The House of Arden | Page 8

from ceiling to floor, shelves of books between the windows and over the mantelpiece--hundreds and thousands of books. Even Edred's spirits sank. "It's no go. It will take us years to look in them all," he said.
"We may as well look at some of them," said Elfrida, always less daring, but more persevering than her brother. She sat down on the worn carpet. and began to read the names on the backs of the books nearest to her. "Burton's Atomy of Melon something," she read, and "Locke on Understanding," and many other dull and wearying titles. But none of the books seemed at all likely to contain a spell for finding treasure. "Burgess on the Precious Metals" beguiled her for a moment, but she saw at once that there was no room in its closely-printed, brown-spotted pages for anything so interesting as a spell. Time passed by. The sunlight that came through the blinds had quite changed its place on the carpet, and still Elfrida persevered. Edred grew more and more restless.
"It's no use," he kept saying, and "Let's chuck it," and "I expect that old chap was just kidding us. I don't feel a bit like I did about it," and "Do let's get along home."
But Elfrida plodded on, though her head and her back both ached. I wish I could say that her perseverance was rewarded. But it wasn't; and one must keep to facts. As it happened, it was Edred who, aimlessly running his finger along the edge of the bookshelf just for the pleasure of looking at the soft, mouse-coloured dust that clung to the finger at the end of each shelf, suddenly cried out, "What about this?" and pulled out a great white book that had on its cover a shield printed in gold with squares and little spots on it, and a gold pig standing on the top of the shield, and on the back, "The History of the Ardens of Arden."
In an instant it was open on the floor between them, and they were turning its pages with quick, anxious hands. But, alas! it was as empty of spells as dull old Burgess himself.
It was only when Edred shut it with a bang and the remark that he had had jolly well enough of it that a paper fluttered out and swept away like a pigeon, settling on the fireless hearth. And it was the spell. There was no doubt of that.
Written in faint ink on a square yellowed sheet of letter-paper that had been folded once, and opened and folded again so often that the fold was worn thin and hardly held its two parts together, the writing was fine and pointed and ladylike. At the top was written: "The Spell Aunt Anne Told Me.--December 24, 1793."
And then came the spell:--
"Hear, Oh badge of Arden's house,
The spell my little age allows;
Arden speaks it without fear,
Badge of Arden's house, draw near,
Make me brave and kind and wise,
And show me where the treasure lies."
"To be said," the paper went on, "at sun-setting by a Lord Arden between the completion of his ninth and tenth years. But it is all folly and not to be believed."
"This is it, right enough," said Edred. "Come on, let's get out of this." They turned to go, and as they did so something moved in
the corner of the library--something little, and they could not see its shape.
"THEY WERE TURNING ITS PAGES WITH QUICK ANXIOUS HANDS."
Neither drew free breath again till they were out of the house, and out of the garden, and out of the castle, and on the wide, thymy downs, 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