Harding's Luck Part 20

d.i.c.kie's mug paused in air half-way to his mouth, which remained open.

"What's up?" Beale asked, trying to turn on the narrow seat and look up, which he couldn't do.

"It's 'im," whispered d.i.c.kie, setting down the mug. "That red'eaded chap wot I never see."

And then the redheaded man came round the part.i.tion and sat down beside Beale and talked to him, and d.i.c.kie wished he wouldn't. He heard little of the conversation; only "better luck next time" from the redheaded man, and "I don't know as I'm taking any" from Beale, and at the parting the redheaded man saying, "I'll doss same shop as wot you do," and Beale giving the name of the lodging-house where, on the way to the coffee-shop, Beale had left the perambulator and engaged their beds.

"Tell you all about it in the morning" were the last words of the redheaded one as he slouched out, and d.i.c.kie and Beale were left to finish the door-steps and drink the cold tea that had slopped into their saucers.

When they went out d.i.c.kie said--

"What did he want, farver--that redheaded chap?"

Beale did not at once answer.

"I wouldn't if I was you," said d.i.c.kie, looking straight in front of him as they walked.

"Wouldn't what?"

"Whatever he wants to."

"Why, I ain't told you yet what he _does_ want."

"'E ain't up to no good--I know that."

"'E's full of notions, that's wot 'e is," said Beale. "If some of 'is notions come out right 'e'll be a-ridin' in 'is own cart and 'orse afore we know where we are--and us a-tramping in 'is dust."

"Ridin' in Black Maria, more like," said d.i.c.kie.

"Well, I ain't askin' _you_ to do anything, am I?" said Beale.

"No!--you ain't. But whatever you're in, I'm a-goin' to be in, that's all."

"Don't you take on," said Beale comfortably; "I ain't said I'll be in anything yet, 'ave I? Let's 'ear what 'e says in the morning. If 'is lay ain't a safe lay old Beale won't be in it--you may lay to that."

"Don't let's," said d.i.c.kie earnestly. "Look 'ere, father, let us go, both two of us, and sleep in that there old 'ouse of ours. I don't want that red'eaded chap. He'll spoil everything--I know 'e will, just as we're a-gettin' along so straight and gay. Don't let's go to that there doss; let's lay in the old 'ouse."

"Ain't I never to 'ave never a word with n.o.body without it's you?" said Beale, but not angrily.

"Not with 'im; 'e ain't no cla.s.s," said d.i.c.kie firmly; "and oh! farver, I do so wanter sleep in that 'ouse, that was where I 'ad The Dream, you know."

"Oh, well--come on, then," said Beale; "lucky we've got our thick coats on."

It was quite easy for d.i.c.kie to get into the house, just as he had done before, and to go along the pa.s.sage and open the front door for Mr.

Beale, who walked in as bold as bra.s.s. They made themselves comfortable with the sacking and old papers--but one at least of the two missed the luxury of clean air and soft moss and a bed canopy strewn with stars.

Mr. Beale was soon asleep and d.i.c.kie lay still, his heart beating to the tune of the hope that now at last, in this place where it had once come, his dream would come again. But it did not come--even sleep, plain, restful, dreamless sleep, would not come to him. At last he could lie still no longer. He slipped from under the paper, whose rustling did not disturb Mr. Beale's slumbers, and moved into the square of light thrown through the window by the street lamp. He felt in his pockets, pulled out Tinkler and the white seal, set them on the floor, and, moved by memories of the great night when his dream had come to him, arranged the moon-seeds round them in the same pattern that they had lain in on that night of nights. And the moment that he had lain the last seed, completing the crossed triangles, the magic began again. All was as it had been before. The tired eyes that must close, the feeling that through his closed eyelids he could yet see something moving in the centre of the star that the two triangles made.

"Where do you want to go to?" said the same soft small voice that had spoken before. But this time d.i.c.kie did not reply that he was "not particular." Instead, he said, "Oh, _there!_ I want to go there!"

feeling quite sure that whoever owned that voice would know as well as he, or even better, where "there" was, and how to get to it.

And as on that other night everything grew very quiet, and sleep wrapped d.i.c.kie round like a soft garment. When he awoke he lay in the big four-post bed with the green and white curtains; about him were the tapestry walls and the heavy furniture of The Dream.

"Oh!" he cried aloud, "I've found it again!--I've found it!--I've found it!"

And then the old nurse with the hooped petticoats and the queer cap and the white ruff was bending over him; her wrinkled face was alight with love and tenderness.

"So thou'rt awake at last," she said. "Did'st thou find thy friend in thy dreams?"

d.i.c.kie hugged her.

"I've found the way back," he said; "I don't know which is the dream and which is real--but _you_ know."

"Yes," said the old nurse, "I know. The one is as real as the other."

He sprang out of bed and went leaping round the room, jumping on to chairs and off them, running and dancing.

"What ails the child?" the nurse grumbled; "get thy hose on, for shame, taking a chill as like as not. What ails thee to act so?"

"It's the not being lame," d.i.c.kie explained, coming to a standstill by the window that looked out on the good green garden. "You don't know how wonderful it seems, just at first, you know, _not_ to be lame."

CHAPTER VI

BURIED TREASURE

AND then, as he stood there in the suns.h.i.+ne, he suddenly knew.

Having succeeded in dreaming once again the dream which he had so longed to dream, d.i.c.kie Harding looked out of the window of the dream-house in Deptford into the dream-garden with its cut yew-trees and box avenues and bowling-greens, and perceived without doubt that this was no dream, but real--as real as the other Deptford where he had sown Artistic Bird Seed and gathered moonflowers and reaped the silver seeds of magic, for it _was_ magic. d.i.c.kie was sure of it now. He had not lived in the time of the First James, be sure, without hearing magic talked of. And it seemed quite plain to him that if this that had happened to him was not magic, then there never was and never would be any magic to happen to any one. He turned from the window and looked at the tapestry-hung room--the big bed, the pleasant, wrinkled face of the nurse--and he knew that all this was as real as anything that had happened to him in that other life where he was a little lame boy who took the road with a dirty tramp for father, and lay in the bed with green curtains.

"Was thy friend well, in thy dream?" the nurse asked.

"Yes, oh, yes," said d.i.c.kie, "and I carved boxes in my dream, and sold them, and I want to learn a lot more things, so that when I go back again--I mean when I dream that dream again--I shall be able to earn more money."

"'Tis shame that one of thy name should have to work for money," said the nurse.

"It _isn't_ my name there," said d.i.c.kie; "and old Sebastian told me every one ought to do some duty to his country, or he wasn't worth his meat and ale. And you don't know how good it is having money that you've _earned yourself_."

"I ought to," she said; "I've earned mine long enough. Now haste and dress--and then breakfast and thy fencing lesson."

When the fencing lesson was over, d.i.c.kie hesitated. He wanted, of course, to hurry off to Sebastian and to go on learning how to make a galleon. But also he wanted to learn some trade that he could teach Beale at Deptford, and he knew, quite as surely as any master craftsman could have known it, that nothing which required delicate handling, such as wood-carving or the making of toy boats, could ever be mastered by Beale. But Beale was certainly fond of dogs. d.i.c.kie remembered how little True had cuddled up to him and nestled inside his coat when he lay down to sleep under the newspapers and the bits of sacking in Lavender Terrace, Rosemary Lane.

So d.i.c.kie went his way to the kennels to talk to the kennelman. He had been there before with Master Roger Fry, his fencing master, but he had never spoken to the kennelman. And when he got to the kennels he knocked on the door of the kennelman's house and called out, "What ho! within there!" just as people do in old plays. And the door was thrown open by a man in a complete suit of leather, and when d.i.c.kie looked in that man's face he saw that it was the face of the man who had lived next door in Lavender Terrace, Rosemary Lane--the man who dug up the garden for the parrot seed.

"Why," said d.i.c.kie, "it's you!"