Harding’s Luck · Chapter 7 (3/3)

“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 was accustomed to⁠—the kind that just took you out of one life into another life, and made both lives as real one as the other. Still one must always be polite. So he said⁠—

“I am very glad to see you both.”

“There’s purty manners,” the Mouldiwarp said.

“The pleasure is ours,” said the Mouldierwarp instantly. Dickie could not help seeing that both these old creatures were extremely pleased with him.

“When shall I see the other Mouldiwarp?” he asked, to keep up the conversation⁠—“the one on our shield of arms?”

“You mean the Mouldiestwarp?” said the Mouldier, as I will now call him for short; “you will not see him till the end of the magic. He is very great. I work the magic of space, my brother here works the magic of time, and the Great Mouldiestwarp controls us, and many things beside. You must only call on him when you wish to end our magics and to work a magic greater than ours.”

“What could be greater?” Dickie asked, and both the creatures looked very pleased.

“He is a worthier Arden than those little black and white chits of thine,” the Mouldier said to the Mouldy (which is what, to save time, we will now call the Mouldiwarp).

“An’ so should be⁠—an’ so should be,” said the Mouldy shortly. “All’s for the best, and the end’s to come. Where’d ye want to go, my lord?”

“I’m not ‘my lord’; I’m only Richard Arden,” said Dickie, “and I want to go back to Mr. Beale and stay with him for seven months, and then to find my cousins.”

“Back thou goes then,” said the Mouldy; “that part’s easy.”

“And for the second half of thy wish no magic is needed but the magic of steadfast heart and the patient purpose, and these thou hast without any helping or giving of ours,” said the courtly Mouldierwarp.

They waved their white paws on the gray-blue curtain of mist, and behold they were not there any more, and the blue-gray mist was only the night’s darkness turning to dawn, and Dickie was able again to feel solid things⁠—the floor under him, his hand on the sharp edge of the armchair, and the soft, breathing, comfortable weight of True, asleep against his knee. He moved, the dog awoke, and Dickie felt its soft nose nuzzled into his hand.

“And now for seven months’ work, and not one good dream,” said Dickie, got up, put Tinkler and the seal and the moonseeds into a very safe place, and crept back to bed.

He felt rather heroic. He did not want the treasure. It was not for him. He was going to help Edred and Elfrida to get it. He did not want the life at Lavender Terrace. He was going to help Mr. Beale to live it. So let him feel a little bit of a hero, since that was what indeed he was, even though, of course, all right-minded children are modest and humble, and fully sensible of their own intense unimportance, no matter how heroically they may happen to be behaving.