Harding’s Luck E. Nesbit (epub read online books .txt) 📖

self-important. The second Mouldiwarp he had not yet met. I have told you all these things very shortly, because they were so dreamlike to Dickie, and not at all real like the double life he had been leading.

“That always happens,” said the nurse; “if you stumble into someone else’s magic it never feels real. But if you bring them into yours it’s quite another pair of sleeves. Those children can’t get any more magic of their own now, but you could take them into yours. Only for that you’d have to meet them in your own time that you were born in, and you’ll have to wait till it’s summer, because that’s where they are now. They’re seven months ahead of you in your own time.”

“But,” said Dickie, very much bewildered, as I am myself, and as I am afraid you too must be, “if they’re seven months ahead, won’t they always be seven months ahead?”

“Odds bodikins,” said the nurse impatiently, “how often am I to tell you that there’s no such thing as time? But there’s seasons, and the season they came out of was summer, and the season you’ll go back to ’tis autumn⁠—so you must live the seven months in their time, and then it’ll be summer and you’ll meet them.”

“And what about Lord Arden in the Tower? Will he be beheaded for treason?” Dickie asked.

“Oh, that’s part of their magic. It isn’t in your magic at all. Lord Arden will be safe enough. And now, my lamb, I’ve more to tell thee. But come into thy panelled chamber where thy tutor cannot eavesdrop and betray us, and have thee given over to him wholly, and me burned for a witch.”

These terrible words kept Dickie silent till he and the nurse were safe in his room, and then he said, “Come with me to my time, nurse⁠—they don’t burn people for witches there.”

“No,” said the nurse, “but they let them live such lives in their ugly towns that my life here with all its risks is far better worth living. Thou knowest how folk live in Deptford in thy time⁠—how all the green trees are gone, and good work is gone, and people do bad work for just so much as will keep together their worn bodies and desolate souls. And sometimes they starve to death. And they won’t burn me if thou’lt only keep a still tongue. Now listen.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, and Dickie cuddled up against her stiff bodice.

“Edred and Elfrida first went into the past to look for treasure. It is a treasure buried in Arden Castle by the sea, which is their home. They want the treasure to restore the splendor of the old Castle, which in your time is fallen into ruin and decay, and to mend the houses of the tenants, and to do good to the poor and needy. But you know that now they have used their magic to get back their father, and can no longer use it to look for treasure. But your magic will hold. And if you lay out your moonseeds round them, in the old shape, and stand with them in the midst, holding your Tinkler and your white seal, you will all go whithersoever you choose.”

“I shall choose to go straight to the treasure, of course,” said practical Dickie, swinging his feet in their rosetted shoes.

“That thou canst not. Thou canst only choose some year in the past⁠—any year⁠—go into it and then seek for the treasure there and then.”

“I’ll do it,” Dickie said, “and then I may come back to you, mayn’t I?”

“If thou’rt not needed elsewhere. The Ardens stay where duty binds them, and go where duty calls.”

“But I’m not an Arden there,” said Dickie sadly.

“Thou’rt Richard Arden there as here,” she said; “thy grandfather’s name got changed, by breathing hard on it, from Arden to Harden, and that again to Harding. Thus names are changed ever and again. And Dickie of Deptford has the honor of the house of Arden to uphold there as here, then as now.”

“I shall call myself Arden when I go back,” said Dickie proudly.

“Not yet,” she said; “wait.”

“If you say so,” said Dickie rather discontentedly.

“The time is not ripe for thee to take up all thine honors there,” she said. “And now, dear lamb, since thy tutor is imagining unkind things in his heart for thee, go quickly. Set out thy moonseeds and, when thou hearest the voices, say, ‘I would see both Mouldiwarps,’ and thou shalt see them both.”

“Thank you,” said Dickie. “I do want to see them both.”

See them he did, in a blue-gray mist in which he could feel nothing solid, not even the ground under his feet or the touch of his clenched fingers against his palms.

They were very white, the Mouldiwarps, outlined distinctly against the gray blueness, and the Mouldiwarp he had seen in that wonderful adventure in the far country smiled, as well as a mole can, and said⁠—

“Thou’rt a fair sprig of de old tree, Muster Dickie, so ’e be,” in the thick speech of the peasant people round about Talbot house where Dickie had once been a little burglar.

“He is indeed a worthy scion of the great house we serve,” said the other Mouldiwarp with precise and gentle utterance. “As Mouldierwarp to the Ardens I can but own that I am proud of him.”

The Mouldierwarp had, as well as a gentle voice, a finer nose than the Mouldiwarp, his fur was more even and his claws sharper.

“Eh, you be a gentleman, you be,” said the Mouldiwarp, “so’s ’e⁠—so there’s two of ye sure enough.”

It was very odd to see and hear these white moles talking like real people and looking like figures on a magic-lantern screen. But Dickie did not enjoy it as much as perhaps you or I would have done. It was not his pet kind of magic. He liked the good, straightforward, old-fashioned kind of magic that he