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

“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!”

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 dreamworld, 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 overlord 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