!”
“So I will, den — dere ain’t no reason in getting all of a fluster. It ain’t fitten for a lad as ‘as faced death same’s what you ‘ave,” said the voice. “I’ve made a liddle tunnel for ‘e — so I ‘ave—’ere in dis ‘ere corner — you come caten wise crose the floor and you’ll feel it. You crawl down it, and outside you be sure enough.”
Dickie went towards the voice, and sure enough, as the voice said, there was a hole in the ground, just big enough, it seemed, for him to crawl down on hands and knees.
“I’ll go afore,” said the Mouldiwarp, “you come arter. Dere’s naught to be afeared on, Lord Arden.”
“Am I really Lord Arden?” said Dickie, pausing.
“Sure’s I’m alive you be,” the mole answered; “yer uncle’ll tell it you with all de lawyer’s reasons to-morrow morning as sure’s sure. Come along, den. Dere ain’t no time to lose.”
So Dickie went down on his hands and knees, and crept down the mole tunnel of soft, sweet-smelling earth, and then along, and then up — and there they were in the courtyard. There, too, were Edred and Elfrida.
The three children hugged each other, and then turned to the Mouldiwarp.
“How can we get home?”
“The old way,” he said; and from the sky above a swan carriage suddenly swooped. “In with you,” said the Mouldiwarp; “swan carriages can take you from one time to another just as well as one place to another. But we don’t often use ‘em—’cause why? swans is dat contrary dey won’t go invisible not for no magic, dey won’t. So everybody can see ‘em. Still we can’t pick nor choose when it’s danger like dis ‘ere. In with you. Be off with you. This is the last you’ll see o’ me. Be off afore the soldiers sees you.”
They squeezed into the swan carriage, all three. The white wings spread and the whole equipage rose into the air unseen by any one but a Roundhead sentinel, who with great presence of mind gave the alarm, and was kicked for his pains, because when the guard turned out there was nothing to be seen.
The swans flew far too fast for the children to see where they were going, and when the swans began to flap more slowly so that the children could have seen if there had been anything to see, there was nothing to be seen, because it was quite dark. And the air was very cold. But presently a light showed ahead, and next moment there they were in the cave, and stepped out of the carriage on the exact spot where Dickie had set out the moon-seeds and Tinkler and the white seal.
The swan carriage went back up the cave with a swish and rustle of wings, and the children went down the hill as quickly as they could — which was not very quickly because of Dickie’s poor lame foot. The boy who had killed a Cromwell’s man with his little sword had not been lame.
Arrived in the courtyard, Dickie proudly led the way and stooped to examine the stones near the ruined arch that had been the chapel door. Alas! there was not a sign of the inscription which Dickie had scratched on the stone when the Roundheads were battering at the gates of Arden Castle.
Then Edred said, “Aha!” in a tone of triumph.
“I took notice, too,” he explained. “It’s the fifth stone from the chapel door under the little window with the Arden arms carved over it. There’s no other window with that over it. I’ll get the cold chisel.”
He got it, and when he came back Dickie was on his knees by the wall, and he had dug with his hands and uncovered the stone where he had scratched with the nails. And there was the mark — 19. R.D. 08. Only the nail had slipped once or twice while he was doing the 9, so that it looked much more like a five — 15. R.D. 08.
“There,” he said, “that’s what I scratched!”
“That?” said Edred. “Why, that’s always been there. We found that when we were digging about, trying to find the treasure. Quite at the beginning, didn’t we, Elf?”
And Elfrida agreed that this was so.
“Well, I scratched it, anyway,” said Dickie. “Now, then, let me go ahead with the chisel.”
Edred let him: he knew how clever Dickie was with his hands, for had he not made a work-box for Elfrida and a tool-chest for Edred, both with lids that fitted?
Dickie got the point of the chisel between the stones and pried and pressed — here and there, and at the other end — till the stone moved forward a little at a time, and they were able to get hold of it, and drag it out. Behind was darkness, a hollow — Dickie plunged his arm in.
“I can feel the door,” he said; “it’s all right.”
“Let’s fetch father,” suggested Elfrida; “he will enjoy it so.”
So he was fetched. Elfrida burst into the library where her father was busy with many lawyers’ letters and papers, and also with the lawyer himself, a stout, jolly-looking gentleman in a tweed suit, not a bit like the long, lean, disagreeable, black-coated lawyers you read about in books.
“Please, daddy,” she cried, “we’ve found the treasure. Come and look.”
“What treasure? and how often have I told you not to interrupt me when I am busy?”
“Oh, well,” said Elfrida, “I only thought it would amuse you, daddy. We’ve found a bricked-up place, and there’s a door behind, and I’m almost sure it’s where they hid the treasure when Cromwell’s wicked men took the Castle.”
“There is a legend to that effect,” said Elfrida’s father to the lawyer, who was looking interested. “You must forgive us if our family enthusiasms obliterate our manners. You have not said good-morning to Mr. Roscoe, Elfrida.”
“Good-morning, Mr. Roscoe,” said Elfrida cheerfully. “I thought it was the engineer’s day and not the lawyer’s. I beg your pardon, you wouldn’t mind me bursting in if you knew how very important the treasure is to the fortunes of our house.”
The lawyer laughed. “I am deeply interested in buried treasure. It would be a great treat to me if Lord Arden would allow me to assist in the search for it.”
“There’s no search now,” said Elfrida, “because it’s found. We’ve been searching for ages. Oh, daddy, do come — you’ll be sorry afterwards if you don’t.”
“If Mr. Roscoe doesn’t mind, then,” said her father indulgently. And the two followed Elfrida, believing that they were just going to be kind and to take part in some childish game of make-believe. Their feelings were very different when they peeped through the hole, where Dickie and Edred had removed two more stones, and saw the dusty gray of the wooden door beyond. Very soon all the stones were out, and the door was disclosed.
The lock plate bore the arms of Arden, and the door was not to be shaken.
“We must get a locksmith,” said Lord Arden.
“The big key with the arms on it!” cried Elfrida; “one of those in the iron box. Mightn’t that —— ?” One flew to fetch it.
A good deal of oil and more patience were needed before the key consented to turn in the lock, but it did turn — and the low passage was disclosed. It hardly seemed a passage at all, so thick and low hung the curtain of dusty cobwebs. But with brooms and lanterns and much sneezing and choking, the whole party got through to the door of the treasure room. And the other key unlocked that. And there in real fact was the treasure just as the children had seen it — the chests and the boxes and the leathern sacks and the bundles done up in straw and in handkerchiefs.
The lawyer, who had come on a bicycle, went off on it, at racing speed, to tell the Bank at Cliffville to come and fetch the treasure, and to bring police to watch over it till it should be safe in the Bank vaults.
“And I’m child enough,” he said before he went, “as well as cautious enough, to beg you not to bring any of it out till I come back, and not to leave guarding the entrance till the police are here.”
So when the treasure at last
saw the light of day it saw it under the eyes of policemen and Bank managers and all the servants and all the family and the Beales and True, and half the village beside, who had got wind of the strange happenings at the Castle and had crowded in through the now undefended gate.
It was a glorious treasure — gold and silver plate, jewels and beautiful armor, along with a pile of old parchments which Mr. Roscoe said were worth more than all the rest put together, for they were the title-deeds of great estates.
“And now,” cried Beale, “let’s ‘ave a cheer for Lord Arden. Long may ‘e enjoy ‘is find, says I! ‘Ip, ‘ip, ‘ooray!”
The cheers went up, given with a good heart.
“I thank you all,” said the father of Edred and Elfrida. “I thank you all from my heart. And you may be sure that you shall share in this good fortune. The old lands are in the market. They will be bought back. And every house on Arden land shall be made sound and weather-tight and comfortable. The Castle will be restored — almost certainly. And the fortunes of Arden’s tenantry will be the fortunes of Arden Castle.”
Another cheer went up. But the speaker raised his hand, and silence waited his next words.
“I have something else to tell you,” he said, “and as well now as later. This gentleman, Mr. Roscoe, my solicitor, has this morning brought me news that I am not Lord Arden!”
Loud murmurs of dissatisfaction from the crowd.
“I have no claim to the title,” he went on grimly; “my father was a younger son — the real heir was kidnapped, and supposed to be dead, so I inherited. It is the grandson of that kidnapped heir who is Lord Arden. I know his whole history. I know what he has done, to do honor to himself and to help others.” (“Hear, hear” from Beale.) “I know all his life, and I am proud that he is the head of our house. He will do for you, when he is of age, all that I would have done. And in the meantime I am his guardian. This is Lord Arden,” he said, throwing his arm round the shoulders of Dickie, little lame Dickie, who stood there leaning on his crutch, pale as death. “This is Lord Arden, come to his own. Cheer for him, men, as you never cheered before. Three cheers for Richard Lord Arden!”
CHAPTER XII. 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.”
“‘I’VE THOUGHT OF NOTHING ELSE FOR A MONTH,’ SAID DICKIE”
“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 a
nd 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.