The House of Arden | Page 9

with the blue sky above, where the skylarks sang, and there was the
sweet, fresh scent of the seaweed and the bean-fields.
"Oh," said Elfrida, then, "I am so glad it's not at midnight you've got to
say the spell. You'd be too frightened."
"I shouldn't," said Edred, very pale and walking quickly away from the
castle. "I should say it just the same if it was midnight." And he very
nearly believed what he said.
Elfrida it was who had picked up the paper that Edred had dropped
when that thing moved in the corner. She still held it fast.
"I expect it was only a rat or something," said Edred, his heart beating
nineteen to the dozen, as they say in Kent and elsewhere.
"Oh, yes," said Elfrida, whose lips were trembling a little; "I'm sure it
was only a rat or something."
When they got to the top of Arden Knoll there was no sign of sunset.
There was time, therefore, to pull oneself together, to listen to the
skylarks, and to smell the bean-flowers, and to wonder how one could
have been such a duffer as to be scared by a "rat or something." Also
there were some bits of sandwich and crumbled cake, despised at

dinner-time, but now, somehow, tasting quite different. These helped to
pass the time till the sun almost seemed to rest on a brown shoulder of
the downs, that looked as though it were shrugging itself up to meet the
round red ball that the evening mists had made of the sun.
The children had not spoken for several minutes. Their four eyes were
fixed on the sun, and as the edge of it seemed to flatten itself against
the hill-shoulder Elfrida whispered, "Now!" and gave her brother the
paper.
They had read the spell so often, as they sat there in the waning light,
that both knew it by heart, so there was no need for Edred to read it.
And that was lucky, for in that thick, pink light the faint ink hardly
showed at all on the yellowy paper.
Edred stood up.
"Now!" said Elfrida, again. "Say it now." And Edred said, quite out
loud and in a pleasant sort of sing-song, such as he was accustomed to
use at school when reciting the stirring ballads of the late Lord
Macaulay, or the moving tale of the boy on the burning deck:--
"'Hear, Oh badge of Arden's house,
ÊÊThe spell my little age allows;
ÊÊArden speaks it without fear,
ÊÊBadge of Arden's house, draw near,
ÊÊMake me brave and kind and wise,
ÊÊAnd show me where the treasure lies.'"
He said it slowly and carefully, his sister eagerly listening, ready to
correct him if he said a word wrong. But he did not.
"Where the treasure lies," he ended, and the great silence of the downs
seemed to rush in like a wave to fill the space which his voice had

filled.
And nothing else happened at all. A flush of pink from the sun-setting
spread over the downs, the grass-stems showed up thin and distinct, the
skylarks had ceased to sing, but the scent of the bean-flowers and the
seaweed was stronger than ever. And nothing happened till Edred cried
out, "What's that?" For close to his foot something moved, not quickly
or suddenly so as to startle, but very gently, very quietly, very
unmistakably--something that glittered goldenly in the pink, diffused
light of the sun-setting.
"Why," said Elfrida stooping, "why, it's--"
CHAPTER II
THE MOULDIWARP
AND it was--it was the living image of the little pig-like animal that
was stamped in gold above the chequered shield on the cover of the
white book in which they had found the spell. And as on the yellowy
white of the vellum book-cover, so here on the thymy grass of the knoll
it shone golden. The children stood perfectly still. They were afraid to
move lest they should scare away this little creature which, though
golden, was alive and moved about at their feet, turning a restless nose
to right and left.
"It is," said Elfrida again, very softly, so as not to frighten it.
"What?" Edred asked, though he knew well enough.
"Off the book that we got the spell out of."
"That was our crest on the top of our coat-of-arms, like on the old
snuff-box that was great-grandpapa's."
"Well, this is our crest come alive, that's all."
"Don't you be too clever," said Edred. "It said badge; I don't believe

badge is the same thing as crest. A badge is leeks, or roses, or
thistles--something you can wear in your cap. I shouldn't like to wear
that in my cap."
And still the golden thing at their feet moved cautiously and without
ceasing.
"Why," said Edred suddenly, "it's just