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
THE SPELL BEGINS TO WORK
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 own physical economy, for from time to time he would troll out a bar or two of some lusty song, or stop to chirrup with pursed lips to the stiff, half-frozen birds, and his pleasant, close-shaven face was continually wreathed in smiles. Here was one at least in whom old age had brought no spell of freezing to laggard blood, no dulling of that zest of life which is so often and so erroneously considered as an attribute of youth only; life was still immensely enjoyable, and all things were delightful to his sympathetic eye.
Such a buoyancy of spirits is a most engaging thing, provided only it be natural and unforced. But too often the old, who remain young, have the aspect as of grizzly kittens; their spirits are but a parody of youthfulness, their antics broken-winded and spasmodic. In a moment they fall from the heights of irresponsible gaiety to an equally unwarrantable churlishness; they maintain no level way; their tempers are those of jerking marionettes, a performance of jointed dolls.
But how different was the joyousness of Mr. Francis! Nothing could be more native to him than his morning exhilaration. Authentic was the merriment that sparkled in his light-blue eyes, authentic the lightness of his foot as it tripped along the gravel walk; and none could doubt that his fine spirits were effortless and unaffected.
To reach so ripe an age as that to which Mr. Francis had attained means, even to those whose life has lain in the pleasantest lines, to have had to bear certain trials, sorrows, misunderstandings, necessarily incident to the mere passage of years. To bear these bravely and without bitterness is the part of any robust nature; to bear them with unabated cheerfulness and without any loss of the zest for life is a rarer gift; and the silver-haired old gentleman who paced so gaily up and down the terraced walks, while he waited for young men to have their fill of sleep and make a tardy appearance, was a figure not without galantry. Here were no impatient gestures; he was hungry, but the time of waiting would not be shortened by fretfulness, nor had he any inclination to so unamiable a failing, and for nearly half an hour he pursued his cheery walk up and down. At length the welcome booming of the gong sounded distantly, and he tripped toward the house.
Harry was down, the clock pointing to an indulgent half past nine, but the youthful moroseness of morning sat on his brow. To so old a traveller through life as his uncle, the ways of weaning this were manifold, and he broke into speech.
"Splendid morning, my dear boy," he said; "and the ice, they tell me, bears. What will you do? What shall we do? Are you shooting to-day, or skating? And will you like to take a tramp round the old place with me, as you suggested last night?"
Harry was examining dishes on the side-table with a supercilious air.
"Very cold, is it not?" he said. "We were thinking of shooting. Do you shoot, Uncle Francis?"
"I will shoot with pleasure, if you will let me," he said. "Yes, it is cold—too cold for pottering about, as you say. Fish cakes, eggs and bacon, cold game. Yes, I'll begin with a fish cake. What a hungry place Vail is! I am famished, literally famished. And where is Geoffrey?"
"Geoffrey was going to his bath when I came down," said Harry. "It is to be hoped he will be more nearly awake after it. He had one eye open only when I saw him."
"Fine gift to be able to sleep like that," said Mr. Francis; "I heard you two boys go up to bed last night, and sat an hour reading after that. But I awoke at eight, as I always do, and got up."
Harry's morose mood was on the thaw.
"And have you been waiting for us since then, Uncle Francis?" he said. "Really, I am awfully sorry. We'll have breakfast earlier to-morrow. It was stupid of me."
"Not a bit, not a bit, Harry. I like a bit of a walk before breakfast. Wonderful thing for the circulation after your bath. Ah, here's Geoffrey.—Good-morning, my dear boy!"
