The Luck of the Vails. E. F. Benson

it seemed, behind some old pictures. Templeton and I found it."

      Mr. Francis whisked round with even more than his accustomed vivacity of movement at Harry's words.

      "Yes, yes," he said, with some impatience. "Open it, then, my dear boy, open it!"

      An old lock of curious work secured the leather strap which fastened the case, but this dangled loose from it, attached to its hasp.

      "We could find no key for it," explained Harry, "and had to break it open."

      As he spoke, he drew from the case an object swathed in wash leather, but the outline was clearly visible beneath its wrappings.

      "Ah! it is so," said Mr. Francis, below his breath, and as Harry unfolded the covering they all stood silent. This done, he held up to the light what it contained. It was a large golden goblet with two handles, of a size perhaps to hold a couple of quarts of liquor, and even by lamplight it was a thing that dazzled the eye and made the mouth to water. But solid gold as it was, and of chaste and exquisite workmanship, there was scarce an inch of it that was not worth more than the whole value of the gold and the craft bestowed thereon, so thickly was it incrusted with large and precious stones. Just below the lip of the cup ran a ring of rubies of notable size and wonderful depth of colour; and below, at a little interval, six emerald stars, all clear-set in the body of the cup. The lower part was chased with acanthus leaves, each outlined in pearls, and up the fluted stem climbed lordly sapphires. Sapphires again traced the rim of the foot, and in each handle was clear-set a row of diamonds—no chips and dust, but liquid eyes and lobes of light. Halfway down the bowl of the cup, between the emerald stars and the points of the acanthus leaves, ran a plain panel of gold on which was engraved, in small, early English characters, some text that encircled the whole.

      Harry was standing close under the lamp as he took off the covering, and remained there a moment, holding in his hand the gorgeous jewel, and looking at it with a curiously fixed attention, unconscious of the others. Then he handed it to his uncle.

      "Tell me about it; what is it, Uncle Francis?" he asked; and involuntarily, as the old man took it, he glanced at the picture of Francis, second baron, who in the portrait held, beyond a doubt, the same treasure that they were now examining.

      Mr. Francis did not at once reply, but handled the cup for a little while in silence, with awe and solemnity in his attitude and expression. As he turned it this way and that in his grasp, jewel after jewel caught the light and shone refracted in points of brilliant colour on his face. The burnished band on which was engraved the circling of the text cut a yellow line of reflection across his nose and cheeks, which remained steady, but over the rest of his face gleams of living colour shone and passed; and now as a ruby, now an emerald, sent their direct rays into his eyes, they would seem lit inside by a gleam of red or green. At length he looked up.

      "Hear what the thing says of itself," he said. "I will read it you."

      Then, turning the cup till he had found the beginning of the text, he read slowly, the cup revolving to the words:

      "When the Luck of the Vails is lost,

       Fear not fire nor rain nor frost;

       When the Luck is found again,

       Fear both fire and frost and rain."

      "Very pretty," said Geoffrey, with a critical air, but Mr. Francis made no reply. His eyes were still fixed on the jewel.

      "But what is it?" asked Harry.

      "This? The cup?" he said. "It is what I have read to you. It is the Luck of the Vails."

      Geoffrey laughed. "You've got it, Harry, anyhow," he said, "for weal or woe. How does it run? Fear fire and frost and rain. Take care of yourself, old man, and don't smoke in bed, and don't skate over deep water."

      Mr. Francis turned to him quickly, with a sudden recovery of his briskness.

      "You and I would risk all that, would we not, Geoffrey," he said, "to have found such a beautiful thing?—Yes, Harry, I see you have noticed it. There it is in old Francis's hand in the picture. Where else should it be if not there? Whether he made it or not I can't tell you, but that is its first appearance, as far as we know."

      Still holding it, he looked at the portrait, then stretched it out to Harry.

      "There, take it," he said quickly.

      "But tell us all about it," said Harry. "What happened to it afterward? How is it I never heard of it?"

      "Your father would never speak of it," said Mr. Francis; "nor your grandfather either. Your father never saw it, and your grandfather only once, when he was quite a little boy. Neither could bear to speak of it when it was lost. And so it was in the attic all the time!"

      Harry's eyes were sparkling; a sudden animation seemed to possess him.

      "Tell us from the beginning," he said.

      He was already wrapping the goblet up again, and Mr. Francis looked greedily at it till the last jewel had been hidden in the wash leather.

      "Well, it is a strange story, and a short one," he said, "for so little is known of it. It has appeared and disappeared several times since Holbein painted it there, as unaccountably as it has appeared again now. In the attic all the time!" he exclaimed again.

      "But the legend; what does the legend mean?" asked Harry.

      "I have no idea. Perhaps it is some old rhyme, perhaps it is a mere conceit of the goldsmith. But, be that as it may, those of your house who have possessed the Luck always seemed to think that it brought them luck. It was in old Francis's time, you know, that coal was found on your Derbyshire estate, which so enriched him for a while. In his son's time certainly the Luck disappeared, for we have a letter of his about it, and as certainly the field of coal came to an end. It appeared again some eighty years later, and again disappeared; and then the grandfather of your grandfather found it. He, you know, married the wealthy Barbara Devereux, and it was he who showed the Luck to your grandfather. Then it was lost for the last time, and with it all his money, in the South-Sea Bubble."

      Harry looked a shade disappointed at this bald narrative.

      "Is that all?" he asked. "Where do the fire, and frost, and rain come in?"

      Mr. Francis laughed.

      "Well, oddly enough, old Francis was burned to death in his bed, and Mark Vail was drowned. Harry Vail, the last holder of it, was frozen to death in his travelling carriage crossing the St. Gothard. But a man must die somehow; is it not so? Poor, wicked old Francis, he thought to bring a curse on the house, if it was indeed he who made the Luck, but how futile, how futile! Did he think that the elements were in league with some occult power of magic and darkness that he possessed? Ah! no; beneficent Nature is not controlled by such a hand. He knows that well maybe now, and perhaps therein is his chastisement, for, indeed, he was a man of devilish mind."

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

THE SPELL BEGINS TO WORK

       Table of Contents

      Mr. Francis was by choice an early riser, and next morning, before either of the young men were awake, he had been splashing and gasping in his cold tub, had felt with the keenest enjoyment the genial afterglow produced on his braced and invigorated skin by the application of the rough towel, and was now out on the terrace, pacing briskly along the dry gravel walk on this adorable winter morning, waiting cheerfully for his desired breakfast. Now and then he would break into a nimble trot for fifty paces, or even give a little skip in the air as a child does, from the sheer exhilaration of his pulses. His thoughts, too, must have been as sparkling as the morning itself, as brisk and cheery as his