‘Hm! hm! you’re quite right, my boy. I wouldn’t if I were you. But as I see you know how to set a right value on such a weapon, you may stay and look at mine as long as you like. Only if you take any of them from their sheaths, you must be very careful how you put them in again. Don’t use any force. If there is any one you can’t manage easily, just lay it on the window-sill, and I will attend to it. Mind you don’t handle--I mean touch--the blades at all. There would be no end of rust-spots before morning.’
I was full of gratitude for the confidence he placed in me.
‘I can’t stop now to tell you about them all, but I will--some day.’
So saying he disappeared once more up the little staircase, leaving me like Aladdin in the jewel-forest. I had not been alone more than half an hour or so, however, when he returned, and taking down a dagger, said abruptly,
‘There, that is the dagger with which Lord Harry Rolleston’--I think that was the name, but knowing nothing of the family or its history, I could not keep the names separate--‘stabbed his brother Gilbert. And there is--’
He took down one after another, and with every one he associated some fact--or fancy perhaps, for I suspect now that he invented not a few of his incidents.
‘They have always been fond of weapons in this house,’ he said. ‘There now is one with the strangest story! It’s in print--I can show it you in print in the library there. It had the reputation of being a magic sword--’
‘Like King Arthur’s Excalibur?’ I asked, for I had read a good deal of the history of Prince Arthur.
‘Just so,’ said Mr Close. ‘Well, that sword had been in the family for many years--I may say centuries. One day it disappeared, and there was a great outcry. A lackey had been discharged for some cause or other, and it was believed he had taken it. But before they found him, the sword was in its place upon the wall. Afterwards the man confessed that he had taken it, out of revenge, for he knew how it was prized. But in the middle of the next night, as he slept in a roadside inn, a figure dressed in ancient armour had entered the room, taken up the sword, and gone away with it. I dare say it was all nonsense. His heart had failed him when he found he was followed, and he had contrived by the help of some fellow-servant to restore it. But there are very queer stories about old weapons--swords in particular. I must go now,’ he concluded, ‘for we have company to-night, and I have a good many things to see to.’