Ralestone Luck | Page 3

shabby car.
Beneath it ran the insolent motto of an ancient and disreputable clan, "What I want--I
take!"
"This is the place all right--I recognize Joe there." Val pointed to the crest. "Good old Joe,
always laughing."
Ricky made a face. "Horrid old thing. I don't see why we couldn't have had a swan or
something nice to swank about."
"But then the Lords of Lorne were hardly a nice lot in their prime," Val reminded her.
"Well, Rupert, let's see the rest."
The car followed a graveled drive between tall bushes which would have been the better
for a pruning. Then the road made a sudden curve and they came out upon a crescent of
lawn bordering upon a stone-paved terrace three steps above. And on the terrace stood
the home a Ralestone had not set foot in for over fifty years--Pirate's Haven.
"It looks--" Ricky stared up, "why, it looks just like the picture Mr. Harrison painted!"

"Which proves why he is now in Italy," Val returned. "But he did capture it on canvas."
"Gray stone--and those diamond-paned windows--and that squatty tower. But it isn't like
a Southern home at all! It's some old, old place out of England."
"Because it was built by an exile," said Rupert softly. "An exile who loved his home so
well that he labored five years in the wilderness to build its duplicate. Those little
diamond-paned windows were once protected with shutters an inch thick, and the place
was a fort in Indian times. But it is strange to this country. That's why it's one of the show
places. LeFleur asked me if we would be willing to keep up the custom of throwing the
state rooms open to the public one day a month."
"And shall we?" asked Ricky.
"We'll see. Well, don't you want to see the inside as well as the out?"
"Of course! Val, you lazy thing, get out!"
"Certainly, m'lady." He swung open the door and climbed out stiffly. Although he
wouldn't have confessed it for any reason, his leg had been aching dully for hours.
"Do you know," Ricky hesitated on the first terrace step, bending down to put aside a trail
of morning-glory vine which clutched at her ankle, "I've just remembered!"
"What?" Rupert looked up from the grid where he was unstrapping their luggage.
"That we are the very first Ralestones to--to come home since Grandfather Miles rode
away in 1867."
"And why the sudden dip into ancient history?" Val inquired as he limped around to help
Rupert.
"I don't know," her eyes were fast upon moss-greened wall and ponderous door hewn of a
single slab of oak, "except--well, we are coming home at last. I wonder if--if they know.
All those others. Rick and Miles, the first Rupert and Richard and--"
"That spitfire, the Lady Richanda?" Rupert smiled. "Perhaps they do. No, leave the bags
here, Val. Let's see the house first."
Together the Ralestones crossed the terrace and came to stand by the front door which
still bore faint scars left by Indian hatchets. But Rupert stooped to insert a very modern
key into a very modern lock. There was a click and the door swung inward before his
push.
"The Long Hall!" They stood in something of a hesitant huddle at the end of a long
stone-floored room. Half-way down its length a wooden staircase led up to the second
floor, and directly opposite that a great fireplace yawned mightily, black and bare.

A leather-covered lounge was directly before this, flanked by two square chairs. And by
the stairs was an oaken marriage chest. Save for two skin rugs, these were all the
furnishings.
But Ricky had crossed hesitatingly to that cavernous fireplace and was standing there
looking up as her brothers joined her.
"There's where it was," she said softly and pointed to a deep niche cut into the surface of
the stone overmantel. That niche was empty and had been so for more than a hundred
years--to their hurt. "That was where the Luck--"
"How hold ye Lorne?" Rupert's softly spoken question brought the well-remembered
answer to Val's lips:
"By the oak leaf, by the sea wave, by the broadsword blade, thus hold we Lorne!"
"The oak leaf is dust," murmured Ricky, "the sea wave is gone, the broadsword is rust,
how now hold ye Lorne?"
Her brothers answered her together:
"By our Luck, thus hold we Lorne!"
"And we've got to get it back," she said. "We've just got to! When the Luck hangs there
again, we--"
"Won't have anything left to worry about," Val finished for her. "But that's a very big
order, m'lady. Short of catching Rick's ghost and forcing him to disclose the place where
he hid it, I don't see how we're going to do it."