Ralestone Luck quotes

“Well, I think that Pirate’s Haven is slightly different from our present surroundings. Where’s your proper pride? Not everyone can be classed among the New Poor,” Val observed judiciously.

“Nobility in the bread line.” His sister sniffed with what she fondly believed was the air of a Van Astor dowager.

“We never relinquished the title, did we? Rupert’s still the Marquess of Lorne.”

And from the nearest, deep carven in the stone, a jagged-toothed skull, crowned and grinning, stared blankly at the three in the 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.”

“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?”

Half an hour later, fed and well content (even Satan, as the Ralestones had named their visitor because of his temperament, having condescended to accept some of the better-done bits of bacon), they sat about the table staring at the dishes.

Now it is a very well-known fact that dishes do not obligingly leap from a table into a pan of well-soaped water, slosh themselves around a few times, and jump out to do a spot of brisk rubbing down.

But how nice it would be if they did, thought Val.

“Who are you?” Val demanded sharply.

“Ah has got as much right heah as yo’ all,” the boy answered angrily.

And with that he turned and slipped into a path at the far end of the glen.

“In spite of the enemy? I agree.” Val stepped on the starter. “You know, a hundred years ago there would have been a very simple remedy for this rival-claimant business.”

“Pistols for two⁠—coffee for one. Rupert or I would have met him out at the dueling oaks and that would have been the end of him.”

“Very common. The finest fencing masters on the North American continent plied their trade here.

“After his expedition this morning, I would have my doubts of that,” Val cut in. “You see, Miss Biglow, we are back to the soil now.”

“Charity is the name,” she corrected him.

“So you’re down—”

“She a-goin’ to see dat swamper Jeems,” Sam continued. “Heh, heh,” a sudden cackle of laughter rippled across his lips.

“Dat ole swamper think he so sma’t. Think no one fin’ he house⁠—”

“Sam!” Val rounded upon him. “Do you know where Jeems lives?”

He stared up at the stone mantel. “

Kids feel things a lot more than they’re given credit for.

Ricky sent me a letter with some tear stains between the lines when Aunt Rogers decided to stay another year. And that was the year I earned the reputation of being a ‘hard case.’

“Then you don’t like it here?”

“Like it? Madam, ‘like’ is a very pallid word. What if you were offered everything you ever wished for, all tied up in pink ribbons and laid on your doorstep? What would your reaction be?”

“So,” she was staring into the fire, “that’s the way of it?”

And then her brother guessed that she did not mean Creighton’s secret but some other. She crossed the room and rang the bell for Letty-Lou to bring coffee. Something triumphant in her step added to Val’s suspicion.

Like the Englishman of Kipling’s poem, Ricky was most to be feared when she grew polite.

He turned in time to see her wink at Charity.

Prudence urged that they return to the house and send Sam Two or some other messenger down to the crossroads store to summon the police by phone.

Prudence however had never successfully advised any Ralestone. They had a decided taste for fighting their own battles.

So, torch in hand, Val dropped into the hole. And a moment later Ricky slid down to join him.

“They may have all gone out, thinking we were still ahead of them,” he mused aloud.

“Well, it’s got to be done,” Ricky observed, “so we might as well do it.”

Back they went along the unknown passage. This appeared to run straight out from the first chamber. But why it had been fashioned and then walled up they had no way of knowing. Ricky’s torch picked out the entrance at last.

“What?” he demanded, suddenly alert at her tone. Had the dark and their trouble made her lightheaded?

“Being a ghost. We⁠—we could walk the hall with Great-uncle Rick; he wouldn’t begrudge us that.”

Her answering laugh, though shaky, was sane enough.

She brushed back the hair glued by perspiration to his forehead.

Ricky was not gold, he thought, for gold is a rather dirty thing. But she was all steel, as clean and shining as a blade fresh from the hands of a master armorer.

He made a great effort and found that he could move his right arm an inch or two. Concentrating all his strength there, he wriggled it back and forth until he could draw it free from the wreckage.

Yes,” he looked about him once more at garden and house, “it was a very good idea. A pity it did not work. Well, I must be going before I begin to curse my luck.

When a man does that, he sometimes loses it. You must have found yours, I think.

”