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<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57799 ***</div>
<div class="img">
<img class="cover" id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="The House of Arden" width="500" height="792" />
</div>
<div class="img" id="pic1">
<img src="images/pmage000.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="701" />
<p class="caption">“HE TOOK OFF HIS HAT AT THE LAST WORDS AND SWEPT IT, WITH
A FLOURISH, NEARLY TO THE GROUND.”<span class="hst"> (<i>See <a class="pgref" href="#Page_217">page 217</a>.</i>)</span></p>
</div>
<div class="box">
<h1><span class="smaller">THE</span>
<br />HOUSE OF ARDEN
<br /><span class="smaller">A STORY FOR CHILDREN</span></h1>
<p class="center"><span class="smaller">BY</span>
<br />E. NESBIT
<br /><span class="smaller">AUTHOR OF “THE STORY OF THE AMULET,”
<br />“THE TREASURE SEEKERS,” ETC.</span></p>
<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">ILLUSTRATED BY H. R. MILLAR</span></p>
<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">LONDON
<br />T. FISHER UNWIN
<br /><span class="sc">Adelphi Terrace</span>
<br />1908</span></p>
</div>
<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">TO</span>
<br />JOHN BLAND</p>
<p><span class="sc">Dymchurch, 1908.</span></p>
<p class="tbcenter">(<i>All rights reserved.</i>)</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_7">7</div>
<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
<dl class="toc">
<dt class="jr"><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER I</dt>
<dt><a href="#c1">ARDEN’S LORD</a> 13</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER II</dt>
<dt><a href="#c2">THE MOULDIWARP</a> 45</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER III</dt>
<dt><a href="#c3">IN BONEY’S TIMES</a> 76</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER IV</dt>
<dt><a href="#c4">THE LANDING OF THE FRENCH</a> 97</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER V</dt>
<dt><a href="#c5">THE HIGHWAYMAN AND THE ——</a> 112</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER VI</dt>
<dt><a href="#c6">THE SECRET PANEL</a> 136</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER VII</dt>
<dt><a href="#c7">THE KEY OF THE PARLOUR</a> 162</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER VIII</dt>
<dt><a href="#c8">GUY FAWKES</a> 184</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER IX</dt>
<dt><a href="#c9">THE PRISONERS IN THE TOWER</a> 214</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER X</dt>
<dt><a href="#c10">WHITE WINGS AND A BROWNIE</a> 238</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER XI</dt>
<dt><a href="#c11">DEVELOPMENTS</a> 262</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER XII</dt>
<dt><a href="#c12">FILMS AND CLOUDS</a> 291</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER XIII</dt>
<dt><a href="#c13">MAY-BLOSSOM AND PEARLS</a> 308</dt>
<dt class="center">CHAPTER XIV</dt>
<dt><a href="#c14">THE FINDING OF THE TREASURE</a> 327</dt>
</dl>
<div class="pb" id="Page_9">9</div>
<h2><span class="h2line1">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</span></h2>
<dl class="toc">
<dt><a href="#pic1">“HE TOOK OFF HIS HAT AT THE LAST WORDS AND SWEPT IT, WITH A FLOURISH, NEARLY TO THE GROUND”</a><i>Frontispiece</i></dt>
<dt class="jr"><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></dt>
<dt><a href="#pic2">“THEY WENT SLOWLY UP THE RED-BRICK-PAVED SIDEWALK”</a>25</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic3">“‘AYE,’ HE SAID, ‘YOU’RE AN ARDEN, FOR SURE’”</a>35</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic4">“THEY WERE TURNING ITS PAGES WITH QUICK, ANXIOUS HANDS”</a>41</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic5">“THE CHILDREN WENT IN THE CARRIER’S CART”</a>55</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic6">“‘HOITY-TOITY,’ SAID THE OLD LADY, VERY SEVERELY; ‘WE FORGET OUR MANNERS, I THINK’”</a>73</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic7">“‘I’VE BROUGHT YOU SOME TEA AND SUGAR,’ SHE SAID”</a>89</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic8">“THE MOULDIWARP MADE A LITTLE RUN AND A LITTLE JUMP, AND ELFRIDA CAUGHT IT”</a>95</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic9">“‘DO YOU THINK THE FRENCH WILL LAND TOMORROW IN LYMCHURCH BAY?’ EDRED ASKED”</a>103</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic10">“THEY SAT DOWN ON THE CLOSE WHITE LINE OF DAISIES”</a>117</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic11">“‘COME, SEE HOW THE NEW SCARF BECOMES THY BET. IS IT NOT VASTLY MODISH?’”</a>121</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic12">“‘IF YOU AIM AT ME YOU SHOOT THE CHILD’”</a>131</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic13">“BETTY HANDED HIM THE CANDLE”</a>137</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic14">“‘NOW,’ SAID A DOZEN VOICES, ‘THE TRUTH, LITTLE MISS’”</a>143</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic15">“ELFRIDA WAS OBLIGED TO SHAKE HIM”</a>153</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic16">“EDRED AND THE BIG CHAIR FELL TO THE FLOOR”</a>159</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic17">“SHE SAW THAT THE NAME WAS ‘E. TALBOT’”</a>167</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic18">“THE ROOM SEEMED FULL OF CIRCLING WINGS”</a>171</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic19">“A LADY IN CRIMSON AND ERMINE WITH A GOLD CROWN”</a>181</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic20">“THE WALLS SEEMED TO TREMBLE AND SHAKE AND GO CROOKED”</a>193</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic21">“‘THOU’RT A FINE PAGE, INDEED, MY DEAR SON,’ SAID THE LADY. ‘STAND ASIDE AND TAKE MY TRAIN’”</a>199</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic22">“OLD PARROT-NOSE HAD ELFRIDA BY THE WRIST”</a>207</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic23">“THEY FOUND THEIR HOUSE OCCUPIED BY AN ARMED GUARD”</a>211</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic24">“‘I WILL CONVEY HIM TO OUR COACH, GOOD MASTERS,’ SHE SAID TO THE GUARD”</a>231</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic25">“‘YOU’VE NO MANNERS,’ IT SAID TO THE NURSE”</a>235</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic26">“THE STREAM CAME OUT UNDER A ROUGH, LOW ARCH OF STONE”</a>253</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic27">“‘SOLDIERS!’ SHE CRIED, ‘AND THEY’RE AFTER US’”</a>257</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic28">“MRS. HONEYSETT WAS SITTING IN A LITTLE LOW CHAIR AT THE BACK DOOR PLUCKING A WHITE CHICKEN”</a>263</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic29">“‘AH,’ SAID OLD NEALE ADMIRINGLY, ‘YOU’LL BE A-BUSTING WITH BOOK-LARNIN’ AFORE YOU COME TO YOUR TWENTY-ONE, I LAY’”</a>279</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic30">“IT HELD CLOTHES FAR RICHER THAN ANY THEY HAD SEEN YET”</a>287</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic31">“‘NOW RUN!’ SHE SAID, AND HERSELF LED THE WAY”</a>315</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic32">“EDRED AND ELFRIDA AND RICHARD SAT DOWN ON THE MINUTE HAND”</a>325</dt>
<dt><a href="#pic33">“THE HOUSES WERE MADE OF GREAT BLOCKS OF STONE”</a>337</dt>
</dl>
<div class="pb" id="Page_13">13</div>
<h1 title="">The House of Arden</h1>
<h2 id="c1"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER I</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">ARDEN’S LORD</span></h2>
<p>It had been a great house once, with farms
and fields, money and jewels—with tenants
and squires and men-at-arms. The head of
the house had ridden out three days’ journey
to meet King Henry at the boundary of his
estate, and the King had ridden back with
him to lie in the tall State bed in the castle
guest-chamber. The heir of the house had
led his following against Cromwell; younger
sons of the house had fought in foreign lands,
to the honour of England and the gilding and
regilding with the perishable gold of glory of
the old Arden name. There had been Ardens
in Saxon times, and there were Ardens still—but
few and impoverished. The lands were
gone, and the squires and men-at-arms; the
castle itself was roofless, and its unglazed
windows stared blankly across the fields of
strangers, that stretched right up to the foot
of its grey, weather-worn walls. And of the
male Ardens there were now known two only—an
old man and a child.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_14">14</div>
<p>The old man was Lord Arden, the head of the
house, and he lived lonely in a little house built
of the fallen stones that Time and Cromwell’s
round-shot had cast from the castle walls. The
child was Edred Arden, and he lived in a house
in a clean, wind-swept town on a cliff.</p>
<p>It was a bright-faced house with bow-windows
and a green balcony that looked out over the
sparkling sea. It had three neat white steps
and a brass knocker, pale and smooth with
constant rubbing. It was a pretty house, and
it would have been a pleasant house but for
one thing—the lodgers. For I cannot conceal
from you any longer that Edred Arden lived
with his aunt, and that his aunt let lodgings.
Letting lodgings is one of the most unpleasant
of all possible ways of earning your living, and
I advise you to try every other honest way of
earning <i>your</i> living before you take to that.</p>
<p>Because people who go to the seaside and
take lodgings seem, somehow, much harder to
please than the people who go to hotels. They
want ever so much more waiting on; they want
so many meals, and at such odd times. They
ring the bell almost all day long. They bring
in sand from the shore in every fold of their
clothes, and it shakes out of them on to the
carpets and the sofa cushions, and everything
in the house. They hang long streamers of wet
seaweed against the pretty roses of the new
wall-papers, and their washhand basins are
always full of sea anemones and shells. Also,
they are noisy; their boots seem to be always
on the stairs, no matter how bad a headache
you may have; and when you give them their
bill they always think it is too much, no matter
how little it may be. So do not let lodgings if
you can help it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_15">15</div>
<p>Miss Arden could not help it. It happened
like this.</p>
<p>Edred and his sister were at school. (Did I
tell you that he had a sister? Well, he had, and
her name was Elfrida.) Miss Arden lived near
the school, so that she could see the children
often. She was getting her clothes ready for
her wedding, and the gentleman who was going
to marry her was coming home from South
America, where he had made a fortune. The
children’s father was coming home from South
America, too, with the fortune that he had
made, for he and Miss Arden’s sweetheart were
partners. The children and their aunt talked
whenever they met of the glorious time that
was coming, and how, when father and Uncle
Jim—they called him Uncle Jim already—came
home, they were all going to live in the country
and be happy ever after.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_16">16</div>
<p>And then the news came that father and
Uncle Jim had been captured by brigands, and
all the money was lost, too, and there was
nothing left but the house on the cliff. So Miss
Arden took the children from the expensive
school in London, and they all went to live in
the cliff house, and as there was no money to
live on, and no other way of making money to
live on except letting lodgings, Miss Arden let
them, like the brave lady she was, and did it
well. And then came the news that father and
Uncle Jim were dead, and for a time the light of
life went out in Cliff House.</p>
<p>This was two years ago; but the children had
never got used to the lodgers. They hated them.
At first they had tried to be friendly with the
lodgers’ children, but they soon found that the
lodgers’ children considered Edred and Elfrida
very much beneath them, and looked down on
them accordingly. And very often the lodgers’
children were the sort of children on whom
anybody might have looked down, if it were
right and kind to look down on any one. And
when Master Reginald Potts, of Peckham, puts
his tongue out at you on the parade and says,
right before everybody, “Lodgings! Yah!” it
is hard to feel quite the same to him as you did
before.</p>
<p>When there were lodgers—and there nearly
always were, for the house was comfortable,
and people who had been once came again—the
children and their aunt had to live in the
very top and the very bottom of the house—in
the attics and the basement, in fact.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_17">17</div>
<p>When there were no lodgers they used all the
rooms in turn, to keep them aired. But the
children liked the big basement parlour room
best, because there all the furniture had belonged
to dead-and-gone Ardens, and all the pictures on
the walls were of Ardens dead and gone. The
rooms that the lodgers had were furnished with
a new sort of furniture that had no stories
belonging to it such as belonged to the old
polished oak tables and bureaux that were in
the basement parlour.</p>
<p>Edred and Elfrida went to school every day
and learned reading, writing, arithmetic, geography,
history, spelling, and useful knowledge,
all of which they hated quite impartially, which
means they hated the whole lot—one thing as
much as another.</p>
<p>The only part of lessons they liked was the
home-work, when, if Aunt Edith had time to
help them, geography became like adventures,
history like story-books, and even arithmetic
suddenly seemed to mean something.</p>
<p>“I wish you could teach us always,” said
Edred, very inky, and interested for the first
time in the exports of China; “it does seem so
silly trying to learn things that are only words
in books.”</p>
<p>“I wish I could,” said Aunt Edith, “but I can’t
do twenty-nine thousand and seventeen things
all at once, and——” A bell jangled. “That’s
the seventh time since tea.” She got up and
went into the kitchen. “There’s the bell again,
my poor Eliza. Never mind; answer the bell,
but don’t answer <i>them</i>, whatever they say. It
doesn’t do a bit of good, and it sometimes prevents
their giving you half-crowns when they
leave.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_18">18</div>
<p>“I do love it when they go,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“Yes,” said her aunt. “A cab top-heavy with
luggage, the horse’s nose turned stationward, it’s
a heavenly sight—when the bill is paid and—— But,
then, I’m just as glad to see the luggage
coming. Chickens! when my ship comes home
we’ll go and live on a desert island where there
aren’t any cabs, and we won’t have any lodgers
in our cave.”</p>
<p>“When I grow up,” said Edred, “I shall go
across the sea and look for your ship and bring
it home. I shall take a steam-tug and steer it
myself.”</p>
<p>“Then I shall be captain,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“No, I shall be captain.”</p>
<p>“You can’t if you steer.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I can!”</p>
<p>“No, you can’t!”</p>
<p>“Yes, I can!”</p>
<p>“Well, do, then!” said Elfrida; “and while
you’re doing it—I <i>know</i> you can’t—I shall dig
in the garden and find a gold-mine, and Aunt
Edith will be rolling in money when you come
back, and she won’t want your silly old ship.”</p>
<p>“Spelling next,” said Aunt Edith. “How do
you spell ‘disagreeable’?”</p>
<p>“Which of us?” asked Edred acutely.</p>
<p>“Both,” said Aunt Edith, trying to look very
severe.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_19">19</div>
<p>When you are a child you always dream of
your ship coming home—of having a hundred
pounds, or a thousand, or a million pounds
to spend as you like. My favourite dream, I
remember, was a thousand pounds and an
express understanding that I was not to spend
it on anything useful. And when you have
dreamed of your million pounds, or your
thousand, or your hundred, you spend happy
hour on hour in deciding what presents you will
buy for each of the people you are fond of, and
in picturing their surprise and delight at your
beautiful presents and your wonderful generosity.
I think very few of us spend our dream
fortunes entirely on ourselves. Of course, we
buy ourselves a motor-bicycle straight away,
and footballs and bats—and dolls with real hair,
and real china tea-sets, and large boxes of mixed
chocolates, and “Treasure Island,” and all the
books that Mrs. Ewing ever wrote, but when we
have done that we begin to buy things for other
people. It is a beautiful dream, but too often,
by the time it comes true—up to a hundred
pounds or a thousand—we forget what we used
to mean to do with our money, and spend it all
in stocks and shares, and eligible building sites,
and fat cigars and fur coats. If I were young
again I would sit down and write a list of all
the kind things I meant to do when my ship
came home, and if my ship ever did come
home I would read that list, and—— But the
parlour bell is ringing for the eighth time,
and the front-door bell is ringing too, and
the first-floor is ringing also, and so is the
second-floor, and Eliza is trying to answer
four bells at once—always a most difficult thing
to do.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_20">20</div>
<p>The front-door bell was rung by the postman;
he brought three letters. The first was a bill for
mending the lid of the cistern, on which Edred
had recently lighted a fire, fortified by an impression
that wood could not burn if there were
water on the other side—a totally false impression,
as the charred cistern lid proved. The
second was an inquiry whether Miss Arden
would take a clergyman in at half the usual
price, because he had a very large family which
had all just had measles. And the third was
THE letter, which is really the seed, and
beginning, and backbone, and rhyme, and reason
of this story.</p>
<p>Edred had got the letters from the postman,
and he stood and waited while Aunt Edith read
them. He collected postmarks, and had not
been able to make out by the thick half-light
of the hall gas whether any of these were
valuable.</p>
<p>The third letter had a very odd effect on Aunt
Edith. She read it once, and rubbed her hand
across her eyes. Then she got up and stood
under the chandelier, which wanted new burners
badly, and so burned with a very unlighting
light, and read it again. Then she read it a
third time, and then she said, “Oh!”</p>
<p>“What is it, auntie?” Elfrida asked anxiously;
“is it the taxes?” It had been the taxes once,
and Elfrida had never forgotten. (If you don’t
understand what this means ask your poorest
relations, who are also likely to be your nicest,
and if they don’t know, ask the washerwoman.)</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_21">21</div>
<p>“No; it’s not the taxes, darling,” said Aunt
Edith; “on the contrary.”</p>
<p>I don’t know what the contrary (or opposite)
of taxes is, any more than the children did—but
I am sure it is something quite nice—and so
were they.</p>
<p>“Oh, auntie, I <i>am</i> so glad,” they both said,
and said it several times before they asked
again, “What is it?”</p>
<p>“I think—I’m not quite sure—but I think it’s
a ship come home—oh, just a quite tiny little bit
of a ship—a toy boat—hardly more than that.
But I must go up to London to-morrow the first
thing, and see if it really is a ship, and, if so,
what sort of ship it is. Mrs. Blake shall come
in, and you’ll be good as gold, children, won’t
you?”</p>
<p>“Yes—oh, yes,” said the two.</p>
<p>“And not make booby traps for the butcher,
or go on the roof in your nightgowns, or play
Red Indians in the dust-bin, or make apple-pie
beds for the lodgers?” Aunt Edith asked, hastily
mentioning a few of the little amusements
which had lately enlivened the spare time of
her nephew and niece.</p>
<p>“No, we really won’t,” said Edred; “and we’ll
truly try not to think of anything new and
amusing,” he added, with real self-sacrifice.</p>
<p>“I must go by the eight-thirty train. I wish
I could think of some way of—of amusing you,”
she ended, for she was too kind to say “of keeping
you out of mischief for the day,” which was
what she really thought. “I’ll bring you something
jolly for your birthday, Edred. Wouldn’t
you like to spend the day with nice Mrs.
Hammond?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_22">22</div>
<p>“Oh, <i>no</i>,” said Edred; and added, on the
inspiration of the moment, “Why mayn’t we
have a picnic—just Elf and me—on the downs,
to keep my birthday? It doesn’t matter it
being the day before, does it? You said we
were too little last summer, and we should this,
and now it is this and I have grown two inches
and Elf’s grown three, so we’re five inches taller
than when you said we weren’t big enough.”</p>
<p>“Now you see how useful arithmetic is,” said
the aunt. “Very well, you shall. Only wear
your old clothes, and always keep in sight of the
road. Yes; you can have a whole holiday.
And now to bed. Oh, there’s that bell again!
Poor, dear Eliza.”</p>
<p>A Clapham cub, belonging to one of the
lodgers, happened to be going up to bed just
as Edred and Elfrida came through the baize
door that shut off the basement from the rest
of the house. He put his tongue out through
the banisters at the children of the house and
said, “Little slaveys.” The cub thought he
could get up the stairs before the two got round
the end of the banisters, but he had not counted
on the long arm of Elfrida, whose hand shot
through the banisters and caught the cub’s leg
and held on to it till Edred had time to get
round. The two boys struggled up the stairs
together and then rolled together from top to
bottom, where they were picked up and disentangled
by their relations. Except for this
little incident, going to bed was uneventful.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_23">23</div>
<p>Next morning Aunt Edith went off by the
eight-thirty train. The children’s school satchels
were filled, not with books, but with buns; instead
of exercise-books there were sandwiches;
and in the place of inky pencil-boxes were two
magnificent boxes of peppermint creams which
had cost a whole shilling each, and had been
recklessly bought by Aunt Edith in the agitation
of the parting hour when they saw her
off at the station.</p>
<p>They went slowly up the red-brick-paved
sidewalk that always looks as though it had
just been washed, and when they got to the
top of the hill they stopped and looked at
each other.</p>
<p>“It can’t be wrong,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“She never told us not to,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“I’ve noticed,” said Edred, “that when grown-up
people say ‘they’ll see about’ anything you
want it never happens.”</p>
<p>“I’ve noticed that, too,” said Elfrida. “Auntie
always said she’d see about taking us there.”</p>
<p>“Yes, she did.”</p>
<p>“We won’t be mean and sneaky about it,”
Edred insisted, though no one had suggested
that he <i>would</i> be mean and sneaky. “We’ll
tell auntie directly she gets back.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” said Elfrida, rather relieved, for
she had not felt at all sure that Edred meant
to do this.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_24">24</div>
<p>“After all,” said Edred, “it’s <i>our</i> castle. We
<i>ought</i> to go and see the cradle of our race.
That’s what it calls it in ‘Cliffgate and its
Envions.’ I say, let’s call it a pilgrimage. The
satchels will do for packs, and we can get half-penny
walking-sticks with that penny of yours.
We can put peas in our shoes, if you like,” he
added generously.</p>
<p>“We should have to go back for them, and
I don’t expect the split kind count, anyhow.
And perhaps they’d hurt,” said Elfrida doubtfully.
“And I want my penny for——” She
stopped, warned by her brother’s frown. “All
right, then,” she ended; “you can have it. Only
give me half next time you get a penny; that’s
only fair.”</p>
<p>“I’m not usually unfair,” said Edred coldly.
“Don’t let’s be pilgrims.”</p>
<p>“But I should like to,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>Edred was obstinate. “No,” he said, “we’ll
just walk.”</p>
<p>So they just walked, rather dismally.</p>
<p>The town was getting thinner, like the tract
of stocking that surrounds a hole; the houses
were farther apart and had large gardens. In
one of them a maid was singing to herself as
she shook out the mats—a thing which, somehow,
maids don’t do much in towns.</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“Good luck!” says I to my sweetheart,</p>
<p class="t">“For I will love you true;</p>
<p class="t0">And all the while we’ve got to part,</p>
<p class="t">My luck shall go with you.”</p>
</div>
<p>“That’s lucky for us,” said Elfrida amiably.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_25">25</div>
<div class="img" id="pic2">
<img src="images/pmage025.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="684" />
<p class="caption">“THEY WENT SLOWLY UP THE RED-BRICK-PAVED SIDEWALK.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_26">26</div>
<p>“We’re not her silly sweetheart,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“No; but we heard her sing it, and he wasn’t
here, so he couldn’t. There’s a sign-post. I
wonder how far we’ve gone? I’m getting
awfully tired.”</p>
<p>“You’d better have been pilgrims,” said
Edred. “<i>They</i> never get tired, however many
peas they have in their shoes.”</p>
<p>“I will now,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“You can’t,” said Edred; “it’s too late. We’re
miles and miles from the stick shop.”</p>
<p>“Very well, I shan’t go on,” said Elfrida.
“You got out of bed the wrong side this
morning. I’ve tried to soft-answer you as
hard as ever I could all the morning, and I’m
not going to try any more, so there.”</p>
<p>“Don’t, then,” said Edred bitterly. “Go
along home if you like. You’re only a girl.”</p>
<p>“I’d rather be only a girl than what <i>you</i> are,”
said she.</p>
<p>“And what’s that, I should like to know?”</p>
<p>Elfrida stopped and shut her eyes tight.</p>
<p>“Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t!” she said. “I
won’t be cross, I won’t be cross, I won’t be
cross! Pax. Drop it. Don’t let’s!”</p>
<p>“Don’t let’s what?”</p>
<p>“Quarrel about nothing,” said Elfrida, opening
her eyes and walking on very fast. “We’re
always doing it. Auntie says it’s a habit. If
boys are so much splendider than girls, they
ought to be able to stop when they like.”</p>
<p>“Suppose they don’t like?” said he, kicking
his boots in the thick, white dust.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_27">27</div>
<p>“Well,” said she, “I’ll say I’m sorry first.
Will <i>that</i> do?”</p>
<p>“I was just going to say it first myself,” said
Edred, in aggrieved tones. “Come on,” he
added more generously, “here’s the sign-post.
Let’s see what it says.”</p>
<p>It said, quite plainly and without any nonsense
about it, that they had come a mile and
three-quarters, adding, most unkindly, that it
was eight miles to Arden Castle. But, it said,
it was a quarter of a mile to Ardenhurst
Station.</p>
<p>“Let’s go by train,” said Edred grandly.</p>
<p>“No money,” said Elfrida, very forlornly
indeed.</p>
<p>“Aha!” said Edred; “now you’ll see. <i>I’m</i>
not mean about money. I brought my new
florin.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Edred,” said the girl, stricken with
remorse, “you <i>are</i> noble.”</p>
<p>“Pooh!” said the boy, and his ears grew red
with mingled triumph and modesty; “that’s
nothing. Come on.”</p>
<p>So it was from the train that the pilgrims
got their first sight of Arden Castle. It stands
up boldly on the cliff where it was set to keep
off foreign foes and guard the country round
about it. But of all its old splendour there is
now nothing but the great walls that the grasses
and wild flowers grow on, and round towers
whose floors and ceilings have fallen away,
and roofless chambers where owls build, and
brambles and green ferns grow strong and thick.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_28">28</div>
<p>The children walked to the castle along the
cliff path where the skylarks were singing like
mad up in the pale sky, and the bean-fields,
where the bees were busy, gave out the
sweetest scent in the world—a scent that got
itself mixed with the scent of the brown seaweed
that rises and falls in the wash of the tide
on the rocks at the cliff-foot.</p>
<p>“Let’s have dinner here,” said Elfrida, when
they reached the top of a little mound from
which they could look down on the castle. So
they had it.</p>
<p>Two bites of sandwich and one of peppermint
cream; that was the rule.</p>
<p>And all the time they were munching they
looked down on the castle, and loved it more
and more.</p>
<p>“Don’t you wish it was real, and we lived
in it?” Elfrida asked, when they had eaten
as much as they wanted—not of peppermint
creams, of course; but they had finished them.</p>
<p>“It is real, what there is of it.”</p>
<p>“Yes; but I mean if it was a house with
chimneys, and fireplaces, and doors with bolts,
and glass in the windows.”</p>
<p>“I wonder if we could get in?” said Edred.</p>
<p>“We might climb over,” said Elfrida, looking
hopefully at the enormous walls, sixty feet high,
in which no gate or gap showed.</p>
<p>“There’s an old man going across that field—no,
not that one; the very green field. Let’s
ask him.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_29">29</div>
<p>So they left their satchels lying on the short
turf, that was half wild thyme, and went down.
But they were not quite quick enough; before
they could get to him the old man had come
through the field of young corn, clambered over a
stile, and vanished between the high hedges of a
deep-sunk lane. So over the stile and down
into the lane went the children, and caught up
with the old man just as he had clicked his
garden gate behind him and had turned to go
up the bricked path between beds of woodruff,
and anemones, and narcissus, and tulips of all
colours.</p>
<p>His back was towards them. Now it is very
difficult to address a back politely. So you will
not be surprised to learn that Edred said, “Hi!”
and Elfrida said, “Halloa! I say!”</p>
<p>The old man turned and saw at his gate two
small figures dressed in what is known as sailor
costume. They saw a very wrinkled old face
with snowy hair and mutton-chop whiskers of
a silvery whiteness. There were very bright
twinkling blue eyes in the sun-browned face,
and on the clean-shaven mouth a kind, if tight,
smile.</p>
<p>“Well,” said he, “and what do <i>you</i> want?”</p>
<p>“We want to know——” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“About the castle,” said Edred, “Can we get
in and look at it?”</p>
<p>“I’ve got the keys,” said the old man, and put
his hand in at his door and reached them from a
nail.</p>
<p>“I s’pose no one <i>lives</i> there?” said Elfrida.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_30">30</div>
<p>“Not now,” said the old man, coming back
along the garden path. “Lord Arden, he died a
fortnight ago come Tuesday, and the place is
shut up till the new lord’s found.”</p>
<p>“I wish <i>I</i> was the new lord,” said Edred, as
they followed the old man along the lane.</p>
<p>“An’ how old might <i>you</i> be?” the old man
asked.</p>
<p>“I’m ten nearly. It’s my birthday to-morrow,”
said Edred. “How old are you?”</p>
<p>“Getting on for eighty. I’ve seen a deal in
my time. If you was the young lord you’d
have a chance none of the rest of them ever
had—you being the age you are.”</p>
<p>“What sort of chance?”</p>
<p>“Why,” said the old man, “don’t you know
the saying? I thought every one knowed it
hereabouts.”</p>
<p>“What saying?”</p>
<p>“I ain’t got the wind for saying and walking
too,” said the old man, and stopped; “leastways,
not potery.” He drew a deep breath and
said—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“When Arden’s lord still lacketh ten</p>
<p class="t0">And may not see his nine again,</p>
<p class="t0">Let Arden stand as Arden may</p>
<p class="t0">On Arden Knoll at death of day.</p>
<p class="t0">If he have skill to say the spell</p>
<p class="t0">He shall find the treasure, and all be well!”</p>
</div>
<p>“I <i>say</i>!” said both the children. “And where’s
Arden Knoll?” Edred asked.</p>
<p>“Up yonder.” He pointed to the mound
where they had had lunch.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_31">31</div>
<p>Elfrida inquired, “What treasure?”</p>
<p>But that question was not answered—then.</p>
<p>“If I’m to talk I must set me down,” said the
old man. “Shall we set down here, or set down
inside of the castle?”</p>
<p>Two curiosities struggled, and the stronger
won. “In the castle,” said the children.</p>
<p>So it was in the castle, on a pillar fallen from
one of the chapel arches, that the old man sat
down and waited. When the children had run
up and down the grassy enclosure, peeped into
the ruined chambers, picked their way along the
ruined colonnade, and climbed the steps of the
only tower that they could find with steps <i>to</i>
climb, then they came and sat beside the old
man on the grass that was white with daisies,
and said, “Now, then!”</p>
<p>“Well, then,” said the old man, “you see the
Ardens was always great gentry. I’ve heard
say there’s always been Ardens here since before
William the Conker, whoever <i>he</i> was.”</p>
<p>“Ten-sixty-six,” said Edred to himself.</p>
<p>“An’ they had their ups and downs like other
folks, great and small. And once, when there
was a war or trouble of some sort abroad, there
was a lot of money, and jewlery, and silver
plate hidden away. That’s what it means by
treasure. And the men who hid it got killed—ah,
them was unsafe times to be alive in, I tell
you—and nobody never knew where the treasure
was hid.”</p>
<p>“Did they ever find it?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_32">32</div>
<p>“Ain’t I telling you? An’ a wise woman that
lived in them old ancient times, they went to
her to ask her what to do to find the treasure,
and she had a fit directly, what you’d call a
historical fit nowadays. She never said nothing
worth hearing without she was in a fit, and she
made up the saying all in potery whilst she was
in her fit, and that was all they could get out of
her. And she never would say what the spell
was. Only when she was a-dying, Lady Arden,
that was then, was very took up with nursing
of her, and before she breathed her lastest she
told Lady Arden the spell.” He stopped for
lack of breath.</p>
<p>“And what is the spell?” said the children,
much more breathless than he.</p>
<p>“Nobody knows,” said he.</p>
<p>“But where is it?”</p>
<p>“Nobody knows. But I’ve ’eard say it’s in a
book in the libery in the house yonder. But it
ain’t no good, because there’s never been a Lord
Arden come to his title without he’s left his ten
years far behind him.”</p>
<p>Edred had a queerer feeling in his head than
you can imagine; his hands got hot and dry,
and then cold and damp.</p>
<p>“I suppose,” he said, “you’ve got to be <i>Lord</i>
Arden? It wouldn’t do if you were just plain
John or James or Edred Arden? Because
my name’s Arden, and I would like to have
a try?”</p>
<p>The old man stooped, caught Edred by the
arm, pulled him up, and stood him between his
knees.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_33">33</div>
<p>“Let’s have a look at you, sonny,” he said;
and had a look. “Aye,” he said, “you’re an
Arden, for sure. To think of me not seeing
that. I might have seen your long nose and
your chin that sticks out like a spur. I ought
to have known it anywhere. But my eyes ain’t
what they was. If you <i>was</i> Lord Arden—— What’s
your father’s name—his chrissened
name, I mean?”</p>
<p>“Edred, the same as mine. But father’s dead,”
said Edred gravely.</p>
<p>“And your grandf’er’s name? It wasn’t
George, was it—George William?”</p>
<p>“Yes, it was,” said Edred. “How did you
know?”</p>
<p>The old man let go Edred’s arms and stood up.
Then he touched his forehead and said—</p>
<p>“I’ve worked on the land ’ere man and boy,
and I’m proud I’ve lived to see another Lord
Arden take the place of him as is gone. Lauk-alive,
boy, don’t garp like that,” he added sharply.
“You’re Lord Arden right enough.”</p>
<p>“I—I can’t be,” gasped Edred.</p>
<p>“Auntie said Lord Arden was a relation of
ours—a sort of great-uncle—cousin.”</p>
<p>“That’s it, missy,” the old man nodded. “Lord
Arden—chrissen name James—’e was first
cousin to Mr. George as was your grandf’er.
His son was Mr. Edred, as is your father. The
late lord not ’avin’ any sons—nor daughters
neither for the matter of that—the title comes
to your branch of the family. I’ve heard Snigsworthy,
the lawyer’s apprentice from Lewis, tell
it over fifty times this last three weeks. You’re
Lord Arden, I tell you.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_34">34</div>
<p>“If I am,” said Edred, “I shall say the spell
and find the treasure.”</p>
<p>“You’ll have to be quick about it,” said Elfrida.
“You’ll be over ten the day after to-morrow.”</p>
<p>“So I shall,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“When you’re Lord Arden,” said the old man
very seriously,—“I mean, when you grow up to
enjoy the title—as, please God, you may—you
remember the poor and needy, young master—that’s
what you do.”</p>
<p>“If I find the treasure I will,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“You do it whether or no,” said the old man.
“I must be getting along home. You’d like to
play about a bit, eh? Well, bring me the keys
when you’ve done. I can trust you not to hurt
your own place, that’s been in the family all
these hundreds of years.”</p>
<p>“I should think you could!” said Edred
proudly. “Goodbye, and thank you.”</p>
<p>“Goodbye, my lord,” said the old man, and
went.</p>
<p>“I say,” said Edred, with the big bunch of
keys in his hand,—“if I <i>am</i> Lord Arden!”</p>
<p>“You are! you are!” said Elfrida. “I am
perfectly certain you are. And I suppose I’m
Lady Arden. How perfectly ripping! We can
shut up those lodging-children now, anyhow.
What’s up?”</p>
<p>Edred was frowning and pulling the velvet
covering of moss off the big stone on which he
had absently sat down.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_35">35</div>
<div class="img" id="pic3">
<img src="images/pmage035.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="641" />
<p class="caption">“‘AYE,’ HE SAID, ‘YOU’RE AN ARDEN, FOR SURE.’”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_36">36</div>
<p>“Do you think it’s burglarish,” he said slowly,
“to go into your own house without leave?”</p>
<p>“Not if it <i>is</i> your own house. Of course not,”
said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“But suppose it isn’t? They might put you
in prison for it.”</p>
<p>“You could tell the policeman you thought
it was yours. I say, Edred, let’s!”</p>
<p>“It’s not vulgar curiosity, like auntie says;
it’s the spell I want,” said the boy.</p>
<p>“As if I didn’t know that,” said the girl contemptuously.
“But where’s the house?”</p>
<p>She might well ask, for there was no house
to be seen—only the great grey walls of the
castle, with their fine fringe of flowers and grass
showing feathery against the pale blue of the
June sky. Here and there, though, there were
grey wooden doors set in the grey of the
stone.</p>
<p>“It must be one of those,” Edred said. “We’ll
try all the keys and all the doors till we find it.”</p>
<p>So they tried all the keys and all the doors.
One door led to a loft where apples were stored.
Another to a cellar, where brooms and spades
and picks leaned against the damp wall, and
there were baskets and piles of sacks. A third
opened into a tower that seemed to be used as
a pigeon-cote. It was the very last door they
tried that led into the long garden between two
high walls, where already the weeds had grown
high among the forget-me-nots and pansies.
And at the end of this garden was a narrow
house with a red roof, wedged tightly in
between two high grey walls that belonged to
the castle.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_37">37</div>
<p>All the blinds were down; the garden was
chill and quiet, and smelt of damp earth and
dead leaves.</p>
<p>“Oh, Edred, do you think we ought?” Elfrida
said, shivering.</p>
<p>“Yes, I do,” said Edred; “and you’re not
being good, whatever you may think. You’re
only being frightened.”</p>
<p>Elfrida naturally replied, “I’m not. Come
on.”</p>
<p>But it was very slowly, and with a feeling of
being on tiptoe and holding their breaths, that
they went up to those blinded windows that
looked like sightless eyes.</p>
<p>The front door was locked, and none of the
keys would fit it.</p>
<p>“I don’t care,” said Edred. “If I am Lord
Arden I’ve got a right to get in, and if I’m not
I don’t care about anything, so here goes.”</p>
<p>Elfrida almost screamed, half with horror and
half with admiration of his daring, when he
climbed up to a little window by means of an
elder-tree that grew close to it, tried to open the
window, and when he found it fast deliberately
pushed his elbow through the glass.</p>
<p>“Thus,” he said rather unsteadily, “the heir
of Arden Castle re-enters his estates.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_38">38</div>
<p>He got the window open and disappeared
through it. Elfrida stood clasping and unclasping
her hands, and in her mind trying to get
rid of the idea of a very large and sudden
policeman appearing in the garden door and
saying, in that deep voice so much admired in
our village constables, “Where’s your brother?”</p>
<p>No policeman came, fortunately, and presently
a blind went up, a French window opened, and
there was Edred beckoning her with the air
of a conspirator.</p>
<p>It needed an effort to obey his signal, but she
did it. He closed the French window, drew
down the blind again, and——</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t let’s,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“Nonsense,” said Edred; “there’s nothing to
be frightened of. It’s just like our rooms at
home.”</p>
<p>It was. They went all over the house, and
it certainly was. Some of the upper rooms
were very bare, but all the furniture was of
the same kind as Aunt Edith’s, and there were
the same kind of pictures. Only the library
was different. It was a very large room, and
there were no pictures at all. Nothing but
books and books and books, bound in yellowy
leather. Books from ceiling to floor, shelves
of books between the windows and over the
mantelpiece—hundreds and thousands of books.
Even Edred’s spirits sank. “It’s no go. It will
take us years to look in them all,” he said.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_39">39</div>
<p>“We may as well look at some of them,” said
Elfrida, always less daring, but more persevering
than her brother. She sat down on the
worn carpet and began to read the names
on the backs of the books nearest to her.
“Burton’s Atomy of Melon something,” she
read, and “Locke on Understanding,” and
many other dull and wearying titles. But
none of the books seemed at all likely to
contain a spell for finding treasure. “Burgess
on the Precious Metals” beguiled her for a
moment, but she saw at once that there was
no room in its closely-printed, brown-spotted
pages for anything so interesting as a spell.
Time passed by. The sunlight that came
through the blinds had quite changed its place
on the carpet, and still Elfrida persevered.
Edred grew more and more restless.</p>
<p>“It’s no use,” he kept saying, and “Let’s
chuck it,” and “I expect that old chap was
just kidding us. I don’t feel a bit like I did
about it,” and “Do let’s get along home.”</p>
<p>But Elfrida plodded on, though her head
and her back both ached. I wish I could say
that her perseverance was rewarded. But it
wasn’t; and one must keep to facts. As it
happened, it was Edred who, aimlessly running
his finger along the edge of the bookshelf just
for the pleasure of looking at the soft, mouse-coloured
dust that clung to the finger at the
end of each shelf, suddenly cried out, “What
about this?” and pulled out a great white
book that had on its cover a shield printed in
gold with squares and little spots on it, and
a gold pig standing on the top of the shield,
and on the back, “The History of the Ardens
of Arden.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_40">40</div>
<p>In an instant it was open on the floor
between them, and they were turning its
pages with quick, anxious hands. But, alas!
it was as empty of spells as dull old Burgess
himself.</p>
<p>It was only when Edred shut it with a bang
and the remark that he had had jolly well
enough of it that a paper fluttered out and
swept away like a pigeon, settling on the fireless
hearth. And it was the spell. There was
no doubt of that.</p>
<p>Written in faint ink on a square yellowed
sheet of letter-paper that had been folded
once, and opened and folded again so often
that the fold was worn thin and hardly held
its two parts together, the writing was fine
and pointed and ladylike. At the top was
written: “The Spell Aunt Anne Told Me.—December
24, 1793.”</p>
<p>And then came the spell:—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“Hear, Oh badge of Arden’s house,</p>
<p class="t0">The spell my little age allows;</p>
<p class="t0">Arden speaks it without fear,</p>
<p class="t0">Badge of Arden’s house, draw near,</p>
<p class="t0">Make me brave and kind and wise,</p>
<p class="t0">And show me where the treasure lies.”</p>
</div>
<p>“To be said,” the paper went on, “at sun-setting
by a Lord Arden between the completion
of his ninth and tenth years. But it
is all folly and not to be believed.”</p>
<p>“This is it, right enough,” said Edred.
“Come on, let’s get out of this.” They turned
to go, and as they did so something moved in
the corner of the library—something little, and
they could not see its shape.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_41">41</div>
<div class="img" id="pic4">
<img src="images/pmage041.jpg" alt="" width="715" height="500" />
<p class="caption">“THEY WERE TURNING ITS PAGES WITH QUICK, ANXIOUS HANDS.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_42">42</div>
<p>Neither drew free breath again till they
were out of the house, and out of the garden,
and out of the castle, and on the wide, thymy
downs, with the blue sky above, where the
skylarks sang, and there was the sweet, fresh
scent of the seaweed and the bean-fields.</p>
<p>“Oh,” said Elfrida, then, “I am so glad it’s
not at midnight you’ve got to say the spell.
You’d be too frightened.”</p>
<p>“I shouldn’t,” said Edred, very pale and
walking quickly away from the castle. “I
should say it just the same if it was midnight.”
And he very nearly believed what he
said.</p>
<p>Elfrida it was who had picked up the paper
that Edred had dropped when that thing
moved in the corner. She still held it fast.</p>
<p>“I expect it was only a rat or something,”
said Edred, his heart beating nineteen to the
dozen, as they say in Kent and elsewhere.</p>
<p>“Oh, yes,” said Elfrida, whose lips were
trembling a little; “I’m sure it was only a rat
or something.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_43">43</div>
<p>When they got to the top of Arden Knoll
there was no sign of sunset. There was time,
therefore, to pull oneself together, to listen
to the skylarks, and to smell the bean-flowers,
and to wonder how one could have been such a
duffer as to be scared by a “rat or something.”
Also there were some bits of sandwich and
crumbled cake, despised at dinner-time, but
now, somehow, tasting quite different. These
helped to pass the time till the sun almost
seemed to rest on a brown shoulder of the
downs, that looked as though it were shrugging
itself up to meet the round red ball that the
evening mists had made of the sun.</p>
<p>The children had not spoken for several
minutes. Their four eyes were fixed on the
sun, and as the edge of it seemed to flatten
itself against the hill-shoulder Elfrida whispered,
“Now!” and gave her brother the paper.</p>
<p>They had read the spell so often, as they
sat there in the waning light, that both knew
it by heart, so there was no need for Edred
to read it. And that was lucky, for in that
thick, pink light the faint ink hardly showed
at all on the yellowy paper.</p>
<p>Edred stood up.</p>
<p>“Now!” said Elfrida, again. “Say it now.”
And Edred said, quite out loud and in a
pleasant sort of sing-song, such as he was
accustomed to use at school when reciting the
stirring ballads of the late Lord Macaulay, or
the moving tale of the boy on the burning
deck:—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘Hear, Oh badge of Arden’s house,</p>
<p class="t0">The spell my little age allows;</p>
<p class="t0">Arden speaks it without fear,</p>
<p class="t0">Badge of Arden’s house, draw near,</p>
<p class="t0">Make me brave and kind and wise,</p>
<p class="t0">And show me where the treasure lies.’”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_44">44</div>
<p>He said it slowly and carefully, his sister
eagerly listening, ready to correct him if he
said a word wrong. But he did not.</p>
<p>“Where the treasure lies,” he ended, and the
great silence of the downs seemed to rush
in like a wave to fill the space which his voice
had filled.</p>
<p>And nothing else happened at all. A flush
of pink from the sun-setting spread over the
downs, the grass-stems showed up thin and
distinct, the skylarks had ceased to sing, but
the scent of the bean-flowers and the seaweed
was stronger than ever. And nothing happened
till Edred cried out, “What’s that?”
For close to his foot something moved, not
quickly or suddenly so as to startle, but very
gently, very quietly, very unmistakably—something
that glittered goldenly in the pink,
diffused light of the sun-setting.</p>
<p>“Why,” said Elfrida stooping, “why, it’s——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_45">45</div>
<h2 id="c2"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER II</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">THE MOULDIWARP</span></h2>
<p>And it was—it was the living image of the
little pig-like animal that was stamped in gold
above the chequered shield on the cover of the
white book in which they had found the spell.
And as on the yellowy white of the vellum
book-cover, so here on the thymy grass of the
knoll it shone golden. The children stood
perfectly still. They were afraid to move lest
they should scare away this little creature
which, though golden, was alive and moved
about at their feet, turning a restless nose to
right and left.</p>
<p>“It <i>is</i>,” said Elfrida again, very softly, so as
not to frighten it.</p>
<p>“<i>What?</i>” Edred asked, though he knew well
enough.</p>
<p>“Off the book that we got the spell out of.”</p>
<p>“That was our crest on the top of our coat-of-arms,
like on the old snuff-box that was great-grandpapa’s.”</p>
<p>“Well, this is our crest come alive, that’s all.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_46">46</div>
<p>“Don’t you be too clever,” said Edred. “It
said <i>badge</i>; I don’t believe badge is the same
thing as crest. A badge is leeks, or roses, or
thistles—something you can wear in your cap.
<i>I</i> shouldn’t like to wear <i>that</i> in my cap.”</p>
<p>And still the golden thing at their feet moved
cautiously and without ceasing.</p>
<p>“Why,” said Edred suddenly, “it’s just a
common old mole.”</p>
<p>“It isn’t; it’s our own crest, that’s on the
spoons and things. It’s our own old family
mole that’s our crest. How can it be a common
mole? It’s all golden.”</p>
<p>And, even as she spoke, it left off being
golden. For the last bit of sun dipped behind
the shoulder of the downs, and in the grey
twilight that was left the mole was white—any
one could see that.</p>
<p>“Oh!” said Elfrida—but she stuck to her
point. “So you see,” she went on, “it can’t be
just a really-mole. Really-moles are black.”</p>
<p>“Well,” said Edred, “it’s very tame. I will
say that.”</p>
<p>“Well——” Edred was beginning; but at
that same moment the mole also, suddenly and
astonishingly, said, “Well?”</p>
<p>There was a hushed pause. Then——</p>
<p>“Did <i>you</i> say that?” Elfrida whispered.</p>
<p>“No,” said Edred, “<i>you</i> did.”</p>
<p>“Don’t whisper, now,” said the mole; “’tain’t
purty manners, so I tells ’ee.”</p>
<p>With one accord the two children came to
their knees, one on each side of the white mole.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_47">47</div>
<p>“I <i>say</i>!” said Edred.</p>
<p>“Now, don’t,” said the mole, pointing its nose
at him quite as disdainfully as any human
being could have pointed a finger. “Don’t you
go for to pretend you don’t know as Mouldiwarps
’as got tongues in dere heads same’s what
you’ve got.”</p>
<p>“But not to talk with?” said Elfrida softly.</p>
<p>“Don’t you tell me,” said the Mouldiwarp,
bristling a little. “Hasn’t no one told you e’er
a fairy tale? All us beastes has tongues, and
when we’re dere us uses of en.”</p>
<p>“When you’re where?” said Edred, rather
annoyed at being forced to believe in fairy tales,
which he had never really liked.</p>
<p>“Why, in a fairy tale for sure,” said the mole.
“Wherever to goodness else on earth do you
suppose you be?”</p>
<p>“We’re here,” said Edred, kicking the ground
to make it feel more solid and himself more
sure of things, “on Arden Knoll.”</p>
<p>“An’ ain’t that in a fairy tale?” demanded
the Mouldiwarp triumphantly. “You do talk
so free. You called me, and here I be. What
d’you want?”</p>
<p>“Are you,” said Elfrida, thrilling with surprise
and fear, and pleasure and hope, and wonder,
and a few other things which, taken in the
lump, are usually called “a thousand conflicting
emotions,”—“are you the ‘badge of Arden’s
house’?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_48">48</div>
<p>“Course I be,” said the mole,—“what’s left
of it; and never did I think to be called one by
the Arden boy and gell as didn’t know their
own silly minds. What do you want, eh?”</p>
<p>“We told you in the spell,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“Oh, be that all?” said the mole bitterly;
“nothing else? I’m to make <i>him</i> brave and
wise and show him de treasure. Milksop!” it
said, so suddenly and fiercely that it almost
seemed to spit the words in poor Edred’s face.</p>
<p>“I’m not,” said Edred, turning turkey-red.
“I got into the house and found the spell,
anyway.”</p>
<p>“Yes; and who did all the looking for it?
<i>She</i> did. Bless you, I was there; I know all
about it. If it was showing <i>her</i> the treasure,
now, there’d be some sense in it.”</p>
<p>“I think you’re very unfair,” said Elfrida, as
earnestly as though she had been speaking to
a grown-up human being; “if he was brave and
wise we shouldn’t want you to make him it.”</p>
<p>“You ain’t got nothing to do with it,” said
the mole crossly.</p>
<p>“Yes, she has,” said Edred. “I mean to share
and share with her—whatever I get. And if
you could make me wise I’d teach her everything
you taught me. But I don’t believe you
can. So there!”</p>
<p>“Do you believe I can talk?” the mole asked,
and Edred quite definitely and surprisingly
said—</p>
<p>“No, I don’t. You’re a dream, that’s all you
are,” he said, “and I’m dreaming you.”</p>
<p>“And what do <i>you</i> think?” the mole asked
Elfrida, who hesitated.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_49">49</div>
<p>“<i>I</i> think,” she said at last, “that it’s getting
very dark, and Aunt Edith will be anxious
about us; and will you meet us another day?
There isn’t time to make us brave and wise
to-night.”</p>
<p>“That there ain’t, for sure,” said the mole
meaningly.</p>
<p>“But you might tell us where the treasure
is,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“That comes last, greedy,” said the mole.
“I’ve got to make you kind and wise first, and
I see I’ve got my work cut out. Good-night.”</p>
<p>It began to move away.</p>
<p>“Oh, <i>don’t</i> go!” said Elfrida; “we shall never
find you again. Oh, don’t! Oh, this is dreadful!”</p>
<p>The mole paused.</p>
<p>“I’ve <i>got</i> to let you find me again. Don’t
upset yourself,” it said bitterly. “When you
wants me, come up on to the knoll and say
a piece of poetry to call me, and I’ll come,” and
it started again.</p>
<p>“But what poetry?” Edred asked.</p>
<p>“Oh, anything. You can pick and choose.”</p>
<p>Edred thought of “The Lays of Ancient Rome.”</p>
<p>“Only ’tain’t no good without you makes it
up yourselves,” said the Mouldiwarp.</p>
<p>“Oh!” said the two, much disheartened.</p>
<p>“And course it must be askin’ me to kindly
come to you. Get along home.”</p>
<p>“Where are <i>you</i> going?” Elfrida asked.</p>
<p>“Home too, of course,” it said, and this time it
really <i>did</i> go.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_50">50</div>
<p>The two children turned towards the lights of
Ardenhurst Station in perfect silence. Only as
they reached the place where the down-turf
ends and the road begins Edred said, in tones of
awe, “I say!”</p>
<p>And Elfrida answered, “Yes—isn’t it?”</p>
<p>Then they walked, still without talking, to the
station.</p>
<p>The lights there, and the voices of porters and
passengers, the rattle of signal-wires and the
“ping, ping” of train signals, had on them the
effect of a wet sponge passed over the face of
a sleeper by some “already up” person. They
seemed to awaken from a dream, and the
moment they were in the train, which fortunately
came quite soon, they began to talk.
They talked without stopping till they got to
Cliffville Station, and then they talked all the
way home, and by the time they reached the
house with the green balconies and the smooth,
pale, polished door-knocker they had decided,
as children almost always do in cases of magic
adventure, that they had better not say anything
to any one. As I am always pointing
out, it is extremely difficult to tell your magic
experiences to people who not only <i>will</i> not,
but <i>cannot</i> believe you. This is one of the
drawbacks of really wonderful happenings.</p>
<p>Aunt Edith had not come home, but she came
as they were washing their hands and faces for
supper. She brought with her presents for
Edred’s birthday—nicer presents, and more of
them, than he had had for three years.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_51">51</div>
<p>She bought him a box of wonderfully varied
chocolate and a box of tools, a very beautiful
bat and a cricket-ball and a set of stumps, and a
beetle-backed paint-box in which all the colours
were <i>whole</i> pans, and not half ones, as they
usually are in the boxes you get as presents.
In this were beautiful paint-brushes—two
camel’s-hair ones and a sable with a point as
fine as fine.</p>
<p>“You are a dear, auntie,” he said, with his
arms very tight round her waist. He was very
happy, and it made him feel more generous than
usual. So he said again, “You <i>are</i> a dear. And
Elfrida can use the paint-box whenever I’m out,
and the camel’s-hair brushes. Not the sable, of
course.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Edred, how jolly of you!” said Elfrida,
quite touched.</p>
<p>“I’ve got something for Elfrida too,” said
Aunt Edith, feeling among the rustling pile of
brown paper, and tissue paper, and string, and
cardboard, and shavings, that were the husks of
Edred’s presents. “Ah, here it is!”</p>
<p>It was a book—a red book with gold pictures
on back and cover—and it was called “The
Amulet.” So then it was Elfrida’s turn to
clasp her aunt round the waist and tell her
about her dearness.</p>
<p>“And now to supper,” said the dear. “Roast
chicken. And gooseberry pie. And cream.”</p>
<p>To the children, accustomed to the mild uninterestingness
of bread and milk for supper,
this seemed the crowning wonder of the day.
And what a day it had been!</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_52">52</div>
<p>And while they ate the brown chicken, with
bread sauce and gravy and stuffing, and the
gooseberry pie and cream, the aunt told them
of her day.</p>
<p>“It really <i>is</i> a ship,” she said, “and the best
thing it brings is that we shan’t let lodgings
any more.”</p>
<p>“Hurrah!” was the natural response.</p>
<p>“And we shall have more money to spend
and be more comfortable. And you can go to a
really nice school. And where do you think
we’re going to live?”</p>
<p>“Not,” said Elfrida, in a whisper,—“not at
the castle?”</p>
<p>“Why, how did you guess?”</p>
<p>Elfrida looked at Edred. He hastily swallowed
a large mouthful of chicken to say,
“Auntie, I do hope you won’t mind. We went
to Arden to-day. You said we might go this
year.”</p>
<p>Then the whole story came out—yes, quite all,
up to the saying of the spell.</p>
<p>“And did anything happen?” Aunt Edith
asked. The children were thankful to see that
she was only interested, and did not seem vexed
at what they had done.</p>
<p>“Well,” said Elfrida slowly, “we saw a
mole——”</p>
<p>Aunt Edith laughed, and Edred said quickly—</p>
<p>“That’s all the story, auntie. And I <i>am</i> Lord
Arden, aren’t I?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” the aunt answered gravely. “You are
Lord Arden.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_53">53</div>
<p>“Oh, ripping!” cried Edred, with so joyous a
face that his aunt put away a little sermon she
had got ready in the train on the duties of
the English aristocracy—that would keep, she
thought—and turned to say, “No, dear,” to
Elfrida’s eager question, “Then I’m Lady Arden,
aren’t I?”</p>
<p>“If he’s lord I ought to be lady,” Elfrida said.
“It’s not fair.”</p>
<p>“Never mind, old girl,” said Edred kindly.
“I’ll <i>call</i> you Lady Arden whenever you like.”</p>
<p>“How would you like,” asked the aunt, “to go
over and live at the castle <i>now</i>?”</p>
<p>“To-night?”</p>
<p>“No, no,” she laughed; “next week. You see,
I must try to let this house, and I shall be very
busy. Mrs. Honeysett, the old lady who used to
keep house for your great-uncle, wrote to the
lawyers and asked if we would employ her. I
remember her when I was a little girl; she is a
dear, and knows heaps of old songs. How would
you like to be there with her while I finish up
here and get rid of the lodgers? Oh, there’s
that bell again! I don’t think we’ll have any
bells at the castle, shall we?”</p>
<p>So that was how it was arranged. The aunt
stayed at the bow-windowed house to arrange
the new furniture—for the house was to be let
furnished—and to pack up the beautiful old
things that were real Arden things, and the
children went in the carrier’s cart, with their
clothes and their toys in two black boxes, and in
their hearts a world of joyous anticipations.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_54">54</div>
<p>Mrs. Honeysett received them with a pretty,
old-fashioned curtsey, which melted into an
embrace.</p>
<p>“You’re welcome to your home, my lord,” she
said, with an arm round each child, “and you
too, miss, my dear. Any one can see you’re
Ardens, both two of you. There was always a
boy and a girl—a boy and a girl.” She had a
sweet, patient face, with large, pale blue eyes
that twinkled when she smiled, and she almost
always smiled when she looked at the children.</p>
<p>Oh, but it was fine, to unpack one’s own box—to
lay out one’s clothes in long, cedar-wood
drawers, fronted with curved polished mahogany;
to draw back the neat muslin blinds from
lattice-paned windows that had always been
Arden windows; to look out, as so many Ardens
must have done, over land that, as far as one
could see, had belonged to one’s family in
old days. That it no longer belonged hardly
mattered at all to the romance of hearts only
ten and twelve years old.</p>
<p>Then to go down one’s own shallow, polished
stairs (where portraits of old Ardens hung on
the wall), and to find the cloth laid for dinner in
one’s own wainscoted parlour, laid for two. I
think it was nice of Edred to say, the moment
Mrs. Honeysett had helped them to toad-in-the-hole
and left them to eat it—</p>
<p>“May I pass you some potatoes, Lady Arden?”</p>
<p>Elfrida giggled happily.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_55">55</div>
<div class="img" id="pic5">
<img src="images/pmage055.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="594" />
<p class="caption">“THE CHILDREN WENT IN THE CARRIER’S CART.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_56">56</div>
<p>The parlour was furnished with the kind of
furniture they knew and loved. It had a long,
low window that showed the long, narrow
garden outside. The walls were panelled with
wood, browny-grey under its polish.</p>
<p>“Oh,” said Elfrida, “there must be secret
panels here.”</p>
<p>And though Edred said, “Secret fiddlesticks!”
he in his heart felt that she was right.</p>
<p>After dinner, “May we explore?” Elfrida
asked, and Mrs. Honeysett, most charming of
women, answered heartily—</p>
<p>“Why not? It’s all his own, bless his dear
heart.”</p>
<p>So they explored.</p>
<p>The house was much bigger than they had
found it on that wonderful first day when they
had acted the part of burglars. There was a
door covered with faded green baize. Mrs.
Honeysett pointed it out to them with, “Don’t
you think this is all: there’s the other house
beyond;” and at the other side of that door
there was, indeed, the other house.</p>
<p>The house they had already seen was neat,
orderly, “bees-whacked,” as Mrs. Honeysett said,
till every bit of furniture shone like a mirror or
a fond hope. But beyond the baize door there
were shadows, there was dust, windows draped
in cobwebs, before which hung curtains tattered
and faded, drooping from their poles like the
old banners that, slowly rotting in great cathedrals,
sway in the quiet air where no wind is—stirred,
perhaps, by the breath of Fame’s
invisible trumpet to the air of old splendours
and glories.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_57">57</div>
<p>The carpets lay in rags on the floors; on the
furniture the dust lay thick, and on the boards
of corridor and staircase; on the four-post
beds in the bedchambers the hangings hung
dusty and rusty—the quilts showed the holes
eaten by moths and mice. In one room a cradle
of carved oak still had a coverlet of tattered
silk dragging from it. From the great kitchen-hearth,
where no fire had been this very long
time, yet where still the ashes of the last fire lay
grey and white, a chill air came. The place
smelt damp and felt——</p>
<p>“Do you think it’s haunted?” Elfrida asked.</p>
<p>“Rot!” was her brother’s brief reply, and they
went on.</p>
<p>They found long, narrow corridors hung
crookedly with old, black-framed prints, which
drooped cobwebs, like grey-draped crape. They
found rooms with floors of grey, uneven oak,
and fireplaces in whose grates lay old soot and
the broken nests of starlings hatched very long
ago.</p>
<p>Edred’s handkerchief—always a rag-of-all-work—rubbed
a space in one of the windows,
and they looked out over the swelling downs.
This part of the house was not built within
the castle, that was plain.</p>
<p>When they had opened every door and looked
at every roomful of decayed splendour they
went out and round. Then they saw that this
was a wing built right out of the castle—a
wing with squarish windows, with carved drip-stones.
All the windows were yellow as parchment,
with the inner veil laid on them by Time
and the spider. The ivy grew thick round
the windows, almost hiding some of them
altogether.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_58">58</div>
<p>“Oh!” cried Elfrida, throwing herself down
on the turf, “it’s too good to be true. I can’t
believe it.”</p>
<p>“What <i>I</i> can’t believe,” said Edred, doing
likewise, “is that precious mole.”</p>
<p>“But we saw it,” said Elfrida; “you can’t
help believing things when you’ve seen them.”</p>
<p>“I can,” said Edred, superior. “You remember
the scarlet toadstools in ‘Hereward.’
Suppose those peppermint creams were enchanted—to
make us dream things.”</p>
<p>“They were good,” said Elfrida. “I say!”</p>
<p>“Well?”</p>
<p>“Have you made up any poetry to call the
mole with?”</p>
<p>“Have you?”</p>
<p>“No; I’ve tried, though.”</p>
<p>“<i>I’ve</i> tried. And I’ve done it.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Edred, you <i>are</i> clever. Do say it.”</p>
<p>“If I do, do you think the mole will
come?”</p>
<p>“Of course it will.”</p>
<p>“Well,” said Edred slowly, “of course I want
to find the treasure and all that. But I <i>don’t</i>
believe in it. It isn’t <i>likely</i>—that’s what I think.
Now <i>is</i> it likely?”</p>
<p>“Unlikelier things happened in ‘The Amulet,’”
said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“Ah,” said Edred, “that’s a story.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_59">59</div>
<p>“The mole said <i>we</i> were in a story. I say,
Edred, do say your poetry.”</p>
<p>Edred slowly said it—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘Mole, mole,</p>
<p class="t0">Come out of your hole;</p>
<p class="t0">I know you’re blind,</p>
<p class="t0">But <i>I</i> don’t mind.’”</p>
</div>
<p>Elfrida looked eagerly round her. There was
the short turf; the castle walls, ivied and grey,
rose high above her; pigeons circled overhead,
and in the arches of the windows and on the
roof of the house they perched, preening their
bright feathers or telling each other, “Coo, coo;
cooroo, cooroo,” whatever that may mean. But
there was no mole—not a hint or a dream or
idea of a mole.</p>
<p>“Edred,” said his sister.</p>
<p>“Well?”</p>
<p>“Did you <i>really</i> make that up? Don’t be
cross, but I do think I’ve heard something like
it before.”</p>
<p>“I—I adopted it,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“?” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“Haven’t you seen it in books, ‘Adopted from
the French’? I altered it.”</p>
<p>“I don’t believe that’ll do. How much did
you alter? What’s the real poetry like?”</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘The mole, the mole,</p>
<p class="t0">He lives in a hole.</p>
<p class="t0">The mole is blind;</p>
<p class="t0"><i>I</i> don’t mind,’”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_60">60</div>
<p>said Edred sulkily. “Auntie told me it the day
you went to her with Mrs. Harrison.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure you ought to make it up all yourself.
You see, the mole doesn’t come.”</p>
<p>“There isn’t any mole,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“Let’s both think hard. I’m sure I could
make poetry—if I knew how to begin.”</p>
<p>“If any one’s got to make it, it’s me,” said
Edred. “You’re not Lord Arden.”</p>
<p>“You’re very unkind,” said Elfrida, and Edred
knew she was right.</p>
<p>“I don’t mind trying,” he said, condescendingly;
“you make the poetry and I’ll say it.”</p>
<p>Elfrida buried her head in her hands and
thought till her forehead felt as large as a
mangel-wurzel, and her blood throbbed in it
like a church clock ticking.</p>
<p>“Got it yet?” he asked, just as she thought
she really had got it.</p>
<p>“<i>Don’t!</i>” said the poet, in agony.</p>
<p>Then there was silence, except for the pigeons
and the skylarks, and the mooing of a cow at
a distant red-roofed farm.</p>
<p>“Will this do?” she said at last, lifting her
head from her hands and her elbows from the
grass; there were deep dents and lines on her
elbows made by the grass-stalks she had leaned
on so long.</p>
<p>“Spit it out,” said Edred.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_61">61</div>
<p>Thus encouraged, Elfrida said, very slowly and
carefully, “‘Oh, Mouldiwarp’—I think it would
rather be called that than mole, don’t you?—‘Oh,
Mouldiwarp, do please come out and show
us how to set about it’—that means the
treasure. I hope it’ll understand.”</p>
<p>“That’s not poetry,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“Yes, it is, if you say it right on—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please come out</p>
<p class="t0">And show us how to set about</p>
<p class="t0">It.’”</p>
</div>
<p>“There ought to be some more,” said Edred—rather
impressed, all the same.</p>
<p>“There is,” said Elfrida. “Oh, wait a minute—I
shall remember directly. It—what I mean
is, how to find the treasure and make Edred
brave and wise and kind.”</p>
<p>“I’m kind enough if it comes to that,” said
Lord Arden.</p>
<p>“Oh, I <i>know</i> you are; but poetry has to
rhyme—you know it has. I expect poets often
have to say what they don’t mean because
of that.”</p>
<p>“Well, say it straight through,” said Edred,
and Elfrida said, obediently—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please come out</p>
<p class="t0">And show us how to set about</p>
<p class="t0">It. What I mean is how to find</p>
<p class="t0">The treasure, and make Edred brave and wise and kind.’</p>
</div>
<p>I’ll write it down if you’ve got a pencil.”</p>
<p>Edred produced a piece of pink chalk, but
he had no paper, so Elfrida had to stretch out
her white petticoat, put a big stone on the
hem, and hold it out tightly with both hands,
while Edred wrote at her dictation.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_62">62</div>
<p>Then Edred studiously repeated the lines
again and again, as he was accustomed to
repeat “The Battle of Ivry,” till at last he
was able to stand up and say—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please come out</p>
<p class="t0">And show me how to set about</p>
<p class="t0">It. What I mean is how to find</p>
<p class="t0">The treasure, and make me brave and wise——’</p>
</div>
<p>If you don’t mind,” he added.</p>
<p>And instantly there was the white mole.</p>
<p>“What do you want now?” it said very
crossly indeed. “And call that poetry?”</p>
<p>“It’s the first I ever made,” said Elfrida,
of the hot ears. “Perhaps it’ll be better next
time.”</p>
<p>“We want you to do what the spell says,”
said Edred.</p>
<p>“Make <i>you</i> brave and wise? That can’t be
done all in a minute. That’s a long job, that
is,” said the mole viciously.</p>
<p>“Don’t be so cross, dear,” said Elfrida; “and
if it’s going to be so long hadn’t you better
begin?”</p>
<p>“I ain’t agoin’ to do no more’n my share,”
said the mole, somewhat softened though,
perhaps by the “dear.” “You tell me what
you want, and p’raps I’ll do it.”</p>
<p>“I know what I want,” said Edred, “but I
don’t know whether you <i>can</i> do it.”</p>
<p>“Ha!” laughed the mole contemptuously.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_63">63</div>
<p>“I got it out of a book Elfrida got on my
birthday,” Edred said. “The children in it
went into the past. I’d like to go into the
past—and find that treasure!”</p>
<p>“Choose your period,” said the mole wearily.</p>
<p>“Choose——?”</p>
<p>“Your period. What time you’d like to go
back to. If you don’t choose before I’ve
counted ten it’s all off. One, two, three,
four——”</p>
<p>It counted ten through a blank silence.</p>
<p>“Nine, ten,” it ended. “Oh, very well, den,
you’ll have to take your luck, that’s all.”</p>
<p>“Bother!” said Edred. “I couldn’t think of
anything except all the dates of all the kings
of England all at once.”</p>
<p>“Lucky to know ’em,” said the mole, and
so plainly not believing that he did know
them that Edred found himself saying under
his breath, “William the First, 1066; William
the Second, 1087; Henry the First, 1100.”</p>
<p>The mole yawned, which, of course, was
very rude of it.</p>
<p>“Don’t be cross, dear,” said Elfrida again;
“you help us your own way.”</p>
<p>“Now you’re talking,” said the mole, which,
of course, Elfrida knew. “Well, I’ll give you
a piece of advice. Don’t you be nasty to each
other for a whole day, and then——”</p>
<p>“<i>You</i> needn’t talk,” said Edred, still under
his breath.</p>
<p>“Very well,” said the mole, whose ears were
sharper than his eyes. “I won’t.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_64">64</div>
<p>“Oh, don’t!” sighed Elfrida; “<i>what</i> is it we
are to do when we’ve been nice to each other
for a whole day?”</p>
<p>“Well, <i>when</i> you’ve done that,” said the
mole, “look for the door.”</p>
<p>“What door?” asked Elfrida.</p>
<p>“<i>The</i> door,” said the mole.</p>
<p>“But where is it?” Edred asked.</p>
<p>“In the house it be, of course,” said the
mole. “Where else to gracious should it be?”</p>
<p>And it ran with mouse-like quickness across
the grass and vanished down what looked like
a rabbit-hole.</p>
<p>“Now,” said Elfrida triumphantly, “you’ve
got to believe in the mole.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Edred, “and you’ve got to be
nice to me for a whole day, or it’s no use my
believing.”</p>
<p>“Aren’t I generally nice?” the girl pleaded,
and her lips trembled.</p>
<p>“Yes,” said her brother. “Yes, Lady Arden;
and now I’m going to be nice, too. And where
shall we look for the door?”</p>
<p>This problem occupied them till tea-time.
After tea they decided to paint—with the new
paint-box and the beautiful new brushes.
Elfrida wanted to paint Mr. Millar’s illustrations
in “The Amulet,” and Edred wanted to
paint them, too. This could not be, as you
will see if you have the book. Edred contended
that they were his paints. Elfrida
reminded him that it was her book. The
heated discussion that followed ended quite
suddenly and breathlessly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_65">65</div>
<p>“<i>I</i> wouldn’t be a selfish pig,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“No more would I,” said Elfrida. “Oh, Edred,
<i>is</i> this being nice to each other for twenty-four
hours?”</p>
<p>“Oh,” said Edred. “Yes—well—all right.
Never mind. We’ll begin again to-morrow.”</p>
<p>But it is much more difficult than you would
think to be really nice to your brother or sister
for a whole day. Three days passed before the
two Ardens could succeed in this seemingly so
simple thing. The days were not dull ones at
all. There were beautiful things in them that
I wish I had time to tell you about—such as
climbings and discoveries and books with pictures,
and a bureau with a secret drawer. It
had nothing in it but a farthing and a bit of red
tape—secret drawers never have—but it was a
very nice secret drawer for all that.</p>
<p>And at last a day came when each held its
temper with a strong bit. They began by being
very polite to each other, and presently it grew
to seem like a game.</p>
<p>“Let’s call each other Lord and Lady Arden
all the time, and pretend that we’re no relation,”
said Elfrida. And really that helped tremendously.
It is wonderful how much more polite
you can be to outsiders than you can to your
relations, who are, when all’s said and done, the
people you really love.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_66">66</div>
<p>As the time went on they grew more and
more careful. It was like building a house of
cards. As hour after hour of blameless politeness
was added to the score, they grew almost
breathlessly anxious. If, after all this, some
natural annoyance should spoil everything!</p>
<p>“I do hope,” said Edred, towards tea-time,
“that you won’t go and do anything tiresome.”</p>
<p>“Oh, dear, I do hope I shan’t,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>And this was just like them both.</p>
<p>After tea they decided to read, so as to lessen
the chances of failure. They both wanted the
same book—“Treasure Island” it was—and for
a moment the niceness of both hung in the
balance. Then, with one accord, each said,
“No—you have it!” and the matter ended in
each taking a quite different book that it didn’t
particularly want to read.</p>
<p>At bedtime Edred lighted Elfrida’s candle for
her, and she picked up the matches for him
when he dropped them.</p>
<p>“Bless their hearts,” said Mrs. Honeysett, in
the passage.</p>
<p>They parted with the heartfelt remark, “We’ve
done it this time.”</p>
<p>Now, of course, in the three days when they
had not succeeded in being nice to each other
they had “looked for the door,” but as the mole
had not said where it was, nor what kind of a
door, their search had not been fruitful. Most
of the rooms had several doors, and as there
were a good many rooms the doors numbered
fifty-seven, counting cupboards. And among
these there was none that seemed worthy to
rank above all others as <i>the</i> door. Many of the
doors in the old part of the house looked as
though they might be <i>the</i> one, but since there
<i>were</i> many no one could be sure.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_67">67</div>
<p>“How shall we know?” Edred asked next
morning, through his egg and toast.</p>
<p>“I suppose it’s like when people fall in love,”
said Elfrida, through hers. “You see the door
and you know at once that it is the only princess
in the world, for you—I mean door, of course,”
she added.</p>
<p>And then, when breakfast was over, they
stood up and looked at each other.</p>
<p>“Now,” they said together.</p>
<p>“We’ll look at every single door. Perhaps
there’ll be magic writing on <i>the</i> door come out
in the night, like mushrooms,” said the girl.</p>
<p>“More likely that mole was kidding us,” said
the boy.</p>
<p>“Oh, <i>no</i>,” said the girl; “and we must look at
them on both sides—every one. Oh, I do wonder
what’s inside the door, don’t you?”</p>
<p>“Bluebeard’s wives, I shouldn’t wonder,” said
the boy, “with their heads——”</p>
<p>“If you don’t stop,” said the girl, putting her
fingers in her ears, “I won’t look for the door at
all. No, I don’t mean to be aggravating; but
please don’t. You know I hate it.”</p>
<p>“Come on,” said Edred, “and don’t be a duffer,
old chap.”</p>
<p>The proudest moments of Elfrida’s life were
when her brother called her “old chap.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_68">68</div>
<p>So they went and looked at all the fifty-seven
doors, one after the other, on the inside and on
the outside; some were painted and some were
grained, some were carved and some were plain,
some had panels and others had none, but they
were all of them doors—just doors, and nothing
more. Each was just a door, and none of them
had any claim at all to be spoken of as THE door.
And when they had looked at all the fifty-seven
on the inside and on the outside, there was
nothing for it but to look again. So they looked
again, very carefully, to see if there were any
magic writing that they hadn’t happened to
notice. And there wasn’t. So then they began
to tap the walls to try and discover a door
with a secret spring. And that was no good
either.</p>
<p>“There isn’t any old door,” said Edred. “I
told you that mole was pulling our leg.”</p>
<p>“I’m <i>sure</i> there is,” said Elfrida, sniffing a
little from prolonged anxiety. “Look here—let’s
play it like the willing game. I’ll be blindfolded,
and you hold my hand and will me to
find the door.”</p>
<p>“I don’t believe in the willing game,” said
Edred disagreeably.</p>
<p>“No more do I,” said Elfrida; “but we must
do something, you know. It’s no good sitting
down and saying there isn’t any door.”</p>
<p>“There isn’t, all the same,” said Edred. “Well,
come on.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_69">69</div>
<p>So Elfrida was blindfolded with her best silk
scarf—the blue one with the hem-stitched ends—and
Edred took her hands. And at once—this
happened in the library, where they had found
the spell—Elfrida began to walk in a steady and
purposeful way. She crossed the hall and went
through the green baize door into the other
house; went along its corridor and up its dusty
stairs—up, and up, and up——</p>
<p>“We’ve looked everywhere here,” said Edred,
but Elfrida did not stop for that.</p>
<p>“I know I’m going straight to it,” she said.
“Oh! do try to believe a little, or we shall never
find anything,” and went on along the corridor,
where the spiders had draped the picture-frames
with their grey crape curtains. There were
many doors in this corridor, and Elfrida stopped
suddenly at one of them—a door just like the
others.</p>
<p>“This,” she said, putting her hand out till it
rested on the panel, all spread out like a pink
starfish,—“this is the door.”</p>
<p>She felt for the handle, turned it, and went in,
still pulling at Edred’s hand and with the blue
scarf still on her eyes. Edred followed.</p>
<p>“I say!” he said, and then she pulled off the
scarf.</p>
<p>The door closed itself very softly behind them.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_70">70</div>
<p>They were in a long attic room close under
the roof—a room that they had certainly, in
all their explorings, never found before. There
were no windows—the roof sloped down at the
sides almost to the floor. There was no ceiling—old
worm-eaten roof-beams showed the tiles
between—and old tie-beams crossed it so that as
you stared up it looked like a great ladder with
the rungs very far apart. Here and there
through the chinks of the tiles a golden dusty
light filtered in, and outside was the “tick,
tick” of moving pigeon feet, the rustling of
pigeon feathers, the “cooroocoo” of pigeon
voices. The long room was almost bare; only
along each side, close under the roof, was a row
of chests, and no two chests were alike.</p>
<p>“Oh!” said Edred. “I’m kind and wise now.
I feel it inside me. So now we’ve got the
treasure. We’ll rebuild the castle.”</p>
<p>He got to the nearest chest and pushed at the
lid, but Elfrida had to push too before he could
get the heavy thing up. And when it was up,
alas! there was no treasure in the chest—only
folded clothes.</p>
<p>So then they tried the next chest.</p>
<p>And in all the chests there was no treasure
at all—only clothes. Clothes, and more clothes
again.</p>
<p>“Well, never mind,” said Elfrida, trying to
speak comfortably. “They’ll be splendid for
dressing up in.”</p>
<p>“That’s all very well,” said Edred, “but I
want the treasure.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps,” said Elfrida, with some want of
tact,—“perhaps you’re not ‘good and wise’ yet.
Not <i>quite</i>, I mean,” she hastened to add. “Let’s
take the things out and look at them. Perhaps
the treasure’s in the pockets.”</p>
<p>But it wasn’t—not a bit of it; not even a
threepenny-bit.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_71">71</div>
<p>The clothes in the first chest were full riding
cloaks and long boots, short-waisted dresses and
embroidered scarves, tight breeches and coats
with bright buttons. There were very interesting
waistcoats and odd-shaped hats. One, a
little green one, looked as though it would fit
Edred. He tried it on. And at the same
minute Elfrida lifted out a little straw bonnet
trimmed with blue ribbons. “Here’s one for
me,” she said, and put it on.</p>
<p>And then it seemed as though the cooing and
rustling of the pigeons came right through the
roof and crowded round them in a sort of
dazzlement and cloud of pigeon noises. The
pigeon noises came closer and closer, and
garments were drawn out of the chest and put
on the children. They did not know how it was
done, any more than you do—but it seemed,
somehow, that the pigeon noises were like
hands that helped, and presently there the two
children stood in clothing such as they had
never worn. Elfrida had a short-waisted dress
of green-sprigged cotton, with a long and
skimpy skirt. Her square-toed brown shoes
were gone, and her feet wore flimsy sandals.
Her arms were bare, and a muslin handkerchief
was folded across her chest. Edred wore very
white trousers that came right up under his
arms, a blue coat with brass buttons, and a sort
of frilly tucker round his neck.</p>
<p>“I say!” they both said, when the pigeon
noises had taken themselves away, and they
were face to face in the long, empty room.</p>
<p>“That was funny,” Edred added; “let’s go
down and show Mrs. Honeysett.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_72">72</div>
<p>But when they got out of the door they saw
that Mrs. Honeysett, or some one else, must have
been very busy while they were on the other
side of it, for the floor of the gallery was neatly
swept and polished; a strip of carpet, worn,
but clean, ran along it, and prints hung straight
and square on the cleanly, whitewashed walls,
and there was not a cobweb to be seen anywhere.
The children opened the gallery doors
as they went along, and every room was neat
and clean—no dust, no tattered curtains, only
perfect neatness and a sort of rather bare
comfort showed in all the rooms. Mrs. Honeysett
was in none of them. There were no workmen
about, yet the baize door was gone, and
in its stead was a door of old wood, very shaky
and crooked.</p>
<p>The children ran down the passage to the
parlour and burst open the door, looking for
Mrs. Honeysett.</p>
<p>There sat a very upright old lady and a very
upright old gentleman, and their clothes were
not the clothes people wear nowadays. They
were like the clothes the children themselves
had on. The old lady was hemming a fine
white frill; the old gentleman was reading
what looked like a page from some newspaper.</p>
<p>“Hoity-toity,” said the old lady very severely;
“we forget our manners, I think. Make your
curtsey, miss.”</p>
<p>Elfrida made one as well as she could.</p>
<p>“To teach you respect for your elders,” said
the old gentleman, “you had best get by heart
one of Dr. Watts’s Divine and Moral Songs. I
leave you to see to it, my lady.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_73">73</div>
<div class="img" id="pic6">
<img src="images/pmage073.jpg" alt="" width="637" height="500" />
<p class="caption">“‘HOITY-TOITY,’ SAID THE OLD LADY VERY SEVERELY; ‘WE FORGET OUR MANNERS,
I THINK.’”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_74">74</div>
<p>He laid down the sheet and went out, very
straight and dignified, and without quite
knowing how it happened the children found
themselves sitting on two little stools in a room
that was, and was not, the parlour in which
they had had that hopeful eggy breakfast, each
holding a marbled side of Dr. Watts’s Hymns.</p>
<p>“You will commit to memory the whole of
the one commencing—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘Happy the child whose youngest years</p>
<p class="t">Receive instruction well,’</p>
</div>
<p>And you will be deprived of pudding with your
dinners,” remarked the old lady.</p>
<p>“I say!” murmured Edred.</p>
<p>“Oh, <i>hush</i>!” said Elfrida, as the old lady
carried her cambric frills to the window-seat.</p>
<p>“But I won’t stand it,” whispered Edred.
“I’ll tell Aunt Edith—and who’s <i>she</i> anyhow?”
He glowered at the old lady across the speckless
carpet.</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t you <i>understand</i>?” Elfrida whispered
back. “We’ve got turned into somebody
else, and she’s our grandmamma.”</p>
<p>I don’t know how it was that Elfrida saw this
and Edred didn’t. Perhaps because she was a
girl, perhaps because she was two years older
than he. They looked hopelessly at the bright
sunlight outside, and then at the dull, small
print of the marble-backed book.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_75">75</div>
<p>“Edred,” said the old lady, “hand me the
paper.” She pointed at the sheet on the
brightly polished table. He got up and carried
it across to her, and as he did so he glanced at
it and saw:—</p>
<p class="center">THE TIMES.
<br />June 16, 1807.</p>
<p>And then he knew, as well as Elfrida did,
exactly where he was, and <i>when</i>.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_76">76</div>
<h2 id="c3"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER III</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">IN BONEY’S TIMES</span></h2>
<p>Edred crept back to his stool, and took his
corner of the marble-backed book of Dr. Watts
with fingers that trembled. If you are inclined
to despise him, consider that it was his
first real adventure. Even in ordinary life, and
in the time he naturally lived in, nothing particularly
thrilling had ever happened to happen
to him until he became Lord Arden and explored
Arden Castle. And now he and Elfrida
had not only discovered a disused house and a
wonderful garret with chests in it, but had been
clothed by mysterious pigeon noises in clothes
belonging to another age. But, you will say,
pigeon noises can’t clothe you in anything, whatever
it belongs to. Well, that was just what
Edred told himself at the time. And yet it was
certain that they did. This sort of thing it was
that made the whole business so mysterious.
Further, he and his sister had managed somehow
to go back a hundred years. He knew this quite
well, though he had no evidence but that one
sheet of newspaper. He felt it, as they say, in
his bones. I don’t know how it was, perhaps
the air felt a hundred years younger. Shepherds
and country people can tell the hour of night by
the feel of the air. So perhaps very sensitive
people can tell the century by much the same
means. These, of course, would be the people to
whom adventures in times past or present would
be likely to happen. We must always consider
what is likely, especially when we are reading
stories about unusual things.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_77">77</div>
<p>“I say,” Edred whispered presently, “we’ve
got back to 1807. That paper says so.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Elfrida whispered. So she must
have had more of that like-shepherds-telling-the-time-of-night
feeling than even her brother.</p>
<p>“I wish I could remember what was happening
in history in 1807,” said Elfrida, “but we
never get past Edward IV. We always have to
go back to the Saxons because of the new girls.”</p>
<p>“But we’re not in history. We’re at Arden,”
Edred said.</p>
<p>“We <i>are</i> in history. It’ll be awful not even
knowing who’s king,” said Elfrida; and then the
stiff old lady looked up over very large spectacles
with thick silver rims, and said—</p>
<p>“Silence!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_78">78</div>
<p>Presently she laid down the <i>Times</i> and got ink
and paper—no envelopes—and began to write.
She was finishing a letter, the large sheet was
almost covered on one side. When she had
covered it quite, she turned it round and began
to write across it. She used a white goose-quill
pen. The inkstand was of china, with gold
scrolls and cupids and wreaths of roses painted
on it. On one side was the ink-well, on the
other a thing like a china pepper-pot, and in
front a tray for the pens and sealing-wax to lie
in. Both children now knew their unpleasant
poem by heart; so they watched the old lady,
who was grandmother to the children she supposed
them to be. When she had finished
writing she sprinkled some dust out of the
pepper-pot over the letter to dry the ink. There
was no blotting-paper to be seen. Then she
folded the sheet, and sealed it with a silver seal
from the pen-tray, and wrote the address on the
outside. Then—</p>
<p>“Have you got your task?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Here it is,” said Elfrida, holding up the book.</p>
<p>“No impudence, miss!” said the grandmother
sternly. “You very well know that I mean,
have you got it by rote yet? And you know,
too, that you should say ‘ma’am’ whenever you
address me.”</p>
<p>“Yes, ma’am,” said Elfrida; and this was
taken to mean that she knew her task.</p>
<p>“Then come and say it. No, no; you know
better than that. Feet in the first position,
hands behind you, heads straight, and do not
fidget with your feet.”</p>
<p>So then first Elfrida and then Edred recited
the melancholy verses.</p>
<p>“Now,” said the old lady, “you may go and
play in the garden.”</p>
<p>“Mayn’t we take your letter to the post?”
Elfrida asked.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_79">79</div>
<p>“Yes; but you are not to stay in the ‘George’
bar, mind, not even if Mrs. Skinner should invite
you. Just hand her the letter and come out.
Shut the door softly, and do not shuffle with
your feet.”</p>
<p>“Yes, ma’am,” said Elfrida; and on that they
got out.</p>
<p>“They’ll find us out—bound to,” said Edred;
“we don’t know a single thing about anything.
I don’t know where the ‘George’ is, or where to
get a stamp, or anything.”</p>
<p>“We must find some one we can trust, and tell
them the truth,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“There isn’t any one,” said Edred, “that I’d
trust. You can’t trust the sort of people who
stick this sort of baby flummery round a chap’s
neck.” He crumpled his starched frill with hot,
angry fingers.</p>
<p>“Mine prickles all round, too,” Elfrida reminded
him, “and it’s lower, and you get bigger
as you go down, so it prickles more of me than
yours does you.”</p>
<p>“Let’s go back to the attic and try and get
back into our own time. I expect we just
got in to the wrong door, don’t you? Let’s
go now.”</p>
<p>“Oh, no,” said Elfrida. “How dreadfully dull!
Why, we shall see all sorts of things, and be top
in history for the rest of our lives. Let’s go
through with it.”</p>
<p>“Do you remember which door it was—the
attic, I mean?” Edred suddenly asked. “Was
it the third on the left?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_80">80</div>
<p>“I don’t know. But we can easily find it
when we want it.”</p>
<p>“I’d like to know <i>now</i>,” said Edred obstinately.
“You never know when you <i>are</i> going to want
things. Mrs. Honeysett says you ought always
to be able to lay your hand on anything you
want the moment you <i>do</i> want it. I should like
to be quite certain about being able to lay our
hands on our own clothes. Suppose some one
goes and tidies them up. You know what
people are.”</p>
<p>“All right,” said Elfrida, “we’ll go and tidy
them up ourselves. It won’t take a minute.”</p>
<p>It would certainly not have taken five—if
things had been as the children expected. They
raced up the stairs to the corridor where the
prints were.</p>
<p>“It’s not the first door, I’m certain,” said
Edred, so they opened the second. But it was
not that either. So then they tried all the doors
in turn, even opening, at last, the first one of all.
And it was not that, even. <i>It was not any of
them.</i></p>
<p>“We’ve come to the wrong corridor,” said the
boy.</p>
<p>“It’s the only one,” said the girl. And it was.
For though they hunted all over the house,
upstairs and downstairs, and tried every door,
the door of the attic they could not find again.
And what is more, when they came to count up,
there were fifty-seven doors without it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_81">81</div>
<p>“Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven,” said Elfrida,
and ended in a sob,—“the door’s gone! We
shall have to stay here for ever and ever. Oh, I
want auntie—I do, I do!”</p>
<p>She sat down abruptly on a small green mat
in front of the last door, which happened to be
that of the kitchen.</p>
<p>Edred says he did not cry too. And if what
he says is true, Elfrida’s crying must have been
louder than was usual with her; for the kitchen
door opened, and the two children were caught
up in two fat arms and hurried into a pleasant
kitchen, where bright brass and copper pots
hung on the walls, and between a large fire and
a large meat screen a leg of mutton turned
round and round with nobody to help it.</p>
<p>“Hold your noise,” said the owner of the fat
arms, who now proved to be a very stout woman
in a chocolate-coloured print gown sprigged
with blue roses. She had a large linen apron
and a cap with flappy frills, and between the
frills just such another good, kind, jolly face
as Mrs. Honeysett’s own. “Here, stop your
mouths,” she said, “or your granny’ll be after
you—to say nothing of Boney. Stop your
crying, do, and see what cookie’s got for
you.”</p>
<p>She opened a tin canister and picked out two
lumps of brown stuff that looked like sand—about
the size and shape of prunes they were.</p>
<p>“What’s that?” Edred asked.</p>
<p>“Drabbit me,” said the cook, “what a child it
is! Not know sugar when he sees it! Well,
well, Master Edred, what next, I should like to
know?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_82">82</div>
<p>The children took the lumps and sucked them.
They were of sugar, sure enough, but the sugar
had a strong, coarse taste behind its sweetness,
and if the children had really not been quite
extra polite and kind they would have followed
the promptings of Nature and—— But, of
course, they knew that this would be both
disgusting and ungrateful. So they got the
sugar down somehow, while cook beamed at
them with a wide, kind smile between her
cap-frills, and two hands, as big as little beefsteak
puddings, on her hips.</p>
<p>“Now, no more crybabying,” she said; “run
along and play.”</p>
<p>“We’ve got to take granny’s letter to post,”
said Edred, “and we don’t——”</p>
<p>“Cook,” said Elfrida, on a sudden impulse,
“can you keep a secret?”</p>
<p>“Can’t I?” said the cook. “Haven’t I kept
the secret of how furmety’s made, and Bakewell
pies and all? There’s no furmety to hold a
candle to mine in this country, as well you
know.”</p>
<p>“We don’t know <i>anything</i>,” said Elfrida;
“that’s just it. And we daren’t let granny
know how much we don’t know. Something’s
happened to us, so that we can’t remember
anything that happened more than an hour
ago.”</p>
<p>“Bless me,” said the cook, “don’t you
remember old cookie giving you the baked
apple-dumplings when you were sent to bed
without your suppers a week come Thursday?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_83">83</div>
<p>“No,” said Elfrida; “but I’m sure you did.
Only what are we to do?”</p>
<p>“You’re not deceiving poor cookie, are you
now, like you did about the French soldiers
being hid in the windmill, upsetting all the
village like you did?”</p>
<p>“No; it’s true—it’s dreadfully true. You’ll
have to help us. We don’t remember <i>anything</i>,
either of us.”</p>
<p>The cook sat down heavily in a polished arm-chair
with a patchwork cushion.</p>
<p>“She’s overlooked you. There’s not a doubt
about it. You’re bewitched. Oh, my pretty
little dears, that ever I should see the day——”</p>
<p>The cook’s fat, jolly face twisted and puckered
in a way with which each child was familiar in
the face of the other.</p>
<p>“Don’t cry,” they said both together; and
Elfrida added, “Who’s overlooked what?”</p>
<p>“Old Betty Lovell has—that I’ll be bound!
She’s bewitched you both, sure as eggs is eggs.
I knew there’d be some sort of a to-do when my
lord had her put in the stocks for stealing sticks
in the wood. We’ve got to get her to take it
off, my dears, that’s what we’ve got to do, for
sure; without you could find a white Mouldiwarp,
and that’s not likely.”</p>
<p>“A white Mouldiwarp?” said both the children,
and again they spoke together like a chorus and
looked at each other like conspirators.</p>
<p>“You know the rhyme—oh! but if you’ve
forgotten everything you’ve forgotten that too.”</p>
<p>“Say it, won’t you?” said Edred.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_84">84</div>
<p>“Let’s see, how do it go?—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“White Mouldiwarp a spell can make,</p>
<p class="t0">White Mouldiwarp a spell can break;</p>
<p class="t0">When all be well, let Mouldiwarp be,</p>
<p class="t0">When all goes ill, then turn to he.”</p>
</div>
<p>“Well, all’s not gone ill yet,” said Elfrida,
wriggling her neck in its prickly muslin tucker.
“Let’s go and see the witch.”</p>
<p>“You’d best take her something—a screw of
sugar she’d like, and a pinch of tea.”</p>
<p>“Why, she’d not say ‘Thank you’ for it,” said
Edred, looking at the tiny packets.</p>
<p>“I expect you’ve forgotten,” said cook gently,
“that tea’s ten shillings a pound and sugar’s
gone up to three-and-six since the war.”</p>
<p>“What war?”</p>
<p>“The French war. You haven’t forgotten
we’re at war with Boney and the French, and
the bonfire we had up at the church when the
news came of the drubbing we gave them at
Trafalgar, and poor dear Lord Nelson and all?
And your grandfather reading out about it to
them from the ‘George’ balcony, and all the
people waiting to cheer, and him not able to get
it out for choking pride and because of Lord
Nelson—God bless him!—and the people couldn’t
get their cheers out neither, for the same cause,
and every one blowing their noses and shaking
each other’s hands like as if it was a mad
funeral?”</p>
<p>“How splendid!” said Elfrida. “But we don’t
remember it.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_85">85</div>
<p>“Nor you don’t remember how you killed all
the white butterflies last year because you said
they were Frenchies in their white coats? And
the birching you got, for cruelty to dumb
animals, his lordship said. You howled for an
hour together after it, so you did.”</p>
<p>“I’m glad we’ve forgotten <i>that</i>, anyhow,” said
Edred.</p>
<p>“Gracious!” said the cook. “Half after
eleven, and my eggs not so much as broke for
my pudding. Off you go with your letter.
Don’t you tell any one else about you forgetting.
And then you come home along by Dering’s
Spinney—and go see old Betty. Speak pretty
to her and give her the tea and sugar, and keep
your feet crossed under your chair if she asks
you to sit down. And I’ll give you an old knife-blade
apiece to put in your pockets; she can’t
do nothing if you’ve got steel on you. And get
her to take it off—the ill-wishing, I mean. And
don’t let her know you’ve got steel; they don’t
like to think you’ve been beforehand with
them.”</p>
<p>So the children went down across the fields
to the “George,” and the bean-flowers smelt as
sweet, and the skylarks sang as clearly, and the
sun and the sky were just as golden and blue
as they had been last week. And last week was
really a hundred years on in the future. And
yet it was last week too—from where they were.
Time is a very confusing thing, as the children
remarked to each other more than once.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_86">86</div>
<p>They found the “George” half-way up Arden
village, a stately, great house shaped like an E,
with many windows and a great porch with a
balcony over it. They gave their letter to a
lady in a round cap who sat sewing in a pleasant
room where there were many bottles and kegs,
and rows of bright pewter ale-pots, and little fat
mugs to measure other things with, and pewter
plates on a brown dresser. There were greyhounds,
too, all sprawling, legs and shoulders
and tails entangled together like a bunch of dead
eels, before the widest hearth the children had
ever seen. They hurried away the moment
they had given the letter. A coach, top-heavy
with luggage, had drawn up in front of the
porch, and as they went out they saw the ostlers
leading away the six smoking horses. Edred
felt that he <i>must</i> see the stables, so they
followed, and the stables were as big as the
house, and there were horses going in and
horses going out, and hay and straw, and ostlers
with buckets and ostlers with harness, and stalls
and loose-boxes beyond counting, and bustle
and hurry beyond words.</p>
<p>“How ever many horses have you got?” said
Elfrida, addressing a man who had not joined
in the kindly chorus of “Hulloa, little ’uns!”
that greeted the children. So she judged him
to be a new-comer. As he was.</p>
<p>“Two-and-fifty,” said the man.</p>
<p>“What for?” Elfrida asked.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_87">87</div>
<p>“Why, for the coaches, and the post-shays,
and the King’s messengers, for sure,” the man
answered. “How else’d us all get about the
country, and get to hear the newses, if it wasn’t
for the stable the ‘George’ keeps?”</p>
<p>And then the children remembered that this
was the time before railways and telegrams and
telephones.</p>
<p>It is always difficult to remember exactly
where one is when one happens to get into a
century that is not one’s own.</p>
<p>Edred would have liked to stay all day
watching the busyness of every one and the
beautifulness of the horses, but Elfrida dragged
him away.</p>
<p>They had to find the witch, she reminded him;
and in a dreadful tumble-down cottage, with
big holes in its roof of rotten thatch, they did
find her.</p>
<p>She was exactly like the pictures of witches
in story books, only she had not a broomstick
or a high-pointed hat. She had instead a dirty
cap that had once been white, and a rusty gown
that had once been black, and a streaky shawl
that might once, perhaps, have been scarlet.
But nobody could be sure of that now. There
was a black cat sitting on a very dirty wooden
settle, and the old woman herself sat on a rickety
three-legged stool, her wrinkled face bent over
a speckled hen which she was nursing in her
lap and holding gently in her yellow, wrinkled
hands.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_88">88</div>
<p>As soon as Edred caught sight of her through
the crooked doorway, he stopped. “I’m not
going in,” he said, “what’s the good? We
know jolly well she <i>hasn’t</i> bewitched us. And
if we go cheeking her she <i>may</i>, and then we
shall be in a nice hole.”</p>
<p>“There’s the tea and sugar,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“You just give it her and come away. I’ll
wait for you by the stile.”</p>
<p>So Elfrida went into the cottage alone, and
said “Good morning” in rather a frightened
way.</p>
<p>“I’ve brought you some tea and sugar,” she
said, and stood waiting for the “Thank you,”
without which it would not be polite to say
“Good morning” and to go away.</p>
<p>The “Thank you” never came. Instead, the
witch stopped stroking the hen, and said—</p>
<p>“What for? I’ve not done you no ’arm.”</p>
<p>“No,” said Elfrida. “I’m sure you wouldn’t.”</p>
<p>“Then what have you brought it for?”</p>
<p>“For—oh, just for you,” said Elfrida. “I
thought you’d like it. It’s just a—a love-gift,
you know.”</p>
<p>This was Aunt Edith’s way of calling a present
that didn’t come just because it was your birthday
or Christmas, or you had had a tooth out.</p>
<p>“A love-gift?” said the old woman slowly.
“After all this long time?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_89">89</div>
<div class="img" id="pic7">
<img src="images/pmage089.jpg" alt="" width="424" height="800" />
<p class="caption">“‘I’VE BROUGHT YOU SOME TEA AND SUGAR,’
SHE SAID.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_90">90</div>
<p>Elfrida did not understand. How should she?
It’s almost impossible for even the most grown
up and clever of us to know how women used
to be treated—and not so very long ago either—if
they were once suspected of being witches.
It generally began by the old woman’s being
cleverer than her neighbours, having more wit
to find out what was the matter with sick
people, and more still to cure them. Then her
extra cleverness would help her to foretell
storms and gales and frosts, and to find water
by the divining rod—a very mysterious business.
And when once you can find out where water
is by just carrying a forked hazel twig between
your hands and walking across a meadow, you
can most likely find out a good many other
things that your stupid neighbours would never
dream of. And in those long-ago days—which
really aren’t so very long ago—your being so
much cleverer than your neighbours would be
quite enough. You would soon be known as
the “wise woman”—and from “wise woman”
to witch was a very short step indeed.</p>
<p>So Elfrida, not understanding, said, “Yes; is
your fowl ill?”</p>
<p>“’Twill mend,” said the old woman,—“’twill
mend. The healing of my hands has gone into
it.” She rose, set the hen on the hearth, where
it fluttered, squawked, and settled among grey
ashes, very much annoying the black cat, and
laid her hands suddenly on Elfrida’s shoulders.</p>
<p>“And now the healing of my hands is for
you,” she said. “You have brought me a love-gift.
Never a gift have I had these fifty years
but was a gift of fear or a payment for help—to
buy me to take off a spell or put a spell on.
But you have brought me a love-gift, and I tell
you you shall have your heart’s desire. You
shall have love around and about you all your
life long. That which is lost shall be found.
That which came not shall come again. In this
world’s goods you shall be blessed, and blessed
in the goods of the heart also. I know—I see—and
for you I see everything good and fair.
Your future shall be clean and sweet as your
kind heart.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_91">91</div>
<p>She took her hands away. Elfrida, very much
impressed by these flattering remarks which
she felt she did not deserve, stood still, not
knowing what to say or do; she rather wanted
to cry.</p>
<p>“I only brought it because cook told me,” she
said.</p>
<p>“Cook didn’t give you the kind heart that
makes you want to cry for me now,” said the
witch.</p>
<p>The old woman sank down in a crouching
heap, and her voice changed to one of sing-song.</p>
<p>“I know,” she said,—“I know many things.
All alone the livelong day and the death-long
night, I have learned to see. As cats see
through the dark, I see through the days that
have been and shall be. I know that you are
not here, that you are not now. You will
return whence you came, and this time that is
not yours shall bear no trace of you. And my
blessing shall be with you in your own time
and your own place, because you brought a love-gift
to the poor old wise woman of Arden.”</p>
<p>“Is there anything I can do for you?” Elfrida
asked, very sorry indeed, for the old woman’s
voice was very pitiful.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_92">92</div>
<p>“Kiss me,” said the old woman,—“kiss me
with your little child’s mouth, that has come
back a hundred years to do it.”</p>
<p>Elfrida did not wish to kiss the wrinkled, grey
face, but her heart wished her to be kind, and
she obeyed her heart.</p>
<p>“Ah!” said the wise woman, “now I see.
Oh, never have I had such a vision. None of
them all has ever been like this. I see great
globes of light like the sun in the streets of the
city, where now are only little oil-lamps and
guttering lanterns. I see iron roads, with fiery
dragons drawing the coaches, and rich and poor
riding up and down on them. Men shall speak
in England and their voice be heard in France—more,
the voices of men dead shall be kept alive
in boxes and speak at the will of those who still
live. The handlooms shall cease in the cottages,
and the weavers shall work in palaces with a
thousand windows lighted as bright as day.
The sun shall stoop to make men’s portraits
more like than any painter can make them.
There shall be ships that shall run under the
seas like conger-eels, and ships that shall ride
over the clouds like great birds. And bread
that is now a shilling and ninepence shall be
fivepence, and the corn and the beef shall come
from overseas to feed us. And every child shall
be taught who can learn, and——”</p>
<p>“Peace, prater,” cried a stern voice in the doorway.
Elfrida turned. There stood the grandfather,
Lord Arden, very straight and tall and
grey, leaning on his gold-headed cane, and beside
him Edred, looking very small and found-out.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_93">93</div>
<p>The old witch did not seem to see them; her
eyes, that rolled and blinked, saw nothing. But
she must have heard, for—</p>
<p>“Loss to Arden,” she said; “loss and woe to
Arden. The hangings of your house shall be
given to the spider, and the mice shall eat your
carved furnishings. Your gold shall be less and
less, and your house go down and down till
there is not a field that is yours about your
house.”</p>
<p>Lord Arden shrugged his shoulders.</p>
<p>“Likely tales,” he said, “to frighten babes
with. Tell me rather, if you would have me
believe, what shall hap to-morrow.”</p>
<p>“To-morrow,” said the wise woman, “the
French shall land in Lymchurch Bay.”</p>
<p>Lord Arden laughed.</p>
<p>“And I give you a sign—three signs,” said the
woman faintly; for it is tiring work seeing into
the future, even when you are enlightened with
a kiss from some one who has been there. “You
shall see the white Mouldiwarp, that is the
badge of Arden, on your threshold as you
enter.”</p>
<p>“That shall be one sign,” said the old man
mockingly.</p>
<p>“And the second,” she said, “shall be again
the badge of your house, in your own chair in
your own parlour.”</p>
<p>“That seems likely,” said Lord Arden,
sneering.</p>
<p>“And the third,” said she, “shall be the
badge of your house in the arms of this child.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_94">94</div>
<p>She turned her back, and picked the hen out
of the ashes.</p>
<p>Lord Arden led Edred and Elfrida away, one
in each hand, and as he went he was very severe
on disobedient children who went straying after
wicked witches, and they could not defend
themselves without blaming the cook, which, of
course, they would not do.</p>
<p>“Bread and water for dinner,” he said, “to
teach you better ways.”</p>
<p>“Oh, grandfather,” said Elfrida, catching at
his hand, “don’t be so unkind! Just think
about when <i>you</i> were little. I’m sure you liked
looking at witches, didn’t you, now?”</p>
<p>Lord Arden stared angrily at her, and then he
chuckled. “It’s a bold girl, so it is,” he said.
“I own I remember well seeing a witch ducked
no further off than Newchurch, and playing
truant from my tutor to see it, too.”</p>
<p>“There now, you see,” said Elfrida coaxingly,
“we don’t mean to be naughty; we’re just like
what you were. You won’t make it bread and
water, will you? Especially if bread’s so dear.”</p>
<p>Lord Arden chuckled again.</p>
<p>“Why, the little white mouse has found a
tongue, and never was I spoken to so bold since
the days I wore petticoats myself,” he said.
“Well, well; we’ll say no more about it this
time.”</p>
<p>And Edred, who had privately considered that
Elfrida was behaving like an utter idiot, thought
better of it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_95">95</div>
<div class="img" id="pic8">
<img src="images/pmage095.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="630" />
<p class="caption">“THE MOULDIWARP MADE A LITTLE RUN AND A LITTLE JUMP,
AND ELFRIDA CAUGHT IT.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_96">96</div>
<p>So they turned across the summer fields to
Arden Castle. There seemed to be more of the
castle than when the children had first seen it,
and it was tidier, much. And on the doorstep
sat a white mole.</p>
<p>“There now!” said Elfrida. The mole
vanished like a streak of white paint that is
rubbed out.</p>
<p>“Pooh!” said Lord Arden. “There’s plenty
white moles in the world.”</p>
<p>But when he saw the white mole sitting up
in his own carved arm-chair in the parlour,
he owned that it was very unusual.</p>
<p>Elfrida stooped and held out her arms. She
was extremely glad to see the mole. Because
ever since she and her brother had come into
this strange time she had felt that it would be
the greatest possible comfort to have the mole
at hand—the mole, who understood everything,
to keep and advise; and, above all, to get them
safely back into the century they belonged to.</p>
<p>And the Mouldiwarp made a little run and a
little jump, and Elfrida caught it and held it
against her waist with both her hands.</p>
<p>“Stay with me,” whispered Elfrida to the
mole.</p>
<p>“By George!” said Lord Arden to the
universe.</p>
<p>“So now you see,” said Edred to Lord Arden.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_97">97</div>
<h2 id="c4"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER IV</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">THE LANDING OF THE FRENCH</span></h2>
<p>Then they had dinner. The children had to sit
very straight and eat very slowly, and their
glasses were filled with beer instead of water;
and when they asked for water Lady Arden
asked how many more times they would have
to be told that water was unwholesome. Lord
Arden was very quiet. At quite the beginning
of dinner he had told his wife all about the
wise woman, and the landing of the French,
and the three signs, and she had said, “Law,
save us, my lord; you don’t say so?” and gone
on placidly cutting up her meat. But when the
cloth had been drawn, and decanters of wine
placed among the dishes of dried plums and
preserved pears, Lord Arden brought down his
fist on the table and said—</p>
<p>“Not more than three glasses for me to-day,
my lady. I am not superstitious, as well you
know; but facts are facts. What did you do
with that white Mouldiwarp?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_98">98</div>
<p>Elfrida had put it in the bottom drawer of
the tallboys in her room (cook had told her
which room that was), and said so rather
timidly.</p>
<p>“It’s my belief,” said Lady Arden, who seemed
to see what was her husband’s belief and to
make it her own—a very winning quality—“it’s
my belief that it’s a direct warning; in return,
perhaps, for the tea and sugar.”</p>
<p>“Ah!” said Lord Arden. “Well, whether or
no, every man in this village shall be armed and
paraded this day, or I’ll know the reason why.
I’m not going to have the French stepping
ashore as cool as cucumbers, without ‘With
your leave,’ or ‘By your leave,’ and any one to
say afterwards, ‘Well, Arden, you had fair
warning, only you would know best.’”</p>
<p>“No,” said Lady Arden, “that <i>would</i> be
unpleasant.”</p>
<p>Lord Arden’s decision was made stronger by
the arrival of a man on a very hot horse.</p>
<p>“The French are coming,” he said, quite out
of breath. But he could not say how he knew.
“They all say so,” was all that could be got out
of him, and “They told me to come tell you, my
lord, and what’s us to do?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_99">99</div>
<p>We live so safely now; we have nothing
to be afraid of. When we have wars they are
not in our own country. The police look after
burglars, and even thunder is attended to by
lightning-rods. It is not easy for us to understand
the frantic terror of those times, when,
from day to day, every man, woman, and child
trembled in its shoes for fear lest “the French
should come”—the French, led by Boney. Boney,
to us, is Napoleon Buonaparte, a little person in
a cocked hat out of the history books. To those
who lived in England when he was a man alive,
he was “the Terror that walked by night,”
making children afraid to go to bed, and
causing strong men to sleep in their boots, with
sword and pistol by the bed-head, within easy
reach of the newly awakened hand.</p>
<p>Edred and Elfrida began to understand a
little, when they saw how the foretelling of the
wise woman, strengthened by the rumours that
began to run about like rats in every house
in the village, stirred the people to the wildest
activity.</p>
<p>Lord Arden was so busy giving orders, and
my lady so busy talking his orders over with
the maidservants, that the children were left
free to use their eyes and ears. And they went
down into the village and saw many strange
things. They saw men at the grindstone sharpening
old swords, and others who had no swords
putting a fine edge on billhooks, hatchets,
scythes, and kitchen choppers. They saw other
men boarding up their windows and digging
holes in their gardens and burying their money
and their teaspoons in the holes. No one knew
how the rumour had begun, but every one
believed it now.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_100">100</div>
<p>They went in and out of the cottages as they
chose. Every one seemed to know them and
to be pleased, in an absent sort of way, to see
them, but nobody had time to talk to them,
so they soon lost the fear they had had at first
of being found out to be not the people they
were being taken for. They found the women
busy brushing and mending old scarlet coats
and tight white trousers, and all along the dip
of the cliff men were posted, with spy-glasses,
looking out to sea. Other men toiled up the
slope with great bundles of brown brush-wood
and dried furze on their backs, and those
bundles were piled high, ready to be lighted the
moment it should be certain that the French
were coming.</p>
<p>Elfrida wished more than ever that she knew
more about the later chapters of the history
book. Did Boney land in England on the 17th
of June, 1807? She could not remember. There
was something, she knew, in the book about a
French invasion, but she could not remember
what it was an invasion of, nor when it took
place. So she and Edred knew as little as any
one else what really <i>was</i> going to happen. The
Mouldiwarp, in the hurried interview she had
had with it before dinner, had promised to come
if she called it, “With poetry, of course,” it
added, as it curled up in the corner of the
drawer, and this comforted her a good deal when,
going up to get her bonnet, she found the bottom
drawer empty. So, though she was as interested
as Edred in all that was going on, it was only
with half her mind. The other half was busy
trying to make up a piece of poetry, so that any
emergency which might suddenly arise would
not find her powerless because poetry-less.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_101">101</div>
<p>So for once Edred was more observant than
she, and when he noticed that the men built a
bonfire not at all on the spot which Lord Arden
had pointed out as most convenient, he wondered
why.</p>
<p>And presently, seeing a man going by that
very spot, he asked him why. To his surprise,
the man at once poked him in the ribs with a
very hard finger, and said—</p>
<p>“Ah, you’re a little wag, you are! But you’re
a little gentleman, too, and so’s the little lady,
bless her. You never gave us away to the
Preventives—for all you found out.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” said Elfrida cautiously, “we
should never give any one away.”</p>
<p>“Want to come along down now?” the man
asked. He was a brown-faced, sturdy, sailor-looking
man, with a short pigtail sticking out
from the back of his head like the china handle
of a Japanese teapot.</p>
<p>“Oh, yes,” said Elfrida, and Edred did not
say “Oh, no.”</p>
<p>“Then just you wait till I’m out of sight, and
then come down the way you see me go. Go
long same as if you was after butterflies or the
like—a bit this way and a bit that—see?” said
the man. And they obeyed.</p>
<p>Alas! too few children in those uninteresting
times of ours have ever been in a smuggler’s
cave. To Edred and to Elfrida it was as great
a novelty as it would be to you or to me.</p>
<p>When they came up with the brown man he
was crouching in the middle of a patch of furze.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_102">102</div>
<p>“Jump they outside bushes,” he said. And
they jumped, and wound their way among the
furze-bushes by little narrow rabbit-paths till
they stood by his side.</p>
<p>Then he lifted a great heap of furze and
bramble that looked as if it had lived and died
exactly where it was. And there was a hole—with
steps going down.</p>
<p>It was dark below, but Elfrida did not hesitate
to do as she was told and to go forward.
And if Edred hesitated it was only for a
minute.</p>
<p>The children went down some half a dozen
steps. Then the brown man came into the hole
too, and drew the furze after him. And he
lighted a lantern; there was a tallow candle in
it, and it smelt very nasty indeed. But what
are smells, even those of hot tallow and hot
iron, compared with the splendid exploring of
a smuggler’s cave? It was everything the
children had ever dreamed of—and more.</p>
<p>There was the slow descent with the yellowness
of the lantern flame casting golden lights
and inky shadows on the smooth whiteness of
the passage’s chalk walls. There were steps,
there was a rude heavy door, fastened by a great
lock and a key to open it—as big as a church key.
And when the door had creaked open there was
the great cave. It was so high that you could
not see the roof—only darkness. Out of an
opening in the chalk at the upper end a stream
of water fell, slid along a smooth channel down
the middle of the cave and ran along down a
steep incline, rather like a small railway cutting,
and disappeared under a low arch.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_103">103</div>
<div class="img" id="pic9">
<img src="images/pmage103.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="681" />
<p class="caption">“‘DO YOU THINK THE FRENCH WILL LAND TO-MORROW IN
LYMCHURCH BAY?’ EDRED ASKED.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_104">104</div>
<p>“So there’d always be water if you had to
stand a siege,” said Edred.</p>
<p>On both sides of the great cave barrels and
bales were heaped on a sanded floor. There
were a table and benches cut out of solid chalk,
and an irregular opening partly blocked by a
mass of fallen cliff, through which you saw the
mysterious twilit sea, with stars coming out
over it.</p>
<p>You saw this, and you felt—quite suddenly,
too—a wild wind that pressed itself against you
like a wrestler trying a fall, and whistled in
your ears and drove you back to the big cave,
out of breath and panting.</p>
<p>“There’ll be half a gale to-night,” said the
smuggler; for such, no doubt, he was.</p>
<p>“Do you think the French <i>will</i> land to-morrow
in Lymchurch Bay?” Edred asked.</p>
<p>By the light of the lantern the smuggler
solemnly winked.</p>
<p>“You two can keep a secret, I know,” he said.
“The French won’t land; it’s us what’ll land,
and we’ll land here and not in bay; and what
we’ll land is a good drop of the real thing, and
a yard or two of silk or lace maybe. I don’t
know who ’twas put it about as the French was
a-coming, but you may lay to it they aren’t no
friends of the Revenue.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I see,” said Elfrida. “And did——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_105">105</div>
<p>“The worst of it’ll be the look-out they’ll
keep. Lucky for us it’s all our men as has
volunteered for duty. And we know our
friends.”</p>
<p>“But do you mean,” said Edred, “that you
can be friends with a Frenchman, when we’re at
war with them?”</p>
<p>“It’s like this, little man,” said the smuggler,
sitting down on a keg that stood handily on its
head ready for a seat. “We ain’t no quarrel
with the free-trade men—neither here nor there.
A man’s got his living to get, hasn’t he now?
So you see a man’s trade comes first—what he
gets his bread by. So you see these chaps as
meet us mid-channel and hand us the stuff—they’re
free traders first and Frenchies after—the
same like we’re merchants before all. We
ain’t no quarrel with them. It’s the French
soldiers we’re at war with, not the honest
French traders that’s in the same boat as us
ourselves.”</p>
<p>“Then somebody’s just made up about Boney
coming, so as to keep people busy in the bay
while you’re smuggling here?” said Edred.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t go so far as that, sir,” said the
man, “but if it did happen that way it ’ud be
a sort of special dispensation for us free-trade
men that get our living by honest work and
honest danger; that’s all I say, knowing by
what’s gone before that you two are safe as any
old salt afloat.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_106">106</div>
<p>The two children would have given a good
deal to know what it was that had “gone
before.” But they never did know. And sometimes,
even now, they wonder what it was
that the Edred and Elfrida of those days had
done to win the confidence of this swaggering
smuggler. They both think, and I daresay they
are right, that it must have been something
rather fine.</p>
<p>Having seen all the ins and outs of the cave,
the children were not sorry to get back to Arden
Castle, for it was now dark, and long past their
proper bedtime, and it really had been rather
a wearing day.</p>
<p>They were put to bed, rather severely, by
Lady Arden’s own maid, whom they had not
met before and did not want to meet again—so
shrivelled and dry and harsh was she.
And they slept like happy little tops, in the
coarse homespun linen sheets scented with
lavender grown in the castle garden, that
were spread over soft, fat, pincushion-beds,
filled with the feathers of geese eaten at the
castle table.</p>
<p>Only Elfrida woke once and found the room
filled with red light, and, looking out of the
window, saw that one of the beacon bonfires
was alight and that the flames and smoke were
streaming across the dark summer sky—driven
by the wind that shouted and yelled and shook
the windows, and was by this time, she felt sure,
at least three-quarters of a gale. The beacon
was lighted; therefore the French were coming.
And Elfrida yawned and went back to bed.
She was too sleepy to believe in Boney. But
at that time, a hundred years ago, hundreds of
little children shivered and cried in their beds,
being quite sure that now at last all the dreadful
prophecies of mothers and nurses would come
true, and that Boney, in all his mysterious, unknown
horror, would really now, at last, “have
them.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_107">107</div>
<p>It was grey morning when the wind, wearied
of the silly resistance of the leaded window,
suddenly put forth his strength, tore the window
from its hinges, drove it across the window
frame, and swept through the room, flapping
the bedclothes like wet sails, and wakening the
children most thoroughly, far beyond any hope
of “one more snooze.” They got up and dressed.
No one was about in the house, but the front
door was open. It was quite calm on that
side, but as soon as the children left the
shelter of the castle wall the wind caught at
them, hit, slapped, drove, worried, beat them,
till they had hard work to stand upright, and
getting along was very slow and difficult. Yet
they made their way somehow to the cliff, where
a thick, black crowd stood—a crowd that was
not really black when you got quite close and
could look at it in the grey dawn-light, but
rather brilliantly red, white, and blue, like
the Union Jack, because they were the armed
men in their make-shift uniforms whom old
Lord Arden had drilled and paraded the evening
before. And they were all looking out
to sea.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_108">108</div>
<p>The sea was like the inside of an oyster-shell,
barred with ridges of cold silver, the sky above
was grey as a gull’s wing, and between sea and
sky a ship was driving straight on to the rocks
a hundred feet below.</p>
<p>“’Tis a French ship, by her rig,” some one
said.</p>
<p>“The first of the fleet—a scout,” said another,
“and Heaven has sent a storm to destroy them
like it destroyed the accursed Armada in Queen
Bess’s time.”</p>
<p>And still the ship came nearer.</p>
<p>“’Tis the <i>Bonne Esperance</i>,” said the low
voice of the smuggler friend close to Elfrida’s
ear, and she could only just hear him through
the whistling of the gale. “’Tis true what
old Betty said; the French will land here
to-day—but they’ll land dead corpses. And
all our little cargo—they’ve missed our boat
in the gale—it’ll all be smashed to bits afore
our eyes. It’s poor work being a honest
merchant.”</p>
<p>The men in their queer uniforms, carrying
their queer weapons, huddled closer together,
and all eyes were fixed on the ship as it came
on and on.</p>
<p>“Is it <i>sure</i> to be wrecked?” whispered Elfrida,
catching at old Lord Arden’s hand.</p>
<p>“No hope, my child. Get you home to bed,”
he said.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_109">109</div>
<p>It did not make any difference that all this
had happened a hundred years ago. There
was the cold, furious sea lashing the rocks far
down below the cliff. Elfrida could not bear
to stay and see that ship smash on the rocks
as her carved work-box had smashed when she
dropped it on the kitchen bricks. She could
not even bear to think of seeing it. Poetry
was difficult, but to stay here and see a ship
wrecked—a ship that had men aboard—was
more difficult still.</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“Oh, Mouldiwarp, do come to me;</p>
<p class="t0">I cannot bear it, do you see,”</p>
</div>
<p>was not, perhaps, fine poetry, but it expressed
her feelings exactly, and, anyhow, it did what
it was meant to do. The white mole rubbed
against her ankles even as she spoke. She
caught it up.</p>
<p>“Oh, what are we to do?”</p>
<p>“Go home,” it said, “to the castle—you’ll find
the door now.”</p>
<p>And they turned to go. And as they turned
they heard a grinding crunch, mixed with the
noise of the waves and winds, enormously
louder, but yet just the sort of noise a dog
makes when he is eating the bones of the chicken
you had for dinner and gets the chicken’s ribs
all at once into his mouth. Then there was
a sort of sighing moan from the crowd on the
cliff, who had been there all night for the
French to land, and then Lord Arden’s voice—</p>
<p>“The French have landed. She spoke the
truth. The French have landed—Heaven help
them!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_110">110</div>
<p>And as the children ran towards the house
they knew that every man in that crowd
would now be ready to risk his life to save
from the sea those Frenchies whom they had
sat up all night to kill with swords and scythes
and bills and meat-choppers. Men are queer
creatures!</p>
<p>To get out of it—back to the safe quiet of
a life without shipwrecks and witches—that
was all Elfrida wanted. Holding the mole in
one hand and dragging Edred by the other,
she got back to the castle and in at the open
front door, up the stairs, and straight to a
door—she knew it would be the right one, and
it was.</p>
<p>There was the large attic with the beams,
and the long, wonderful row of chests under
the sloping roof. And the moment the door
was shut, the raging noise of the winds ceased,
as the flaring noise of gas ceases when you
turn it off. And now once more the golden
light filtered through the chinks of the tiles,
and outside was the “tick, tick” of moving
pigeon feet, the rustling of pigeon feathers, and
the cooroocoo of pigeon voices.</p>
<p>On the ground lay their own clothes.
“Change,” said the white mole, a little out of
breath because it had been held very tight and
carried very fast.</p>
<p>And the moment they began to put on their
own clothes it seemed that the pigeon noises
came closer and closer, and somehow helped
them out of the prickly clothes of 1807 and
back into the comfortable sailor suits of 1907.</p>
<p>“Did ye find the treasure?” the mole asked,
and the children answered—</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_111">111</div>
<p>“Why no; we never thought of it.”</p>
<p>“It don’t make no odds,” said the mole.
“’Twaren’t dere.”</p>
<p>“There?” said Elfrida. “Then we’re <i>here</i>?
We’re <i>now</i> again, I mean? We’re not then?”</p>
<p>“Oh, you’re <i>now</i>, sure enough,” said the
mole, “and won’t you catch it! Dame Honeysett’s
been raising the countryside arter ye.
Next time ye go gallivantin’ into old ancient
days you’d best set the clock back. Young
folks don’t know everything. Get along down
and take your scolding.</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“What must be must.</p>
<p class="t0">If you can’t get crumb, you must put up with crust.</p>
</div>
<p>Good-bye.”</p>
<p>It ran under one of the chests, and Edred
and Elfrida were left looking at each other in
the attic between the rows of chests.</p>
<p>“Do you <i>like</i> adventures?” said Edred slowly.</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Elfrida firmly; “and so do you.
Come along down.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_112">112</div>
<h2 id="c5"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER V</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">THE HIGHWAYMAN AND THE ——</span></h2>
<p>They both meant what they said. And yet, of
course, it is nonsense to promise that you will
never do anything again, because, of course, you
must do <i>something</i>, if it’s only simple subtraction
or eating poached eggs and sausages. You will,
of course, understand that what they meant
was that they would never again do anything
to cause Mrs. Honeysett a moment’s uneasiness,
and in order to make this possible the first thing
to do was, of course, to find out how to set the
clock back. Slowly munching sausage, and feeling,
as she always did when she ate slowly, that
she was doing something very virtuous and
ought to have a prize or a medal for it, Elfrida
asked her mind to be kind enough to get some
poetry ready by the time she had finished
breakfast. And sure enough, her mind, in its
own secret backyard, as it were, did get something
ready. And while this was happening
Elfrida, in what corresponded to her mind’s
front garden, was wishing that she had been
born a poet.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_113">113</div>
<p>“Like the one who did the piece about the
favourite gold-fish drowned in a tub of cats,”
she said pensively.</p>
<p>“Yes, or even Shakespeare,” said Edred;
“only he’s so long always.”</p>
<p>“I wonder,” said the girl, “where the clock is
that we’ve got to set back?”</p>
<p>“Oh, Mouldiwarp’ll tell us,” said the boy.</p>
<p>But Mouldiwarp didn’t.</p>
<p>When breakfast was over they went out into
the grassy space round which the ruined walls
of the castle rose up so grey and stately, with
the wallflowers and toad-flax growing out of
them, and sat down among the round-faced,
white-frilled daisies and told each other what
they had thought, or what they thought they
had thought, while they were back in those
times when people were afraid of Boney.</p>
<p>And the castle’s sward was very green, and
the daisies were very white, and the sun shone
on everything very grand and golden.</p>
<p>And as they sat there it came over Elfrida
suddenly how good a place it was and how
lucky they were to be there at home at Arden,
rather than in the house with the pale, smooth
brass door-knocker that stood in the street with
the red pavement, and the lodgers who kept all
on ringing their bells—so that she said, quite
without knowing she was going to say anything—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“Arden, Arden, Arden,</p>
<p class="t0">Lawn and castle and garden;</p>
<p class="t0">Daisies and grass and wallflowers gold—</p>
<p class="t0">Mouldiwarp, come out of the mould.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_114">114</div>
<p>“That’s more like poetry, that is,” said the
Mouldiwarp, sitting on the green grass between
the children; “more lik’n anything I’ve heard
ye say yet—so ’tis. An’ now den, what is it for
you dis fine day an’ all?”</p>
<p>It seemed in such a good temper that Elfrida
asked a question that had long tried to get itself
asked.</p>
<p>“Why,” was the question, and it was spoken
to the white mole,—“why do you talk like the
country people do?”</p>
<p>“Sussex barn an’ bred,” said the mole, “but I
know other talk. Sussex talks what they call
‘racy of the soil’—means ‘smells of the earth’
where I live. I can talk all sorts, though. I
used to spit French once on a time, young Fitz-le-seigneur.”</p>
<p>“You must know lots and lots,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“I do,” said the mole.</p>
<p>“How old are you?” Edred asked, in spite of
Elfrida’s warning “Hush! it’s rude.”</p>
<p>“’S old as my tongue an’ a little older’n me
teeth,” said the mole, showing them.</p>
<p>“Ah, don’t be cross,” said Elfrida, “and such
a beautiful day, too, and just when we wanted
you to show us how to put back the clock
and all.”</p>
<p>“That’s a deed, that is,” said the mole, “but
you’ve not quarrelled this three days, so you can
go where you please and do what you will.
Only you’re in the way here if you want to stop
the clock. Get up into the gate tower and look
out, and when you see the great clock face, come
down at once and sit on the second hand.
That’ll stop it, if anything will.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_115">115</div>
<p>Looking out through the breezy arch among
the swinging ends of ivy and the rustle and
whir of pigeon wings, the children saw a very
curious sight.</p>
<p>The green and white of grass and daisies
began to swim, as it were, before their eyes.
The lawn within the castle walls was all uneven
because the grass had not been laid there by
careful gardeners, with spirit-levels and rollers,
who wanted to make a lawn, but by Nature herself,
who wanted just to cover up bits of broken
crockery and stone, and old birds’ nests, and all
sorts of odd rubbish. And now it began to
stretch itself, as though it were a live carpet,
and to straighten and tighten itself till it lay
perfectly flat.</p>
<p>And the grass seemed to be getting greener in
places. And in other places there were patches
of white thicker and purer than before.</p>
<p>“Look! look!” cried Edred; “look! the daisies
are walking about!”</p>
<p>They were. Stiffly and steadily, like well-drilled
little soldiers, the daisies were forming
into twos, into fours, into companies. Looking
down from the window of the gate tower it was
like watching thousands of little white beads
sort themselves out from among green ones.</p>
<p>“What <i>are</i> they going to do?” Edred asked,
but naturally Elfrida was not able to answer.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_116">116</div>
<p>The daisies marched very steadily, like little
people who knew their business very well.
They massed themselves together in regiments,
in armies. On certain parts of the smooth grass
certain companies of them stopped and stayed.</p>
<p>“They’re making a sort of pattern,” said
Edred. “Look! there’s a big ring all round—a
sort of pattern.”</p>
<p>“I should think they were!” cried Elfrida.
“Look! look! It’s the clock.”</p>
<p>It was. On the pure green face of the lawn
was an enormous circle marked by a thick line
of closely packed white daisies. Within it were
the figures that are on the face of a clock—all
twelve of them. The hands were of white
daisies, too, both the minute hand and the hand
that marks the hours, and between the VI and
the centre was a smaller circle, also white and
of daisies—round which they could see a second
hand move—a white second hand formed of
daisies wheeling with a precision that would
have made the haughtiest general in the land
shed tears of pure admiration.</p>
<p>With one accord the two children blundered
down the dark, dusty, cobwebby, twisty stairs
of the gate tower and rushed across the lawn.
In the very centre of the clock-face sat the
Mouldiwarp, looking conscious and a little
conceited.</p>
<p>“How <i>did</i> you do it?” Elfrida gasped.</p>
<p>“The daisies did it. Poor little things!
They can’t invent at all. But they do carry
out other people’s ideas quite nicely. All the
white things have to obey me, of course,” it
added carelessly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_117">117</div>
<div class="img" id="pic10">
<img src="images/pmage117.jpg" alt="" width="816" height="500" />
<p class="caption">“THEY SAT DOWN ON THE CLOSE, WHITE LINE OF DAISIES.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_118">118</div>
<p>“And this is The Clock?”</p>
<p>The Mouldiwarp giggled. “My child, what
presumption! The clock is much too big for
you to see ever—all at once. The sun’s the
centre of it. This is just a pretending clock.
It’ll do for what we want, of course, or I
wouldn’t have had it made for you. Sit down
on the second hand—oh no, it won’t hurt the
daisies. Count a hundred—yes, that’s right.”</p>
<p>They sat down on the close, white line of
daisies and began to count earnestly.</p>
<p>“And now,” the Mouldiwarp said, when the
hundred was counted, “it’s just the same time
as it was when you began! So now you
understand.”</p>
<p>They said they did, and I am sure I hope
<i>you</i> do.</p>
<p>“But if we sit here,” said Elfrida, “how can
we ever be anywhere else?”</p>
<p>“You can’t,” said the Mouldiwarp. “So one
of you will have to stay and the other to go.”</p>
<p>“You go, Elfie,” said Edred. “I’ll stay till
you come back.”</p>
<p>“That’s very dear of you,” said Elfrida, “but
I’d rather we went together. Can’t you
manage it?” she asked the mole.</p>
<p>“I <i>could</i>, of course,” it said; “but . . . he’s
afraid to go without you,” it said suddenly.</p>
<p>“He isn’t, and he’s two years younger than
me, anyway,” Elfrida said hotly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_119">119</div>
<p>“Well, go without him,” said the mole.
“You understand perfectly, don’t you, that
when he has stopped the clock your going is
the same as your not going, and your being
here is the same as not being, and—— What
I mean,” it added, hastily returning to Sussex
talk, “you needn’t be so turble put out. He
won’t know you’ve gone nor yet ’e won’t believe
you’ve come back. Be off with ’e, my gell.”</p>
<p>Elfrida hesitated. Then, “Oh, Edred,” she
said, “I <i>have</i> had such a time! Did it seem
very long? I know it was horrid of me, but
it was so interesting I <i>couldn’t</i> come back
before.”</p>
<p>“Nonsense,” said Edred. “Well, go if you
like; I don’t mind.”</p>
<p>“I’ve <i>been</i>, I tell you,” said Elfrida, dragging
him off the second hand of the daisy clock,
whose soldiers instantly resumed their wheeling
march.</p>
<p>“So now you see,” said the mole. “Tell you
what—next time you wanter stop de clock we’ll
just wheel de barrer on to it. Now you go
along and play. You’ve had enough Arden
magic for this ’ere Fursday, so you ’ave, bless
yer hearts an’ all.”</p>
<p>And they went.</p>
<p>That was how Edred perceived the adventure
of “The Highwayman and the ——.” But
I will not anticipate. The way the adventure
seemed to Elfrida was rather different.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_120">120</div>
<p>After the mole said “my gell” she hesitated,
and then went slowly towards the castle where
the red roof of the house showed between the
old, ivy-grown grey buttresses. She looked
back, to see Edred and the Mouldiwarp close
together on the face of the wonderful green
and white clock. They were very still. She
made her mind up—ran indoors and up the
stairs and straight to The Door—she found it
at once—shut the door, and opened the second
chest to the right.</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“You change your clothes and the times change too—</p>
<p class="t0">Change, that is what you’ve got to do;</p>
<p class="t0">Cooroo, cooroo, cooroo, cooroo,”</p>
</div>
<p>said the pigeons or the silence or Elfrida.</p>
<p>“I wonder,” she said, slipping on a quilted
green satin petticoat with pink rosebuds embroidered
on it, “whether Shakespeare began
being a poet like that—just little odd lines
coming into his head without him meaning
them to.” And her mind as she put on a
pink-and-white brocaded dress, was busy with
such words as “Our great poet, Miss Elfrida
Arden,” or “Miss Arden, the female Milton of
nowadays.”</p>
<p>She tied a white, soft little cap with pink
ribbons under her chin and ran to open the
door. She was not a bit afraid. It was like
going into a dream. Nothing would be real
there. Yet as she ran through the attic door
and the lace of her sleeve caught on a big
rusty nail and tore with a harsh hissing noise,
she felt very sorry. In a thing that was
only a dream that lace felt very real, and was
very beautiful.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_121">121</div>
<div class="img" id="pic11">
<img src="images/pmage121.jpg" alt="" width="566" height="800" />
<p class="caption">“‘COME, SEE HOW THE NEW SCARF BECOMES THY BET. IS IT NOT
VASTLY MODISH?’”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_122">122</div>
<p>But she had only half the first half of a
thought to give to the lace—for the door
opened, not on the quiet corridor with the
old prints at Arden Castle, but on a quite
strange panelled room, full of a most extraordinary
disorder of stuffs—feathers, dresses,
cloaks, bonnet-boxes, parcels, rolls, packets,
lace, scarves, hats, gloves, and finery of all
sorts. There were a good many people there:
serving-maids—she knew they were serving-maids—a
gentleman in knee-breeches showing
some fine china on a lacquered tray, and in
the middle a very pretty, languishing-looking
young lady with whom Elfrida at once fell
deeply in love. All the women wore enormous
crinolines—or hoops.</p>
<p>“What! Hid in the closet all the while,
cousin?” said the young lady. “Oh, but it’s
the slyest chit! Come, see how the new scarf
becomes thy Bet. Is it not vastly modish?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Elfrida, not knowing in the least
what to say.</p>
<p>Everything gave a sort of tremble and twist,
like the glass, bits in a kaleidoscope give just
before they settle into a pattern. Then, as
with the bits of glass, everything <i>was</i> settled,
and Elfrida, instead of feeling that she was
looking at a picture, felt that she was alive,
with live people.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_123">123</div>
<p>Some extraordinary accident had fixed in
Elfrida’s mind the fact that Queen Anne
began to reign in 1702. I don’t know how
it was. These accidents do sometimes occur.
And she knew that in Queen Anne’s day
ladies wore hoops. Also, since they had gone
back a hundred years to Boney’s time, perhaps
this second venture had taken her back two
hundred years. If so——</p>
<p>“Please,” she said, very quickly, “is this
1707, and is Queen Anne dead?”</p>
<p>“Heaven forbid,” said every one in the room;
and Bet added, “La, child, don’t delay us with
your prattle. The coach will be here at ten,
and we must lie at Tonbridge to-night.”</p>
<p>So Elfrida, all eyes and ears, squeezed into a
corner between a band-box and a roll of thick,
pink-flowered silk and looked and listened.</p>
<p>Bet, she gathered, was her cousin—an Arden,
too. She and Bet and the maids, and an escort
of she couldn’t quite make out how many men,
were to go down to Arden together. The many
men were because of the Arden jewels, that had
been reset in the newest mode, and the collar
of pearls and other presents Uncle Arden had
given to Bet; and the highwaymen, who, she
learned, were growing so bold that they would
attack a coach in St. Paul’s Churchyard in broad
daylight. Bet, it seemed, had undertaken commissions
for all her girl friends near Arden, and
had put off most of them till the last moment.
She had carefully spent her own pin-money
during her stay in town, and was now hastily
spending theirs. The room was crowded with
tradesmen and women actually pushing each
other to get near the lady who had money
to spend. One woman with a basket of china
was offering it in exchange for old clothes or
shoes, just as old women do now at back doors.
And Cousin Bet’s maid had a very good bargain,
she considered, in a china teapot and two dishes,
in exchange for a worn, blue lutestring dress
and a hooped petticoat of violet quilted satin.
Then there was a hasty meal of cakes and hot
chocolate, and, Elfrida being wrapped up in
long-skirted coat and scarves almost beyond
bearing, it was announced that the coach was
at the door. It was a very tight fit when at
last they were all packed into the carriage, for
though the carriage was large there was a great
deal to fill it up, what with Cousin Bet and her
great hoops, and the maids, and the band-boxes
and packages of different sizes and shapes, and
the horrid little pet dog that yapped and yahed,
and tried to bite every one, from the footmen
to Elfrida. The streets were narrow and very
dirty, and smelt very nasty in the hot June
sun.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_124">124</div>
<p>And it was very hot and stuffy inside the
carriage, and more bumpety than you would
think possible—more bumpety even than a
wagon going across a furrowed corn-field.
Elfrida felt rather headachy, as you do when
you go out in a small boat and every one says
it is not at all rough. By the time the carriage
got to Lewisham Elfrida’s bones were quite sore,
and she felt as though she had been beaten.
There were no springs to the carriage, and it
reminded her of a bathing-machine more than
anything else—you know the way it bumps on
the shingly part of the shore when they are
drawing you up at the beach, and you tumble
about and can’t go on dressing, and all your
things slide off the seats. The maids were cross
and looked it. Cousin Bet had danced till nigh
midnight, and been up with the lark, so she said.
And, having said it, went to sleep in a corner
of the carriage looking crosser than the maids.
Elfrida began to feel that empty, uninterested
sensation which makes you wish you hadn’t
come. The carriage plunged and rattled on
through the green country, the wheels bounding
in and out of the most dreadful ruts. More
than once the wheel got into a rut so deep
that it took all the men to heave it out
again. Cousin Bet woke up to say that it was
vastly annoying, and instantly went to sleep
again.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_125">125</div>
<p>Elfrida, being the smallest person in the
carriage except Amour, the dog, was constantly
being thrown into somebody’s lap—to the
annoyance of both parties. It was very much
the most uncomfortable ride she had ever had.
She thought of the smooth, swift rush of the
train—even the carrier’s cart was luxury compared
to this. “The roads aren’t like roads at
all,” she told herself, “they’re like ploughed
fields with celery trenches in them”—she had
a friend a market gardener, so she knew.</p>
<p>Long before the carriage drew up in front
of the “Bull” at Tonbridge, Elfrida felt that if
she only had a piece of poetry ready she would
say it, and ask the Mouldiwarp to take her back
to her own times, where, at any rate, carriages
had springs and roads <i>were</i> roads. And when
the carriage did stop she was so stiff she could
hardly stand.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_126">126</div>
<p>“Come along in,” said a stout, pleasant-faced
lady in a frilled cap; “come in, my poppet.
There’s a fine supper, though it’s me says it,
and a bed that you won’t beat in Kent for soft
and clean, you may lay to that.”</p>
<p>There was a great bustle of shouting ostlers
and stablemen; the horses were taken out
before the travellers were free of the carriage.
Supper was laid in a big, low, upper room, with
shining furniture and windows at both ends,
one set looking on the road where the sign of
the “Bull” creaked and swung, and the other
looking on a very neat green garden, with
clipped box hedges and yew arbours. Getting
all the luggage into the house seemed likely to
be a long business. Elfrida saw that she would
not be missed, and she slipped down the twisty-cornery
back-stairs and through the back
kitchen into the green garden. It was pleasant
to stretch one’s legs, and not to be cramped
and buffeted and shaken. But she walked down
the grass-path rather demurely, for she was
very stiff indeed.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_127">127</div>
<p>And it was there, in a yew arbour, that she
came suddenly on the grandest and handsomest
gentleman that she had ever seen. He wore a
white wig, very full at the sides and covered
with powder, and a full-skirted coat of dark-blue
silk, and under it a long waistcoat with
the loveliest roses and forget-me-nots tied in
bunches with gold ribbons, embroidered on silk.
He had lace ruffles and a jewelled brooch, and
the jolliest blue eyes in the world. He looked
at Elfrida very kindly with his jolly eyes.</p>
<p>“A lady of quality, I’ll be bound,” he said,
“and travelling with her suite.”</p>
<p>“I’m Miss Arden of Arden,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“Your servant, madam,” said he, springing
to his feet and waving his hat in a very
flourishing sort of bow.</p>
<p>Elfrida’s little curtsey was not at all the right
kind of curtsey, but it had to do.</p>
<p>“And what can I do to please Miss Arden of
Arden?” he asked. “Would she like a ride on
my black mare?”</p>
<p>“Oh, <i>no</i>, thank you,” said Elfrida, so earnestly
that he laughed as he said—</p>
<p>“Sure I should not have thought fear lived
with those eyes.”</p>
<p>“I’m not afraid,” said Elfrida contemptuously;
“only I’ve been riding in a horrible carriage all
day, and I feel as though I never wanted to ride
on anything any more.”</p>
<p>He laughed again.</p>
<p>“Well, well,” he said, “come and sit by me
and tell me all the town news.”</p>
<p>Elfrida smiled to think what news she <i>could</i>
tell him, and then frowned in the effort to think
of any news that wouldn’t seem nonsense.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_128">128</div>
<p>She told him all that she knew of Cousin
Bet and the journey. He was quite politely
interested. She told of Cousin Bet’s purchases—the
collar of pearls and the gold pomander
studded with corals, the little gold watch, and
the family jewels that had been reset.</p>
<p>“And you have all to-night to rest in from
that cruel coach?” he said.</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Elfrida, “we don’t go on again
till after breakfast to-morrow. It’s very dull—and
oh, so slow! Don’t you think you’d like
to have a carriage drawn by a fiery iron horse
that went sixty miles an hour?”</p>
<p>“You have an ingenious wit,” said the
beautiful gentleman, “such as I should admire
in my wife. Will you marry me when you
shall be grown a great girl?”</p>
<p>“No,” said Elfrida; “you’d be too old—even
if you were to be able to stop alive till I was
grown up, you’d be much too old.”</p>
<p>“How old do you suppose I shall be when
you’re seventeen?”</p>
<p>“I should have to do sums,” said Elfrida,
who was rather good at these exercises. She
broke a twig from a currant bush and scratched
in the dust.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” she said, raising a flushed
face, and trampling out her “sum” with little
shoes that had red heels, “but I <i>think</i> you’ll
be two hundred and thirty.”</p>
<p>On that he laughed more than ever and vowed
she was the lady for him. “Your ciphering
would double my income ten times over,” he said.</p>
<p>He was very kind indeed—would have her taste
his wine, which she didn’t like, and the little
cakes on the red and blue plate, which she did.</p>
<p>“And what’s <i>your</i> name?” she asked.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_129">129</div>
<p>“My name,” said he, “is a secret. Can you
keep a secret?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“So can I,” said he.</p>
<p>And then a flouncing, angry maid came
suddenly sweeping down between the box
hedges and dragged Elfrida away before she
could curtsey properly and say, “Thank you
for being so kind.”</p>
<p>“Farewell,” said the beautiful gentleman,
“doubt not but we shall meet again. And next
time ’tis I shall carry thee off and shut thee
in a tower for two hundred years till thou
art seventeen and hast learned to cipher.”</p>
<p>Elfrida was slapped by the maid, which
nearly choked her with fury, and set down to
supper in the big upstairs room. The maid
indignantly told where she had found Elfrida
“talking with a strange gentleman,” and when
Cousin Betty had heard all about it Elfrida
told her tale.</p>
<p>“And he was a great dear,” she said.</p>
<p>“A——?”</p>
<p>“A very beautiful gentleman. I wish you’d
been there, Cousin Betty. <i>You’d</i> have liked
him too.”</p>
<p>Then Cousin Bet also slapped her. And
Elfrida wished more than ever that she had
some poetry ready for the Mouldiwarp.</p>
<p>The next day’s journey was as bumpety as
the first, and Elfrida got very tired of the
whole business. “Oh, I wish something would
happen!” she said.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_130">130</div>
<p>It was a very much longer day too, and the
dusk had fallen while still they were on the
road. The sun had set red behind black trees,
and brown twilight was thickening all about,
when at a cross-roads, a man in a cloak and
mask on a big black horse suddenly leaped
from a hedge, stooped from his saddle, opened
the carriage door, caught Elfrida with one hand
by the gathers of her full travelling coat (he
must have been frightfully strong, and so must
the gathers), set her very neatly and quite comfortably
on the saddle before him, and said—</p>
<p>“Hand up your valuables, please—or I shoot
the horses. And keep your barkers low, for
if you aim at me you shoot the child. And if
you shoot my horse, the child and I fall together.”</p>
<p>But even as he spoke through his black mask,
he wheeled the horse so that his body was a
shield between her and the pistols of the
serving-men.</p>
<p>“What do you want?” Cousin Bet’s voice
was quite squeaky. “We have no valuables;
we are plain country people, travelling home
to our farm.”</p>
<p>“I want the collar of pearls,” said he, “and
the pomander, and the little gold watch, and
the jewels that have been reset.”</p>
<p>Then Elfrida knew who he was.</p>
<p>“Oh,” she cried, “you <i>are</i> mean!”</p>
<p>“Trade’s trade,” said he, but he held her
quite gently and kindly. “Now, my fair
madam——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_131">131</div>
<div class="img" id="pic12">
<img src="images/pmage131.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="632" />
<p class="caption">“IF YOU AIM AT ME YOU SHOOT THE CHILD.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_132">132</div>
<p>The men were hesitating, fingering their
pistols. The horses, frightened by the sudden
check, were dancing and prancing all across
the road: the maidservants were shouting that
it was true; he had the child, and better lose
a few jewels than all their lives, and Cousin
Bet was sobbing and wailing inside the dark
coach.</p>
<p>Well, the jewels were handed out—that was
how it ended—handed out slowly and grudgingly,
and the hand that reached for them
through the dusk was very white, Cousin Bet
said afterwards.</p>
<p>Elfrida, held by the highwayman’s arm, kept
very still. Suddenly he stooped and whispered
in her ear.</p>
<p>“Are you afraid that I shall do you any
harm?”</p>
<p>“No,” whispered Elfrida. And to this day
she does not know why she was not afraid.</p>
<p>“Then——” said he. “Oh, the brave little
lady——”</p>
<p>And on that suddenly set spurs to his horse,
leapt the low hedge, and reined up sharply.</p>
<p>“Go on home, my brave fellows,” he shouted,
“and keep your mouths shut on this night’s
work. I shall be at Arden before you——”</p>
<p>“The child!” shrieked the maids; “oh, the
child!” and even Cousin Bet interrupted her
hysterics, now quite strong and overwhelming,
to say, “The child——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_133">133</div>
<p>“Shall I order supper for you at Arden?”
he shouted back mockingly, and rode on across
country, with Elfrida, breathlessly frightened
and consciously brave, leaning back against
his shoulder. It is a very wonderful feeling,
riding on a great strong, dark horse, through
a deepening night in a strange country, held
fast by an arm you can trust, and with the
muscles of a horse’s great shoulder rippling
against your legs as they hang helplessly down.
Elfrida ceased to think of Mouldiwarps or try
to be a poet.</p>
<p>And quite soon they were at the top of Arden
Hill, and the lights of the castle gleamed and
blinked below them.</p>
<p>“Now, sweetheart,” said the highwayman,
“I shall set you down in sight of the door
and wait till the door opens. You can tell
them all that has chanced, save this that I
tell you now. You will see me again. They
will not know me, but you will. Keep a still
tongue till to-morrow, and I swear Miss Arden
shall have all her jewels again, and you
shall have a gold locket to put your true
love’s hair in when you’re seventeen and I’m
two hundred and thirty. And leave the
parlour window open. And when I tap,
come to it. Is it a bargain?”</p>
<p>“Then you’re not really a highwayman?”</p>
<p>“What should you say,” he asked, “if I told
you that I was the third James, the rightful
King of England, come to claim my own?”</p>
<p>“Oh!” said Elfrida, and he set her down,
and she walked to the door of the castle and
thumped on it with her fists.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_134">134</div>
<p>Her tale had been told to the servants,
and again to Cousin Bet and the maids, and
the chorus of lament and astonishment was
settling down to a desire to have something
to eat; anyhow, the servants had gone to
the kitchen to hurry the supper. Cousin Bet
and Elfrida were alone in the parlour, where
Elfrida had dutifully set the window ajar.</p>
<p>The laurel that was trained all up that side
of the house stirred in the breeze and tapped
at the window. Elfrida crossed to the
window-seat. No, it was only the laurel.
But next moment a hand tapped—a hand
with rings on it, and a white square showed
in the window—a letter.</p>
<p>“For Miss Betty Arden,” said a whispering
voice.</p>
<p>Elfrida carried the letter to where her
cousin sat, and laid it on her flowered silk
lap.</p>
<p>“For me, child? Where did you get it?”</p>
<p>“Read it,” said Elfrida, “it’s from a
gentleman.”</p>
<p>“Lud!” said Cousin Bet. “What a day!—a
highwayman and the jewels lost, and now
a love-letter.”</p>
<p>She opened it, read it—read it again and
let her hand flutter out with it in a helpless
sort of way towards Elfrida, who, very brisk
and businesslike, took it and read it. It was
clearly and beautifully written.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_135">135</div>
<p>“The Chevalier St. George,” it said, “visiting
his kingdom in secret on pressing affairs
of State, asks housing and hiding beneath the
roof of the loyal Ardens.”</p>
<p>“Now, don’t scream,” said Elfrida sharply;
“who’s the Chevalier St. George?”</p>
<p>“Our King,” said Betty in a whisper—“our
King over the water—King James the
Third. Oh, why isn’t my uncle at home?
They’ll kill the King if they find him. What
shall I do? What shall I do?”</p>
<p>“Do?” said Elfrida. “Why don’t be so
silly. That’s what you’ve got to do. Why,
it’s a glorious chance. Think how every one
will say how brave you were. Is he Bonnie
Prince Charlie? Will he be King some day?”</p>
<p>“No, not Charles—James; uncle wants him
to be King.”</p>
<p>“Then let’s help him,” said Elfrida, “and
perhaps it’ll be your doing that he is King.”
Her history had never got beyond Edward
the Fourth on account of having to go back
to 1066 on account of new girls, and she
had only heard of Prince Charlie in ballads
and story books. “And when he’s King
he’ll make you dowager-duchess of somewhere
and give you his portrait set in
diamonds. Now don’t scream. He’s outside.
I’ll call him in. Where can we hide
him?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_136">136</div>
<h2 id="c6"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER VI</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">THE SECRET PANEL</span></h2>
<p>“Where shall we hide him?” Elfrida asked
impatiently.</p>
<p>Cousin Bet, fired by Elfrida’s enthusiasm,
jumped up and began to finger the carved
flowers above the chimneypiece.</p>
<p>“The secret room,” she said; “but slip the
bolt to and turn the key in the lock.”</p>
<p>Elfrida locked the room door, and turned
to see the carved mantelpiece open like a
cupboard.</p>
<p>Then Elfrida flew to the window and set
back the casement very wide, and in climbed
the beautiful gentleman and stood there, very
handsome and tall, bowing to Miss Betty, who
sank on her knees and kissed the white,
jewelled hand he held out.</p>
<p>“Quick!” said Elfrida. “Get into the hole.”</p>
<p>“There are stairs,” said Betty, snatching a
candle in its silver candlestick and holding it
high.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_137">137</div>
<div class="img" id="pic13">
<img src="images/pmage137.jpg" alt="" width="380" height="801" />
<p class="caption">“BETTY HANDED HIM THE CANDLE.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_138">138</div>
<p>The Chevalier St. George sprang to a chair,
got his knee on the mantelpiece, and went
into the hole, just as Alice goes through the
looking-glass in Mr. Tenniel’s picture. Betty
handed him the candle, which his white hand
reached down to take. Then Elfrida jumped on
the chair and shut the panel, leaped down, and
opened the room door just as the maid reached
its other side with the supper-tray.</p>
<p>When the cousins were alone Bet threw her
arms round Elfrida.</p>
<p>“Don’t be afraid, little cousin,” she whispered,
“your Cousin Bet will see that no
harm comes to you from this adventure.”</p>
<p>“Well, I do think!” said Elfrida getting out
of the embrace most promptly, “when it was
me let him in, and you’d have screamed the
house down, if I hadn’t stopped you——”</p>
<p>“Stop chattering, child,” said Bet, drawing
a distracted hand over her pretty forehead,
“and let me set my wits to work how I may
serve my King.”</p>
<p>“<i>I</i>,” said Elfrida scornfully, “should give
him something to eat and see that his bed’s
aired; but I suppose that would be too vulgar
and common for you.”</p>
<p>The two looked at each other across the
untasted supper.</p>
<p>“Impertinent chit!” said Bet.</p>
<p>“Chit yourself,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>Then she laughed.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_139">139</div>
<p>“Come, Cousin Bet,” she said, “your uncle’s
away and you’re grown up. I’ll tell you what
to do. You just be wise and splendid, so that
your portrait’ll be in the illustrated Christmas
numbers in white satin and an anxious expression.
‘The saviour of her King’—that’s
what it’ll say.”</p>
<p>“Don’t wander in your speech, child,” said
Cousin Bet, pressing her hand to her brow,
“I’ve enough to distract me without that.
And if you desire to ask my pardon, do so.”</p>
<p>“Oh, well, I beg your pardon—there!” said
Elfrida, with extreme irritation. “<i>Now</i> perhaps
you’ll give your King something to eat.”</p>
<p>“Climb into that hole—with a tray? And
the servants, perhaps, coming in any minute?
What would you say to them if they did?”</p>
<p>“All right, then, <i>I’ll</i> go,” said Elfrida, only
too glad of the chance.</p>
<p>Bet touched the secret spring, and when
Elfrida had climbed into the dark hole—which
she did quite easily—handed her the supper-tray.</p>
<p>“Oh, bother,” said Elfrida, setting it down at
her feet with great promptness. “It’s too
heavy. He’ll have to come down and fetch it.
Give me a candle and shut the panel, and tell
me which way to go.”</p>
<p>“To the right and up the steps. Be sure
you kneel and kiss his hand before you say
a word.”</p>
<p>Elfrida reached down for the candle in its
silver candlestick, the panel clicked into place,
and she stood there among the cobwebby
shadows of the secret passage, the light in
her hand and the tray at her feet.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_140">140</div>
<p>“It’s only a Mouldiwarp magic adventure,”
she said, to hearten herself, turned to the
right, and went up the stairs. They were
steep and narrow. At the top she saw the
long, light-line of a slightly opened door. To
knock seemed unwise. Instead she spoke
softly, her lips against the line of light.</p>
<p>“It’s me,” she said, and instantly the door
opened, and the beautiful gentleman stood
before her.</p>
<p>The secret room had a little furniture—a
couch, a table, chairs—all old-fashioned, and
their shapes showed beautiful, even in the
dim light of the two candles.</p>
<p>“Your supper,” said Elfrida, “is at the
bottom of the stairs. The tray was too heavy
for me. Do you mind fetching it up?”</p>
<p>“If you’ll show me a light,” he said, and
went.</p>
<p>“You’ll stay and eat with me?” said he,
when she had lighted him back to the secret
room, and he had set the tray on the table.</p>
<p>“I mustn’t,” said Elfrida. “Cousin Bet’s
such a muff; she wouldn’t know where to
say I was if the servants came in. Oh, I say!
I’m so sorry I forgot. She told me to kneel
and kiss your hand before I said anything
about supper. I’ll do it now.”</p>
<p>“Nay,” said he, “I’ll kiss thy cheek, little
lady, and drink a health to him who shall have
thy lips when thou’rt seventeen and I am—what
was it—five hundred?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_141">141</div>
<p>“Two hundred and thirty,” said Elfrida,
returning his kiss cordially. “You are nice,
you know. I wish you were real. I’d better
go back to Bet now.”</p>
<p>“Real?” he said.</p>
<p>“Oh, I’m talking nonsense, I know,” said
Elfrida. “I’ll go now.”</p>
<p>“The absent tray will betray you,” said he,
taking food and wine from it and setting
them on the table. “Now I will carry this
down again. You have all the courage, but
not quite the cunning of a conspirator.”</p>
<p>“How long are you going to stay here?”
Elfrida asked. “I suppose you’re escaping
from some one or something, like in history?”</p>
<p>“I shall not stay long,” he said. “If any
one should ask you if you have seen the King,
what would you say?”</p>
<p>“I should say ‘no,’” said Elfrida boldly.
“You see, I can’t possibly know that you’re
the King. You just say so, that’s all. Perhaps
really you aren’t.”</p>
<p>“Exquisite!” said he. “So you don’t believe
me?”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes, I do!” said Elfrida; “but I needn’t,
you know.”</p>
<p>“S’life!” he said. “But I wish I were.
There’d be a coronet for somebody.”</p>
<p>“You wish you were——”</p>
<p>“Safely away, my little lady. And as for
coronets, the jewels are safe. See, I have set
them in the cupboard in the corner.”</p>
<p>And he had.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_142">142</div>
<p>Then he carried down the tray, and Elfrida,
who was very hungry, tried to persuade Bet
that she must eat, if only to keep up her
strength for the deeds of daring that might
want doing at any moment.</p>
<p>But Bet declared that she could not eat; the
least morsel would choke her. And as for going
to bed, she was assuring her cousin that she
knew her duty to her King better than that,
and that she would defend her Sovereign with
her life, if need were, when her loyal ecstasies
were suddenly interrupted.</p>
<p>For the quiet of the night was broken by a
great knocking at the castle door and the heavy
voice of a man crying—</p>
<p>“Open, in the Queen’s name!”</p>
<p>“They’ve come for him! All is lost! We are
betrayed! What shall we do?”</p>
<p>“<i>Eat</i>,” said Elfrida,—“eat for your life.”</p>
<p>She pushed Bet into a chair and thrust a plate
before her, put a chunk of meat-pie on her plate
and another on her own.</p>
<p>“Get your mouth full,” she whispered, filling
her own as she spoke—“so full you can’t speak—it’ll
give you time to think.”</p>
<p>And then the door opened, and in a moment
the room was full of gentlemen in riding dress,
with very stern faces. And they all had swords.</p>
<p>Betty, with her mouth quite full, was trying
not to look towards the panel.</p>
<p>Elfrida, whose mouth was equally full, looked
at the gentleman who seemed to be leading the
others, and remarked—</p>
<p>“This is a nice time of night to come knocking
people up!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_143">143</div>
<div class="img" id="pic14">
<img src="images/pmage143.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="649" />
<p class="caption">“‘NOW,’ SAID A DOZEN VOICES, ‘THE TRUTH, LITTLE MISS.’”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_144">144</div>
<p>“All hours are alike to a loyal subject,” said a
round, fat, blue-eyed gentleman in a green suit.
“Have you any strangers under your roof
to-night?”</p>
<p>“Oh!” cried Bet, “all is lost!”</p>
<p>The gentlemen exchanged glances and crowded
round her. Elfrida shrugged the shoulders of
her mind—if a mind has shoulders—and told
herself that it didn’t matter. History knew
best, no doubt, and whatever seemed to be
happening now was only history.</p>
<p>“You <i>have</i> a stranger here?” they asked; and,
“Where is he? You cannot refuse to give him
up.”</p>
<p>“My heart told me so,” cried Bet. “I knew
it was he you were seeking,” and with that she
fainted elegantly into the arms of the nearest
gentleman, who was dressed in plum-colour, and
seemed to be struggling with some emotion
which made him look as if he were laughing.</p>
<p>“Ask the child—children and fools speak the
truth,” said the fat, blue-eyed gentleman.</p>
<p>Elfrida found herself suddenly lifted on to the
table, from which she could see over the heads
of the gentlemen who stood all round her. She
could see Bet reclining on the sofa, and the open
door with servants crowding in it, all eyes and
ears.</p>
<p>“Now,” said a dozen voices, “the truth, little
miss.”</p>
<p>“What do you want to know?” she asked;
and, in a much lower tone, “I shan’t tell you
anything unless you send the servants away.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_145">145</div>
<p>The door was closed and the truth was asked
for again.</p>
<p>“If you’ll only tell me what you want to
know,” she said again.</p>
<p>“Does any stranger lie here to-night?”</p>
<p>“No,” said Elfrida. She knew that the
beautiful gentleman in the secret chamber was
not lying down, but sitting to his supper.</p>
<p>“But Miss Arden said ‘All is lost,’ and she
knew ’twas he whom we sought.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Elfrida carefully explained, “it’s like
this. You see, we were robbed by a highwayman
to-day, and I think that upset my cousin. She’s
rather easily upset, I’m afraid.”</p>
<p>“Very easily,” several voices agreed, and
some one added that it was a hare-brained
business.</p>
<p>“The shortest way’s the best,” said the plum-coloured
gentleman. “Is Sir Edward Talbot
here?”</p>
<p>“No, he isn’t,” said Elfrida downrightly, “and
I don’t believe you’ve got any business coming
into people’s houses and frightening other people
into fits, and I shall tell Lord Arden when he
comes home. So now you know.”</p>
<p>“Zooks!” some one cried, “the child’s got a
spirit; and she’s right, too, strike me if she
isn’t.”</p>
<p>“But, snails!” exclaimed another, “we do
but protect Lord Arden’s house in his
absence.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_146">146</div>
<p>“If,” said Elfrida, “you think your Talbot’s
playing hide-and-seek here, and if he’s done
anything wrong, you can look for him if you
like. But I don’t believe Lord Arden will be
pleased. That’s all. I should like to get down
on to the floor, if you please!”</p>
<p>I don’t know whether Elfrida would have
had the courage to say all this if she had not
remembered that this was history-times, and
not now-times. But the gentlemen seemed
delighted with her bravery.</p>
<p>They lifted her gently down, and with many
apologies for having discommoded the ladies,
they went out of the room and out of the castle.
Through the window Elfrida heard the laughing
voices and clatter and stamp of their horses’
hoofs as they mounted and rode off. They all
seemed to be laughing. And she felt that she
moved in the midst of mysteries.</p>
<p>She could not bear to go back into her own
time without seeing the end of the adventure.
So she went to bed in a large four-poster, with
Cousin Bet for company. The fainting fit lasted
exactly as long as the strange gentlemen were
in the house and no longer, which was very
convenient.</p>
<p>Elfrida got up extremely early in the morning
and went down into the parlour. She had
meant to go and see how the King was, and
whether he wanted his shaving-water first
thing, as her daddy used to do. But it was so
very, very early that she decided that it would
be better to wait a little. The King might be
sleepy, and sleepy people were not always grateful,
she knew, for early shaving-water.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_147">147</div>
<p>So she went out into the fields where the dew
was grey on the grass, and up on to Arden
Knoll. And she stood there and heard the
skylarks, and looked at the castle and thought
how new the mortar looked in the parts about
the living house. And presently she saw two
figures coming across the fields from where the
spire of Arden Church rose out of the tops of
trees as round and green as the best double-curled
parsley. And one of the gentlemen wore
a green coat and the other a purple coat, and
she thought to herself how convenient it was to
recognise people half a mile away by the colour
of their clothes.</p>
<p>Quite plainly they were going to the castle—so
she went down, too, and met them at the
gate with a civil “Good morning.”</p>
<p>“You are no lie-abed at least,” said the green
gentleman. “And so no stranger lay at Arden
last night, eh?”</p>
<p>Elfrida found this difficult to answer. No
doubt the King had lain—was probably still
lying—in the secret chamber. But was he a
stranger? No, of course he wasn’t. So—</p>
<p>“No,” she said.</p>
<p>And then through the open window of the
parlour came, very unexpectedly and suddenly,
a leg in a riding-boot, then another leg, and
the whole of the beautiful gentleman stood in
front of them.</p>
<p>“So-ho!” he said. “Speak softly, for the
servants are not yet about.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_148">148</div>
<p>“They <i>are</i>,” said Elfrida, “only they’re at the
back. Creep along under the wall; you will
get away without their seeing you then.”</p>
<p>“Always a wonderful counsellor,” said the
beautiful gentleman, bowing gracefully. “Come
with us, little maid. I have no secrets from
thee.”</p>
<p>So they all crept along close to the castle
wall to that corner from which, between two
shoulders of down, you can see the sea. There
they stopped.</p>
<p>“And the wager’s mine,” said the beautiful
gentleman, “for all you tried to spoil it.
That was not in the bond, Fitzgerald, entering
Arden at night at nine of the clock, to
ferret me out like a pack of hounds after
Reynard.”</p>
<p>“There was nothing barred,” said the green
gentleman. “We tried waylaying you on the
road, but you were an hour early.”</p>
<p>“Ah,” said the beautiful gentleman, “putting
back clocks is easy work. And the ostler at
the ‘Bull’ loves a handsome wager nigh as well
as he loves a guinea.”</p>
<p>“I do <i>wish</i> you’d explain,” said Elfrida,
almost stamping with curiosity and impatience.</p>
<p>“And so I will, my pretty,” said he, laughing.</p>
<p>“Aren’t you the King? You said you
were.”</p>
<p>“Nay, nay—not so fast. I asked thee what
thou wouldst say if I told you I was King
James.”</p>
<p>“Then who <i>are</i> you?” she asked.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_149">149</div>
<p>“Plain Edward Talbot, Baronet, at your
ladyship’s service,” he said, with another of
his fine bows.</p>
<p>“But I don’t <i>understand</i>,” she said, “<i>do</i> tell
me all about it from the beginning.” So he
told her, and the other gentlemen stood by,
laughing.</p>
<p>“The other night I was dining with Mr.
Fitzgerald here, and the talk turned on highway
robbery, and on Arden Castle here, with
other matters. And these gentlemen, with
others of the party, laid me a wager—five
hundred guineas it was—that I would not rob
a coach. I took the wager. And I wagered
beside that I would rob a coach of the Arden
jewels, and that I would lie a night at Arden
beside, and no one should know my name
there. And I have done all three and won
my wager. I am but newly come home from
foreign parts, so your cousin could not know
my face. But zounds, child! had it not been
for thee I had lost my wager. I counted on
Miss Arden’s help—and a pale-faced, fainting,
useless fine lady I should have found her.
But thou—thou’rt a girl in a thousand. And
I’ll buy thee the finest fairing I can find next
time I go to London. We are all friends.
Tell pretty miss to hold that tongue of hers,
and none shall hear the tale from us.”</p>
<p>“But all these gentlemen coming last night.
All the servants know.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_150">150</div>
<p>“The gentlemen came, no doubt, to protect
Miss Arden, in case the villainous highwayman
should have hidden behind the window curtain.
Oh, but the wise child it is—has a care for
every weak point in our armour!”</p>
<p>Then he told his friends the whole of the
adventure, and they laughed very merrily, for
all they had lost their wager, and went home
to breakfast across the dewy fields.</p>
<p>“It’s nice of him to think me brave and all
that,” Elfrida told herself, “but I <i>do</i> wish he’d
<i>really</i> been the King.”</p>
<p>When she had told Betty what had happened
everything seemed suddenly to be not worth
while; she did not feel as though she cared
to stay any longer in that part of the past—so
she ran upstairs, through the attic and the
pigeon noises, back into her own times, and
went down and found Edred sitting on the
second hand of the daisy-clock; and he did
not believe that she had been away at all.
For all the time she had been away seemed
no time to him, because he had been sitting
on that second hand.</p>
<p>So when the Mouldiwarp told them to go
along in, they went; and the way they went
was not in, but out, and round under the
castle wall to the corner from which you could
see the sea. And there they lay on the warm
grass, and Elfrida told Edred the whole story,
and at first he did not believe a word of it.</p>
<p>“But it’s true, I tell you,” said she. “You
don’t suppose I should make up a whole tale
like that, do you?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_151">151</div>
<p>“No,” said Edred. “Of course, you’re not
clever enough. But you might have read it
in a book.”</p>
<p>“Well, I didn’t,” said Elfrida,—“so there!”</p>
<p>“If it was really true, you might have come
back for me. You know how I’ve always
wanted to meet a highwayman—you know
you do.”</p>
<p>“How could I come back? How was I to
get off the horse and run home and get in
among the chests and the pigeon noises and
come out here and take you back? The
highwayman—Talbot, I mean—would have been
gone long before we got back.”</p>
<p>“No, he wouldn’t,” said Edred obstinately.
“You forget I was sitting on the clock and
stopping it. There wasn’t any time while you
were gone—if you <i>were</i> gone.”</p>
<p>“There was with <i>me</i>,” said Elfrida. “Don’t
you see——”</p>
<p>“There wouldn’t have been if you’d come
back where I was,” Edred interrupted.</p>
<p>“How can you be so aggravating?” Elfrida
found suddenly that she was losing her
temper. “You <i>can’t</i> be as stupid as that,
really.”</p>
<p>“Oh, can’t I?” said Edred. “I can though,
if I like. And stupider—<i>much</i> stupider,” he
added darkly. “You wait.”</p>
<p>“Edred,” said his sister slowly and fervently,
“sometimes I feel as if I <i>must</i> shake
you.”</p>
<p>“You daren’t!” said Edred.</p>
<p>“Do you dare me to?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_152">152</div>
<p>“<i>Yes</i>,” said Edred fiercely.</p>
<p>Of course, you are aware that after that, by
all family laws, Elfrida was obliged to shake
him. She did, and burst into tears. He looked
at her for a moment and—but no—tears are
unmanly. I would not betray the weakness of
my hero. Let us draw a veil, or take a turn
round the castle and come back to them presently.</p>
<p class="tb">It is just as well that we went away when we
did, for we really turned our backs on a most
unpleasant scene. And now that we come back
to them, though crying is still going on, Elfrida
is saying that she is very sorry, and is trying to
find her handkerchief to lend to Edred, whose
own is unexpectedly mislaid.</p>
<p>“Oh, all right,” he says, “I’m sorry too.
There! But us saying we’re sorry won’t make
us unquarrel. That’s the worst of it. We
shan’t be able to find The Door for three days
now. I do wish we hadn’t. It <i>is</i> sickening.”</p>
<p>“Never mind,” said Elfrida; “we didn’t have
a real I’ll-never-speak-to-you-again-you-see-if-I-do
quarrel, did we?”</p>
<p>“I don’t suppose it matters what sort of
quarrel you had,” said the boy in gloom. “Look
here—I’ll tell you what—you tell me all about it
over again and I’ll try to believe you. I really
will, on the honour of an Arden.”</p>
<p>So she told him all over again.</p>
<p>“And where,” said Edred, when she had quite
finished,—“where did you put the jewels?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_153">153</div>
<div class="img" id="pic15">
<img src="images/pmage153.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="729" />
<p class="caption">“ELFRIDA WAS OBLIGED TO SHAKE HIM.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_154">154</div>
<p>“I—they—he put them in the corner cupboard
in the secret room,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“If you’d taken me and not been in such a
hurry—no, I’m not quarrelling, I’m only reasoning
with you like Aunt Edith—if <i>I’d</i> been there
I should have buried those jewels somewhere
and then come back for me, and we’d have dug
them up, and been rich beyond the dreams of—what
do they call it?”</p>
<p>“But I never told Betty where they were.
Perhaps they’re there now. Let’s go and
look.”</p>
<p>“If they are,” said he, “I’ll believe everything
you’ve been telling me without trying
at all.”</p>
<p>“You’ll have to do that—if there’s a secret
room, won’t you?”</p>
<p>“P’r’aps,” said Edred; “let’s go and see. I
expect I shall have got a headache presently.
You didn’t ought to have shaken me. Mrs.
Honeysett says it’s very bad for people to be
shaken—it mixes up their brains inside their
heads so that they ache, and you’re stupid. I
expect that’s what made you say I was stupid.”</p>
<p>“Oh, dear,” said Elfrida despairingly. “You
know that was before I shook you, and I did
say I was sorry.”</p>
<p>“I know it was, but it comes to the same
thing. Come on—let’s have a squint at your old
secret room.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_155">155</div>
<p>But, unfortunately it was now dinner-time.
If you do happen to know the secret of a carved
panel with a staircase hidden away behind it,
you don’t want to tell that secret lightly—as
though it were the day of the week, or the date
of the Battle of Waterloo, or what nine times
seven is—not even to a grown-up so justly liked
as Mrs. Honeysett. And, besides, a hot beefsteak
pudding and greens do not seem to go
well with the romances of old days. To have
looked for the spring of that panel while that
dinner smoked on the board would have been as
unseemly as to try on a new gold crown over
curl-papers. Elfrida felt this. And Edred did
not more than half believe in the secret, anyway.
And besides he was very hungry.</p>
<p>“Wait till afterwards,” was what they said to
each other in whispers, while Mrs. Honeysett
was changing the plates.</p>
<p>“You do do beautiful cooking,” Edred remarked,
as the gooseberry-pie was cut open and
revealed its chrysoprase-coloured contents.</p>
<p>“You do the beautiful eating then,” said Mrs.
Honeysett, “and you be quick about it. You
ain’t got into no mischief this morning, have
you? You look as though butter wouldn’t melt
in either of your mouths, and that’s always a
sign of something being up with most children.”</p>
<p>“No, <i>indeed</i> we haven’t,” said Elfrida earnestly,
“and we don’t mean to either. And our
looking like that’s only because we brushed our
hairs with wet brushes, most likely. It does
make you look good, somehow; I’ve often
noticed it.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_156">156</div>
<p>“I’ve been flying round this morning,” Mrs.
Honeysett went on, “so as to get down to my
sister’s for a bit this afternoon. She’s not so
well again, poor old dear, and I might be kept
late. But my niece Emily’s coming up to take
charge. She’s a nice lively young girl; she’ll
get you your teas, and look after you as nice as
nice. Now don’t you go doing anything what
you wouldn’t if I was behind of you, will you?
That’s dears.”</p>
<p>Nothing could have happened better. Both
children felt that Emily, being a young girl,
would be more easy to manage than Mrs.
Honeysett. As soon as they were alone they
talked it over comfortably, and decided that the
best thing would be to ask Emily if she would
go down to the station and see if there was a
parcel there for Master Arden or Miss Arden.</p>
<p>“And if there isn’t,” Elfrida giggled, “we’ll
say she’d better wait till it comes. We’ll run
down and fetch her as soon as we’ve explored
the secret chamber.”</p>
<p>“I say,” Edred remarked thoughtfully, “we
haven’t bothered much about finding the
treasure, have we? I thought that was what
we were going into history for.”</p>
<p>“Now, Edred,” said his sister, “you know
Very well we didn’t go into history on purpose.”</p>
<p>“No; but,” said Edred, “we ought to have.
Suppose the treasure is really those jewels.
We’d sell them and rebuild Arden Castle like it
used to be, wouldn’t we?”</p>
<p>“We’d give Auntie Edith a few jewels, I
think, wouldn’t we? She is such a dear, you
know.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_157">157</div>
<p>“Yes; she should have first choice. I do
believe we’re on the brink, and I feel just
exactly like as if something real was going to
happen—not in history, but here at Arden—Now-Arden.”</p>
<p>“I <i>do</i> hope we find the jewels,” said Elfrida.
“Oh, I do! And I do hope we manage the
lively young girl all right.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Honeysett’s best dress was a nice bright
red—the kind of colour you can see a long way
off. They watched it till it disappeared round a
shoulder of the downs, and then set about the
task of managing Emily.</p>
<p>The lively young girl proved quite easy to
manage. The idea of “popping on her hat”
and running down to the station was naturally
much pleasanter to her than the idea of washing
the plates that had been used for beefsteak
pudding and gooseberry-pie, and then giving
the kitchen a thorough scrub out—which was
the way Mrs. Honeysett had meant her to
spend the afternoon.</p>
<p><i>Her</i> best dress—she had slipped the skirt over
her print gown so as to look smart as she
came up through the village—was a vivid violet,
another good distance colour. It also was
watched till it dipped into the lane.</p>
<p>“And now,” cried Elfrida, “we’re all alone,
and we can explore the great secret!”</p>
<p>“But suppose somebody comes,” said Edred,
“and interrupts, and finds it out, and grabs
the jewels, and all is lost. There’s tramps, you
know, and gipsy-women with baskets.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_158">158</div>
<p>“Yes—or drink of water, or to ask the time.
I’ll tell you what—we’ll lock up the doors, back
and front.”</p>
<p>They did. But even this did not satisfy the
suddenly cautious Edred.</p>
<p>“The parlour door, too,” he said.</p>
<p>So they locked the parlour door, and Elfrida
put the key in a safe place, “for fear of accidents,”
she said. I do not at all know what
she meant, and when she came to think it
over she did not know either. But it seemed
all right at the time.</p>
<p>They had provided themselves with a box
of matches and a candle—and now the decisive
moment had come, as they say about battles.</p>
<p>Elfrida fumbled for the secret spring.</p>
<p>“How does it open?” asked the boy.</p>
<p>“I’ll show you presently,” said the girl. She
could not show him then, because, in point
of fact, she did not know. She only knew
there <i>was</i> a secret spring, and she was feeling
for it with both hands among the carved
wreaths of the panels, as she stood with one
foot on each of the arms of a very high chair—the
only chair in the room high enough for
her to be able to reach all round the panel.
Suddenly something clicked and the secret door
flew open—she just had time to jump to the
floor, or it would have knocked her down.</p>
<p>Then she climbed up again and got into the
hole, and Edred handed her the candle.</p>
<p>“Where’s the matches?” she asked.</p>
<p>“In my pocket,” said he firmly. “I’m not
going to have you starting off without me—<i>again</i>.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_159">159</div>
<div class="img" id="pic16">
<img src="images/pmage159.jpg" alt="" width="537" height="800" />
<p class="caption">“EDRED AND THE BIG CHAIR FELL TO THE FLOOR.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_160">160</div>
<p>“Well, come on, then,” said Elfrida, ignoring
the injustice of this speech.</p>
<p>“All right,” said Edred, climbing on the
chair. “How does it open?”</p>
<p>He had half closed the door, and was feeling
among the carved leaves, as he had seen her
do.</p>
<p>“Oh, come on,” said Elfrida, “oh, look out!”</p>
<p>Well might she request her careless brother
to look out. As he reached up to touch the
carving, the chair tilted, he was jerked forward,
caught at the carving to save himself, missed
it, and fell forward with all his weight against
the half-open door. It shut with a loud bang.
Then a resounding crash echoed through the
quiet house as Edred and the big chair fell
to the floor in, so to speak, each other’s arms.</p>
<p>There was a stricken pause. Then Elfrida
from the other side of the panel beat upon it
with her fists and shouted—</p>
<p>“Open the door! You aren’t hurt, are you?”</p>
<p>“Yes, I am—very much,” said Edred, from
the outside of the secret door, and also from
the hearthrug. “I’ve twisted my leg in the
knickerbocker part, and I’ve got a great bump
on my head, and I think I’m going to be very
poorly.”</p>
<p>“Well, open the panel first,” said Elfrida
rather unfeelingly. But then she was alone in
the dark on the other side of the panel.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_161">161</div>
<p>“I don’t know how to,” said Edred, and
Elfrida heard the sound of some one picking
himself up from among disordered furniture.</p>
<p>“Feel among the leaves, like I did,” she said.
“It’s quite easy. You’ll soon find it.”</p>
<p>Silence.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_162">162</div>
<h2 id="c7"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER VII</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">THE KEY OF THE PARLOUR</span></h2>
<p>Elfrida was behind the secret panel, and the
panel had shut with a spring. She had come
there hoping to find the jewels that had been
hidden two hundred years ago by Sir Edward
Talbot, when he was pretending to be the
Chevalier St. George. She had not had time
even to look for the jewels before the panel
closed, and now that she was alone in the dusty
dark, with the door shut between her and the
bright, light parlour where her brother was, the
jewels hardly seemed to matter at all, and what
did so dreadfully and very much matter was
that closed panel. Edred had tried to open it,
and he had fallen off the chair. Well, there
had been plenty of time for him to get up
again.</p>
<p>“Why don’t you open the door?” she called
impatiently. And there was no answer. Behind
that panel silence seemed a thousand times more
silent than it ever had before. And it was so
dark. And Edred had the matches in his pocket.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_163">163</div>
<p>“Edred! Edred!” she called suddenly and
very loud, “why don’t you open the door?”</p>
<p>And this time he answered.</p>
<p>“Because I can’t reach,” he said.</p>
<p>I feel that I ought to make that the end
of the chapter, and leave you to wonder till
the next how Elfrida got out, and how she
liked the not getting out, which certainly looked
as though it were going to last longer than
any one could possibly be expected to find
pleasant.</p>
<p>But that would make the chapter too short—and
there are other reasons. So I will not
disguise from you that when Elfrida put her
hand to her pocket and felt something there—something
hard and heavy—and remembered
that she had put the key of the parlour there
because it was such a nice safe place, where it
couldn’t possibly be lost, she uttered what is
known as a hollow groan.</p>
<p>“Aha! you see now,” said Edred outside.
“You see I’m not so stupid after all.”</p>
<p>Elfrida was thinking.</p>
<p>“I say,” she called through the panel, “it’s no
use my standing here. I shall try to feel my
way up to the secret chamber. I wish I could
remember whether there’s a window there or
not. If I were you I should just take a book
and read till something happens. Mrs. Honeysett’s
sure to come back some time.”</p>
<p>“I can’t hear half you say,” said Edred. “You
do whiffle so.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_164">164</div>
<p>“Take a book!” shouted his sister. “Read!
Mrs.—Honeysett—will—come—back—some—time.”</p>
<p>So Edred got down a book called “Red Cotton
Nightcap Country,” which he thought looked
interesting; but I don’t advise you to try it.
And Elfrida, her heart beating rather heavily,
put out her hands and felt her way along the
passage to the stairs.</p>
<p>“It’s all very well,” she told herself, “the
secret panel is there all right, like it was when I
went into the past, but suppose the stairs are
gone, or weren’t really ever there at all? Or
suppose I walked straight into a wall or something?
Or perhaps not a <i>wall</i>—a <i>well</i>,” she
suggested to herself with a sudden thrill of
terror; and after that she felt very carefully
with each foot in turn before she ventured to
put it down in a fresh step.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_165">165</div>
<p>The boards were soft to tread on, as though
they had been carpeted with velvet, and so were
the stairs. For there <i>were</i> stairs, sure enough.
She went up them very slowly and carefully,
reaching her hands before her. And at last her
hands came against something that seemed like
a door. She stroked it gently, feeling for the
latch, which she presently found. The door had
not been opened for such a very long time that
it was not at all inclined to open now. Elfrida
had to shove with shoulder and knee, and with
all the strength she had. The door gave way—out
of politeness, I should think, for Elfrida’s
knee and shoulder and strength were all quite
small—and there was the room just as she had
seen it when the Chevalier St. George stood in it
bowing and smiling by the light of one candle in
a silver candlestick. Only now Elfrida was
alone, and the light was a sort of green twilight
that came from a little window over the mantelpiece,
that was hung outside with a thick curtain
of ivy. If Elfrida had come out of the sunlight
she would have called this a green darkness.
But she had been so long in the dark that this
shadowy dusk seemed quite light to her. All
the same she made haste, when she had shut the
door, to drag a chair in front of the fireplace
and to get the window open. It opened inwards,
and it did not want to open at all. But it, also,
was polite enough to yield to her wishes, and
when it had suddenly given way she reached
out and broke the ivy-leaves off one by one,
making more and more daylight in the secret
room. She did not let the leaves fall outside,
but on the hearthstone, “for,” said she, “we
don’t want outside people to get to know all
about the Ardens’ secret hiding-place. I’m glad
I thought of that. I really <i>am</i> rather like a
detective in a book.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_166">166</div>
<p>When all the leaves were plucked from the
window’s square, and only the brown ivy boughs
left, she turned back to the room. The furniture
was all powdered heavily with dust, and
what had made the floor so soft to walk upon
was the thick carpet of dust that lay there.
There was the table on which the Chevalier St.
George—no, Sir Edward Talbot—had set the
tray. There were the chairs, and there, sure
enough, was the corner cupboard in which he
had put the jewels. Elfrida got its door open
with I don’t know what of mingled hopes and
fears. It had three shelves, but the jewels were
on none of them. In fact there was nothing on
any of them. But on the inside of the door her
hand, as she held it open, felt something rough.
And when she looked it was a name carved, and
when she swung the door well back so that the
light fell full on it she saw that the name was
“E. Talbot.” So then she knew that all she had
seen in that room before must have really
happened two hundred years before, and was
not just a piece of magic Mouldiwarpiness.</p>
<p>She climbed up on the chair again and looked
out through the little window. She could see
nothing of the Castle walls—only the distant
shoulder of the downs and the path that cut
across it towards the station. She would have
liked to see a red figure or a violet one coming
along that path. But there was no figure on it
at all.</p>
<p>What do you usually do when you are shut
up in a secret room, with no chance of getting
out for hours? As for me, I always say poetry
to myself. It is one of the uses of poetry—one
says it to oneself in distressing circumstances
of that kind, or when one has to wait at railway
stations, or when one cannot get to sleep at
night. You will find poetry most useful for
this purpose. So learn plenty of it, and be sure
it is the best kind, because this is most useful
as well as most agreeable.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_167">167</div>
<div class="img" id="pic17">
<img src="images/pmage167.jpg" alt="" width="357" height="799" />
<p class="caption">“SHE SAW THAT THE NAME WAS ‘E. TALBOT.’”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_168">168</div>
<p>Elfrida began with “Ruin seize thee, ruthless
King!” but there were parts of that which she
liked best when there were other people about—so
she stopped it, and began “Horatius and
the Bridge.” This lasts a long time. Then
came the Favourite Cat drowned in a tub of
Gold-fish—and in the middle of that, quite
suddenly, and I don’t know why, she thought
of the Mouldiwarp.</p>
<p>“We didn’t quite quarrel,” she told herself.
“At least not really, truly quarrelling. I might
try anyhow.”</p>
<p>So she set to work to make a piece of poetry
to call up the Mouldiwarp with.</p>
<p>This was how, after a long time, the first piece
came out—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘The Mouldiwarp of Arden</p>
<p class="t">By the nine gods it swore</p>
<p class="t0">That Elfrida of Arden</p>
<p class="t">Should be shut up no more.</p>
</div>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">By the nine gods it swore it</p>
<p class="t">And named a convenient time, no doubt,</p>
<p class="t0">And bade its messengers ride forth</p>
<p class="t0">East and West, South and North,</p>
<p class="t">To let Elfrida out.’”</p>
</div>
<p>But when she said it aloud nothing happened.
“I wonder,” said Elfrida, “whether it’s because
we quarrelled, or because it just says he let me
out and doesn’t ask him to, or because I had to
say <i>El</i>frida, to make it sound right, or because
it’s such dreadful nonsense. I’ll try again.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_169">169</div>
<p>She tried again. This time she got—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘Behind the secret panel’s lines</p>
<p class="t0">The pensive <i>El</i>frida, reclines</p>
<p class="t">And wishes she was at home.</p>
<p class="t0">At least I am at home, of course,</p>
<p class="t0">But things are getting worse and worse.</p>
<p class="t">Dear Mole, come, come, come, come!’”</p>
</div>
<p>She said it aloud, and when she came to the
last words there was the white Mouldiwarp
sitting on the floor at her feet and looking up
at her with eyes that blinked.</p>
<p>“You <i>are</i> good to come,” Elfrida said.</p>
<p>“Well, what do you want now?” said the
Mole.</p>
<p>“I—I ought to tell you that I oughtn’t to ask
you to do anything, but I didn’t think you’d
come if it really counted as a quarrel. It was
only a little one, and we were both sorry quite
directly.”</p>
<p>“You have a straightforward nature,” said
the Mouldiwarp. “Well, well, I must say you’ve
got yourself into a nice hole!”</p>
<p>“It would be a <i>very</i> nice hole,” said Elfrida
eagerly, “if only the panel were open. I
wouldn’t mind how long I stayed here then.
That’s funny, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said the Mole. “Well, if you hadn’t
quarrelled I could get you into another time—some
time when the panel was open—and you
could just walk out. You shouldn’t quarrel.
It makes everything different. It puts dust
into the works. It stops the wheels of the
clock.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_170">170</div>
<p>“The clock!” said Elfrida slowly. “Couldn’t
that work backwards?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know what you mean,” said the Mole.</p>
<p>“I don’t know that I quite know myself,”
Elfrida explained; “but the daisy-clock. You
sit on the second hand and there isn’t any time—and
yet there’s lots where you’re not sitting.
If I could sit on the daisy-clock the time
wouldn’t be anything before some one comes
to let me out. But I can’t get to the daisy-clock,
even if you’d make it for me. So <i>that’s</i>
no good.”</p>
<p>“You are a very clever little girl,” said the
Mouldiwarp, “and all the clocks in the world
aren’t made of daisies. Move the tables and
chairs back against the wall; we’ll see what we
can do for you.”</p>
<p>While Elfrida was carrying out this order—the
white Mole stood on its hind feet and called
out softly in a language she did not understand.
Others understood it though, it seemed, for
a white pigeon fluttered in through the window,
and then another and another, till the room
seemed full of circling wings and gentle cooings,
and a shower of soft, white feathers fell like
snow.</p>
<p>Then the Mole was silent, and one by one the
white pigeons sailed back through the window
into the blue and gold world of out-of-doors.</p>
<p>“Get up on a chair and keep out of the way,”
said the Mouldiwarp. And Elfrida did.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_171">171</div>
<div class="img" id="pic18">
<img src="images/pmage171.jpg" alt="" width="510" height="700" />
<p class="caption">“THE ROOM SEEMED FULL OF CIRCLING WINGS.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_172">172</div>
<p>And then a soft wind blew through the little
room—a wind like the wind that breathes
softly in walled gardens and shakes down the
rose-leaves on sparkling summer mornings.
And the white feathers on the floor were stirred
by the sweet wind, and drifted into little heaps
and lines and curves till they made on the dusty
floor the circle of a clock-face, with all its figures
and its long hand and its short hand and its
second hand. And the white Mole stood in the
middle.</p>
<p>“All white things obey me,” it said. “Come,
sit down on the minute hand, and you’ll be there
in no time.”</p>
<p>“Where?” asked Elfrida, getting off the chair.</p>
<p>“Why, at the time when they open the
panel. Let me get out of the clock first. And
give me the key of the parlour door. It’ll save
time in the end.”</p>
<p>So Elfrida sat down on the minute hand, and
instantly it began to move round—faster than
you can possibly imagine. And it was very soft
to sit on—like a cloud would be if the laws of
nature ever permitted you to sit on clouds.
And it spun round so that it seemed no time
at all before she found herself sitting on the
floor and heard voices, and knew that the secret
panel was open.</p>
<p>“I see,” she said wisely, “it does work backwards,
doesn’t it?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_173">173</div>
<p>But there was no one to answer her, for the
Mouldiwarp was gone. And the white pigeons’
feathers were in heaps on the floor. She saw
them, as she stood up. And there wasn’t any
clock-face any more.</p>
<p class="center"><span class="gs">· · · · ·</span></p>
<p>Edred soon got tired of “Red Cotton Nightcap
Country,” which really is not half such good fun
as it sounds, even for grown-ups, and he tried
several other books. But reading did not seem
amusing, somehow. And the house was so much
too quiet, and the clock outside ticked so much
too loud—and Elfrida was shut up, and there
were bars to the windows, and the door was
locked. He walked about, and sat in each of the
chairs in turn, but no one of them was comfortable.
And his thoughts were not comfortable
either. Suppose no one ever came to let them
out! Supposing the years rolled on and found
him still a prisoner, when he was a white-haired
old man, like people in the Bastille, or in Iron
Masks? His eyes filled with tears at the
thought. Fortunately it did not occur to him
that unless some one came pretty soon he would
be unlikely to live to a great age, since people
cannot live long without eating. If he had
thought of this he would have been even more
unhappy than he was—and he was quite unhappy
enough. Then he began to wonder if
“anything had happened” to Elfrida. She
was dreadfully quiet inside there behind the
panel. He wished he had not quarrelled with
her. Everything was very miserable. He went
to the window and looked out, as Elfrida had
done, to see if he could see a red dress or a
violet dress coming over the downs. But there
was nothing. And the time got longer and
longer, drawing itself out like a putty snake,
when you rub it between your warm hands—and
at last, what with misery, and having cried
a good deal, and its being long past tea-time,
he fell asleep on the window-seat.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_174">174</div>
<p>He was roused by a hand on his shoulder and
a voice calling his name.</p>
<p>Next moment he was in the arms of Aunt
Edith, or as much in her arms as he could be
with the window-bars between them.</p>
<p>When he had told her where Elfrida was, and
where the room-key was, which took some
time, he began to cry again—for he did not
quite see, even now, how he was to be got out.</p>
<p>“Now don’t be a dear silly,” said Aunt Edith.
“If we can’t get you out any other way I’ll run
and fetch a locksmith. But look what I found
right in the middle of the path as I came up
from the station.”</p>
<p>It was a key. And tied to it was an ivory
label, and on the label were written the words,
“Parlour door, Arden.”</p>
<p>“You might try it,” she said.</p>
<p>He did try it. And it fitted. And he unlocked
the parlour door and then the front door, so
that Aunt Edith could come in.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_175">175</div>
<p>And together they got the kitchen steps and
found the secret spring and opened the panel,
and got out the dusty Elfrida. And then Aunt
Edith lighted the kitchen fire and boiled the
kettle; they had tea, which every one wanted
very badly indeed. And Aunt Edith had brought
little cakes for tea with pink icing on them,
very soft inside with apricot jam. And she had
come to stay over Sunday.</p>
<p>She was as much excited as the children over
the secret panel, and after tea (when Edred had
fetched Emily back from the wild-goose chase
for a parcel at the station, on which she was
still engaged), the aunt and the niece and the
nephew explored the secret stair and the secret
chamber thoroughly.</p>
<p>“What a wonderful lot of pigeons’ feathers!”
said Aunt Edith; “they must have been piling
up here for years and years.”</p>
<p>“It was lucky, you finding that key,” said
Edred. “I wonder who dropped it. Where’s
the other one, Elf?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” said Elfrida truthfully, “it
isn’t in my pocket now.”</p>
<p>And though Edred and Aunt Edith searched
every corner of the secret hiding-place they
never found that key.</p>
<p>Elfrida alone knows that she gave it to the
Mouldiwarp. And as Mrs. Honeysett declared
that there had never been a parlour key with a
label on it in <i>her</i> time it certainly does seem as
though the Mole must have put the key he got
from Elfrida on the path for Aunt Edith to find,
after carefully labelling it to prevent mistakes.
How the Mole got the label is another question,
but I really think that finding a label for a key
is quite a simple thing to do—I have done it
myself. Whereas making a clock-face of white
pigeon feathers is very difficult indeed—and a
thing that I have never been able to do. And
as for making that clock-face the means of
persuading time to go fast or slow, just as one
wishes—well, I don’t suppose even <i>you</i> could do
that.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_176">176</div>
<p>Elfrida found it rather a relief to go back to
the ordinary world, where magic moles did not
upset the clock—a world made pleasant by nice
aunts and the old delightful games that delight
ordinary people. Games such as “Hunt the
thimble,” “What is my thought like,” and
“Proverbs.” The three had a delightful weekend,
and Aunt Edith told them all about the
lodgers and the seaside house, which already
seemed very long ago and far away. On
Sunday evening, as they walked home from
Arden Church, where they had tried to attend
to the service, and not to look <i>too</i> much at the
tombs and monuments of dead-and-gone Ardens
that lined the chancel, the three sat down on
Arden Knoll, and Aunt Edith explained things
a little to them. She told them much more
than they could understand about wills, and
trustees, and incomes, but they were honoured
by her confidence, and pleased by the fact that
she seemed to think they <i>could</i> understand such
grown-up kind of things. And the thing that
remained on their minds after the talk, like a
ship cast up by a high tide, was this: that
Arden Castle was theirs, and that there was
very little money to “keep it up” with. So that
every one must be very careful, and no one
must be at all extravagant. And Aunt Edith
was going back to the world of lawyers, and
wills, and trustees, early on Monday morning,
and they must be very good children, and not
bother Mrs. Honeysett, and never, never lock
themselves in and hide the key in safe places.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_177">177</div>
<p>All this remained, as the lasting result of
the pleasant talk on the downs in the softly
lessening light.</p>
<p>And another thing remained, which Edred
put into words as the two children walked back
from the station, where they had seen Aunt
Edith into the train and waved their goodbyes
to her.</p>
<p>“It is very important indeed,” he said, “for
us to find the treasure. Then we could ‘keep up’
the Castle without any bother. We must have
it <i>built</i> up again first, of course, and then we’ll
<i>keep</i> it up. And we won’t have any old clocks
and not keeping together, this time. We’ll both
of us go and find the attic the minute our
quarrel’s three days old, and we’ll ask the
Mouldiwarp to send us to a time when we can
really <i>see</i> the treasure with our own eyes. I do
think that’s a good idea, don’t you?” he asked,
with modest pride.</p>
<p>“Very,” Elfrida said. “And I say, Edred, I
don’t mean to quarrel any more if I can help it.
It is such waste of time,” she added in her best
grown-up manner, “and it does delay everything
so. Delays are dangerous. It says so in the
‘proverb’ game. Suppose there really was a
chance of <i>getting</i> the treasure and we had to
wait three days because of quarrelling. But I’ll
tell you one thing I found out: you can get the
Mole to come and help you, even if you have
quarrelled a little. Because <i>I</i> did.” And she
told him how.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_178">178</div>
<p>“But, I expect,” she added. “It would only
come if I were in the most awful trouble and all
human aid despaired of.”</p>
<p>“Well, we’re not that now,” said Edred,
knocking the head off a poppy with his stick,
“and I’m jolly glad we’re not.”</p>
<p>“I wonder,” said Elfrida, “who lives in that
cottage where the witch was. I know exactly
where it is. I expect it’s been pulled down,
though. Let’s go round that way. It’ll be
something to do.”</p>
<p>So they went round that way, and the way
was quite easy to find. But when they got to
the place where the tumbledown cottage had
been in Boney’s time, there was only a little
slate-roofed house with a blue bill pasted up on
its yellow-brick face saying that somebody’s A1
ginger-beer and up-to-date minerals were sold
there. The house was dull to look at, and they
did not happen to have any spare money for
ginger-beer, so they turned round to go home
and suddenly found themselves face to face with
a woman. She wore a red-and-black plaid
blouse and a bought ready-made black skirt, and
on her head was a man’s peaked cap such as
women in the country wear now instead of the
pretty sun bonnets that they used to wear when
I was a little girl.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_179">179</div>
<p>“So they’ve pulled the old cottage down,” she
said. “This new house’ll be fine and dry inside,
I lay. The rain comes in through the roof of
the old one so’s you might a’most as well be
laying in the open medder.”</p>
<p>The children listened politely, and both were
wondering where they had seen this woman
before, for her face was strangely familiar to
them, and yet they didn’t seem really to know
her either.</p>
<p>“Most of the cottages ’bout here is just as bad
as they always was,” she went on. “When
Arden has the handling of the treasure he’ll see
to it that poor folks lie warm and dry, won’t he
now?”</p>
<p>And then all in a minute the children both
knew, and she knew that they knew.</p>
<p>“Why,” said Edred, “you’re the——”</p>
<p>“Yes,” she said, “I’m the witch come from old
ancient times. If you can go back I can go
forth, because then and now’s the same if I
know how to make a clock.”</p>
<p>“Can you make clocks?” said Elfrida. “I
thought it was only——”</p>
<p>“So it be,” said the witch. “I can’t make ’em,
but I know them as can. And I’ve come ’ere to
find you, ’cause you brought me the tea and
sugar. I’ve got the wise eye, I have. I can see
back and forth. I looked forrard and I saw ye,
and I looked back and I saw what you’re seeking,
and I know where the treasure is and——”</p>
<p>“But where did you get those clothes?” Edred
asked; and it was a question he was afterwards
to have reason to regret.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_180">180</div>
<p>“Oh, clothes is easy come by,” said the witch.
“If it was only clothes I could be a crowned
queen this very minute.”</p>
<p>The children had a fleeting impression of
seeing against the criss-cross fence of the potato
patch a lady in crimson and ermine with a gold
crown. They blinked, startled, and saw that
there was no crimson and gold, only the dull
clothes of the witch against the background of
potato patch.</p>
<p>“And how did you get here?” Edred asked.</p>
<p>“That speckled hen of mine’s a-settin’ on
the clock-face now,” she said. “I quieted her
with a chalk-line drawn from her beak’s end
straight out into the world of wonders. If she
rouses up, then I’m back there, and I can’t never
come back here, my dears, nor more than once,
I can’t. So let’s make haste down to the Castle,
and I’ll show you where my great granny see
them put the treasure when she was a little
gell.”</p>
<p>The three hurried down the steep-banked lane.</p>
<p>“Many’s the time,” the witch went on, “my
granny pointed it out to me. It’s just alongside
where——”</p>
<p>And then the witch was not there any more.
Edred and Elfrida were alone in the lane. The
speckled hen must have recovered from her
“quieting,” and got off the clock.</p>
<p>“She’s gone right enough,” said Edred, “and
now we’ll never know. And just when she was
going to tell us where it was. I do think it’s
too jolly stupid for anything.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_181">181</div>
<div class="img" id="pic19">
<img src="images/pmage181.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="737" />
<p class="caption">“A LADY IN CRIMSON AND ERMINE WITH A GOLD CROWN.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_182">182</div>
<p>“It’s <i>you</i> that’s too jolly stupid for anything,”
said Elfrida hotly. “What did you want to go
asking her about her silly clothes for? It was
<i>that</i> did it. She’d have told us where it was
before now if you hadn’t taken her time up
with clothes. As if <i>clothes</i> mattered! I do wish
to goodness you’d <i>sometimes</i> try to behave as
if you’d got some sense.”</p>
<p>“Go it!” said Edred bitterly. “As if everything
wasn’t tiresome enough. Now there’s
another three days to wait, because of your
nagging. Oh, it’s just exactly like a girl, so
it is!”</p>
<p>“I’m—I’m sorry,” said Elfrida, awestricken.
“Let’s do something good to make up. I’ll give
you that note-book of mine with the lead-pointed
mother-of-pearl pencil, and we’ll go
round to all the cottages and find out which
are leaky, so as to be ready to patch them up
when we’ve got the treasure.”</p>
<p>“I don’t <i>want</i> to be good,” said Edred bitterly.
“<i>I</i> haven’t quarrelled and put everything back,
but I’m going to now,” he said, with determination.
“I don’t see why everything should
be smashed up and me not said any of the
things I want to say.”</p>
<p>“Oh, <i>don’t!</i>” cried Elfrida; “it’s bad enough
to quarrel when you don’t want to, but to <i>set
out</i> to quarrel! Don’t!”</p>
<p>Edred didn’t. He kicked the dust up with his
boots, and the two went back to the Castle in
gloomy silence.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_183">183</div>
<p>At the gate Edred paused. “I’ll make it up
now if you like,” he said. “I’ve only just
thought of it—but perhaps it’s three days from
the <i>end</i> of the quarrel.”</p>
<p>“I see,” said Elfrida; “so the longer we keep
it up——”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Edred; “so let’s call it Pax and
not waste any <i>more</i> time.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_184">184</div>
<h2 id="c8"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER VIII</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">GUY FAWKES</span></h2>
<p>Three days, because there had been a quarrel.
But days pass quickly when the sun shines,
and it is holiday-time, and you have a big
ruined castle to explore and examine—a castle
that is your own, or your brother’s.</p>
<p>“After all,” said Elfrida sensibly, “we might
quite likely find the treasure ourselves, without
any magic Mouldiwarpiness at all. We’ll
look thoroughly. We won’t leave a stone
unturned.”</p>
<p>“We shall have to leave a good many stones
unturned,” said Edred, looking at the great
grey mass of the keep that towered tall and
frowning above them.</p>
<p>“Well, you know what I mean,” said Elfrida.
“Come on!” and they went.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_185">185</div>
<p>They climbed the steep, worn stairs that
wound round and round in the darkness—stairs
littered with dead leaves and mould
and dropped feathers, and the dry, deserted
nests of owls and jackdaws; stairs that ended
suddenly in daylight and a steep last step, and
the top of a broad ivy-grown wall from which
you could look down, down, down; past the
holes in the walls where the big beams used
to be, past the old fireplaces still black with
the smoke of fires long since burnt out, past
the doors and windows of rooms whose floors
fell away long ago; down, down, to where
ferns and grass and brambles grew green at
the very bottom of the tower.</p>
<p>Then there were arched doors that led to
colonnades with strong little pillars and narrow
windows, wonderful little unexpected chambers
and corners—the best place in the whole wide
world for serious and energetic hide-and-seek.</p>
<p>“How glorious,” said Elfrida, as they rested,
scarlet and panting, after a thrilling game of
“I spy,”—“if all these broken bits were
mended, so that you couldn’t see where the
new bits were stuck on! And if it could
all be exactly like it was when it was brand-new.”</p>
<p>“There wasn’t the house when it was brand-new—the
house like it is now, I mean,” said
Edred. “I don’t suppose there was any attic
with chests in when the castle was new.”</p>
<p>“There couldn’t be, not with <i>all</i> the chests,”
said Elfrida; “of course not, because some of
the clothes in the chest weren’t made till long
after the castle was built. I believe grown-ups
can tell what a broken thing was like when
it was new. I know they can with bones—mastodons
and things. And they made out
what Hercules was like out of one foot of
him that they found, I believe,” she added
hazily.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_186">186</div>
<p>“I’ve got an idea,” said Edred, “if we could
get back to where the castle was all perfect
like a model and draw pictures of every part.
Then when we found the treasure we should
know exactly what to build it up like, shouldn’t
we?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Elfrida very gently. “We certainly
should. But then we should have to
know how to draw first, shouldn’t we?”</p>
<p>“Of course we should,” Edred agreed, “but
that wouldn’t take long if we really tried.
I never do try at school. I don’t like it. But
it’s jolly easy. I know that. Burslem mi.
always takes the drawing prize, and you know
what a duffer <i>he</i> is. We might begin to learn
now, don’t you think?”</p>
<p>Elfrida sat down on a fallen stone in the
middle of the castle yard, and looked at the intricate
wonderful arches and pillars, the
crenulated battlements of the towers, the
splendid stoutness of the walls, and she sighed.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she said, “let’s begin now——”</p>
<p>“And you’ll have to lend me one of your
pencils,” said he, “because I broke mine all
to bits trying to get the parlour door open
the day you’d got the key in your pocket.
Quite a long one it was. You’ll have to lend
me a long one, Elf. I can’t draw with those
little endy-bits that get inside your hand and
prick you with the other end.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_187">187</div>
<p>“I don’t mind,” said she, “so long as you
don’t put it in your mouth.”</p>
<p>So they got large sheets of writing-paper,
and brown calf-bound books for the paper to
lie flat on, and they started to draw Arden
Castle. And as Elfrida tried to draw everything
she knew was there, as well as everything
she could see, her drawing soon became almost
entirely covered with black-lead.</p>
<p>They had no indiarubber, and if you drew
anything wrong it had to stay drawn. When
you first begin to draw, you draw a good many
things wrong, don’t you? I assure you that
nobody would have known that the black and
grey muddle on Elfrida’s paper was meant
to be a picture of a castle. Edred’s was
much more easily recognised, even before he
printed “Arden Castle” under it in large,
uneven letters. He never once raised his eyes
from his paper, and just drew what he thought
the front of the castle looked like from the
outside. Also he sucked his pencil earnestly—Elfrida’s
pencil, I mean—and this made the
lines of his drawing very black.</p>
<p>“There!” he said at last, “it’s ever so much
liker than yours.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Elfrida, “but there’s more <i>in</i>
mine.”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter how much there is in a
picture if you can’t tell what it’s meant for,”
said Edred, with some truth. “Now, in mine
you can see the towers, and the big gate, and the
windows, and the twiddly in-and-outness on top.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_188">188</div>
<p>“Yes,” said Elfrida, “but . . . well, let’s do
something else. I don’t believe we should
either of us learn to draw well enough to
rebuild Arden by; not before we’ve found the
treasure, I mean. Perhaps we might meet a
real artist, like the one we saw drawing the
castle yesterday—in the past I mean—and get
him to draw it for us, and bring the picture
back with us, and——”</p>
<p>“Oh,” cried Edred, jumping up and dropping
his masterpiece, and the calf-bound volume and
the pencil. “<i>I</i> know. The Brownie!”</p>
<p>“The Brownie?”</p>
<p>“Yes—take it with us. Then we could
photograph the castle all perfect.”</p>
<p>“But we can’t take it with us.”</p>
<p>“Can’t we?” said Edred; “that’s all <i>you</i>
know. Now I’ll tell you something. That
first time—a bit of plaster was in my shoe
when we changed, and it was in my shoe when
we got there, and I took it out when we were
learning about ‘dog’s delight.’ And I flipped
it out of the window. And when we got
back, and I’d changed and everything, there
was that bit of plaster in my own shoe. If
we can take plaster we can take photographs—cameras,
I mean.” This close and intelligent
reasoning commanded Elfrida’s respect, and
she wished she had thought of it herself. But
then she had not had any plaster in her shoe.
So she said—</p>
<p>“You’re getting quite clever, aren’t you?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_189">189</div>
<p>“Aha,” said Edred, “you’d like to have
thought of that yourself, wouldn’t you? I
can be clever sometimes, same as you can.”</p>
<p>It is very annoying to have our thoughts
read. Elfrida said swiftly, “Not often you
can’t,” and then stopped short. For a moment
the children stood looking at each other with
a very peculiar expression. Then a sigh of
relief broke from each.</p>
<p>“Fielded!” said Edred.</p>
<p>“Just in time!” said Elfrida. “It wasn’t a
quarrel; nobody could say it was a quarrel.
Come on, let’s go and look at the cottages,
like the witch told us to.”</p>
<p>They went. They made a tour of inspection
that day and the next and the next. And
they saw a great many things that a grown-up
inspector would never have seen. Poor people
are very friendly and kind to you when you
are a child. They will let you come into their
houses and talk to you and show you things
in a way that they would never condescend
to do with your grown-up relations. This is,
of course, if you are a really nice child, and
treat them in a respectful and friendly way.
Edred and Elfrida very soon knew more about
the insides of the cottages round Arden than
any grown-up could have learned in a year.
They knew what wages the master of the house
got, what there was for dinner, and what,
oftener, there wasn’t, how many children were
still living, and how many had failed to live.
They knew exactly where the rain came
through the rotten thatch in bad weather, and
where the boards didn’t fit and so let the
draughts in, and how some of the doors
wouldn’t shut, some wouldn’t open, and how
the bedroom windows were, as often as not,
not made to open at all.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_190">190</div>
<p>And when they weren’t visiting the cottages
or exploring the castle they found a joyous
way of passing the time in the reading aloud
of the history of Arden. They took it in turns
to read aloud. Elfrida looked carefully for
some mention of Sir Edward Talbot and his
pretending to be the Chevalier St. George.
There was none, but a Sir Edward Talbot had
been accused, with the Lord Arden of the time,
of plotting against His Most Christian Majesty
King James I.</p>
<p>“I wonder if he was like my Edward
Talbot?” said Elfrida. “I would like to see
him again. I wish I’d told him about us
having been born so many years after he died.
But it would have been difficult to explain,
wouldn’t it? Let’s look in Green’s History
Book and see what they looked like when it
was His Most Christian Majesty King James
the First.”</p>
<p>Perhaps it was this which decided the
children, when the three days were over, to
put on the clothes which most resembled the
ones in the pictures of James I.’s time in
Green’s History.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_191">191</div>
<p>Edred had full breeches, puffed out like
balloons, and a steeple-crowned hat, and a sort
of tunic of crimson velvet, and a big starched
ruff round his little neck more uncomfortable
even than your Eton collar is after you’ve been
wearing flannels for days and days. And
Elfrida had long, tight stays with a large,
flat-shaped piece of wood down the front,
and very full, long skirts over a very abrupt
hoop.</p>
<p>When the three days were over the door of
the attic, which, as usual after a quarrel, had
been quite invisible and impossible to find,
had become as plain as the nose on the face
of the plainest person you know, and the
children had walked in, and looked in the
chests till they found what they wanted.</p>
<p>And now they put on ruffs and all the rest
of it to the accompaniment, or, as it always
seemed, with the help, of soft pigeon noises.</p>
<p>While they were dressing Elfrida held the
Brownie camera tightly, in one hand or the
other. This made dressing rather slow and
difficult, but the children had agreed that if it
were not done the Brownie would be, as Edred
put it, “liable to vanish,” as everything else
belonging to their own time always did—except
their clothes. I can’t explain to you
just now how it was that their clothes <i>didn’t</i>
vanish. It would take too long. But it was
all part of the magic of white feathers which
are, as you know, the clothes of white pigeons.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_192">192</div>
<p>And now a very odd thing happened. As
Edred put on his second shoe—which was the
last touch to their united toilets—the walls
seemed to tremble and shake and go crooked,
like a house of cards at the very instant before
it topples down. The floor slanted to that
degree that standing on it was so difficult as
to be at last impossible. The rafters all seemed
to get crooked and mixed, like a box of matches
when you spill them on the floor. The tiled
roof that showed blue daylight through seemed
to spin like a top, and you could not tell at
all which way up you were. All this happened
with dreadful suddenness, but almost as soon
as it had begun it stopped with a jerk like
that of a clockwork engine that has gone
wrong. And the attic was gone—and the
chests, and the blue-chinked tiles of the roof, and
the walls and the rafters. And the room had
shrunk to less than half its old size. And it was
higher, and it was not an attic any more, but a
round room with narrow windows, and just such
a fireplace, with a stone hood, as the ones the
children had seen when they looked down
from the tops of the towers. You must have
often heard of events that take people’s breath
away. This sudden change did really take
away the breaths of Edred and Elfrida, so that
for a few moments they could only stare at
each other “like Guy Fawkes masks,” as Elfrida
later said.</p>
<p>“<i>I</i> see,” said Edred, when breath enough for
speech had returned to him. “This is the place
where the attic was after the tower fell to
pieces.”</p>
<p>“But there isn’t any attic really,” said Elfrida.
“You know we can’t find it if we quarrelled,
and Mrs. Honeysett doesn’t ever find it. It isn’t
anywhere.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_193">193</div>
<div class="img" id="pic20">
<img src="images/pmage193.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="768" />
<p class="caption">“THE WALLS SEEMED TO TREMBLE AND SHAKE AND GO CROOKED.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_194">194</div>
<p>“Yes, it is,” said Edred. “We couldn’t find it
if it wasn’t.”</p>
<p>“Well,” said Elfrida gloomily, “I only hope
we <i>may</i> find it, that’s all. I suppose we may as
well go out. It’s no use sticking in this horrid
little room.” Her hand was on the door, but
even as she fumbled with the latch, which was
of iron and of a shape to which she was wholly
unaccustomed, something else happened, even
more disconcerting than the turn-over-change
in which the attic and the chests had disappeared.
It is very difficult to describe. Perhaps
you happen to dislike travelling in trains
with your back to the engine? If you do dislike
it, you dislike it very much indeed. It makes
your head ache, and gives you a queer feeling at
the back of your neck, and makes you turn so
pale that the grown-up people with whom you
are travelling will ask you what is the matter,
and sometimes heartlessly insist that the buns
you had at the junction, or the chocolate creams
pressed into your hand at the parting hour by
Uncle Fred or Aunt Imogen, are the cause of
your sufferings. The worst feeling of all is
that terrible sensation, as though your heart
and lungs and the front part of your waistcoat
were being drawn slowly but surely through
your backbone, and taken a very long way off.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_195">195</div>
<p>The sensations which now held Edred and
Elfrida were exactly like those which—if you
don’t like travelling backwards—you know
only too well—and the sensations were so
acute that both children shut their eyes. The
whirling feeling, and the withdrawing-waistcoat
feeling, and the headache, and the
back-of-the-neck feeling stopped as suddenly as
they had begun, and the two children opened
their eyes in a room which Edred at least had
never seen before. To Elfrida it seemed strange
yet familiar. The shape of the room, the
position of doors and windows, the mantelpiece
with its curious carvings—these she knew.
And some of the furniture, too. Yet the room
seemed bare—barer than it should have been.
But why should it look bare—barer than it
should have been—unless she knew how much
less bare it once was? Unless, in fact, she had
seen it before?</p>
<p>“Oh, I know,” she cried, standing in her stiff
skirts and heavy shoes in the middle of the
room. “I know. This is Lord Arden’s town
house. This is where I was with Cousin Betty.
Only there aren’t such nice chairs and things,
and it was full of people then.”</p>
<p>Edred remained silent, his mouth half open
and his eyes half shut in a sort of trance of
astonishment. This was very different from
the last adventure in which he had taken part.
For then he had only gone to the house in
Arden Castle as it was in Boney’s time, and he
had gone to it by the simple means of walking
down a staircase with which he was already
familiar. But now he had been transported in
a most violent and unpleasing manner, not only
from his own times to times much earlier, but
also from Arden Castle, which he knew, to
Arden House, which he did not know. So he
was silent, and when he did speak it was with
discontent verging on disgust.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_196">196</div>
<p>“I don’t like it,” he began. “Let’s go back.
I don’t like it. And we didn’t take the photograph.
And I don’t like it. And my clothes are
horrid. I feel something between a balloon and
a Bluecoat boy. And you’ve no idea how silly
you look—like Mrs. Noah out of the Ark, only
tubby. And I don’t know who we’re supposed
to be. And I don’t suppose this is Arden House.
And if it is, you don’t know <i>when</i>. Suppose it’s
Inquisition times, and they put us on the stake?
Let’s go back; I don’t like it,” he ended.</p>
<p>“Now you just listen,” said Elfrida, knitting
her brows under the queer cap she wore. “I
know inside me what I mean, but <i>you</i> won’t
unless you jolly well attend.”</p>
<p>“Fire ahead.”</p>
<p>“Well, then, even if it was Inquisition times
it would be all right—for us.”</p>
<p>“How do you know?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know how I know, but I know I <i>do</i>
know,” said Elfrida firmly. “You see, <i>I’ve</i> been
here before. It’s not real, you see.”</p>
<p>“It <i>is</i>,” said Edred, kicking the leg of the
table.</p>
<p>“Yes, of course . . . but . . . look here! You
remember the water-shoot at Earl’s Court, and
you were so frightened.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_197">197</div>
<p>“Yes, you were; and I didn’t half like it
myself. I wished we hadn’t, rather. And when
it started, and we knew we’d <i>got</i> to go on with
it. Oh, horrible! And when it was over we
wanted to go again, and we did, and it’s been so
jolly to remember. This is like that. See?”</p>
<p>“I don’t,” said Edred, “understand a single
word you say. This isn’t a bit like the water-shoot
or anything. Now, is it?”</p>
<p>Elfrida frowned. Afterwards she was glad
that she had done no more than frown. It is
dangerous, as you know, to quarrel in a boat,
but far more dangerous to quarrel in a century
that is not your own. She frowned and opened
her mouth. And just as her mouth opened the
door of the room followed its example, and a
short, dark, cross-looking woman in a brown
skirt and strange cap came hurrying in.</p>
<p>“So it’s here you’ve hidden yourselves!” she
cried. “And I looking high and low to change
your dress.”</p>
<p>“What for?” said Edred, for it was his arm
which she had quite ungently caught.</p>
<p>“For what?” she said, as she dragged him
out of the room. “Why, to attend my lord
your father and your lady mother at the masque
at Whitehall. Had you forgot already? And
thou so desirous to attend them in thy new
white velvet broidered with the orange-tawny,
and thy lady mother’s diamond buckles, and
the silken cloak, and the shoe-roses, and the
cobweb-lawn starched ruff, and the little sword
and all.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_198">198</div>
<p>The woman had dragged Edred out of the
room and by the stairs by this time. Elfrida,
following, decided that her speech was the
harshest part of her.</p>
<p>“If she was really horrid,” thought the girl,
“she wouldn’t try to cheer him up with velvet
and swords and diamond buckles.</p>
<p>“Can’t <i>I</i> go?” she said aloud.</p>
<p>The woman turned and slapped her—not hard,
but smartly. “I told thee how it would be if
thou wouldst not hold that dunning tongue.
No; thou can’t go. Little ladies stay at home
and sew their samplers. Thou’ll go to Court
soon enough, I warrant.”</p>
<p>So Elfrida sat and watched while Edred was
partially washed—the soap got in his eyes just
as it gets in yours nowadays—and dressed in
the beautiful white page’s dress, white velvet,
diamond buckles, little sword, and all.</p>
<p>“You are splendid,” she said. “Oh, I do wish
I was a boy!” she added, for perhaps the two
thousand and thirty-second time in her short
life.</p>
<p>“It’s not that thou’ll be wishing when <i>thy</i>
time comes to go to Court,” said the woman.
“There, my little lord, give thy old nurse a kiss
and stand very cautious and perfect, not to soil
thy fine feathers. And when thou hearest thy
mother’s robes on the stairs go out and make
thy bow like thy tutor taught thee.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_199">199</div>
<div class="img" id="pic21">
<img src="images/pmage199.jpg" alt="" width="499" height="801" />
<p class="caption">“‘THOU’RT A FINE PAGE, INDEED, MY DEAR SON,’ SAID
THE LADY. ‘STAND ASIDE AND TAKE MY TRAIN.’”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_200">200</div>
<p>It was not Edred’s tutor who had taught him
to bow. But when a rustling of silks sounded
on the stairs he was able to go out and make a
very creditable obeisance to the stately magnificence
that swept down towards him. Elfrida
thought it best to curtsey beside her brother.
Aunt Edith had taught them to dance the
minuet, and somehow the bow and curtsey which
belong to that dance seemed the right thing
now. And the lady on the stairs smiled, well
pleased. She was a wonderfully dressed lady.
Her bodice was of yellow satin, richly embroidered;
her petticoat of gold tissue with stripes;
her robe of red velvet, lined with yellow muslin
with stripes of pure gold. She had a point lace
apron and a collar of white satin under a
delicately worked ruff. And she was a blaze
of beautiful jewels.</p>
<p>“Thou’rt a fine page, indeed, my dear son,”
said the lady. “Stand aside and take my train
as I pass. And thou, dear daughter, so soon as
thou’rt of an age for it, thou shalt have a train
and a page to carry it for thee.”</p>
<p>She swept on, and the children followed.
Lord Arden was in the hall, hardly less splendid
than his wife, and they all went off in a coach
that was very grand, if rather clumsy. Its
shape reminded Elfrida of the coach which the
fairy-godmother made for Cinderella out of
the pumpkin, and she herself, as she peeped
through the crowd of liveried servants to see
it start, felt as much like Cinderella as any one
need wish to feel, and perhaps a little more.
But she consoled herself by encouraging a
secret feeling she had that something was bound
to happen; and sure enough something did.
And that is what I am going to tell you
about. I own that I should like to tell you
also what happened to Edred, but his part of
the adventure was not really an adventure
at all—though it was a thing that he will
never forget as long as he remembers any
magic happenings.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_201">201</div>
<p>“We went to the King’s house,” he told
Elfrida later. “Whitehall is the name. I
should like to call my house Whitehall—if it
wasn’t called Arden Castle, you know. And
there were thousands of servants, I should
think, all much finer than you could dream
of, and lords and ladies, and lots of things to
eat, and bear-baiting and cock-fighting in the
garden.”</p>
<p>“Cruel!” said Elfrida. “I hope you didn’t
look.”</p>
<p>“A little I did,” said Edred. “Boys have
to be brave to bear sights of blood and horror,
you know, in case of them growing up to be
soldiers. But I liked the masque best. The
Queen acted in it. There wasn’t any talking,
you know, only dressing up and dancing. It
was something like the pantomime, but not so
sparkly. And there was a sea with waves that
moved all silvery, and panelled scenes, and
dolphins and fishy things, and a great shell that
opened, and the Queen and the ladies came out
and danced, and I had a lot to eat, such rummy
things, and then I fell asleep, and when I woke
up the King himself was looking at me and
saying I had a bonny face. Bonny means
pretty. You’d think a King would know
better, wouldn’t you?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_202">202</div>
<p>This was all that Edred could find to tell.
I could have told more, but one can’t tell
everything, and there is Elfrida’s adventure
to be told about.</p>
<p>When the coach had disappeared in the
mist and the mud—for the weather was anything
but summer weather—Elfrida went upstairs
again to the room where she had left
the old nurse. She did not know where else
to go.</p>
<p>“Sit thee down,” said the nurse, “and sew
on thy sampler.”</p>
<p>There was the sampler, very fine indeed,
in a large polished wood frame.</p>
<p>“I wish I needn’t,” said Elfrida, looking
anxiously at the fine silks.</p>
<p>“Tut, tut,” said the nurse, “how’ll thee
grow to be a lady if thou doesn’t mind thy
needle?”</p>
<p>“I’d much rather talk to you,” said Elfrida
coaxingly.</p>
<p>“Thou canst chatter as well as sew,” the
nurse said, “as well I know to my cost.
Would that thy needle flew so fast as thy
tongue! Sit thee down, and if the little tree
be done by dinner-time thou shalt have leave
to see thy Cousin Richard.”</p>
<p>“I suppose,” thought Elfrida, taking up the
needle, “that I am fond of my Cousin Richard.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_203">203</div>
<p>The sewing was difficult, and hurt her eyes,
but she persevered. Presently some one
called the nurse, and Elfrida was left alone.
Then she stopped persevering. “Whatever
<i>is</i> the good,” she asked herself, “of working
at a sampler that you haven’t time to finish,
and that would be worn out, anyhow, years
and years before you were born? The Elfrida
who’s doing that sampler is the same age as
me, and born the same day,” she reflected.
And then she wondered what the date was,
and what was the year. She was still wondering,
and sticking the needle idly in and out of
one hole, without letting it take the silk with
it, when there was a sort of clatter on the
stairs, the door burst open, and in came a
jolly boy of about her own age.</p>
<p>“Thy task done?” he cried. “Mine too.
Old Parrot-nose kept me hard at it, but I
thought of thee, and for once I did all his
biddings. So now we are free. Come, play
ball in the garden.” This, Elfrida concluded,
must be Cousin Dick, and she decided at once
that she <i>was</i> fond of him.</p>
<p>There was a big and beautiful garden
behind the house. The children played ball
there, and they ran in the box alleys, and
played hide-and-seek among the cut trees
and stone seats, and statues and fountains.</p>
<p>Old Parrot-nose, who was Cousin Richard’s
tutor, and was dressed in black, and looked
as though he had been eating lemons and
vinegar, sat on a seat and watched them, or
walked up and down the flagged terrace with
his thumb in a dull-looking book.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_204">204</div>
<p>When they stopped their game to rest on a
stone step, leaning against a stone seat, old
Parrot-nose walked very softly up behind the
seat, and stood there where they could not
see him and listened. Listening is very dishonourable,
as we all know, but in those days
tutors did not always think it necessary to
behave honourably to their pupils.</p>
<p>I always have thought, and I always shall
think, that it was the eavesdropping of that
tiresome old tutor, Mr. Parados—or Parrot-nose—which
caused all the mischief. But
Elfrida has always believed, and always will
believe, that the disaster was caused by her
knowing too much history. That is why she
is so careful to make sure that no misfortune
shall ever happen on <i>that</i> account, any way.
That is one of the reasons why she never
takes a history prize at school. “You never
know,” she says. And, in fact, when it comes
to a question in an historical examination,
she never <i>does</i> know.</p>
<p>This was how it happened. Elfrida, now
that she was no longer running about in the
garden, remembered the question that she
had been asking herself over the embroidery
frame, and it now seemed sensible to ask the
question of some one who could answer it.
So she said—</p>
<p>“I say, Cousin Richard, what day is it?”</p>
<p>Elfrida understood him to say that it was
the fifth of November.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_205">205</div>
<p>“Is it really?” she said. “Then it’s Guy
Fawkes day. Do you have fireworks?”
And in pure lightness of heart began to
hum—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“Please to remember</p>
<p class="t0">The Fifth of November</p>
<p class="t0">The gunpowder treason and plot.</p>
<p class="t0">I see no reason</p>
<p class="t0">Why gunpowder treason</p>
<p class="t0">Should ever be forgot.”</p>
</div>
<p>“’Tis not a merry song, cousin,” said Cousin
Richard, “nor a safe one. ’Tis best not to
sing of treason.”</p>
<p>“But it didn’t come off, you know, and
he’s always burnt in the end,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“Are there more verses?” Cousin Dick
asked.</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“I wonder what treason the ballad deals
with?” said the boy.</p>
<p>“Don’t you know?” It was then that
Elfrida made the mistake of showing off
her historical knowledge. “<i>I</i> know. And I
know some of the names of the conspirators,
too, and who they wanted to kill, and everything.”</p>
<p>“Tell me,” said Cousin Richard idly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_206">206</div>
<p>“The King hadn’t been fair to the Catholics,
you know,” said Elfrida, full of importance,
“so a lot of them decided to kill him and
the Houses of Parliament. They made a plot—there
were a whole lot of them in it. They said
Lord Arden was, but he wasn’t, and some of
them were to pretend to be hunting, and to
seize the Princess Elizabeth and proclaim her
Queen, and the rest were to blow the Houses
of Parliament up when the King went to open
them.”</p>
<p>“I never heard this tale from my tutor,”
said Cousin Richard laughing. “Proceed,
cousin.”</p>
<p>“Well, Mr. Piercy took a house next the
Parliament House, and they dug a secret
passage to the vaults under the Parliament
Houses; and they put three dozen casks of
gunpowder there and covered them with
faggots. And they would have been all
blown up, only Mr. Tresham wrote to his
relation, Lord Monteagle, that they were
going to blow up the King and——”</p>
<p>“What King?” said Cousin Richard.</p>
<p>“King James the First,” said Elfrida. “Why—what——”
for Cousin Richard had sprung
to his feet, and old Parrot-nose had Elfrida
by the wrist.</p>
<p>He sat down on the seat and drew her
gently till she stood in front of him—gently,
but it was like the hand of iron in the velvet
glove (of which, no doubt, you have often
read).</p>
<p>“Now, Mistress Arden,” he said softly,
“tell me over again this romance that you
tell your cousin.”</p>
<p>Elfrida told it.</p>
<p>“And where did you hear this pretty story?”
he asked.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_207">207</div>
<div class="img" id="pic22">
<img src="images/pmage207.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="620" />
<p class="caption">“OLD PARROT-NOSE HAD ELFRIDA BY THE WRIST.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_208">208</div>
<p>“Where are we now?” gasped Elfrida, who
was beginning to understand.</p>
<p>“Here in the garden—where else?” said
Cousin Richard, who seemed to understand
nothing of the matter.</p>
<p>“Here—in my custody,” said the tutor,
who thought he understood everything.
“Now tell me all—every name, every particular—or
it will be the worse for thee and
thy father.”</p>
<p>“Come, sir,” said Cousin Richard, “you
frighten my cousin. It is but a tale she
told. She is always merry, and full of
many inventions.”</p>
<p>“It is a tale she shall tell again before
those of higher power than I,” said the tutor,
in a thoroughly disagreeable way, and his
hand tightened on Elfrida’s wrist.</p>
<p>“But—but—it’s <i>history</i>,” cried Elfrida, in
despair. “It’s in all the books.”</p>
<p>“Which books?” he asked keenly.</p>
<p>“I don’t know—all of them,” she sullenly
answered; sullenly, because she now really
did understand just the sort of adventure in
which her unusual knowledge of history, and,
to do her justice, her almost equally unusual
desire to show off, had landed her.</p>
<p>“Now,” said the hateful tutor, for such
Elfrida felt him to be, “tell me the names
of the conspirators.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_209">209</div>
<p>“It <i>can’t</i> do any harm,” Elfrida told herself.
“This is James the First’s time, and I’m in it.
But it’s three hundred years ago all the same,
and it all <i>has</i> happened, and it can’t make any
difference what I say, so I’d better tell all
the names I know.”</p>
<p>The hateful tutor shook her.</p>
<p>“Yes, all right,” she said; and to herself she
added, “It’s only a sort of dream; I may as
well tell.” Yet when she opened her mouth to
tell all the names she could remember of the
conspirators of the poor old Gunpowder Plot
that didn’t come off, all those years ago, she
found herself not telling those names at all.
Instead, she found herself saying—</p>
<p>“I’m not going to tell. I don’t care what
you do to me. I’m sorry I said anything
about it. It’s all nonsense—I mean, it’s only
history, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself,
listening behind doors—I mean, <i>out</i> of
doors behind stone seats, when people are
talking nonsense to their own cousins.”</p>
<p>Elfrida does not remember very exactly what
happened after this. She was furiously angry,
and when you are furiously angry things get
mixed and tangled up in a sort of dreadful
red mist. She only remembers that the tutor
was very horrid, and twisted her wrists to make
her tell, and she screamed and tried to kick
him; that Cousin Richard, who did not scream,
did, on the other hand, succeed in kicking the
tutor; that she was dragged indoors and shut
up in a room without a window, so that it
was quite dark.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_210">210</div>
<p>“If only I’d got Edred here,” she said to
herself, with tears of rage and mortification,
“I’d try to make some poetry and get the
Mouldiwarp to come and fetch us away. But
it’s no use till he comes home.”</p>
<p>When he did come home—after the bear-baiting
and the cock-fighting and the banquet
and the masque—Lord and Lady Arden came
with him, of course. And they found their
house occupied by an armed guard, and in the
dark little room a pale child exhausted with
weeping, who assured them again and again
that it was all nonsense, it was only history,
and she hadn’t meant to tell—indeed she
hadn’t. Lady Arden took her in her arms
and held her close and tenderly, in spite of
the grand red velvet and the jewels.</p>
<p>“Thou’st done no harm,” said Lord Arden;
“a pack of silly tales. To-morrow I’ll see
my Lord Salisbury and prick this silly bubble.
Go thou to bed, sweetheart,” he said to his
wife, “and let the little maid lie with thee—she
is all a-tremble with tears and terrors.
To-morrow, my Lord Secretary shall teach
these popinjays their place, and Arden House
shall be empty of them, and we shall laugh
at this fine piece of work that a solemn marplot
has made out of a name or two and a
young child’s fancies. By to-morrow night
all will be well, and we shall lie down in
peace.”</p>
<p>But when to-morrow night came it had, as
all nights have, the day’s work behind it. Lord
Arden and his lady and the little children
lay, not in Arden House in Soho, not in Arden
Castle on the downs by the sea, but in the
Tower of London, charged with high treason
and awaiting their trial.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_211">211</div>
<div class="img" id="pic23">
<img src="images/pmage211.jpg" alt="" width="547" height="701" />
<p class="caption">“THEY FOUND THEIR HOUSE OCCUPIED BY AN ARMED GUARD.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_212">212</div>
<p>For my Lord Salisbury had gone to those
vaults under the Houses of Parliament, and
had found that bold soldier of fortune, Guy
Fawkes, with his dark eyes, his dark lantern,
and his dark intent; and the names of those
in the conspiracy had been given up, and King
James was saved, and the Parliaments—but
the Catholic gentlemen whom he had deceived,
and who had turned against him and his
deceits, were face to face with the rack and
the scaffold.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_213">213</div>
<p>And I can’t explain it at all—because, of
course, Elfrida knew as well as I do that it
all happened three hundred years ago—or, if
you prefer to put it that way, that it had
never happened, and that anyway, it was Mr.
Tresham’s letter to Lord Monteagle, and not
Elfrida’s singing of that silly rhyme, that had
brought the Ardens and all these other gentlemen
to the Tower and to the shadow of death.
And yet she felt that it was <i>she</i> who had
betrayed them. She felt also that if she had
betrayed a base plot, she ought to be glad,
and she was not glad. She felt—and called
herself—a sneak. She had taken advantage
of having been born so much later than all
these people, and of having been rather good
at history to give away the lives of all these
nobles and gentlemen. That they were traitors
to King and Parliament made no manner of
difference. It was she, as she felt but too
bitterly, who was the traitor. And in the
thick-walled room in the Tower, where the
name of Raleigh was still fresh in its carving,
Elfrida lay awake, long after Lady Arden and
Edred were sleeping peacefully, and hated
herself, calling herself a Traitor, a Coward, and
an Utter Duffer.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_214">214</div>
<h2 id="c9"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER IX</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">THE PRISONERS IN THE TOWER</span></h2>
<p>Imprisoned in the Tower of London, accused of
high treason, and having confessed to a too
intimate knowledge of the Gunpowder Plot,
Elfrida could not help feeling that it would be
nice to be back again in her own time, and at
Arden, where, if you left events alone, and
didn’t interfere with them by any sort of magic
mouldiwarpiness, nothing dangerous, romantic
or thrilling would ever happen. And yet, when
she <i>was</i> there, as you know, she never could
let events alone. She and Edred could not be
content with that castle and that house which,
even as they stood, would have made you and
me so perfectly happy. They wanted the
treasure, and they—Elfrida especially—wanted
adventures. Well, now they had got an adventure,
both of them. There was no knowing
how it would turn out either, and that, after all,
is the essence of adventures. Edred was lodged
with Lord Arden and several other gentlemen
in the White Tower, and Elfrida and Lady
Arden were in quite a different part of the
building. And the children were not allowed
to meet. This, of course, made it impossible
for either of them to try to get back to their
own times. For though they sometimes
quarrelled, as you know, they were really fond
of each other, and most of us would hesitate
to leave even a person we were <i>not</i> very fond
of alone a prisoner in the Tower in the time of
James I. and the Gunpowder Plot.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_215">215</div>
<p>Elfrida had to wait on her mother and to sew
at the sampler, which had been thoughtfully
brought by the old nurse with her lady’s clothes,
and the clothes Elfrida wore. But there were
no games, and the only out-of-doors Elfrida
could get was on a very narrow terrace where
dead flower-stalks stuck up out of a still
narrower border, beside a flagged pathway
where there was just room for <i>one</i> to walk, and
not for two. From this terrace you could see
the fat, queer-looking ships in the river, and the
spire of St. Paul’s.</p>
<p>Edred was more fortunate. He was allowed
to play in the garden of the Lieutenant of the
Tower. But he did not feel much like playing.
He wanted to find Elfrida and get back to
Arden. Every one was very kind to him, but
he had to be very much quieter than he was
used to being, and to say Sir and Madam, and
not to speak till he was spoken to. You have
no idea how tiresome it is not to speak till you
are spoken to, with the world full, as it is, of a
thousand interesting things that you want to
ask questions about.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_216">216</div>
<p>One day—for they were there quite a number
of days—Edred met some one who seemed to
like answering questions, and this made more
difference than perhaps you would think.</p>
<p>Edred was walking one bright winter morning
in the private garden of the Lieutenant of the
Tower, and he saw coming towards him a very
handsome old gentleman dressed in very handsome
clothes, and, what is more, the clothes
blazed with jewels. Now, most of the gentlemen
who were prisoners in the Tower at that time
thought that their very oldest clothes were good
enough to be in prison in, so this splendour that
was coming across the garden was very unusual
as well as very dazzling, and before Edred could
remember the rules about not speaking till
you’re spoken to, he found that he had suddenly
bowed and said—</p>
<p>“Your servant, sir;” adding, “you do look
ripping!”</p>
<p>“I do not take your meaning,” said the gentleman,
but he smiled kindly.</p>
<p>“I mean, how splendid you look!”</p>
<p>The old gentleman looked pleased.</p>
<p>“I am happy to command your admiration,”
he said.</p>
<p>“I mean your clothes;” said Edred, and then
feeling with a shock that this was not the way
to behave, he added, “Your face is splendid too—only
I’ve been taught manners, and I know
you mustn’t tell people they’re handsome in
their faces. ‘Praise to the face is open disgrace,’—Mrs.
Honeysett says so.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_217">217</div>
<p>“Praise to <i>my</i> face isn’t open disgrace,” said
the gentleman, “it is a pleasant novelty in these
walls.”</p>
<p>“Is it your birthday or anything?” Edred
asked.</p>
<p>“It is not my birthday,” said the gentleman
smiling. “But why the question?”</p>
<p>“Because you’re so grand,” said Edred. “I
suppose you’re a prince then?”</p>
<p>“No, not a prince—a prisoner.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I see,” said Edred, as people so often do
when they don’t; “and you’re going to be let
out to-day, and you’ve put on your best things
to go home in. I <i>am</i> so glad. At least, I’m sorry
you’re going, but I’m glad on your account.”</p>
<p>“Thou’rt a fine, bold boy,” said the gentleman.
“But no. I am a prisoner, and like to remain
so. And for these gauds,” he swelled out his chest
so that his diamond buttons and ruby earrings
and gem-set collar flashed in the winter sun,—“for
these gauds, never shall it be said that
Walter Raleigh let the shadow of his prison
tarnish his pride in the proper arraying of a
body that has been honoured to kneel before
the Virgin Queen.” He took off his hat at
the last words and swept it, with a flourish,
nearly to the ground.</p>
<p>“<i>Oh!</i>” cried Edred, “are you really Sir
Walter Raleigh? Oh, how splendid! And
now you’ll tell me all about the golden South
Americas, and sea-fights, and the Armada and
the Spaniards, and what you used to play at
when you were a little boy.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_218">218</div>
<p>“Ay,” said Sir Walter, “I’ll tell thee tales
enow. They’ll not let me from speaking with
thee, I warrant. I would,” he said, looking
round impatiently, “that I could see the river
again. From my late chamber I saw it, and
the goodly ships coming in and out—the
ships that go down into the great waters.”
He sighed, was silent a moment, then spoke.
“And so thou didst not know thine old friend
Raleigh? He was all forgot, all forgot! And
yet thou hast rid astride my sword ere now,
and I have played with thee in the courtyard
at Arden. When England forgets so soon, who
can expect more from a child?”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” said Edred humbly.</p>
<p>“Nay,” said Sir Walter, pinching his ear
gently, “’tis two years agone, and short years
have short memories. Thou shall come with
me to my chamber and I will show thee a
chart and a map of Windargocoa, that Her
Dear Glorious Majesty permitted me to rename
Virginia, after her great and gracious
self.”</p>
<p>So Edred, very glad and proud, went hand in
hand with Sir Walter Raleigh to his apartments,
and saw many strange things from
overseas—dresses of feathers from Mexico,
and strange images in gold from strange
islands, and the tip of a narwhal’s horn from
Greenland, and many other things. And Sir
Walter told him of his voyages and his fights,
and of how he and Humphrey Gilbert, and
Adrian Gilbert, and little Jack Davis used to
sail their toy boats in the Long Stream, and
how they used to row in and out among the
big ships down at the Port, and look at the
great figure-heads, standing out high above
the water, and wonder about them and about
the strange lands they came from.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_219">219</div>
<p>“And often,” said Sir Walter, “we found a
sea-captain that would tell us lads travellers’
tales like these I have told thee. And we sailed
our little ships, and then we sailed our big ships—and
here I lie in dock, and shall never sail
again. But it’s oh! to see the Devon moors,
and the clear reaches of the Long Stream
again! And that I never shall.” And with
that he leaned his arm on the window-sill,
and if he had not been the great Sir Walter
Raleigh, who is in all the history books, Edred
would have thought he was crying.</p>
<p>“Oh, do cheer up—do!” said Edred awkwardly.
“I don’t know whether they’ll let you
go to Devonshire—but I know they’ll let you
go back to America some day. With twelve
ships. I read about it only yesterday; and
your ship will be called the <i>Destiny</i>, and you’ll
sail from the Thames, and Lord Arden will
see you off and kiss you for farewell, and give
you a medal for a keepsake. Your son will
go with you. I <i>know</i> it’s true. It’s all in the
book?”</p>
<p>“The book?” Sir Walter asked. “A prophecy,
belike?”</p>
<p>“You can call it that if you want to,” said
Edred cautiously; “but, anyhow, it’s true.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_220">220</div>
<p>He had read it all in the History of Arden.</p>
<p>“If it should be true,” said Sir Walter, and
the smile came back to his merry eyes, “and
if I ever sail to the Golden West again, shrew
me but I will sack a Spanish town, and bring
thee a collar of gold and pieces of eight—a
big bag-full.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, very much,” said Edred, “it is
very kind of you: but I shall not be there.”</p>
<p>And all Sir Walter’s questions did not make
him say how he knew this, or what he meant
by it.</p>
<p>After this he met Sir Walter every day in
the lieutenant’s garden, and the two prisoners
comforted each other. At least Edred was
comforted, and Sir Walter <i>seemed</i> to be. But
no one could be sure if it was more than seeming.
This was one of the questions that always
puzzled the children—and they used to talk
it over together till their heads seemed to be
spinning round. The question of course was:
Did their being in past times make any difference
to the other people in past times? In
other words, when you were taking part in
historical scenes, did it matter what you said
or did? Of course, it seemed to matter extremely—at
the time. But then if this going
into the past was only a sort of dream, then,
of course, the people in the past would know
nothing about it, unless they had dreamed the
same sort of dream—which, as Elfrida often
pointed out, was quite likely, especially if time
didn’t count, or could be cheated by white
clocks. On the other hand, if they <i>really</i> went
into the <i>real</i> past—well, then, of course, what
they did must count for real too, as Edred so
often said. And yet how could it, since they took
with them into the past all that they learned
here? And with that knowledge they could have
revealed plots, shown the issue of wars and
the fate of kings, and, as Elfrida put it, “made
history turn out quite different.” You see the
difficulties, don’t you? And Betty Lovell’s having
said that they could leave no trace on times past
did not seem to make much difference somehow,
one way or the other.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_221">221</div>
<p>However, just now Elfrida and Edred were in
the Tower, and not able to see each other, so
they could not discuss that or any other question.
And they always hoped that they would
meet, but they never did.</p>
<p>But by and by the Queen thought of Lady
Arden, and decided that she and her son Edred
ought to be let out of the Tower, and she told
the King so, and he told Lord Somebody or
other, who told the Lieutenant of the Tower,
and behold Lady Arden and Edred were abruptly
sent home in their own coach, which had been
suddenly sent for from Arden House; but Elfrida
was left in charge of the wife of the Lieutenant
of the Tower, who was a very kind lady. So
now Elfrida was in the Tower, and Edred was
at Arden House in Soho, and they had not been
able to speak to each other or arrange any plan
for getting back to 1908 and Arden Castle by
the sea.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_222">222</div>
<p>Of course Elfrida was kept in the Tower
because she had sung the rhyme about—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“Please to remember</p>
<p class="t0">The fifth of November—</p>
<p class="t0">The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,”</p>
</div>
<p>and this made people think—or seem to think—that
she knew all about the Gunpowder Plot.
And so of course she did, though it would have
been very difficult for her to show any one at
that time <i>how</i> she knew it, without being a
traitor.</p>
<p>She was now allowed to see Lord Arden every
day, and she grew very fond of him. He was
curiously like her own daddy, who had gone
away to South America with Uncle Jim, and
had never come back to his little girl. Lord
Arden also seemed to grow fonder of her every
day. “Thou’rt a bold piece,” he’d tell her, “and
thou growest bolder with each day. Hast thou
no fear that thy daddy will have thee whipped
for answering him so pert?”</p>
<p>“No!” Elfrida would say, hugging him as well
as she could for his ruff. “<i>I</i> know you wouldn’t
beat your girl, don’t I, daddy?” And as she
hugged him it felt <i>almost</i> like hugging her
own daddy, who would never come home from
America.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_223">223</div>
<p>So she was almost contented. She knew that
Lord Arden was not one of those to suffer for the
Gunpowder Plot. She knew from the History
of Arden that he would just be banished from
the Court, and end his days happily at Arden,
and she was almost tempted just to go on and
let what would happen, and stay with this new
daddy who had lived three hundred years before,
and pet him and be petted by him. Only she
felt that she must do something because of
Edred. The worst of it was that she could not
think of anything to do. She did not know at
all what was happening to Edred—whether he
was being happy or unhappy.</p>
<p>As it happened he was being, if not unhappy,
at least uncomfortable. Mr. Parados, the tutor,
who was as nasty a man as you will find in any
seaside academy for young gentlemen, still remained
at Arden House, and taught the boys—Edred
and his cousin Richard. Mr. Parados
was in high favour with the King, because he
had listened to what wasn’t meant for him,
reported it where it would do most mischief—a
thing always very pleasing to King James the
First—and Lady Arden dared not dismiss him.
Besides, she was ill with trouble and anxiety,
which Edred could not at all soothe by saying
again and again, “Father <i>won’t</i> be found guilty
of treason—he <i>won’t</i> be executed. He’ll just be
sent to Arden, and live there quietly with you.
I saw it all in a book.”</p>
<p>But Lady Arden only cried and cried.</p>
<p>Mr. Parados was very severe, and rapped
Edred’s knuckles almost continuously during
lesson-time, and out of it; said Cousin Richard,
“He is for ever bent on spying and browbeating
of us.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_224">224</div>
<p>“He’s always messing about—nasty sneak,”
said Edred. “I should like to be even with him
before I go. And I will too.”</p>
<p>“Before you go? Go whither?” Cousin Richard
asked.</p>
<p>“Elfrida and I are going away,” Edred began,
and then felt how useless it was to go on, since
even when the 1908 Edred—who he was—had
gone, the 1605 Elfrida and Edred would of course
still be there—that is if . . . He checked the
old questions, which he had now no time to
consider, and said, in a firm tone which was
new to him, and which Elfrida would have been
astonished and delighted to hear—</p>
<p>“Yes, I’ve got two things to do: to be even
with old Parrot-nose—to be revenged on him, I
mean—and to get Elfrida out of the Tower.
And I’ll do that first, because she’ll like to help
with the other.”</p>
<p>The boys were on the leads, their backs to a
chimney and their faces towards the trap-door,
which was the only way of getting on to the
roof. It was very cold, and the north wind was
blowing, but they had come there because it
was one of the few places where Mr. Parrot-nose
could not possibly come creeping up behind them
to listen to what they were saying.</p>
<p>“Get her out of the Tower?” Dick laughed
and then was sad. “I would we could!” he said.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_225">225</div>
<p>“We <i>can</i>,” said Edred earnestly. “I’ve been
thinking about it all the time, ever since we
came out of the Tower, and I know the way. I
shall want you to help me, Dick. You and one
grown-up.” He spoke in the same grim, self-reliant
tone that was so new to him.</p>
<p>“One grown-up?” Dick asked.</p>
<p>“Yes. <i>I</i> think Nurse would do it. And I’m
going to find out if we can trust her.”</p>
<p>“Trust her?” said Dick. “Why, she’d die for
any of us Ardens. Ay, and die on the rack
before she would betray the lightest word of
any of us.”</p>
<p>“Then <i>that’s</i> all right,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“What is thy plot?” Dick asked; and he did
not laugh, though he might well have wanted
to. You see, Edred looked so very small and
weak and the Tower was so very big and
strong.</p>
<p>“I’m going to get Elfrida out,” said Edred,
“and I’m going to do it like Lady Nithsdale got
her husband out. It will be quite easy. It all
depends on knowing when the guard is changed,
and I <i>do</i> know that.”</p>
<p>“But how did my Lady Nithsdale get my
Lord Nithsdale out—and from what?” Dick
asked.</p>
<p>“Why, out of the Tower, you know,” Edred
was beginning, when he remembered that Dick
did <i>not</i> know and couldn’t know, because Lord
Nithsdale hadn’t yet been taken out of the
Tower, hadn’t even been put in—perhaps, for
anything Edred knew, wasn’t even born yet.
So he said—</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_226">226</div>
<p>“Never mind. I’ll tell you all about Lady
Nithsdale,” and proceeded to tell Dick, vaguely
yet inspiringly, the story of that wise and brave
lady. <i>I</i> haven’t time to tell <i>you</i> the story, but
any grown-up who knows history will be only
too pleased to tell it.</p>
<p>Dick listened with most flattering interest,
though it was getting dusk and colder than
ever. The lights were lighted in the house and
the trap-door had become a yellow square. A
shadow in this yellow square warned Dick, and
he pinched Edred’s arm.</p>
<p>“Come,” he said, “and let us apply ourselves
to our books. Virtuous youths always act in
their preceptors’ absence as they would if their
preceptors were present. I feel as though mine
<i>were</i> present. Therefore, I take it, I am a
virtuous youth.”</p>
<p>On which the shadow disappeared very suddenly,
and the two boys, laughing in a choking
inside sort of way, went down to learn their
lessons by the light of two guttering tallow
candles in solid silver candlesticks.</p>
<p>The next day Edred got the old nurse to take
him to the Court, and because the Queen was
very fond of Lady Arden he actually managed
to see her Majesty and, what is more, to get
permission to visit his father and sister in the
Tower. The permission was written by the
Queen’s own hand and bade the Lieutenant of
the Tower to admit Master Edred Arden and
Master Richard Arden and an attendant. Then
the nurse became very busy with sewing, and
two days went by, and Mr. Parados rapped the
boys’ fingers and scolded them and scowled at
them and wondered why they bore it all so
patiently. Then came The Day, and it was
bitterly cold, and as the afternoon got older
snow began to fall.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_227">227</div>
<p>“So much the better,” said the old nurse, “so
much the better.”</p>
<p>It was at dusk that the guard was changed at
the Tower Gate, and a quarter of an hour before
dusk Lord Arden’s carriage stopped at the Tower
Gate and an old nurse in ruff and cap and red
cloak got out of it and lifted out two little
gentlemen, one in black with a cloak trimmed
with squirrel fur, which was Edred, and another,
which was Richard, in grey velvet and marten’s
fur. And the lieutenant was called, and he
read the Queen’s order and nodded kindly to
Edred, and they all went in. And as they went
across the yard to the White Tower, where Lord
Arden’s lodging was, the snow fell thick on their
cloaks and furs and froze to the stuff, for it was
bitter cold.</p>
<p>And again, “So much the better,” the nurse
said, “so much the better.”</p>
<p>Elfrida was with Lord Arden, sitting on his
knee, when the visitors came in. She jumped
up and greeted Edred with a glad cry and a very
close hug.</p>
<p>“Go with Nurse,” he whispered through the
hug. “Do exactly what she tells you.”</p>
<p>“But I’ve made a piece of poetry,” Elfrida
whispered, “and now you’re here.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_228">228</div>
<p>“<i>Do what you’re told</i>,” whispered Edred in a
tone she had never heard from him before and
so fiercely that she said no more about poetry.
“We must get you out of this,” Edred went on.
“Don’t be a duffer—think of Lady Nithsdale.”</p>
<p>Then Elfrida understood. Her arms fell from
round Edred’s neck and she ran back to Lord
Arden and put her arms round <i>his</i> neck and
kissed him over and over again.</p>
<p>“There, there, my maid, there, there!” he said,
patting her shoulder softly, for she was crying.</p>
<p>“Come with me to thy chamber,” said the
nurse. “I would take thy measure for a new
gown and petticoat.”</p>
<p>But Elfrida clung closer. “She does not want
to leave her dad,” said Lord Arden—“dost thou,
my maid?”</p>
<p>“No, no,” said Elfrida quite wildly, “I don’t
want to leave my daddy!”</p>
<p>“Come,” said Lord Arden, “’tis but for a
measuring time. Thou’lt come back, sock lamb
as thou art. Go now to return the more
quickly.”</p>
<p>“Goodbye, dear, dear, <i>dear</i> daddy!” said
Elfrida, suddenly standing up. “Oh, my dear
daddy, goodbye!”</p>
<p>“Why, what a piece of work about a new
frock!” said the nurse crossly. “I’ve no patience
with the child,” and she caught Elfrida’s hand
and dragged her into the next room.</p>
<p>“Now,” she whispered, already on her knees
undoing Elfrida’s gown, “not a moment to lose.
Hold thy handkerchief to thy face and seem
to weep as we go out. Why, thou’rt weeping
already! So much the better!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_229">229</div>
<p>From under her wide hoop and petticoat the
nurse drew out the clothes that were hidden
there, a little suit of black exactly like Edred’s—cap,
cloak, stockings, shoes—all like Edred’s to
a hair.</p>
<p>And Elfrida before she had finished crying
stood up the exact image of her brother—except
her face—and that would be hidden by the
handkerchief. Then very quickly the nurse
went to the door of the apartment and spoke
to the guard there.</p>
<p>“Good luck, good gentleman,” she said, “my
little master is ill—he is too frail to bear these
sad meetings and sadder partings. Convey us, I
pray you, to the outer gate, that I may find our
coach and take him home, and afterwards I
will return for my other charge, his noble
cousin.”</p>
<p>“Is it so?” said the guard kindly. “Poor
child! Well, such is life, mistress, and we all
have tears to weep.”</p>
<p>But he could not leave his post at Lord
Arden’s door to conduct them to the gates.
But he told them the way, and they crossed
the courtyard alone, and as they went the snow
fell on their cloaks and froze there.</p>
<p>So that the guard at the gate, who had seen
an old nurse and two little boys go in through
the snow, now saw an old nurse and one little
boy go out, all snow-covered, and the little
boy appeared to be crying bitterly, and no
wonder, the nurse explained, seeing his dear
father and sister thus.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_230">230</div>
<p>“I will convey him to our coach, good
masters,” she said to the guard, “and return
for my other charge, young Master Richard
Arden.”</p>
<p>And on that she got Elfrida in her boy’s
clothes out at the gate and into the waiting
carriage. The coachman, by previous arrangement
with the old nurse, was asleep on the
box, and the footman, also by previous arrangement,
was refreshing himself at a tavern
near by.</p>
<p>“Under the seat,” said the old nurse, and
thrusting Elfrida in, shut the coach door and
left her. And there was Elfrida, dressed like
a boy, huddled up among the straw at the
bottom of the coach.</p>
<p>So far, so good. But the most dangerous
part of the adventure still remained. The
nurse got in again easily enough; she was let
in by the guard who had seen her come out.
And as she went slowly across the snowy
courtyard she heard ring under the gateway
the stamping feet of the men who had come
to relieve guard, and to be themselves the new
guard. So far, again, so good. The danger
lay with the guard at the door of Lord Arden’s
rooms, and in the chance that some of the old
guard might be lingering about the gateway
when she came out, not with <i>one</i> little boy
as they would expect, but with <i>two</i>. But this
had to be risked. The nurse waited as long
as she dared so as to lessen the chance of
meeting any of the old guard as she went out
with her charges. She waited quietly in a
corner while Lord Arden talked with the boys.
And when at last she said, “The time is done,
my Lord,” she already knew that the guard at
the room door had been changed.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_231">231</div>
<div class="img" id="pic24">
<img src="images/pmage231.jpg" alt="" width="494" height="799" />
<p class="caption">“‘I WILL CONVEY HIM TO OUR COACH, GOOD MASTERS,’
SHE SAID TO THE GUARD.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_232">232</div>
<p>“So now for it,” said Edred, as he and
Richard followed the nurse down the narrow
steps and across the snowy courtyard.</p>
<p>The new guard saw the woman and two boys,
and the captain of the guard read the Queen’s
paper, which the old nurse had taken care to
get back from the lieutenant. And as plainly
Master Edred Arden and Master Richard Arden,
with their attendant, had passed in, so now
they were permitted to pass out, and two
minutes later a great coach was lumbering
along the snowy streets, and inside it four
people were embracing in rapture at the success
of their stratagem.</p>
<p>“But it was Edred thought of it,” said
Richard, as in honour bound, “and he arranged
everything and carried it out.”</p>
<p>“How splendid of him!” said Elfrida warmly;
and I think it was rather splendid of <i>her</i> not
to spoil his pride and pleasure in this, the first
adventure he had ever planned and executed
entirely on his own account. She could very
easily have spoiled it, you know, by pointing
out to him that the whole thing was quite
unnecessary, and that they could have got away
much more easily by going into a corner in the
Tower and saying poetry to the Mouldiwarp.</p>
<p>So they came to Arden House.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_233">233</div>
<p>The coachman was apparently asleep again,
and the footman went round and did something
to the harness after he had got the front door
opened, and it was quite easy for the nurse
to send the footman who opened the door to
order a meal to be served at once for Mr. Arden
and Mr. Richard. So that no one saw that
instead of the two little boys who had left
Arden House in the afternoon three came back
to it in the evening.</p>
<p>Then the nurse took them into the parlour
and shut the door.</p>
<p>“Now,” she said, “Master Richard will go
take off his fine suit, and Miss Arden will go
into the little room and change her raiment.
And for you, Master Edred, you wait here
with me.”</p>
<p>When the others had obediently gone, the
nurse stood looking at Edred with eyes that
grew larger and different, and he stood looking
at her with eyes that grew rounder and rounder.</p>
<p>“Why,” he said at last, “you’re the witch—the
witch we took the tea and things to.”</p>
<p>“And if I am?” said she. “Do you think
you’re the only people who can come back into
other times? You’re not all the world yet,
Master Arden of Arden. But you’ve got the
makings of a fine boy and a fine man, and I
think you’ve learned something in these old
ancient times.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_234">234</div>
<p>He had, there is no doubt of it. Whether it
was being thought important enough to be
imprisoned in the Tower, or whether it was
the long talks he had with Sir Walter Raleigh,
that fine genius and great gentleman, or
whether it was Mr. Parados’s knuckle-rappings
and scowlings, I do not know. But it is
certain that this adventure was the beginning
of the change in Edred which ended in his being
“brave and kind and wise” as the old rhyme
had told him to be.</p>
<p>“And now,” said the nurse, as Elfrida appeared
in her girl’s clothes, “there is not a
moment to lose. Already at the Tower they
have found out our trick. You must go back
to your own times.”</p>
<p>“She’s the witch,” Edred briefly answered
the open amazement in Elfrida’s eyes.</p>
<p>“There is no time to lose,” the nurse repeated.</p>
<p>“I <i>must</i> be even with old Parados first,” said
Edred; and so he was, and it took exactly
twenty minutes, and I will tell you all about
it afterwards.</p>
<p>When he <i>was</i> even with old Parados the old
nurse sent Richard to bed; and then Elfrida
made haste to say, “I did make some poetry
to call the Mouldiwarp, but it’s all about the
Tower, and we’re not there now. It’s no use
saying—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, you have the power</p>
<p class="t0">To get us out of this beastly Tower,’</p>
</div>
<p>when we’re not <i>in</i> the Tower, and I can’t think
of anything else, and . . . .”</p>
<p>But the nurse interrupted her.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_235">235</div>
<div class="img" id="pic25">
<img src="images/pmage235.jpg" alt="" width="730" height="500" />
<p class="caption">“‘YOU’VE NO MANNERS,’ IT SAID TO THE NURSE.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_236">236</div>
<p>“Never mind about poetry,” she said; “poetry’s
all very well for children, but I know a trick
worth two of that.”</p>
<p>She led them into the dining-room, where the
sideboard stood covered with silver, set down
the candle, lifted down the great salver with
the arms of Arden engraved upon it, and put
it on the table.</p>
<p>She breathed on the salver and traced triangles
and a circle on the drilled surface; and
as the mistiness of her breath faded and the
silver shone out again undimmed, there,
suddenly, in the middle of the salver, was the
live white Mouldiwarp of Arden, looking extremely
cross!</p>
<p>“You’ve no manners,” it said to the nurse,
“bringing me here in that offhand, rude way,
without ‘With your leave,’ or ‘By your leave’!
Elfrida could easily have made some poetry.
You know well enough,” it added angrily, “that
it’s positively painful to me to be summoned
by your triangles and things. Poetry’s so easy
and simple.”</p>
<p>“Poetry’s too slow for this night’s work,” said
the nurse shortly. “Come, take the children
away, I have done with it.”</p>
<p>“You make everything so difficult,” said the
Mouldiwarp, more crossly than ever. “That’s
the worst of people who think they know a lot
and really only know a little, and pretend they
know everything. If I’d come the easy poetry
way, I could have taken them back as easily.
But now—— Well, it can’t be helped. I’ll
take them back, of course, but it’ll be a way
they won’t like. They’ll have to go on to the
top of the roof and jump off.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_237">237</div>
<p>“I don’t believe that is necessary,” said the
witch nurse.</p>
<p>“All right,” said the Mouldiwarp, “get them
away yourself then,” and it actually began to
disappear.</p>
<p>“No, no!” said Elfrida, “we’ll do anything
you say.”</p>
<p>“There’s a foot of snow on the roof,” said the
witch nurse.</p>
<p>“So much the better,” said the Mouldiwarp,
“so much the better. You ought to know that.”</p>
<p>“You think yourself very clever,” said the
nurse.</p>
<p>“Not half so clever as I <i>am</i>,” said the Mouldiwarp,
rather unreasonably Elfrida thought.
“There!” it added sharply as a great hammering
at the front door shattered the quiet of the
night. “There, to the roof for your lives! And
I’m not at all sure that it’s not too late.”</p>
<p>The knocking was growing louder and louder.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_238">238</div>
<h2 id="c10"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER X</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">WHITE WINGS AND A BROWNIE</span></h2>
<p>Perhaps I had better begin this chapter by
telling you exactly how Edred “got even with
old Parrot-nose,” as he put it. You will remember
that Master Parados was the Ardens’
tutor in the time of King James I., and that
it was through his eavesdropping and tale-bearing
that Edred and Elfrida were imprisoned
in the Tower of London. There was very little
time in which to get even with any one, and,
of course, getting even with people is not really
at all a proper thing to do. Yet Edred did it.</p>
<p>Edred had got Elfrida out of the Tower
just as Lady Nithsdale got her lord out, and
now he and she and Cousin Richard were at
Arden House, in Soho, and the old nurse, who
was also, astonishingly, the old witch, had said
that there was no time to be lost.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_239">239</div>
<p>“But I <i>must</i> be even with old Parrot-nose,”
said Edred. He was feeling awfully brave
and splendid inside, because of the way he
had planned and carried out the Nithsdale
rescue of Elfrida; and also he felt that he
could not bear to go back to his own times
without somehow marking his feelings about
Mr. Parados.</p>
<p>As to how it was to be done. Cousin Richard
was not to have anything to do with it,
because while they would be whisked away
by some white road that the Mouldiwarp
would find for them when they called it to
their help by spoken poetry, he would be left
behind to bear the blame of everything. This
Edred and Elfrida decided in a quick-whispered
conference, but Cousin Dick wanted to know
what they were talking about, and why he
wasn’t to help in what he had wanted to do
these four years.</p>
<p>“If we tell you,” said Elfrida, “you won’t
believe us.”</p>
<p>“You might at least make the trial,” said
Cousin Richard.</p>
<p>So they told him, and though they were as
quick as possible, the story took some time
to tell. Richard Arden listened intently.
When the tale was told he said nothing.</p>
<p>“You don’t believe it,” said Edred; “I
knew you wouldn’t. Well, it doesn’t matter.
What can we do to pay out old Parrot-nose?”</p>
<p>“I don’t like it,” said Richard suddenly;
“it’s never been like this before. It makes
it seem not real. It’s only a dream really, I
suppose. And I always believed so that it
wasn’t.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_240">240</div>
<p>“I don’t understand a word you’re saying,”
said Edred, “but what we’ve been saying’s
true anyhow. Look here.” He darted to
the dark corner of the parlour, where he had
hidden the camera behind a curtain. “Look
here, I bet you haven’t got anything like this.
It comes from <i>our</i> times, ever so far on in
history—out of the times where <i>we</i> come
from—the times that haven’t happened yet—at
least <i>now</i> we’re <i>here</i> they haven’t happened
yet. You don’t know what it is. It’s a
machine for the sun to make pictures with.”</p>
<p>“Oh, stow that,” said Richard wearily. “I
know now it’s all a silly dream. But it’s
not worth while trying to dream that I don’t
know a Kodak when I see it. That’s a
Brownie!”</p>
<p>There was a pause, full of speechless amazement.</p>
<p>Then—“If you’ve dreamed about our times,”
said Elfrida, “you might believe in us dreaming
about yours. Did you dream of anything
except Brownies? Did you ever dream of
fine carriages, fine boats, and——”</p>
<p>“Don’t talk as if I were a baby,” Richard
interrupted. “I know all about railways and
steamboats, and the Hippodrome and the
Crystal Palace. I know Kent made 615
against Derbyshire last Thursday. Now,
then——”</p>
<p>“But I say. Do tell us——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_241">241</div>
<p>“I sha’n’t tell you anything more. But I’ll
help you to get even with Parrot-nose. I
don’t care if I am left here after you go,”
said Richard. “Let’s shovel all the snow off
the roof into his room, and take our chance.”</p>
<p>Edred and Elfrida would have liked something
more subtle, but there was no time to
think of anything.</p>
<p>“I know where there are shovels,” said
Richard, “if they’ve not got mixed up in the
dream.”</p>
<p>“I say,” said Edred slowly, “I’d like to write
that down about Kent, and see if it’s right
afterwards.”</p>
<p>There was a quill sticking out of the pewter
inkstand on the table where they were used
to do their lessons. But no paper.</p>
<p>“Here, hurry up,” said Cousin Richard, and
pulled a paper out of the front of his doublet.
“I’ll write it, shall I?”</p>
<p>He wrote, and gave the thing screwed up
to Edred, who put it in the front of <i>his</i>
doublet.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_242">242</div>
<p>Then the three went up on to the roof,
groped among the snow till they found the
edge of the skylight that was the tutor’s
window—for learning was lodged in the attic
at Arden House. They broke the thick glass
with the edges of their spades, and shovelled
in the thick, white snow—shovelled all the
harder for the shouts and angry words that
presently sounded below them. Then, when
Mr. Parados came angrily up on to the roof,
shivering and stumbling among the snow,
they slipped behind the chimney-stack, and
so got back to the trap-door before he did,
and shut it and bolted it, and said “A-ha!”
underneath it, and went away—locking his
room door as they passed, and leaving him to
stand there on the roof and shout for help
from the street below, or else to drop through
his broken skylight into the heaped snow in
his room. He was quite free, and could do
whichever he chose.</p>
<p>They never knew which he <i>did</i> choose, and
you will never know either.</p>
<p>And then Richard was sent to bed by the
old witch-nurse, and went.</p>
<p>And the Mouldiwarp was summoned, and
insisted that the only way back to their own
times was by jumping off the roof. And, of
course, Mr. Parados was on the roof, which
made all the difference. And the soldiers of
the guard were knocking at the front door
with the butts of their pistols.</p>
<p>“But we can’t go on to the roof,” said Edred,
and explained about Mr. Parados.</p>
<p>“Humph,” said the Mouldiwarp, “that’s
terr’ble unfortunate, that is. Well, the top
landing window will have to do, that’s all.
Where’s the other child?”</p>
<p>“Gone to bed,” said the witch-nurse shortly.</p>
<p>“Te-he!” chuckled the Mouldiwarp. “Some
people’s too clever by half. Think of you not
having found <i>that</i> out, and you a witch too.
Te-he!”</p>
<p>And all the time the soldiers were hammering
away like mad at the front door.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_243">243</div>
<p>Elfrida caught the Mouldiwarp and the
nurse caught Edred’s hand, and the four
raced up the stairs to the very top landing,
where there was a little window at the very
end. The air was keen and cold. The window
opened difficultly, and when it was opened the
air was much colder than before.</p>
<p>“Now, then, out with you—ladies first,” cried
the Mouldiwarp.</p>
<p>“You don’t really mean,” said Elfrida,—“you
<i>can’t</i> mean that we’re to jump out into—into
nothing?”</p>
<p>“I mean you’re to jump out right enough,”
said the Mouldiwarp. “What you’re to jump
into’s any pair of shoes—and it’s my look-out,
anyway.”</p>
<p>“It’s ours a little too, isn’t it?” said Elfrida
timidly, and her teeth were chattering; she
always said afterwards that it was with cold.</p>
<p>“Then get along home your way,” said the
Mouldiwarp, beginning to vanish.</p>
<p>“Oh, <i>don’t!</i> Don’t go!” Elfrida cried, and
the pounding on the door downstairs got louder
and louder.</p>
<p>“If I don’t then you must,” said the Mouldiwarp
testily. But it stopped vanishing.</p>
<p>“Put me down,” it said. “Put me down and
jump, for goodness’ sake!”</p>
<p>She put it down.</p>
<p>Suddenly the nurse caught Elfrida in her
arms and kissed her many times.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_244">244</div>
<p>“Farewell, my honey love,” she said. “All
partings are not for ever, else I could scarce
let thee go. Now, climb up; set thy foot
here on the beam, now thy knee on the sill.
So—jump!”</p>
<p>Elfrida crouched on the window-ledge, where
the snow lay thick and crisp. It was very,
very cold. Have you ever had to jump out
of a top-floor window into the dark when it
was snowing heavily? If so, you will remember
how much courage it needed. Elfrida
set her teeth, looking down into black nothing
dotted with snowflakes. Then she looked back
into a black passage, lighted only by the rush-light
the nurse carried.</p>
<p>“Edred’ll be all right?” she asked. “You’re
sure he’ll jump all right?”</p>
<p>“Of course I shall,” said Edred, in his new
voice. “Here, let me go first, to show you
I’m not a coward.”</p>
<p>Of course, Elfrida instantly jumped. And
next moment Edred jumped too.</p>
<p>It was a horrible moment because, however
much you trusted the Mouldiwarp, you could
not in an instant forget what you had been
taught all your life—that if you jumped out
of top-floor windows you would certainly be
smashed to pieces on the stones below. To
remember this and, remembering it, to jump
clear, is a very brave deed. And brave deeds,
sooner or later, have their reward.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_245">245</div>
<p>The brave deed of Edred and Elfrida received
its reward sooner. As Elfrida jumped she
saw the snowflakes gather and thicken into
a cloud beneath her. The cloud was not the
sort that lets you through, either. It was solid
and soft as piled eiderdown feathers; she knew
this as it rose up and caught her, or as she fell
on it—she never knew which. Next moment
Edred was beside her, and the white, downy
softness was shaping itself round and under
them into the form of a seat—a back, arms,
and place for the feet to rest.</p>
<p>“It’s—what’s that in your hand?” Elfrida
asked.</p>
<p>“Reins,” said Edred, with certainty. “White
reins. It’s a carriage.”</p>
<p>It was—a carriage made of white snowflakes—the
snowflakes that were warm and soft as
feathers. There were white, soft carriage-rugs
that curled round and tucked themselves in
entirely of their own accord. The reins were
of snowflakes, joined together by some magic
weaving, and warm and soft as white velvet.
And the horses!</p>
<p>“There aren’t any horses; they’re swans—white
swans!” cried Elfrida, and the voice of
the Mouldiwarp, behind and above, cried softly,
“All white things obey me.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_246">246</div>
<p>Edred knew how to drive. And now he
could not resist the temptation to drive the
six white swans round to the front of the
house and to swoop down, passing just over
the heads of the soldiers of the guard who
were still earnestly pounding at the door of
Arden House, and yelled to them, “Ha, ha!
Sold again!” Which seemed to startle them
very much. Then he wheeled the swans round
and drove quickly through the air along the
way which he knew quite well, without being
told, to be the right way. And as the snow-carriage
wheeled, both Edred and Elfrida had a
strange, sudden vision of another smaller snow-carriage,
drawn by two swans only, that circled
above theirs and vanished in the deep dark
of the sky, giving them an odd, tantalising
glimpse of a face they knew and yet couldn’t
remember distinctly enough to give a name to
the owner of it.</p>
<p>Then the swans spread their white, mighty
wings to the air, and strained with their long,
strong necks against their collars, and the
snow equipage streamed out of London like
a slender white scarf driven along in the
wind. And London was left behind, and the
snowstorm, and soon the dark blue of the
sky was over them, jewelled with the quiet
silver of watchful stars, and the deeper dark
of the Kentish county lay below, jewelled
with the quiet gold from the windows of
farms already half-asleep, and the air that
rushed past their faces as they went was no
longer cold, but soft as June air is, and
Elfrida always declared afterwards that she
could smell white lilies all the way.</p>
<p>So across the darkened counties they went,
and the ride was more wonderful than any
ride they had ever had before or would ever
have again.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_247">247</div>
<p>All too soon the swans hung, poised on
long, level wings, outside the window of a
tower in Arden Castle—a tower they did not
know.</p>
<p>But though they did not know the tower, it
was quite plain that they were meant to get
in at the window of it.</p>
<p>“Dear swans,” said Elfrida, who had been
thinking as she sat clutching her Brownie, “can’t
we stay in your carriage till it’s light? We do
so want to take a photograph of the castle.”</p>
<p>The swans shook their white, flat, snake-like
heads, just as though they understood. And
there was the open window, evidently waiting
to welcome the children.</p>
<p>So they got out—very much against their
wills. And there they were in the dark room
of the tower, and it was very cold.</p>
<p>But before they had time to begin to understand
how cold it was, and how uncomfortable
they were likely to be for the rest of the night,
six swan’s heads appeared at the window and
said something.</p>
<p>“Oh,” said Elfrida, “I do wish we’d learned
Swanish instead of French at school!”</p>
<p>But it did not matter. The next moment
the swans’ heads ducked and reappeared,
holding in their beaks the soft, fluffy, white
rugs that had kept the children so warm in
the snow-carriage. The swans pushed the rugs
through the window with their strong, white
wings, and made some more remarks in swan
language.</p>
<p>“Oh, thank you!” said the children. “Goodbye,
goodbye.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_248">248</div>
<p>Then there was the rush of wide-going wings,
and the children, tired out, cuddled on the floor,
wrapped in the soft rugs.</p>
<p>The happiest kind of dreams were tucked up
in that coverlet, and it seemed hardly any
time at all before the children woke to find
the winter sunshine looking in at them
through the narrow windows of the tower.</p>
<p>Elfrida jumped up and threw off the silver-white,
downy-soft coverlet. It instantly tore
itself into five pieces of different shapes and
sizes, and these screwed themselves up, and
drew themselves in, and blew themselves out,
and turned before her very eyes into a silver
basin of warm water, a piece of lily-scented
soap, a towel, a silver comb, and an ivory
tooth-brush.</p>
<p>“Well!” said Elfrida. When she had finished
her simple toilet, the basin, soap, towel, tooth-brush,
and comb ran together like globules of
quicksilver, made a curious tousled lump of
themselves, and straightened out into the fluffy
coverlet again.</p>
<p>“Well!” said Elfrida, again. Then she woke
Edred, and his coverlet played the same clever
and pretty trick for him.</p>
<p>And when the children started to go down
with the Brownie and take the photographs
of the castle, the shining coverlets jumped
up into two white furry coats, such as the
very affluent might wear when they went
a-motoring—if the very affluent ever thought
of anything so pretty. And one of the coats
came politely to the side of each child, holding
out its arms as if it were saying—</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_249">249</div>
<p>“Do, please, oblige me by putting me on.”</p>
<p>Which, of course, both the children did.</p>
<p>They crept down the corkscrew stairs, and
through a heavy door that opened under the
arch of the great gateway. The great gate
was open, and on the step of the door opposite
to the one by which they had come out a soldier
sat. He held his helmet between his knees,
and was scouring it with sand and whistling
as he scoured. He touched his forehead with
his sandy hand, but did not get up.</p>
<p>“You’re early afield,” he said, and went on
rubbing the sand on the helmet.</p>
<p>“It’s such a pretty day,” said Elfrida. “May
we go out?”</p>
<p>“And welcome,” said the man simply; “but
go not beyond the twelve acre, for fear of rough
folk and Egyptians. And go not far. But breakfast
will have a strong voice to call you back.”</p>
<p>They went out, and instead of stepping
straight on to the turf of the downs, their
stout shoes struck echoing notes from the
wooden planks of a bridge.</p>
<p>“It’s a drawbridge,” said Edred, in tones of
awe; “and there’s a moat, look—and it’s
covered with cat-ice at the edges.”</p>
<p>There was, and it was. And at the moat’s
far edge, their feet fast in the cat-ice, were
reeds and sedge—brown and yellow and dried,
that rustled and whispered as a wild duck flew
out of them.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_250">250</div>
<p>“How lovely!” said Elfrida. “I do <i>wish</i>
Arden had a moat now.”</p>
<p>“If we found out where the water comes
from,” said Edred practically, “we might get
the moat back when we’d found the treasure.”</p>
<p>So when they had crossed the moat, and
felt the frozen dew crackle under their feet
as they trod the grass, they set out, before
photographing the castle, to find out where
the moat water came from.</p>
<p>The moat, they found, was fed by a stream
that came across the field from Arden Knoll
and entered the moat at the north-east corner,
leaving it at the corner that was in the south-west.
They followed the stream, and it was
not till they had got quite into the middle of
the field, and well away from the castle, that
they saw how very beautiful the castle really
was. It was quite perfect—no crumbled arches,
no broken pillars, no shattered, battered walls.</p>
<p>“Oh,” said Edred, “how beautiful it is! How
glad I am that we’ve got a castle like this!”</p>
<p>“Our castle isn’t like this,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“No; but it shall be, when we’ve found the
treasure. You’ve got the two film rolls all
right?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Elfrida, who had got them in
a great unwieldy pocket that was hanging
and banging against her legs under the full
skirt. “Oh, look! Where’s the river? It
stops short!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_251">251</div>
<p>It certainly seemed to. They were walking
beside it, and it ran swiftly—looking like a
steel-grey ribbon on the green cloth of the field—and
half-way across the field it did stop short;
there wasn’t any more of it—as though the
ribbon had been snipped off by a giant pair of
scissors, and the rest of it rolled up and put by
safely somewhere out of the way.</p>
<p>“My hat!” said Edred; “it does stop short;
and no mistake.” Curiosity pricked him, and
he started running. They both ran. They ran
to the spot where the giant scissors seemed to
have snipped off the stream, and when they
got there they found that the stream seemed
to have got tired of running aboveground, and
without any warning at all, any sloping of its
bed, or any deepening of its banks, plunged
straight down into the earth through a hole
not eight feet across.</p>
<p>They stood fascinated, watching the water
as it shot over the edge of the hole, like a steel
band on a driving-wheel, smooth and shining,
and moving so swiftly that it hardly seemed
to move at all. It was Edred who roused
himself to say, “I could watch it for ever.
But we’ll have it back; we’ll have it back.
Come along; let’s go and see where it comes
from.”</p>
<p>“Let’s photograph this place first,” said
Elfrida, “so as to know, you know.” And
the Brownie clicked twice.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_252">252</div>
<p>Then they retraced their steps beside the
stream and round two sides of the moat
and across the field to Arden Knoll, and
there—oh, wonderful to see!—the stream
came straight out of the Knoll at the part
where it joined on to the rest of the world—came
out under a rough, low arch of stone
that lay close against the very lip of the
water.</p>
<p>“So that’s where it came from and that’s
where it goes to,” said Elfrida. “I wonder
what became of it, and why it isn’t at Arden
now?”</p>
<p>“We’ll bring it back,” said Edred firmly,—“when
we find the treasure.”</p>
<p>And again the Brownie clicked.</p>
<p>“And we’ll make the castle like it is now,”
said Elfrida. “Come on; let’s photograph it.”</p>
<p>So they went back, and they photographed
the castle. They photographed it from the
north and the south and the east and the west,
and the north-east and the south-east, and
the north-north-west—and all the rest of the
points of the compass that I could easily tell
you if I liked; but why be wearisome and
instructive?</p>
<p>And they went back across the hollow-echoing
drawbridge, and past the soldier, who had now
polished his helmet to his complete satisfaction
and was wearing it.</p>
<p>There was a brief and ardent conference
on the drawbridge; the subject of it, breakfast.
Edred wanted to stay; he was curious to see
what sort of breakfast people had in the
country in James the First’s time, Elfrida
wanted to get back to 1908, and the certainty
of eggs and bacon.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_253">253</div>
<div class="img" id="pic26">
<img src="images/pmage253.jpg" alt="" width="734" height="500" />
<p class="caption">“THE STREAM CAME OUT UNDER A ROUGH, LOW ARCH OF STONE.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_254">254</div>
<p>“If we stay here we shall only be dragged
into some new adventure,” she urged, “I know
we shall. I never in my life knew such a place
as history for adventures to happen in. And
I’m tired, besides. Oh, Edred, do come along!”</p>
<p>“I believe it’s ducks,” said Edred, and he
sniffed questioningly; “it smells like onion
stuffing.”</p>
<p>“Stuff and nonsense,” said Elfrida; “that’s
for dinner, most likely. I expect breakfast
for <i>us</i> would be bread and water. You’d find
we’d done something wrong, as likely as not.
Oh, come along, do, before we get punished
for it. Besides, don’t you want to know
whether what Cousin Richard said about
the cricket was right?”</p>
<p>“Well, yes,” said Edred, “and we can always
come back here, can’t we?”</p>
<p>“Of course we can,” Elfrida said eagerly.
“Oh, come on.”</p>
<p>So they climbed up to the twisty-twiny, corkscrew
staircase, and found the door of the
room where they had slept under the wonderful
white coverlets that now were coats. Then
they stood still and looked at each other,
with a sudden shock.</p>
<p>“How are we to get back?” was the unspoken
question that trembled on each lip.</p>
<p>The magic white coats cuddled close round
their necks. There was, somehow, comfort and
confidence in the soft, friendly touch of that
magic fur. When you are wearing that sort
of coat, it is quite impossible to feel that everything
will not come perfectly right the moment
you really, earnestly, and thoroughly wish
that it <i>should</i> come right.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_255">255</div>
<p>“Our clothes,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“Oh, yes, of course,” said Edred, “I was
forgetting.”</p>
<p>“You may as well go on forgetting,” said his
sister, “because the clothes aren’t here.
They’re the other side of that twisty-twiny,
inside-out, upside-down shakiness that turned
the attic into the tower. I suppose the tower
would turn back into the attic if we could
only start that shaky upside-downness going—wrong
way before, you know.”</p>
<p>“I suppose it would,” said Edred, stopping-short,
with his fingers between the buttons of
his doublet. “Hallo! What’s this?”</p>
<p>He pulled out a folded paper.</p>
<p>“It’s the thing about cricket that Cousin
Richard gave you. Don’t bother about that
now. I want to get back. I suppose we ought
to make some poetry.”</p>
<p>But Edred pulled out the paper and unfolded
it.</p>
<p>“It might vanish, you know,” he said, “or
get stuck here, and when we got home we
should find it gone when we came to look for
it. Let’s just see what he says Kent <i>did</i>
make.”</p>
<p>He straightened out the paper, looked at it,
looked again, and held it out with a sudden
arm’s-length gesture.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_256">256</div>
<p>“Look at that,” he said. “If that’s true,
Richard <i>has</i> dreamed our times, and no mistake.
And, what’s more, he’s brought things back
here out of our times.”</p>
<p>Elfrida took the paper and looked at it, and
her mouth dropped open. “If it’s true?” said
she. “But it <i>must</i> be true!” The paper almost
fell from her hand, for it was a bill from
Gamage’s for three ships’ guns, a compass, and
a half-dozen flags—and the bill was made out
to Mr. R. D. Arden, 117, Laurie Grove, New
Cross, London, S.E. On the other side was the
pencilled record of the runs made by Kent the
previous Thursday.</p>
<p>“I <i>say</i>,” said Elfrida, and was going on to
say I don’t know what clever and interesting
things, when she felt the fur coat creep and
wriggle all through its soft length, and along
its soft width, and no wriggle that ever was
wriggled expressed so completely “Danger!
danger! danger! You’d better get off while
you can—while you can.” A quite violent
ruffling of the fur round the neck of her coat
said, as plain as it could speak, “Don’t stop to
jaw. Go now—<i>now—now</i>!”</p>
<p>When you say a lady is a “true daughter of
Eve” you mean that she is inquisitive. Elfrida
was enough Eve’s daughter to scurry to the
window and look out.</p>
<p>A thrill ran right down her backbone and
ended in an empty feeling at the ends of her
fingers and feet.</p>
<p>“Soldiers!” she cried, “And they’re after
us—I know they are.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_257">257</div>
<div class="img" id="pic27">
<img src="images/pmage257.jpg" alt="" width="438" height="800" />
<p class="caption">“‘SOLDIERS!’ SHE CRIED, ‘AND THEY’RE AFTER US.’”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_258">258</div>
<p>The fur coat knew it too, if knowledge can
be expressed by wriggling.</p>
<p>“Oh, and they’re pulling up the drawbridge!
What for?” said Edred, who had come to the
window too. “And, I say, doesn’t the portcullis
look guillotinish when it comes down like
that?”</p>
<p>Through the window one looked straight
down on to the drawbridge, and as the tower
stuck out beyond the gate, its side window gave
an excellent view of the slowly descending
portcullis.</p>
<p>“I say,” said Elfrida, “my fluffy coat says
‘Go!’ Doesn’t yours?”</p>
<p>“It would if I’d listen to it,” said Edred
carelessly.</p>
<p>The soldiers were quite near now—so near
that Elfrida could see how fierce they looked.
And she knew that they were the same soldiers
who had hammered so loud and so hard at
the door of Arden House, in Soho. They must
have ridden all night. So she screwed her mind
up to make poetry, just as you screw your
muscles up to jump a gate or run a hundred
yards. And almost before she knew that she
was screwing it up at all the screw had acted
and she had screwed out a piece of Mouldiwarp
poetry and was saying it aloud—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“Dear Mouldiwarp, since Cousin Dick</p>
<p class="t">Buys his beautiful flags from Gamage’s,</p>
<p class="t0">Take us away, and take us quick,</p>
<p class="t">Before the soldiers do us any damages.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_259">259</div>
<p>And the moment she had said it, the white
magic coats grew up and grew down and
wrapped the children up as tight and as soft
as ever a silkworm wrapped itself when it was
tired of being a silkworm and entered into its
cocoon, as the first step towards being a person
with wings.</p>
<p>Can you imagine what it would be like to
have lovely liquid sleep emptied on you by the
warm tubful? That is what it felt like inside
the white, wonderful cocoons. The children
knew that the tower was turning wrong way
up and inside out, but it didn’t matter a bit.
Sleep was raining down on them in magic
showers—no; it was closing on them, closer and
closer, nearer and nearer, soft, delicious layers
of warm delight. A soft, humming sound was
in their ears, like the sound of bees when you
push through a bed of Canterbury bells, and the
next thing that happened was that they came
out of the past into the present with a sort
of snap of light and a twist of sound. It was
like coming out of a railway tunnel into daylight.</p>
<p>The magic coverlet-coat-cocoons had even
saved them the trouble of changing into their
own clothes, for they found that the stiff, heavy
clothes had gone, and they were dressed in
the little ordinary things that they had always
been used to.</p>
<p>“And now,” said Elfrida, “let’s have another
look at that Gamage paper, if it hasn’t disappeared.
I expect it has though.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_260">260</div>
<p>But it hadn’t.</p>
<p>“I should like to meet Dick again,” said
Edred, as they went downstairs. “He was
much the jolliest boy I ever met.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps we shall,” Elfrida said hopefully.
“You see he <i>does</i> come into our times. I expect
that New Cross time he stayed quite a long
while, like we did when we went to Gunpowder
Plot times. Or we might go back there, a little
later, when the Gunpowder Plot has all died
away and been forgotten.”</p>
<p>“It isn’t forgotten <i>yet</i>,” said Edred, “and it’s
three hundred years ago. Now let’s develop our
films; I’m not at all sure about those films.
You see, we took the films with us, and of
course we’ve brought them back, but the <i>picture</i>
that’s on the films—we didn’t take that with us.
I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if the films are
all blank.”</p>
<p>“It’s very, very clever of you to think of it,”
said Elfrida respectfully; “but I do hope it’s a
perfectly silly idea of yours. Let’s ask Mrs.
Honeysett if we may use the old room she said
used to be the still-room to develop them in.
It’ll be a ripping dark-room when the shutters
are up.”</p>
<p>“Course you may,” said Mrs. Honeysett.
“Yes; an’ I’ll carry you in a couple of pails
of water. The floor’s stone; so it won’t matter
if you do slop a bit. You pump, my lord, and
I’ll hold the pails.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_261">261</div>
<p>“Why was that part of the house let to go all
dirty and cobwebby?” asked Elfrida, when the
hoarse voice of the pump had ceased to be
heard.</p>
<p>“It’s always been so,” said Mrs. Honeysett.
“I couldn’t take upon me to clear up without
Miss Edith’s orders. Not but what my fingers
itch to be at it with a broom and a scrubbing
brush.”</p>
<p>“But <i>why</i>?” Elfrida persisted.</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s one of them old, ancient tales,” said
Mrs. Honeysett. “Old Beale could tell you, if
any one could.”</p>
<p>“We’ll go down to old Beale’s,” said Edred
decidedly, “as soon as we’ve developed our
pictures of the castle—if there <i>are</i> any pictures,”
he added.</p>
<p>“You never can tell with them photo-machines,
can you?” said Mrs. Honeysett
sympathetically. “My husband’s cousin’s wife
was took, with all her family, by her own back
door, and when they come to wash out the
picture it turned out they’d took the next
door people’s water-butt by mistake, owing to
their billy-goat jogging the young man’s elbow
that had got the camera. And it wasn’t a bit
like any of them.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_262">262</div>
<h2 id="c11"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XI</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">DEVELOPMENTS</span></h2>
<p>“Come on,” said Edred, “you measure out the
hypo and put the four pie-dishes ready. I’ll get
the water.”</p>
<p>He got it, with Mrs. Honeysett’s help—two
brimming pails full.</p>
<p>“You mustn’t come in for anything, will you,
Mrs. Honeysett?” he earnestly urged. “You
see, if the door’s open ever so little, all the
photographs will be done for.”</p>
<p>“Law, love a duck!” said Mrs. Honeysett,
holding her fat waist with her fat hands. “<i>I</i>
shan’t come in; I ain’t got nothing to come in
<i>for</i>.”</p>
<p>“We’ll bolt the door, all the same,” said Edred,
when she was gone, “in case she was to think of
something.”</p>
<p>He shot the great wooden bolt.</p>
<p>“Now it’ll be quite dark,” he said.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_263">263</div>
<div class="img" id="pic28">
<img src="images/pmage264.jpg" alt="" width="658" height="600" />
<p class="caption">“MRS. HONEYSETT WAS SITTING IN A LITTLE LOW CHAIR AT THE
BACK DOOR PLUCKING A WHITE CHICKEN.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_264">264</div>
<p>And, of course, it wasn’t. You know the
aggravating way rooms have of pretending to
be quite dark until you want them to <i>be</i> dark—and
then—by no means! This room didn’t even
pretend to be dark, to begin with. Its shutters
had two heart-shaped holes, high up, through
which the light showed quite dazzlingly. Edred
had to climb up on to the window-seat and stuff
up the holes very tight with crushed newspaper,
to get which he had to unbolt the door.</p>
<p>“There,” he said, as he pulled and patted the
newspaper till it really and darkly filled the
heart-shaped holes, “now it will be quite dark.”</p>
<p>And again it wasn’t! Long, dusty rays of
light came through the cracks where the hinges
of the shutters were. Newspapers were no good
for them. The door had to be unbolted and
Mrs. Honeysett found. She was sitting in a
little low chair at the back door plucking a
white chicken. The sight of the little white
feathers floating fluffing about brought wonderful
memories to Edred. But he only said—</p>
<p>“I say, you haven’t any old curtains, have
you? Thick ones—or thin, if they were red.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Honeysett laid the chicken down among
his white feathers and went to a chest of drawers
that stood in the kitchen.</p>
<p>“Here you are,” she said, handing out two old
red velvet curtains, with which he disappeared.
But he was back again quite quickly.</p>
<p>“You haven’t got a hammer, I suppose?”
said he.</p>
<p>The dresser-drawer yielded a hammer, and
Edred took it away, to return almost at once
with—</p>
<p>“I suppose there aren’t any tacks——?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_265">265</div>
<p>“I suppose,” said Mrs. Honeysett, laughing,
“there ain’t much sense locking that still-room
door on the inside when it ain’t me that keeps
all a-popping in, but you that keeps all a-popping
out.”</p>
<p>However, she gave him the tacks—rusty ones,
in a damp screw of paper.</p>
<p>When he had hammered his fingers a good
deal and the tacks a little the tacks consented
to hold up the curtain, or the curtain condescended
to be held up by the tacks.</p>
<p>“And now,” said Edred, shutting the door,
“it really <i>is</i>——”</p>
<p>Dark, he meant. But of course it wasn’t.
There was a gap under the door so wide, as
Elfrida said, that you could have almost crawled
through it. <i>That</i> meant another appeal to Mrs.
Honeysett for another curtain, and this time
Mrs. Honeysett told him to go along with him
for a little worrit, and threw a handful of downy
soft white feathers at him. But she laughed,
too, and gave him the curtain.</p>
<p>At last it really <i>was</i> dark, and then they had
to unbolt the door again, because Elfrida had
forgotten where she had put the matches.</p>
<p>You will readily understand that, after all
this preparation, the children were at the last
point of impatience, and everything seemed to
go slowly. The lamp with the red shade burned
up presently, and then the four pie-dishes were
filled with water that looked pink in that
strange light.</p>
<p>“One good thing,” said Edred, “the hypo has
had time to melt.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_266">266</div>
<p>And now there was careful snipping, and long
ribbons of black paper curled unheeded round
the legs of the operators.</p>
<p>“I wish we were born photographers like the
man who took Aunt Edith and you on the beach
with the donkey,” said Edred nervously, as he
began to pass the film in and out of the water
in pie-dish Number One.</p>
<p>“Oh, be sure there are no air-bubbles!” said
Elfrida; “you might let me do some of it.”</p>
<p>“You shall do the next one,” said Edred,
almost holding his breath.</p>
<p>Dear reader, do you recall the agitating
moment when you pass the film through the
hypo—and hold it up to the light—and nothing
happens? Do you remember the painful wonder
whether you may have forgotten to set the
shutter? Or whether you have got hold of an
unexposed film by mistake? Your breath comes
with difficulty, your fingers feel awkward, and
the film is unnaturally slippery. You dip it
into the hypo-bath again, and draw it through
and through with the calmness of despair.</p>
<p>“I don’t believe it’s coming out at all,” you
say.</p>
<p>And then comes the glorious moment when
you hold it up again to the red light and
murmur rapturously, “Ah! it is beginning to
show!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_267">267</div>
<p>If you will kindly remember all the emotions
of those exciting moments—on an occasion, let
us say, when you had not had your camera very
long—then multiply by seven million, add <i>x</i>—an
unknown quantity of an emotion quite different
from anything you have ever felt—and you will
have some idea of what Edred and Elfrida felt
when the first faint, grey, formless patches
began to appear on the film.</p>
<p>But you might multiply till you had used up
the multiplication table, and add <i>x</i>’s as long as
you could afford them, and yet never imagine
the rapture with which the two children saw
the perfect development of the six little perfect
pictures. For they <i>were</i> perfect. They were
perfect pictures of Arden Castle at a time when
it, too, was perfect. No broken arches, no
crumbling wall, but every part neat and clear-cut
as they had seen it when they went into the
past that was three hundred years ago.</p>
<p>They were equally fortunate with the second
film. It, too, had its six faultless pictures of
Arden Castle three hundred years ago. And
the last film developed just as finely. Only,
just before the moment which was the right
moment for taking the film out of the hypo-bath
and beginning to wash it, a tiny white
feather fell out of Edred’s hair into the dish.
It was so tiny that in that dim light he did not
notice it. And it did not stick to the film or
do any of those things which you might have
feared if you had seen the little, white thing
flutter down. It may have been the feather’s
doing; I don’t know. I just tell you the thing
as it happened.</p>
<p>Of course, you know that films have to be
pinned up to dry.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_268">268</div>
<p>Well, the first film was pinned on the right-hand
panel of the door and the second film was
pinned on the left-hand panel of the door. And
when it came to the third, the one that had
had the little white feather dropped near it,
there was nothing wooden left to pin it to—for
the walls were of stone—nothing wooden
except the shutters. And it was pinned across
these.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter,” said Edred, “because we
needn’t open the shutters till it’s dry.”</p>
<p>And with that he stuck in four pins at its four
corners, and turned to blow out the lamp and
unbolt the door. He meant to do this, but the
door, as a matter of fact, wasn’t bolted at all,
because Edred had forgotten to do it when he
came back with the dusters, so he couldn’t have
unbolted it anyway.</p>
<p>But he could blow out the red-sided lamp;
and he did.</p>
<p>And then the wonderful thing happened. Of
course the room ought to have been quite dark.
I’m sure enough trouble had been taken to make
it so. But it wasn’t. The window, the window
where the shutters were—the shutters that the
film was pinned on—the film on which the
little white feather had fallen—the little white
feather that had settled on Edred’s hair when
Mrs. Honeysett was plucking that chicken at
the back door—that window now showed as a
broad oblong of light. And in that broad
oblong was a sort of shining, a faint sparkling
movement, like the movement of the light on
the sheet of a cinematograph before the pictures
begin to show.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_269">269</div>
<p>“Oh!” said Elfrida, catching at Edred’s hand.
What she did catch was his hair. She felt her
way down his arm, and so caught what she
had meant to catch, and held it fast.</p>
<p>“It’s <i>more</i> magic,” said Edred ungratefully.
“I do wish——”</p>
<p>“Oh, hush!” said Elfrida; “look—oh, look!”</p>
<p>The light—broad, oblong—suddenly changed
from mere light to figures, to movement. It
was a living picture—rather like a cinematograph,
but much more like something else.
The something else that it was more like was
<i>life</i>.</p>
<p>It seemed as though the window had been
opened—as though they could see through it
into the world of light and sunshine and blue
sky—the world where things happen.</p>
<p>There was the castle, and there were people
going across the drawbridge—men with sacks
on their backs. And a man with a silver chain
round his neck and a tall stick in his hand, was
standing under the great gateway telling them
where to take the sacks. And a cart drove up,
with casks, and they were rolled across the
drawbridge and under the tall arch of the gate-tower.
The men were dressed. Then something
blinked, and the scene changed. It was indoors
now—a long room with many pictures on one
side of it and many windows on the other; a
lady, in a large white collar and beautiful long
curls, very like Aunt Edith, was laying fine
dresses in a chest. A gentleman, also with long
hair, and with a good deal of lace about his collar
and cuffs, was putting jugs and plates of gold
and silver into another chest; and servants kept
bringing more golden grand things, and more
and more.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_270">270</div>
<p>Edred and Elfrida did not say a word. They
couldn’t. What they were looking at was far
too thrilling. But in each heart the same words
were uttered—</p>
<p>“That’s the treasure!” And each mind held
the same thought.</p>
<p>“If it only goes on till the treasure’s hidden,
we shall see where they put it, and then we can
go and find it.”</p>
<p>I think myself that the white Mouldiwarp
was anxious to help a little. I believe it had
arranged the whole of this exhibition so that
the children might get an idea of the whereabouts
of the treasure, and so cease to call on
it at all hours of the day and night with the sort
of poetry which even a mole must see not to
be so <i>very</i> good. However this may be, it was
a wonderful show. One seemed to see things
better somehow like that, through the window
that looked into the past, than one did who was
really <i>in</i> the past taking an active part in what
was going on.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_271">271</div>
<p>There appeared, at any rate, to be no doubt
that this really <i>was</i> the treasure, and still
less that it was a treasure both plentiful and
picturesque. Quickly and more quickly the
beautiful rich things were being packed into
the chests. More and more pale looked the
lady; more and more anxious the gentleman.</p>
<p>The lady was taking from her waiting-woman
little boxes and bundles with which the woman’s
apron was filled, and the chest before which she
was kneeling was nearly full when the door
at the end of the gallery opened suddenly, and
Elfrida and Edred, in the dark in the still-room,
were confronted with the spectacle of themselves
coming down the long picture-gallery
towards that group of chests and treasure, and
hurried human people. They saw themselves
in blue silk and lace and black velvet, and they
saw on their own faces fear and love, and the
wonder what was to happen next. They saw
themselves embraced by the grown-ups, who
were quite plainly father and mother—they saw
themselves speak, and the grown-ups reply.</p>
<p>“I’d give all my pocket-money for a year
to hear what they’re saying,” Edred told
himself.</p>
<p>“That daddy’s just like <i>my</i> daddy,” Elfrida
was telling herself; “and just like the daddy
in the Tower that was so like my own daddy.”</p>
<p>Then the children in the picture kneeled down,
and the daddy in the picture laid his hands on
their heads, and the children out of the picture
bent their own heads there in the dark still-room,
for they knew what was happening in
the picture. Elfrida even half held out her
arms; but it was no good.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_272">272</div>
<p>Again the scene changed. A chest was being
carried by four men, who strained and staggered
under its weight. They were carrying it along
a vaulted passage by ropes that passed under
the chest and over their shoulders. Every now
and then they set it down and stretched, and
wiped their faces. And the picture kept on
changing so that the children seemed to be
going with the men down a flight of stairs into
a spacious hall full of men, all talking, and very
busy with armour and big boots, and then
across the courtyard, full of more men, very
busy too, polishing axes and things that looked
like spears, cleaning muskets and fitting new
flints to pistols and sharpening swords on a big
grindstone. Edred would have loved to stay
and watch them do these things, but they and
their work were gone quite quickly, and the
chest and the men who carried it were going
under an archway. Here one of the men
wanted to rest again, but the others said it was
not worth while—they were almost there. It
was quite plain that they said this, though no
sound could be heard.</p>
<p>“Now we shall <i>really</i> know,” said Edred to
himself. Elfrida squeezed his hand. That was
just what she was thinking, too.</p>
<p>The men stopped at a door, knocked, knocked
again, and yet once more. And, curiously
enough, the children in the still-room could hear
the sound of the knocking quite plainly, though
they had heard nothing else.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_273">273</div>
<p>The men looked at each other across the
chest that they had set down. Then one man
set his shoulder to the door. There was a
scrunching sound and the picture disappeared—went
out; and there were the shutters with
the film pinned across them, and behind them
the door, open, and Mrs. Honeysett telling them
that dinner—which was roast rabbit and a
boiled hand of pork—would be cold if they
didn’t make haste and come along.</p>
<p>“Oh, Mrs. Honeysett,” said Elfrida, with deep
feeling, “you are too bad—you really are!”</p>
<p>“I hope I’ve not spoiled the photos,” said
Mrs. Honeysett; “but I did knock three times,
and you was that quiet I was afraid something
had happened to you—poisoned yourselves without
thinking, or something of that.”</p>
<p>“It’s too bad,” said Edred bitterly; “it’s
much too bad. I don’t want any dinner; I
don’t want anything. Everything’s spoiled.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Honeysett patiently, “I
might ha’ gone on knocking longer, only I
thought the door was bolted—you did so keep
on a-bolting of it at the beginning, didn’t you?
So I just got hold of the handle to try, and it
come open in my hand. Come along, lovey;
don’t bear malice now. I didn’t go for to do it.
An’ I’ll get you some more of whatever it is
that’s spoiled, and you can take some more
photos to-morrow.”</p>
<p>“You might have known we were all right,”
said Edred, still furious; but both thought it
only fair to say, “It wasn’t the <i>photographs</i>
that were spoiled”—and they said it at the
same moment.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_274">274</div>
<p>“Then what was it?” said Mrs. Honeysett.
“And do come along, for goodness’ sake, and
eat your dinner while it’s hot.”</p>
<p>“It was—it was a different sort of picture,”
said Elfrida, with a gulp, “and it <i>was</i> a pity.”</p>
<p>“Never mind, love,” said Mrs. Honeysett, who
was as kind as a grandmother, and I can’t say
more than that; “there’s a lovely surprise
coming by and by for good little gells and
boys, and the rabbit’ll be stone cold if you
don’t make haste—leastways, it would have
been if I hadn’t thought to pop it in the oven
when I came to call you, knowing full well
what your hands would be like after all that
messing about with poison in dishes; and if I
was your aunt I’d forbid it downright. And
now come along and wash your hands, and
don’t let’s have any more nonsense about it.
Do you hear?”</p>
<p>I daresay you notice that Mrs. Honeysett was
quite cross at the end of this speech and quite
coaxing and kind at the beginning. She had
just talked herself into being cross. It’s quite
easy. I daresay you have often done it.</p>
<p>It was a silent dinner—the first silent meal
since the children had come to Arden Castle.
You can judge of Edred’s feelings when I tell
you that he felt as though the rabbit would
choke him, and refused a second helping of
gooseberry pie with heartfelt sincerity. Elfrida
did not eat so much as usual either. It really
was a bitter disappointment. To have been so
near seeing where the treasure was, and then—just
because they hadn’t happened to bolt
the door that last time—all was in vain. Mrs.
Honeysett thought they were sulking about a
silly trifle, and nearly said so when Edred
refused the pie.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_275">275</div>
<p>It was at the end of dinner that Elfrida, as
she got down from her chair, saw Mrs. Honeysett’s
face, and saw how different it looked from
the kind face that she usually wore. She went
over to her very slowly, and very quickly threw
her arms round her and kissed her.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry we’ve been so piggy,” she said.
“It’s not your fault that you’re not clever
enough to know about pictures and things, is
it?”</p>
<p>If Mrs. Honeysett hadn’t been a perfect dear,
this apology would have been worse than none.
But she <i>was</i> a perfect dear, so she laughed and
hugged Elfrida, and somehow Edred got caught
into the hug and the laugh, and the three were
friends again. The sky was blue and the sun
began to shine.</p>
<p>And then the two children went down to old
Beale’s.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_276">276</div>
<p>There were roses in his garden now, and
white English flags and lupins and tall foxgloves
bordering the little brick path. Old
Beale was sitting “on a brown Windsor chair,”
as Edred said, in the sun by his front door.
Over his head was a jackdaw in a wicker cage,
and Elfrida did not approve of this till she saw
the cage door was open, and that the jackdaw
was sitting in the cage because he liked it, and
not because he must. She had been in prison
in the Tower, you remember, and people who
have been in prison never like to see live things
in cages. There was a tabby and white cat of
squarish shape sitting on the wooden threshold.
(Why are cats who live in country cottages
almost always tabby and white and squarish?)
The feathery tail of a brown spaniel flogged the
flags lazily in the patch of shade made by the
water-butt. It was a picture of rural peace,
and old Beale was asleep in the middle of it. I
am glad to tell you that Lord Arden and his
sister were polite enough to wait till he awoke
of his own accord, instead of shouting “hi!”
or rattling the smooth brown iron latch of the
gate, as some children would have done.</p>
<p>They just sat down on the dry, grassy bank,
opposite his gate, and looked at the blue and
white butterflies and the flowers and the green
potato-tops through the green-grey garden
palings.</p>
<p>And while they sat there Elfrida had an idea—so
sudden and so good that it made her jump.
But she said nothing, and Edred said—</p>
<p>“Pinch the place hard, and if it’s still there
you’ll kill it perhaps”—for he thought she
had jumped because she had been bitten by
an ant.</p>
<p>When they had finished looking at the butterflies
and the red roses and the green-growing
things, they looked long and steadily at old
Beale, and, of course, he awoke, as people
always do if you look at them long enough
and hard enough. And he got up, rather
shaking, and put his hand to his forehead,
and said—</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_277">277</div>
<p>“My lord——”</p>
<p>“How are you?” said Elfrida. “We haven’t
found the treasure yet.”</p>
<p>“But ye will, ye will,” said old Beale. “Come
into the house now; or will ye come round
along to the arbour and have a drink of milk?”</p>
<p>“We’d as soon stay here,” said Edred—they
had come through the gate now, and Edred was
patting the brown spaniel, while Elfrida stroked
the squarish cat. “Mrs. Honeysett said you
knew all the stories.”</p>
<p>“Ah,” said old Beale, “a fine girl, Mrs. Honeysett.
Her father had Sellinge Farm, where the
fairies churn the butter for the bride so long as
there’s no cross words. They don’t ever get too
much to do, them fairies.” He chuckled, sighed,
and said—</p>
<p>“I know a power of tales. And I know,
always I do, which it is that people want.
What you’re after’s the story of the East House.
Isn’t it now? Is the old man a-failing of his
wits, or isn’t he?”</p>
<p>“We want to know,” said Edred, companionably
sharing the flagstone with the feather-tailed
spaniel, “the story about why that part
of the house in the castle is shut up and all
cobwebby and dusty and rusty and musty, and
whether there’s any reason why it shouldn’t be
all cleaned up and made nice again, if we find
the treasure so that we’ve got enough money to
pay for new curtains and carpets and things?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_278">278</div>
<p>“It’s a sad tale, that,” said old Beale, “a tale
for old folks—or middle-aged folks, let’s say—not
for children. You’d never understand it if
I was to tell it you, likely as not.”</p>
<p>“We <i>like</i> grown-up stories,” said Elfrida, with
dignity; and Edred added—</p>
<p>“We can understand <i>anything</i> that grown-ups
understand if it’s told us properly. I understand
all about the laws of gravitation, and why the
sun doesn’t go round the earth but does the
opposite; I understood <i>that</i> directly Aunt Edith
explained it, and about fixed stars, and the
spectroscope, and microbes, and the Equator not
being real, and—and heaps of things.”</p>
<p>“Ah,” said old Beale admiringly, “you’ll be
a-busting with book-larnin’ afore you come to
your twenty-one, I lay. I only hope the half of
it’s true and they’re not deceiving of you, a
trusting innocent. I never did hold myself with
that about the sun not moving. Why, you can
see it a-doin’ of it with your own naked eyes
any day of the week.”</p>
<p>“<i>You</i> wouldn’t deceive any one,” said Elfrida
gently. “<i>Do</i> tell us the story.”</p>
<p>So old Beale began, and he began like this—</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_279">279</div>
<div class="img" id="pic29">
<img src="images/pmage279.jpg" alt="" width="503" height="800" />
<p class="caption">“‘AH,’ SAID OLD BEALE ADMIRINGLY, ‘YOU’LL BE A-BUSTING WITH
BOOK-LARNIN’ AFORE YOU COME TO YOUR TWENTY-ONE, I LAY.’”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_280">280</div>
<p>“It was a long time ago—before my time
even, it was, but not so long afore, ’cause I can
recomember my father talking about it. He
was coachman at the castle when it all happened,
so, of course, he knew everything there was to
know, my mother having been the housekeeper
and gone through it all with the family. There
was a Miss Elfrida then, same as there is now,
only she was older’n what you are, missy. And
the gentlemen lads from far and near they come
a-courting her, for she was a fine girl—a real
beauty—with hair as black as a coal and eyes
like the sea when it’s beating up for a storm,
before the white horses comes along. So I’ve
heard my father say—not that I ever see her
myself. And she kept her pretty head in the
air and wouldn’t turn it this way or that for e’er
a one of them all. And the old lord he loved her
too dear to press her against her wish and will,
and her so young. So she stayed single and
watched the sea.”</p>
<p>“What did she do that for?” Edred asked.</p>
<p>“To see if her sweetheart’s ship wasn’t
a-coming home. For she’d got a sweetheart
right enough, she had, unbeknown to all. It
was her cousin Dick—a ne’er-do-weel, if ever
there was one—and it turned out afterwards
she’d broken the sixpence with him and swore
to be ever true, and he’d gone overseas to find
a fortune. And so she watched the sea every
day regular, and every day regular he didn’t
come. But every day another young chap used
to come a-riding—a fine young gentleman and
well-to-do, but he was the same kidney as
Master Dick, only he’d got a fine fortune, so
his wild oats never got a chance to grow strong
like Dick’s.”</p>
<p>“Poor Dick!” said Elfrida.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_281">281</div>
<p>“Not so fast, missy,” said the old man.
“Well, her father and mother, they said, ‘Have
him that’s here and loves you, dear,’ as the
saying is—a Frewin he was, and his christened
name Arnold. And she says ‘No.’ But they
keeps on saying ‘Yes,’ and he keeps on saying
‘Do!’ So they wears her down, telling her
Dick was drowned dead for sure, and I don’t
know what all. And at last she says, ‘Very
well, then, I’ll marry you—if you can stand to
marry a girl that’s got all her heart in the sea
along of a dead young chap as she was promised
to.’ And the wedding was set for Christmas.
Miss Elfrida, she slep’ in the room in the East
House that looks out towards Arden Knoll, and
the servants in the attics, and the old people
in the other part of the house.</p>
<p>“And that night, when all was asleep, I think
she heard a tap, tap at her window, and at first
she’d think it was the ivy—but no. So presently
she’d take heart to go to the window, and there
was a face outside that had climbed up by the
ivy, and it was her own true love that they’d
told her was drowned.”</p>
<p>“How splendid!” said Edred.</p>
<p>“How dreadful for Mr. Frewin,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“That’s what she thought, miss, and she
couldn’t face it. So she puts on her riding-coat
and she gets out of window and down the ivy
with him, and off to London. And in the
morning, when the bells began to ring for her
wedding, and the bridegroom came, there wasn’t
no bride for him. She left a letter to say she
was very sorry, but it had to be. So then they
shut up the East House.”</p>
<p>“So that’s the story,” said Elfrida.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_282">282</div>
<p>“Half of it, miss,” said old Beale, and he took
out a black clay pipe and a screw of tobacco,
and very slowly and carefully filled the pipe and
lighted it, before he went on, “They shut up the
East House, where she’d been used to sleep; but
it was kep’ swep’ and dusted, and the old folks
was broken-hearted, for never a word come
from Miss Elfrida. An’ if I know anything of
the feelings of a parent, they kept on saying
to each other, ‘She might ha’ trusted us. She
might ’a’ known we’d never ’a’ denied her
nothing.’ And then one night there was a
knock at the door, and there was Miss Elfrida
that was—Mrs. Dick now—with her baby in
her arms. Mr. Dick was dead, sudden in a
accident, and she’d come home to her father
and mother. They couldn’t make enough of
the poor young thing and her baby. She had
her old rooms and there she lived, and she
was getting a bit happier and worshipping of
her baby and the old people worshipping it
and her too. And then one night some one
comes up the ivy, same as Master Dick did,
and takes away—not her—but the baby.”</p>
<p>“How dreadful!” breathed Elfrida. “Did
they get it back?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_283">283</div>
<p>“Never. And never a word was ever found
out about who took it, or why, or where they
took it to. Only a week or two after Mr.
Frewin was killed in the hunting-field, and as
they picked him up he said, ‘Elfrida; tell
Elfrida——’ and he was trying to say what
they was to tell her, when he died. Some folks
hold as ’twas him stole the baby, to be even
with her for jilting of him, or else to pretend
to find it and get her to marry him out of
gratitude. But no one’ll ever know. And the
baby’s mother, she wore away bit by bit, to a
shadow, and then she died, and after that the
East House was shut up for good and all, to
fall into rot and ruin like it is now. Don’t
you cry, missie. I know’d you wouldn’t like
the story, but you would have it; but don’t
you cry. It’s all long ago, and she and her
baby and her young husband’s all been happy
together in heaven this long time now, I
lay.”</p>
<p>“I <i>do</i> like the story,” said Elfrida, gulping,
“but it <i>is</i> sad, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>“Thank you for telling it,” Edred said; “but
I don’t think it’s any good, really, being unhappy
about things that are so long ago, and all over
and done with.”</p>
<p>“I wish we could go back into the past and
find the baby for her,” Elfrida whispered—and
Edred whispered back—</p>
<p>“It’s the treasure we’ve got to find. Excuse
our whispering, Mr. Beale. Thank you for the
story—oh, and I wanted to ask you who owns
the land now—all the land about here, I mean,
that used to belong to us Ardens?”</p>
<p>“That Jackson chap,” said old Beale, “him
that made a fortune in the soap boiling. The
Tallow King, they call him. But he’s got too
rich for the house he’s got. He’s bought a
bigger place in Yorkshire, that used to belong
to the Duke of Sanderstead, and the Arden
lands are to be sold next year, so I’m told.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_284">284</div>
<p>“Oh,” said Edred, clasping his hands, “if we
could only find the treasure, and buy back the
land! We haven’t forgotten what we said the
first time: if we found the treasure we’d make
all the cottages comfortable, and new thatch
everywhere.”</p>
<p>“That’s a good lad,” said old Beale, “you make
haste and find the treasure. And if you don’t
find it, never fret; there’s ways of helping other
folks without finding of treasure, so there is.
You come and see old Beale again, my lord, and
I shouldn’t wonder but what I’d have a white
rabbit for you next time you come along this
way.”</p>
<p>“He <i>is</i> an old dear,” said Elfrida, as they went
home, “and I do think the films will be dry by
the time we get back; but perhaps we’d better
not print them till to-morrow morning.”</p>
<p>“There’s plenty of light to-day,” said Edred,
and Elfrida said—</p>
<p>“I say?”</p>
<p>“Well?”</p>
<p>“Did you notice the kind of clothes we wore
in those pictures—where they were stowing
away the treasure?”</p>
<p>“<i>Oh!</i>” groaned Edred, recalled to a sense of
his wrongs. “If only Mrs. Honeysett hadn’t
opened the door just when she did, we should
know exactly where the treasure was. It was
the West Tower they took it to, wasn’t it?”</p>
<p>“I’m not sure,” said Elfrida, “but——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_285">285</div>
<p>“And if it had gone on we <i>should</i> have been
sure—we should have seen them come away
again.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Elfrida, and again she remarked,
“I say?”</p>
<p>Edred again said, “Well——?”</p>
<p>“Well—suppose we looked in the chests we
should be sure to find clothes like <i>those</i>, and
then we should be back there—living in those
times, and we could <i>see</i> the treasure put away,
and then we really <i>should</i> know.”</p>
<p>“A1, first class, ripping!” was Edred’s enthusiastic
rejoinder. “Come on—I’ll race you
to the gate.”</p>
<p>He did race her, and won by about thirty
white Mouldiwarp’s lengths.</p>
<p>There had been no quarrel now for quite a
long time—if you count as time the days spent
in the Gunpowder Plot adventure—so the attic
was easily found, and once more the children
stood among the chests, with the dusty roof,
and the dusty sunbeams, and the clittering
pigeon feet, and the soft pigeon noises overhead.</p>
<p>“Come on,” cried Elfrida joyously. “I shall
know the dress directly I see it. Mine was blue
silk with sloping shoulders, and yours was black
velvet and a Vandyke collar.”</p>
<p>Together they flung back the lid of a chest
they had not yet opened. It held clothes far
richer than any they had seen yet. The doublets
and cloaks and bodices were stiff with gold embroidery
and jewels. But there was no blue
silk dress with sloping shoulders and no black
velvet suit and Vandyke collar.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_286">286</div>
<p>“Oh, never mind,” said Edred, bundling the
splendid clothes back by double armfuls. “Help
me to smooth these down so that the lid will
shut properly, and we’ll try the next chest.”</p>
<p>But the lid would not shut at all till Elfrida
had taken all the things out and folded them
properly, and then it shut quite easily.</p>
<p>Then they went on to the next chest.</p>
<p>“I have a magic inside feeling that they’re
in <i>this</i> one,” said Elfrida gaily. And so they
may have been. The children never knew—for
the next chest was <i>locked</i>, and the utmost efforts
of four small arms failed to move the lid a hair’s
breadth.</p>
<p>“Oh, bother!” said Edred; “we’ll try the
next.”</p>
<p>But the next was locked, too—and the next,
and the one after that, and the one beyond,
and——Well, the fact is, they were <i>all</i> locked.</p>
<p>The children looked at each other in something
quite like despair.</p>
<p>“I feel,” said the boy, “like a baffled burglar.”</p>
<p>“I feel,” said the girl, “as if I was just going
to understand something. Oh, wait a minute;
it’s coming. I think,” she added very slowly,—“I
think it means if we go anywhere we’ve got
to go wherever it was they wore those glorious
stiff gold clothes. That’s what the chest’s open
for; that’s what the others are locked for.
See?”</p>
<p>“Then let’s put them on and go,” said Edred.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_287">287</div>
<div class="img" id="pic30">
<img src="images/pmage287.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="574" />
<p class="caption">“IT HELD CLOTHES FAR RICHER THAN ANY THEY HAD SEEN YET.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_288">288</div>
<p>“I don’t think I want any more Tower of
Londons,” said Elfrida doubtfully.</p>
<p>“I don’t mind what it is,” said Edred. “I’ve
found out one thing. We always come safe out
of it, whatever it is. And besides,” he added,
remembering many talks with his good friend,
Sir Walter Raleigh, “an English gentleman
must be afraid of nothing save God and his
conscience.”</p>
<p>“All right,” said Elfrida, laying hands on the
chest-lid that hid the golden splendour. “You
might help,” she said.</p>
<p>But Edred couldn’t. He laid hands on the
chest, of course, and he pulled and Elfrida
pulled, but the chest-lid was as fast now as
any of the others.</p>
<p>“Done in the eye!” said Edred. It was a
very vulgar expression, and I can’t think where
he picked it up.</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘He that will not when he may,</p>
<p class="t0">He shall not when he would—a,’”</p>
</div>
<p>said Elfrida—and I do know where she learned
that. It was from an old song Mrs. Honeysett
used to sing when she blackleaded the stoves.</p>
<p>“I suppose we must chuck it for to-day,” said
Edred, when he had quite hurt his fingers by
trying all the chests once more, and had found
that every single one was shut tight as wax.
“Come on—we’ll print the photographs.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_289">289</div>
<p>But the films were not dry enough. They
never are when you just expect them to be;
so they locked the still-room door on the outside,
and hung the key on a nail high up in the
kitchen chimney. Mrs. Honeysett was not in
the kitchen at that moment, but she came
hurrying in the next.</p>
<p>“Here you are, my lambs,” she said cheerily,
“and just in time for the surprise.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I’d forgotten the surprise. That makes
two of it, doesn’t it?” said Elfrida. “Do tell
us what it is. We need a nice surprise to make
up for everything, if you only knew.”</p>
<p>“Ah,” said Mrs. Honeysett, “you mean
because of me opening that there door. Well,
there <i>is</i> two surprises. One’s roast chicken.
For <i>supper</i>,” she added impressively.</p>
<p>“Then I know the other,” said Edred. “Aunt
Edith’s coming.”</p>
<p>And she was—indeed, at that very moment,
as they looked through the window, they saw
her blue dress coming over the hill, and joyously
tore out to meet her.</p>
<p>It was after the roast chicken, when it was
nearly dark and almost bedtime, that Aunt
Edith said, suddenly—</p>
<p>“Children, there’s something I wanted to tell
you. I’ve hesitated about it a good deal, but I
think we oughtn’t to have any secrets from each
other.”</p>
<p>Edred and Elfrida exchanged guilty glances.</p>
<p>“Not <i>real</i> secrets, of course,” said Edred,
hastily; “but you don’t mind our having magic
secrets, do you?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_290">290</div>
<p>“Of course not,” said Aunt Edith, smiling;
“and what I’m going to tell you is rather like
magic—if it’s true. I don’t know yet whether
it’s true or not.”</p>
<p>Here Aunt Edith put an arm round each of
the children as they sat on the broad window-seat,
and swallowed something in her throat and
sniffed.</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s <i>not</i> bad news, is it?” Elfrida cried.
“Oh, darling auntie, don’t be miserable, and
don’t say that they’ve found out that Arden
isn’t ours, or that Edred isn’t really Lord Arden,
or something.”</p>
<p>“Would you mind so very much,” said Aunt
Edith gently, “if you weren’t Lord Arden,
Edred? Because——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_291">291</div>
<h2 id="c12"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XII</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">FILMS AND CLOUDS</span></h2>
<p>The films were quite dry by bedtime, when,
after a delightful evening with no magic in it
at all but the magic of undisturbed jolliness,
Edred slipped away, unpinned them and hid
them in Elfrida’s corner drawer, which he
rightly judged to be a cleaner resting-place for
them than his own was likely to be. So there
the precious films lay between Elfrida’s best lace
collar and the handkerchief-case with three fat
buttercups embroidered on it that Aunt Edith
had given her at Christmas. And Edred went
back to the parlour for one last game of Proverbs
before bed. As he took up his cards he
thought how strange it was that he, who had
been imprisoned in the Tower and had talked
with Sir Walter Raleigh, should be sitting there
quietly playing Proverbs with his aunt and his
sister, just like any other little boy.</p>
<p>“Aha!” said Edred to himself, “I am living a
double life, that’s what I’m doing.”</p>
<p>He had seen the expression in a book and the
idea charmed him.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_292">292</div>
<p>“How pleased Edred looks with himself!”
said Aunt Edith; “I’m sure he’s got a whole
proverb, or nearly, in his hand already.”</p>
<p>“You’ll be looking pleased presently,” he said;
“you always win.”</p>
<p>And win she did, for Edred’s thoughts were
wandering off after the idea how pleased Aunt
Edith would look when he and Elfrida should
come to her, take her by the hand, and lead her
to the hiding-place of the treasure, and then
say, “Behold the treasure of our house! Now
we can rebuild the castle and mend the broken
thatch on the cottages, and I can go to Eton
and Oxford, and you can have a diamond tiara,
and Elfrida can have a pony to ride, and so
can I.”</p>
<p>Elfrida’s thoughts were not unlike his—so
Aunt Edith won the game of Proverbs.</p>
<p>“You have been very good children, Mrs.
Honeysett tells me,” said Aunt Edith, putting
the cards together.</p>
<p>“Not so extra,” said Edred; “I mean it’s easy
to be good when everything’s so jolly.”</p>
<p>“We have quarrelled once or twice, you
know,” said Elfrida virtuously.</p>
<p>“Yes, we have,” said Edred firmly.</p>
<p>They needn’t, they felt, have confessed this—and
that made them feel that they were good
now, if never before.</p>
<p>“Well, don’t quarrel any more. I shall be
coming over for good quite soon, then we’ll
have glorious times. Perhaps we’ll find the
treasure. You’ve heard about the treasure?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_293">293</div>
<p>“I should jolly well think we had,” Edred
couldn’t help saying. And Elfrida added—</p>
<p>“And looked for it, too—but we haven’t found
it. Did <i>you</i> ever look for it?”</p>
<p>“No,” said Aunt Edith, “but I always wanted
to. My grandfather used to look for it when he
was a little boy.”</p>
<p>“Was your grandfather Lord Arden?” Edred
asked.</p>
<p>“No; he was the grandson of the Lord Arden
who fought for King James the Third, as they
called him—the Pretender, you know—when he
was quite a boy. And they let him off because
of his being so young. And then he mortgaged
all the Arden lands to keep the Young Pretender—Prince
Charlie, you know, in the ballads. He
got money to send to him, and of course Prince
Charlie was going to pay it back when he was
king. Only he never <i>was</i> king,” she sighed.</p>
<p>“And is that why the Tallow King got all
the Arden land?”</p>
<p>“Yes, dear—that’s why English people
prefer Tallow kings to Stuart kings. And
old Lord Arden mortgaged everything. That
means he borrowed money, and if he didn’t pay
back the money by a certain time he agreed to
let them take the land instead. And he couldn’t
pay; so they took the land—all except a bit in
the village and Arden Knoll—that was fixed so
that he couldn’t part from it.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_294">294</div>
<p>“When we get the treasure we’ll buy back the
land again,” said Edred. “The Tallow King’s
going to sell it. He’s got so tallowy that Arden
land isn’t good enough for him. Old Beale told
us. And, I say, Auntie, we’ll rebuild the castle,
too, won’t we, and mend the holes in the thatch—where
the rain comes in—in people’s cottages,
I mean.”</p>
<p>“Have you been much into people’s cottages?”
Aunt Edith asked anxiously—with the strange
fear of infection which seems a part of a
grown-up’s nature.</p>
<p>“Every one in the village, I think,” said
Elfrida cheerfully. “Old Beale told us we ought
to—in case we found the treasure—so as to
know what to do. The people are such dears. I
believe they like us because we’re Ardens. Or
is it because Edred’s a lord?”</p>
<p>“We <i>must</i> find the treasure,” said Edred,
looking as he always did when he was very
much in earnest, so like his lost father that
Aunt Edith could hardly bear it—“so as to be
able to look after our people properly.”</p>
<p>“And to kick out the Tallow King,” said
Elfrida.</p>
<p>“But you won’t be discontented if you <i>don’t</i>
find it,” said Aunt Edith. “It’s only a sort of
game really. No one <i>I</i> ever knew ever found a
treasure. And think what we’ve found already!
Arden Castle instead of Sea View Terrace—and
the lodgers. Good-night, chicks.”</p>
<p>She was gone before they were up in the
morning, and the morning’s first business was
the printing of the photographs.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_295">295</div>
<p>They printed them in the kitchen, because
Mrs. Honeysett was turning out the parlour, and
besides the kitchen window was wide and sunny,
and the old table, scoured again and again till
the grain of the wood stood up in ridges, was a
nice, big, clear place to stand toning dishes on.
They printed on matt paper, because it seemed
somehow less common, and more like a picture
than the shiny kind. The printing took the
whole morning, and they had only one frame.
And when they had done there were eighteen
brown prints of the castle from all sorts of
points of the compass—north and south and——but
I explained all this to you before. When
the prints were dried—which, as you know, is
best done by sticking them up on the windows—it
became necessary to find a place to put
them in. One could not gloat over them forever,
though for quite a long time it seemed
better to look at them again and again, and to
say, “That’s how it ought to be—that’s the
way we’ll have it,” than to do anything else.</p>
<p>Elfrida and Edred took the prints into the
parlour, which was now neat as a new pin, and
smelt almost <i>too</i> much of beeswax and turpentine,
spread them on the polished oval dining-table
and gloated over them.</p>
<p>“You can see every little bit exactly right,”
said Elfrida. “They’re a little tiny bit muzzy.
I expect our distance wasn’t right or something,
but that only makes them look more like real
pictures, and us having printed them on paper
that’s too big makes it more pictury too. And
any one who knew about how buildings are built
would know how to set it up. It would be like
putting the bricks back into the box from the
pattern inside the lid.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_296">296</div>
<p>Here Mrs. Honeysett called from the kitchen,
“You done with all this litter?” and both
children shouted “Yes!” and went on looking
at the pictures. It was well that the shout
was from both. If only one had done it
there might have been what Mrs. Honeysett
called “words” about the matter later; for next
moment both said, “The films!” and rushed to
the kitchen—just in time to see the kitchen fire
enlivened by that peculiar crackling flare which
fire and films alone can produce. Mrs. Honeysett
had thrown the films on the fire with the other
“litter,” and it was no one’s fault but the children’s,
as Mrs. Honeysett pointed out.</p>
<p>“I ask you if you done with it all, an’ you
says ‘Yes’—only yourselves to thank,” she
repeated again and again amid their lamentations,
and they had to own that she was right.</p>
<p>“We must take extra special care of the
prints, that’s all,” said Edred, and the “History
of the Ardens” was chosen as a hiding-place
both safe and appropriate.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter so much about the films,”
said Elfrida, “because we could never have
shown them to any one. If we find the treasure
we’ll arrange for Auntie to find these prints—leave
the History about or something—and she’ll
think they’re photographs of painted pictures.
So <i>that’ll</i> be all right.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_297">297</div>
<p>As they arranged the prints between the
leaves of the History Elfrida’s eye was caught
by the words “moat” and “water-supply,” and
she read on and turned the page.</p>
<p>“Don’t stop to read,” said Edred, but she
waved him away.</p>
<p>“I say, listen,” she said, turning back; and
she read—</p>
<p>“‘In ancient times Arden Castle was surrounded
by a moat. The original architects of
the venerable pile, with that ingenuity whose
fruits the thinking world so much admires in
the lasting monuments of their labours, diverted
from its subterraneous course a stream which
rose through the chalk in the hills of the vicinity,
and is said to debouch into the sea about fifty
yards below high-water mark. The engineering
works necessary for this triumph of mind over
matter endured till 1647, when the castle was
besieged by the troops of that monster in human
form Oliver Cromwell. To facilitate his attack
on the castle the officer in command gave orders
that the stream should be diverted once more
into its original channel. This order was accordingly
executed by his myrmidons, and the moat
was left dry, this assisting materially the
treacherous designs of the detestable regicides.
It is rumoured that the stream, despite the lapse
of centuries, still maintains its subterranean
course; but the present author, on visiting,
during the autumn of 1821, the residence of the
present Earl of Arden, and by his permission,
most courteously granted, exploring the site
thoroughly, was unable to find any trace of its
existence. The rural denizens of the district
denied any knowledge of such a stream, but
they are sunk in ignorance and superstition, and
have no admiration for the works of philosophy
or the awe-inspiring beauties of Nature.’”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_298">298</div>
<p>“What a dull chap he is!” said Edred. “But,
I say, when was it printed—1822? . . . I believe
I know why the rural What’s-his-names wouldn’t
let on about the stream. Don’t you see, it’s the
stream that runs through the smugglers’ cave?
and they were smuggling then for all they were
worth.”</p>
<p>“That’s clever of you,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“Well, I bet we find traces of its existence,
when we’ve found the treasure. Come on; let’s
try the chests again. We’ll put on the first
things we find, and chance it, this time. There’s
nothing to stop us. We haven’t quarrelled or
anything.”</p>
<p>They had not quarrelled, but there was something
to stop them, all the same. And that
something was the fact that they could not find
The Door. It simply was not there.</p>
<p>“And we haven’t quarrelled or anything,” said
Elfrida, despairing when they had searched the
East House again and again, and found no door
that would consent to lead them to the wonderful
attic where the chests stood in their two wonderful
rows. She sat down on the top step of the
attic stairs, quite regardless of the dust that lay
there thick.</p>
<p>“It’s all up—I can see that,” said Edred.
“We’ve muffed it somehow. I wonder whether
we oughtn’t to have taken those photographs.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_299">299</div>
<p>“Do you think perhaps . . . <i>could</i> we have
dreamed it all?”</p>
<p>“<i>No</i>,” said Edred, “there <i>are</i> the prints—at
least, I suppose they’re there. We’ll go down
and see.”</p>
<p>Miserably doubting, they went down and saw
that the photographs were where they had put
them, in between the pages of the “History of
Arden.”</p>
<p>“I don’t see <i>what</i> we can do. Do you?” said
Edred forlornly. It was a miserable ending to
the happenings that had succeeded each other
in such a lively procession ever since they had
been at Arden. It seemed as though a door
had been shut in their faces, and “Not any
more,” written in very plain letters across the
chapter of their adventures.</p>
<p>“I wish we could find the witch again,” said
Elfrida; “but she said she couldn’t come into
these times more than once.”</p>
<p>“I wonder why,” said Edred, kicking his
boots miserably against the leg of the table on
which he sat. “That Dicky chap must have
been here pretty often, to have an address at
New Cross. I say, suppose we wrote to him.
It would be something to do.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_300">300</div>
<p>So they wrote. At least Elfrida did, and they
both signed it. This was the letter:—</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<span class="sc">Dear Cousin Richard</span>,—You remember
meeting us at the Gunpowder Plot. If you are
at these modern times again we should like to
know you and to know how you get into the
future. Perhaps we could get into the past the
same way, because the way we used to get we
can’t any more.</p>
<p>“Perhaps you could come here next time
instead of New Cross.</p>
<p><span class="jr">“Your affectionate friends at a distance,</span>
<span class="jr"><span class="sc">(Miss) Elfrida Arden</span>,</span>
<span class="jr"><span class="sc">(Lord) Edred Arden</span>.</span></p>
<p>“PS.—I don’t know how lords sign letters
because I have not been it long, but you’ll know
who it is.</p>
<p>“PSS.—Remember old Parrot-nose.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They walked down to the post with this, and
as they went they remembered how they had
gone to the “George” with old Lady Arden’s
letter in Boney’s time; and Edred remarked,
listlessly, that it would be rather fun to find the
smugglers’ cave. So when they had bought a
stamp and licked it and put it on the letter
they went up on the cliff and looked among the
furze-bushes for the entrance to the smugglers’
cave. But they did not find it. Nothing makes
you hotter than looking for things that you
can’t find—and there is no hotter place to look
for things than a furze forest on the downs on
a sunny summer afternoon. The children were
glad to sit down on a clean, smooth, grassy space
and look out at the faint blue line of the sea.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_301">301</div>
<p>They had not really enjoyed looking for the
smugglers’ cave. Vain regrets were busy in
each breast. Edred gave voice to them when
he said—</p>
<p>“Oh, if only we had put those gold clothes on
when we had the chance!”</p>
<p>And Elfrida echoed the useless heartfelt wail
with, “Oh, if we only had!”</p>
<p>And then they sat in silence and looked at
the sea for quite a long time.</p>
<p>Now, if you sit perfectly silent for a long time
and look at the sea, or the sky, or the running
water of a river, something happens to you—a
sort of magic. Not the violent magic that
makes the kind of adventures that I have been
telling you about, but a kind of gentle but very
strong <i>inside</i> magic, that makes things clear,
and shows you what things are important, and
what are not. You try it next time you are in
a very bad temper, or when you think some one
has been very unjust to you, or when you are
very disappointed and hurt about anything.</p>
<p>The magic worked in Edred and Elfrida till
Edred said—</p>
<p>“After all, we’ve got the castle;” and Elfrida
said—</p>
<p>“And we have had some ripping times.”</p>
<p>And then they looked at the sea in more
silence, during which Hope came and whispered
to Elfrida, who instantly said—</p>
<p>“The Mouldiwarp! Perhaps it’s not all over.
It told us to find the door. And we did find the
door. Perhaps it would tell us something new
if we called it now—and if it came.”</p>
<p>“And if it came,” said Edred.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_302">302</div>
<p>“Don’t talk—make poetry,” said Elfrida. But
that was one of the things that Edred never
could do. Trying to make poetry was, to him,
like trying to remember a name you have never
heard, or to multiply a number that you’ve
forgotten by another number that you don’t
recollect.</p>
<p>But Elfrida, that youthful poet, frowned and
bit her lips and twisted her hands, and reached
out in her mind to words that she just couldn’t
quite think of, till the words grew tame and
flew within reach, and she caught them and
caged them behind the bars of rhyme. This
was her poem—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“Dear Mouldiwarp, do come if you can,</p>
<p class="t0">And tell us if there is any plan</p>
<p class="t0">That you can tell us of for us two</p>
<p class="t0">To get into the past like we used to do.</p>
<p class="t0">Dear Mouldiwarp, we don’t want to worry</p>
<p class="t0">You—but we <i>are</i> in a frightful hurry.”</p>
</div>
<p>“So you be always,” said the white Mouldiwarp,
suddenly appearing between them on the
yellowy dry grass. “Well, well! Youth’s the
season for silliness. What’s to do now? I be
turble tired of all this. I wish I’d only got to
give ye the treasure and go my ways. You
don’t give a poor Mouldiwarp a minute’s rest.
You do terrify me same’s flies, you do.”</p>
<p>“Is there any other way,” said Elfrida, “to
get back into the past? We can’t find the door
now.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_303">303</div>
<p>“Course you can’t,” said the mole. “That’s a
chance gone, and gone for ever.</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘He that will not when he may,</p>
<p class="t0">He shall not when he would-a.’</p>
</div>
<p>Well, tell me where you want to go, and I’ll
make you a backways-working white clock.”</p>
<p>“Anywhere you like,” said Edred incautiously.</p>
<p>“Tch, tch!” said the mole, rubbing its nose
with vexation. “There’s another chance gone,
and gone for ever. You be terrible spending
with your chances, you be. Now, answer sharp
as weasel’s nose. Be there any one in the past
you’d like to see?</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“‘If you don’t know,</p>
<p class="t0">Then you don’t go.’</p>
</div>
<p>And that’s poetry as good as yours any day of
the week.”</p>
<p>“Cousin Richard,” said Elfrida and Edred
together. This was the only name they could
think of.</p>
<p>“Bide ye still, my dears,” said the Mouldiwarp,
“and I’ll make you a white road right to
where he is.”</p>
<p>So they sat still, all but their tongues.</p>
<p>“Is he in the past?” said Elfrida; “because
if he <i>is</i>, it wasn’t much good our writing to
him.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_304">304</div>
<p>“You hold your little tongues,” said the
Mouldiwarp, “and keep your little mouths shut,
and your little eyes open, and wish well to the
white magic. There never was a magic yet,”
the mole went on, “that was the worse for
being well-wished.”</p>
<p>“May I say something,” said Elfrida, “without
its stopping the magic?”</p>
<p>“Put your white handkerchief over your face
and talk through it, and then you may.”</p>
<p>By a most fortunate and unusual chance,
Elfrida’s handkerchief <i>was</i> white: it was, in
fact, still folded in the sixteen blameless squares
into which the laundress had ironed it. She
threw it over her face as she lay back on the
turf and spoke through it.</p>
<p>“I’d like to see the nurse witch again,” she
said.</p>
<p>“Instead of Cousin Richard?”</p>
<p>“No: as well as.”</p>
<p>“That’s right,” said the magic mole. “You
shouldn’t <i>change</i> your wishes; but there’s no
rule against enlarging them—on the contrary.
Now look!”</p>
<p>Elfrida whisked away the handkerchief and
looked.</p>
<p>Have you ever noticed the way the bath
water runs away when you pull up the bath
tap? Have you ever seen bottles filled through
a funnel?</p>
<p>The white Mouldiwarp reached up its hands—its
front feet I ought perhaps to say—towards
the deep-blue sky, where white clouds herded
together like giant sheep.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_305">305</div>
<p>And it spoke. At least, it did not speak, but
it sang. Yet I don’t know that you could call
it singing either. It was more like the first
notes that a violin yields to the bow wielded
by the hand of a master musician. And the
white clouds stooped to answer it. Round and
round in the blue sky they circled, drawing
together and swirling down, as the bath water
draws and swirls when you pull up the knob
labelled “Waste”—round and round till they
showed like a vast white funnel whose neck
hung, a great ring, above the group on the
dry grass of the downs. It stooped and
stooped. The ring fitted down over them, they
were in a white tower, narrow at its base where
that base touched the grass, but widening to
the blue sky overhead.</p>
<p>“Take hands,” cried the Mouldiwarp. “Always
hold hands when there is magic about.”</p>
<p>The children clasped hands.</p>
<p>“Both hands,” said the Mouldiwarp; and each
child reached out a hand, that was caught
and held. Round and round, incredibly swifter
and swifter, went the cloud funnel, and the
voice of the mole at their feet sounded faint
and far away.</p>
<p>“Up!” it cried, “up! Shall the very clouds
dance for your delight, and you alone refrain
and tread not a measure?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_306">306</div>
<p>The children leaped up—and through the
cloud came something that was certainly music,
though it was so vague and far away that the
sharpest music-master you ever had could not
have made out the tune. But the rhythm of
it was there, an insistent beat, beat, beat—and
a beat that made your feet long to keep time to
it. And through the rhythm presently the tune
pierced, as the sound of the pipes pierces the
sound of the drums when you see the Church
Brigade boys go by when you are on your
holiday by the sea near their white-tented,
happy camps. And that time the children’s
feet could not resist. They danced steps that
they had not known they knew. And they
knew, for the first time, the delight of real
dancing: none of your waltzes, or even minuets,
but the dancing that means youth and gaiety,
and being out for a holiday, and determined
to enjoy everything to the last breath.</p>
<p>And as they danced the white cloud funnel
came down and closed about them, so that they
danced, as it were, in a wrapping of white
cotton-wool too soft for them even to feel it.
And there was a sweet scent in the air. They
did not know in that cloudy, soft whiteness,
what flower bore that scent, but they knew
that it smelt of the spring, and of fields and
hedges far away from the ugliness of towns.
The cloud thinned as the scent thickened, and
green lights showed through it.</p>
<p>The green lights grew, the cloud funnel lifted.
And Edred and Elfrida, still dancing, found
themselves but two in a ring of some thirty
children, dancing on a carpet of green turf
between walls of green branches. And every
child wore a wreath of white May-blossoms on
its head. And that was the magic scene that
had come to them through the white cloud of
the white Mouldiwarp’s magic.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_307">307</div>
<p>“What is it? Why are we dancing?” Edred
incautiously asked of the little girl whose hand—and
not Elfrida’s—he found that his left hand
was holding. The child laughed—just laughed,
she did not answer. It was Elfrida who had
his right hand, and her own right hand was
clasped in that of a boy dressed in green.</p>
<p>“Oh!” she said, with a note of glad recognition.
“It’s you! I’m so glad! What is it?
Why are we dancing?”</p>
<p>“It’s May-day,” said Cousin Richard, “and the
King is coming to look on at the revels.”</p>
<p>“What king?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Who but King Harry?” he said. “King
Harry and his new Queen, that but of late
was the Lady Anna Boleyn.”</p>
<p>“I say, Dick,” said Edred across his sister,
“I am jolly glad to see you again. We——”</p>
<p>“Not now,” said Dick earnestly; “not a word
now. It is not safe. And besides—here comes
the King!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_308">308</div>
<h2 id="c13"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XIII</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">MAY-BLOSSOM AND PEARLS</span></h2>
<p>The King came slowly on a great black horse,
riding between the green trees. He himself
wore white and green like the May-bushes, and
so did the gracious lady who rode beside him on
a white horse, whose long tail almost swept the
ground and whose long mane fluttered in the
breeze like a tattered banner.</p>
<p>The lady had a fine face—proud and smiling—and
as her brave eyes met the King’s even the
children could see that, for the time at least, she
and the King were all the world to each other.
They saw that in the brief moment when, in the
whirl of the ringed dance, their eyes were turned
the way by which the King came with his Queen.</p>
<p>“I wish I didn’t know so much history,”
gasped Elfrida through the quick music. “It’s
dreadful to know that her head——” She broke
off in obedience to an imperative twitch of
Richard’s hand on hers.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_309">309</div>
<p>“Don’t!” he said. “I have <i>not</i> to think.
And I’ve heard that history’s all lies. Perhaps
they’ll always be happy like they are now.
The only way to enjoy the past is not to think
of the future—the past’s future, I mean—and
I’ve got something else to say to you presently,”
he added rather sternly.</p>
<p>The ring broke up into an elaborate figure.
The children found themselves fingering the
coloured ribbons that hung from the Maypole
that was the centre of their dance, twining,
intertwining, handing on the streamers to other
small, competent fingers. In and out, in and
out—a most complicated dance. It was pleasant
to find that one’s feet knew it, though one’s
brain could not have foreseen, any more than it
could have remembered, how the figures went.
There were two rings round the Maypole—the
inner ring, where Edred and Elfrida were, of
noble children in very fine clothes, and the outer
ring, of village children in clothes less fine but
quite as pretty. Music from a band of musicians
on a raised platform decked with May-boughs
and swinging cowslip balls inspired the dancers.
The King and Queen had reined up their horses
and watched the play, well pleased.</p>
<p>And suddenly the dance ended and the
children, formed into line, were saluting the
royal onlookers.</p>
<p>“A fair dance and footed right featly,” said
the King in a great, jolly voice. “Now get you
wind, my merry men all, and give us a song for
the honour of the May Queen and of my dear
lady here.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_310">310</div>
<p>There was whispering and discussion. Then
Richard Arden stepped out in front of the group
of green-clad noble children.</p>
<p>“With a willing heart, my liege,” he said,
“but first a song of the King’s good Majesty.”</p>
<p>And with that all the children began to sing—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“The hunt is up, the hunt is up,</p>
<p class="t">And it is well-nigh day,</p>
<p class="t0">And Harry our King is gone a-hunting</p>
<p class="t">To bring his deer to bay.”</p>
</div>
<p>It is a rousing tune, and it was only afterwards
that Edred and Elfrida were surprised to find
that they knew it quite well.</p>
<p>But even while they were singing Elfrida was
turning over in her mind the old question,
Could anything they did have any effect on the
past? It seemed impossible that it should not
be so. If one could get a word alone with that
happy, stately lady on the white horse, if one
could warn her, could help somehow! The
thought of the bare scaffold and the black block
came to Elfrida so strongly that she almost
thought she saw them darkling among the
swayed, sun-dappled leaves of the greenwood.</p>
<p>Somebody was pulling at her green skirt.
An old woman in a cap that fitted tightly and
hid all her hair—an old woman who was saying,
“Go to her! go!” and pushing her forward.
Some one else put a big bunch of wild flowers
into her hand, and this person also pushed her
forward. And forward she had to go, quite
alone, the nosegay in her hand, across the open
space of greensward under the eyes of several
hundreds of people, all in their best clothes and
all watching her.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_311">311</div>
<p>She went on till she came to the spot where
the King and Queen were, and then she paused
and dropped two curtsies, one to each of them.
Then, quite without meaning to do it, she found
herself saying—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“May-day! May-day!</p>
<p class="t0">This is the happy play day!</p>
<p class="t0">All the woods with flowers are gay,</p>
<p class="t0">Lords and ladies, come and play!</p>
<p class="t0">Lords and ladies, rich and poor,</p>
<p class="t0">Come to the wild woods’ open door!</p>
<p class="t0">Hinds and yeomen, Queen and King,</p>
<p class="t0">Come do honour to the Spring!</p>
<p class="t0">And join us in our merrymaking.”</p>
</div>
<p>And when she had said that she made two
more nice little curtsies and handed up the
flowers to the Queen.</p>
<p>“If we had known your Majesties’ purpose,”
said a tall, narrow-faced man in a long gown,
“your Majesties had had another than this
rustic welcome.”</p>
<p>“Our purpose,” said the King, “was to surprise
you. The Earl of Arden, you say, is hence?”</p>
<p>“His son and daughter are here to do homage
to your Highness,” said the gowned man, and
then Elfrida saw that Edred was beside her.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_312">312</div>
<p>“Hither, lad,” said the King, and reaching
down a hand caught Edred’s. “Your foot on
mine,” said his Majesty. “So!” and he swung
Edred up on to the saddle in front of him.
Elfrida drew nearer to the white horse as the
Queen beckoned her, and the Queen stooped low
over her saddle to ask her name. Now was the
moment that Elfrida had wished for, now was
the chance, if ever, to warn the Queen.</p>
<p>“Elfrida Arden’s my name,” she said. “Your
Majesty, may I say something?”</p>
<p>“Say on,” said the Queen, raising fine eyebrows,
but smiling too.</p>
<p>“I should like to come quite close and
whisper,” said Elfrida stoutly.</p>
<p>“Thou’rt a bold lass,” said the Queen, but she
stooped still lower.</p>
<p>“I want to warn you,” said Elfrida, quickly
whispering, “and <i>don’t</i> not pay attention because
I’m only a little girl. I <i>know</i>. You may
think I don’t know, but I do. I want to warn
you——”</p>
<p>“Already once, this morning I have been
warned,” said the Queen. “What croaking
voices for May-day!”</p>
<p>“Who warned you, your Majesty?”</p>
<p>“An old hag who came to my chamber in
spite of my maids, said she had a May charm to
keep my looks and my lord’s love.”</p>
<p>“What was the charm?” Elfrida asked
eagerly, forgetting to say “Majesty” again.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_313">313</div>
<p>“It was quite simple,” said the Queen. “I
was to keep my looks and my love so long as
I <i>never dropped a kerchief</i>. But if I dropped a
kerchief I should lose more than my looks and
my love; she said I should lose my head,”—the
Queen laughed low,—“within certain days
from the dropping of that kerchief—this head
you see here;” she laughed again.</p>
<p>“Don’t, oh, don’t!” said Elfrida. “Nineteen
days, that’s the warning—I do hope it’ll do some
good. I do like you, dear Queen. You are
so strong and splendid. I would like to be like
you when I grow up.”</p>
<p>The Queen’s fine face looked troubled.</p>
<p>“Please Heaven, thou’lt be better than I,”
she said, stooping lower still from her horse;
Elfrida standing on tip-toe, she kissed her.</p>
<p>“Oh, do be careful,” said Elfrida. “Your
darling head!” and the Queen kissed her
again.</p>
<p>Then a noise rather like bagpipes rose shrill
and sudden, and all drew back, making room
for the rustic maids and swains to tread
the country dance. Other instruments joined
in, and suddenly the King cried, “A merry
tune that calls to the feet. Come, my sweeting,
shall we tread a measure with the rest?” So
down they came from their horses, King and
Queen, and led the country dance, laughing and
gay as any country lad and lass.</p>
<p>Elfrida could have cried. It seemed such a
pity that everybody should not always be good
and happy, as everybody looked to-day.</p>
<p>The King had sprung from his horse with
Edred in his arms, and now he and his sister
drew back towards Cousin Richard.</p>
<p>“How pretty it all is!” said Edred. “I should
like to stay here for ever.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_314">314</div>
<p>“If I were you,” said Richard, very disagreeably
indeed, “I would not stay here an hour.”</p>
<p>“Why? Is it dangerous? Will they cut our
heads off?”</p>
<p>“Not that I know of,” said Cousin Richard,
still thoroughly disagreeable. “I wasn’t thinking
about your heads. There are more important
things than your heads in the world, I should
think.”</p>
<p>“Not so very much more,” said Elfrida
meekly,—“to us, I mean. And what are you
so cross about?”</p>
<p>“I should have thought,” Richard was beginning,
when the old woman who told Elfrida to
go forward with the nosegay of ceremony sidled
up to them.</p>
<p>“Into the woods, my children,” she whispered
quickly,—“into the woods. In a moment the
Queen will burst into tears, and the King will
have scant kindness for those whose warnings
have set his Queen to weeping.”</p>
<p>They backed into the bushes, and the green
leaves closed behind the four.</p>
<p>“Quick!” said the witch; “this way.” They
followed her through the wood under oaks and
yew-trees, pressing through hazels and chestnuts
to a path.</p>
<p>“Now run!” she said, and herself led the way
nimbly enough for one of her great age. Their
run brought them to a thinning of the wood—then
out of it—on to the downs, whence they
could see Arden Castle and its moat, and the
sea.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_315">315</div>
<div class="img" id="pic31">
<img src="images/pmage315.jpg" alt="" width="698" height="500" />
<p class="caption">“‘NOW RUN!’ SHE SAID, AND HERSELF LED THE WAY.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_316">316</div>
<p>“Now,” the old woman said, “mark well the
spot where the moat stream rises. It is there
that the smugglers’ cave was, when Betty Lovell
foretold the landing of the French.”</p>
<p>“Why,” said Edred and Elfrida, “you’re
the witch again! You’re Betty Lovell!”</p>
<p>“Who else?” said the old woman. “Now,
call on the Mouldiwarp and hasten back to your
own time. For the King will raise the country
against the child who has made his sweeting
to shed tears. And she will tell him, she keeps
nothing from him, and . . . yet——”</p>
<p>“She won’t tell him about the kerchief?”</p>
<p>“She will, and when she drops it on that
other May-day at Greenwich he will remember.
Come, call your Mouldiwarp and haste away.”</p>
<p>“But we’ve only just come,” said Edred, “and
what’s Elfrida been up to?”</p>
<p>“Oh, bother!” said Elfrida. “I want to know
what Richard meant about our heads not being
important.”</p>
<p>“Your heads will be most important if you
wait here much longer!” said the witch sharply.
“Come, shall I call the Mouldiwarp, or will
you?”</p>
<p>“You do,” said Elfrida. “I say, Dicky,
what did you mean? Do tell us—there’s a
dear.”</p>
<p>Betty Lovell was tearing up the short turf
in patches, and pulling the lumps of chalk from
under it.</p>
<p>“Help me,” she cried, “or I shan’t be in time!”
So they all helped.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_317">317</div>
<p>“Couldn’t Dick go with us—if we <i>have</i> to go?”
said Elfrida suddenly.</p>
<p>“No,” said Richard, “I’m not going to—so
there!”</p>
<p>“Why?” Elfrida gasped, tugging at a great
piece of chalk.</p>
<p>“Because I shan’t.”</p>
<p>“Then tell us what you meant before the
Mouldiwarp comes.”</p>
<p>“You can’t,” said a little voice, “because it’s
come now.”</p>
<p>Every one sat back on its heels, and watched
where out of the earth the white Mouldiwarp
was squeezing itself between two blocks of
chalk, into the sunlight.</p>
<p>“Why, I hadn’t said any poetry,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“I hadn’t made the triangle and the arch,”
said old Betty Lovell. “Well, if ever I did!”</p>
<p>“I’ve been here,” said the mole, looking round
with something astonishingly like a smile of
triumph, “all the time. Why shouldn’t I go
where I do please, nows and again? Why
should I allus wait on your bidding—eh?” it
asked a little pettishly.</p>
<p>“No reason at all,” said Elfrida kindly; “and
now, dear, dear Mouldiwarp, please take us
away.”</p>
<p>A confused sound of shouting mixed with
the barking of dogs hurried her words a
little.</p>
<p>“The hunt is up,” said the old witch-nurse.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_318">318</div>
<p>“I don’t hold with hunting,” said the Mouldiwarp
hastily, “nor yet with dogs. I never
could abide dogs, drat the nasty, noisy, toothy
things! Here, come inside.”</p>
<p>“Inside where?” said Edred.</p>
<p>“Inside my house,” said the mole.</p>
<p>And then, whether they all got smaller or
whether the crack in the chalk got bigger they
never quite knew, but they found themselves
walking that crack one by one. Only Elfrida
got hold of Richard’s hand and held it fast,
though he wriggled and twisted to get it
free.</p>
<p>“I’m not going back to your own times with
you,” he said. “I’ll go my own way.”</p>
<p>“Where to?” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“To wherever I choose,” said Richard savagely,
and regained possession of his own hand.
It was too late—the chalk had closed over them
all.</p>
<p>As the chalk had closed so thoroughly that
not a gleam of daylight could be seen, you
might have expected the air they had to breathe
to be close and stuffy. Not a bit of it! Coming
into the Mouldiwarp’s house out of the May
sunshine was like coming out of a human house
into the freshness of a May night. But it was
darker than any night that ever was. Elfrida
got hold of Edred’s hand and then of Richard’s.
She always tried to remember what she was
told, and the Mouldiwarp had said, “Always
hold hands when there’s magic about.”</p>
<p>Richard let his hand be taken, but he said,
quite sternly, “You understand I mean what I
say: I won’t go back to their times with them.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_319">319</div>
<p>“You were much nicer in James the First’s
time,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>Then a sound like thunder shook the earth
overhead, an almost deafening noise that made
them thrill and hold each other very tight.</p>
<p>“It’s only the King’s horses and the King’s
men hunting after you,” said the Mouldiwarp
cheerfully. “Now I’ll go and make a white
clock for you to go home on. You set where
you be, and don’t touch nothing till I be come
back again.”</p>
<p>Left alone in the fresh, deep darkness, Elfrida
persisted in her questions.</p>
<p>“Why don’t you want to come with us to our
times?”</p>
<p>“I hate your times. They’re ugly, they’re
cruel,” said Richard.</p>
<p>“They don’t cut your head off for nothing
anyhow in our times,” said Edred, “and shut
you up in the Tower.”</p>
<p>“They do worse things,” Richard said. “<i>I</i>
know. They make people work fourteen hours
a day for nine shillings a week, so that they
never have enough to eat or wear, and no time
to sleep or to be happy in. They won’t give
people food or clothes, or let them work to get
them; and then they put the people in prison
if they take enough to keep them alive. They
let people get horrid diseases, till their jaws
drop off, so as to have a particular kind of china.
Women have to go out to work instead of looking
after their babies, and the little girl that’s
left in charge drops the baby and it’s crippled
for life. Oh! I know. I won’t go back with
you. You might keep me there for ever.” He
shuddered.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_320">320</div>
<p>“I wouldn’t. And I can’t help about people
working, and not enough money and that,” said
Edred.</p>
<p>“If <i>I</i> were Lord Arden,” said Richard, through
the darkness, “I’d make a vow, and I’d keep it
too, never to have a day’s holiday or do a single
thing I liked till all those things were stopped.
But in <i>your</i> time nobody cares.”</p>
<p>“It’s not true,” said Elfrida; “we do care—when
we know about it. Only we can’t do anything.”</p>
<p>“I <i>am</i> Lord Arden,” said Edred, “and when
I grow up I’ll do what you say. I shall be in
the House of Lords, I think, and of course the
House of Lords would have to pay attention to
me when I said things. I’ll remember everything
you say, and tell them about it.”</p>
<p>“You’re not grown up yet,” said Richard,
“and your father’s Lord Arden, not you.”</p>
<p>“Father’s dead, you know,” said Elfrida, in a
hushed voice.</p>
<p>“How do you know?” asked Richard.</p>
<p>“There was a letter——”</p>
<p>“Do you think <i>I’d</i> trust a letter?” Richard
asked indignantly. “If I hadn’t seen my daddy
lying dead, do you think I’d believe it? Not
till I’d gone back and seen how he died, and
where, and had vengeance on the man who’d
killed him.”</p>
<p>“But he wasn’t killed.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_321">321</div>
<p>“How do you know? You’ve been hunting
for the beastly treasure, and never even tried to
go back to the time when he was alive—such
a little time ago—and find out what really did
happen to him.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t know we <i>could</i>,” said Elfrida, choking.
“And even if we could, it wouldn’t be
right, would it? Aunt Edith said he was in
heaven. We couldn’t go there, you know. It
isn’t like history—it’s all different.”</p>
<p>“Well, then,” said Richard, “I shall have to
tell you. You know, I rather took a fancy to
you two kids that Gunpowder Plot time; and
after you’d gone back to your own times
asked Betty Lovell who you were, and she said
you were Lord Arden. So the next time I
wanted to get away from—from where I was—I
gave orders to be taken to Lord Arden. And
it——”</p>
<p>“Come along, do, dear,” said the sudden
voice of the Mouldiwarp. “The clock’s all
ready.”</p>
<p>A soft light was pressing against their eyes—growing,
growing. They saw now that they
were in a great chalk cave—the smugglers’ cave,
Edred had hardly a doubt. And in the middle
of its floor of smooth sand was a great clock-face—figures
and hands and all—made of softly
gleaming pearls set in ivory. Light seemed to
flow from this, and to be reflected back on it by
the white chalk walls. It was the most beautiful
piece of jeweller’s work that the children—or,
I imagine, any one else—had ever seen.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_322">322</div>
<p>“Sit on the minute hand,” said the Mouldiwarp,
“and home you go.”</p>
<p>“But I can’t go,” said Edred grimly, “till I’ve
heard what Richard was saying.”</p>
<p>“You’ll be caught, then, by the King and his
soldiers,” said the witch.</p>
<p>“I must risk that,” said Edred quite quietly.
“I will not go near the white clock till Richard
has told me what he means.”</p>
<p>“I’ll give him one minute,” said the Mouldiwarp
crossly, “not no more than that. I’m sick
to death of it, so I am.”</p>
<p>“Oh, <i>don’t</i> be cross,” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“I bain’t,” said the Mouldiwarp, “not under
my fur. It’s this Chop-and-change, and I-will-and-I-won’t
as makes me so worritable.”</p>
<p>“Tell me, what did you mean—about my
father?” Edred said again.</p>
<p>“I tried to find you—I asked for Lord
Arden. What I found wasn’t you—it was your
father. And the time was <i>your</i> time, July,
1908.”</p>
<p>“WHAT!” cried Edred and Elfrida together.</p>
<p>“Your father—he’s alive—don’t you understand?
And you’ve been bothering about finding
treasure instead of about finding him.”</p>
<p>“Daddy—alive!” Elfrida clung to her brother.
“Oh, it’s not right, mixing <i>him</i> up with magic
and things. Oh, you’re cruel—I hate you! I
know well enough I shall never see my daddy
again.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_323">323</div>
<p>“You will if you aren’t little cowards as well
as little duffers,” said Richard scornfully. “You
go and find him, that’s what you’ve got to do.
So long!”</p>
<p>And with that, before the Mouldiwarp or the
nurse could interfere, he had leapt on to the
long pearl and ivory minute hand of the clock
and said, “Home!” just as duchesses (and other
people) do to their coachmen (or footmen).</p>
<p>And before anything could be done the hands
of the clock began to go round, slowly at first,
then faster and faster, till at last they went so
fast that they became quite invisible. The
ivory and pearl figures of the clock could still
be seen on the sand of the cave.</p>
<p>Edred and Elfrida, still clinging together,
turned appealing eyes to the Mouldiwarp. They
expected it to be very angry indeed, instead of
which it seemed to be smiling. (Did you ever
see a white mole smile? No? But then, perhaps
you have never seen a white mole, and you
cannot see a smile without seeing the smiler,
except of course in the case of Cheshire cats.)</p>
<p>“He’s a bold boy, a brave boy,” said the witch.</p>
<p>“Ah!” said the Mouldiwarp, “he be summat
like an Arden, he be.”</p>
<p>Edred detached himself from Elfrida and stiffened
with a resolve to show the Mouldiwarp
that he too was not so unlike an Arden as it had
too hastily supposed.</p>
<p>“Can’t we get home?” Elfrida asked timidly.
“Can’t you make us another white clock, or
something?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_324">324</div>
<p>“Waste not, want not,” said the mole. “Always
wear out your old clocks afore you buys
new ’uns. Soon’s he gets off the hand the
clock’ll stop; then you can get on it and go
safe home.”</p>
<p>“But suppose the King finds us?” said Elfrida.</p>
<p>“He shan’t,” said Betty Lovell. “You open the
chalky door, Mouldy, my love, and I’ll keep the
King quiet till the young people’s gone home.”</p>
<p>“They’ll duck you for a witch,” said the
Mouldiwarp, and it did not seem to mind the
familiar way in which Betty spoke to it.</p>
<p>“Well, it’s a warm day,” said Betty; “by the
time they get me to the pond you’ll be safe
away. And the water’ll be nice and cool.”</p>
<p>“Oh, <i>no</i>,” said Edred and Elfrida together.
“You’ll be drowned.” And Edred added, “I
couldn’t allow that.”</p>
<p>“Bless your silly little hearts,” said the Mouldiwarp,
“<i>she</i> won’t drown. She’ll just get home
by the back door, that’s all. There’s a door at
the bottom of every pond, if you can only
find it.”</p>
<p>So Betty Lovell went out through the chalk
to meet the anger of the King, with two kisses
on her cheeks.</p>
<p>And suddenly there was the pearl and ivory
clock again, all complete, minute hand and hour
hand and second hand.</p>
<p>Edred and Elfrida sat down on the minute
hand, and before the Mouldiwarp could open its
long, narrow mouth to say a word Edred called
out in a firm voice, “Take us to where Daddy
is;” for he had learned from Richard that white
clocks can be ordered about.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_325">325</div>
<div class="img" id="pic32">
<img src="images/pmage325.jpg" alt="" width="802" height="500" />
<p class="caption">“THEY ALL JUMPED ON THE WHITE CLOCK.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_326">326</div>
<p>And the minute hand of pearl and ivory began
to move, faster and faster and faster, till, if
there had been any one to look at it, it would
have been invisible.</p>
<p>But there wasn’t any one to look at it, for the
Mouldiwarp had leaped on to the hour hand at
the last moment, and was hanging on there by
all its claws.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_327">327</div>
<h2 id="c14"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XIV</span>
<br /><span class="h2line2">THE FINDING OF THE TREASURE</span></h2>
<p>“To Richard Arden!” shouted the Mouldiwarp
of Arden as it leaped on the hour hand of the
pearl and ivory clock. And then the hands
went round far too fast for speech to be
possible. When the clock stopped, which it
did quite suddenly, Edred caught his breath
and shouted, “To my daddy!” at the top of
his voice. And the hands began to move again
so quickly that neither of the children had time
to see where they had stopped. They just saw
that they were in a room, and that the Mouldiwarp,
who seemed suddenly to have grown to
the size of an enormous Polar bear, leaned over
the edge of the clock and caught at something
with a paw a foot long. And then some one
called out something that they couldn’t hear,
and almost at once the clock stopped, and they
saw something climb off the clock. And the
clock was in the cave again. And there was
Cousin Richard in quite different clothes from
those he had worn at King Henry the Eighth’s
maying. They were the kind of clothes Edred
had worn in Boney’s time, and the cave was
just as it had been then, with kegs and bales,
and the stream running through it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_328">328</div>
<p>“You <i>must</i> come with us,” said the Mouldiwarp,
slowly resuming its ordinary size. “Don’t
you see? If these children let their father see
them, they’ll have to explain the whole magic,
and when once magic’s explained all the magic’s
gone, like the scent out of scent when you leave
the cork out of the bottle. But <i>you</i> can see
him and help—if he wants help—without having
to explain anything.”</p>
<p>“All right,” said Richard, and muttered something
about “the Head of the House.” “Only,”
he added, “I dropped <i>my</i> magic here.” He
stooped to the sand and picked up a little stick
with silver bells hung round it, like the one
that Folly carries at a carnival. “It’s got the
Arden arms and crest on it,” he said, pointing,
and by the light of the pearl and ivory clock
the children could see the shield and the
chequers and the Mouldiwarp above. “Now
I’m ready. Cousins, I take back everything
I said. You see, <i>my</i> father’s dead . . . and if
I’d only had half your chance. . . . That was
what I thought. See? So give us your hand.”</p>
<p>The hands were given.</p>
<p>“But oh,” said Elfrida, “this is different from
all the rest; that was a game, and this is—this
is——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_329">329</div>
<p>“This is real, my sock-lamb,” said the Mouldiwarp,
with unusual kindness. “Now your
Cousin Richard will help you, and when you
get your father back, as I make no doubts
but what you will, then your Cousin Dick he’ll
go back to his own time and generation, and
be seen no more, and your father won’t never
guess that you was there so close to him as you
will be.”</p>
<p>“I don’t believe we shall,” said Elfrida, nodding
stubbornly, and for the first time in this
story she did <i>not</i> believe.</p>
<p>“Oh, well,” said the Mouldiwarp bitterly,
“of course if you don’t believe you’ll find him,
you’ll not find him. That’s plain as a currant
loaf.”</p>
<p>“But <i>I</i> believe we shall find him,” said Edred,
“and Elfrida’s only a girl. It might be only
a dream, of course,” he added thoughtfully.
“Don’t you think I don’t know that. But if
it’s a dream, I’m going to stay in it. I’m not
going back to Arden without my father.”</p>
<p>“Do you understand,” said the Mouldiwarp,
“that if I take you into any other time or
place in your own century, it’s the full stop?
There isn’t any more.”</p>
<p>“It means there’s no chance of our getting
into the past again, to look for treasure or
anything?”</p>
<p>“Oh, <i>chance</i>!” said the Mouldiwarp. “I
mean no magic clock’ll not never be made for
you no more, that’s what I mean. And if you
find your father you’ll not be Lord Arden any
more, either!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_330">330</div>
<p>I hope it will not shock you very much when
I tell you that at that thought a distinct pang
shot through Edred’s breast. He really felt it,
in his flesh-and-blood breast, like a sharp knife.
It was dreadful of him to think of such a thing,
when there was a chance of his getting his
daddy in exchange for just a title. It <i>was</i>
dreadful; but I am a truthful writer, and I
must own the truth. In one moment he felt
the most dreadful things—that it was all
nonsense, and perhaps daddy wasn’t there, and
it was no good looking for him any way, and
he wanted to go on being Lord Arden, and
hadn’t they better go home.</p>
<p>The thoughts came quite without his meaning
them to, and Edred pushed them from him
with both hands, so to speak, hating himself
because they had come to him. And he will
hate himself for those thoughts, though he did
not mean or wish to have them, as long as he
lives, every time he remembers them. That
is the worst of thoughts, they live for ever.</p>
<p>“I don’t want to be Lord Arden,” was what
he instantly said—“I want my father.” And
what he said was true, in spite of those
thoughts that he didn’t mean to have and can
never forget.</p>
<p>“Shall I come along of you?” said the Mouldiwarp,
and every one said “Yes,” very earnestly.
A friendly Mouldiwarp is a very useful thing
to have at hand when you are going you don’t
know where.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_331">331</div>
<p>“Now, you won’t make any mistake,” the
mole went on. “This is the wind-up and the
end-all. So it is. No more chestses in atticses.
No more fine clotheses out of ’em neither. An’
no more white clocks.”</p>
<p>“All right,” said Edred impatiently, “we
understand. Now let’s go.”</p>
<p>“You wait a bit,” said the Mouldiwarp
aggravatingly. “You’ve got to settle what
you’ll be, and what way your father’d better
come out. <i>I</i> think through the chink of the
chalk.”</p>
<p>“Any way you like,” said Elfrida. “And
Mouldiwarp, dear, shan’t we ever see <i>you</i>
again?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I don’t say <i>that</i>,” it said. “You’ll see
me at dinner every day.”</p>
<p>“At dinner?”</p>
<p>“I’m on all the spoons and forks, anyhow,” it
said, and sniggered more aggravatingly than
ever.</p>
<p>“Mouldie!” cried Edred suddenly, “I’ve got
it. You disguise us so that father won’t know
us, and then we shan’t be out of it all, whatever
it is.”</p>
<p>“I think that’s a first-rate idea,” said Richard;
“and me too.”</p>
<p>“Not you,” said the Mouldiwarp. But it
waved a white paw at Edred and Elfrida, and
at once they found themselves dressed in tight-fitting
white fur dresses. Their hands even wore
fat, white fur gloves with tiger claws at the
ends of the fingers. At the same moment the
Mouldiwarp grew big again—to the size of
a very small Polar bear, while Cousin Richard
suddenly assumed the proportions of a giant.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_332">332</div>
<p>“Now!” said the Mouldiwarp, and they all
leaped on the white clock, which started at once.</p>
<p>When it stopped, and they stepped off it, it
was on to a carpet of thick moss. Overhead,
through the branches of enormous trees, there
shone stars of a wonderful golden brightness.
The air was warm-scented as if with flowers,
and warm to breathe, yet they did not feel that
their fur coats were a bit too warm for the
weather. The moss was so soft to their feet
that Edred and Elfrida wanted to feel it with
their hands as well, so down they went on all
fours. Then they longed to lie down and roll
on it; they longed so much that they had to do
it. It was a delicious sensation, rolling in the
soft moss.</p>
<p>Cousin Richard, still very much too big, stood
looking down on them and laughing. They
were too busy rolling to look at each other.</p>
<p>“This,” he said, “is a first-class lark. Now
for the cleft in the chalk. Shall I carry you?”
he added politely, addressing the Mouldiwarp,
who, rather surprisingly, consented.</p>
<p>“Come on,” he said to the children, and as he
went they followed him.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_333">333</div>
<p>There was something about the moss, or about
the fur coats or the fur gloves, that somehow
made it seem easier and more natural to follow
on all fours—and really their hands were quite
as useful to walk on as their feet. Never had
they felt so light, so gay, never had walking
been such easy work. They followed Richard
through the forest till quite abruptly, like the
wall at the end of a shrubbery, a great cliff rose
in front of them, ending the forest. There was
a cleft in it, they saw the darkness of it rising
above them as the moon came out from a cloud
and shone full on the cliff’s white face—and the
face of the cliff and the shape of the cleft were
very like that little cleft in the chalk that the
Mouldiwarp had made when it had pulled up
turf on the Sussex downs at home. And all
this time Edred and Elfrida had never looked
at each other. There had been so many other
things to look at.</p>
<p>“That’s the way,” said Cousin Richard, pointing
up the dark cleft. Though it was so dark
Edred and Elfrida could see quite plainly that
there were no steps—only ledges that a very
polite goat might have said were a foothold.</p>
<p>“You couldn’t climb up there,” Edred said
to the great Richard; yet somehow he never
doubted that he and Elfrida could.</p>
<p>“No,” said the Mouldiwarp, leaping from
Richard’s arms to the ground, “I must carry
him”—and it grew to Polar bear size quite
calmly before their very eyes.</p>
<p>“They don’t see it—even yet,” said Richard
to the mole.</p>
<p>“See what?” Elfrida asked.</p>
<p>“Why, what your disguise is. You’re cats,
my dear cousins, white cats!”</p>
<p>Then Edred and Elfrida did look at each
other, and it was quite true, they <i>were</i>.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_334">334</div>
<p>“I’ll tell you what my plan is,” Richard went
on. “The people of this country have never
seen tame cats. They think a person who can
tame animals is a magician. I found that out
when I was here before. So now I’ve got three
tame animals, all white too, that is, if you’ll
play,” he added to the Mouldiwarp. “You <i>will</i>
play, won’t you?”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes, I’ll play!” it said, snarling a little.</p>
<p>“And you cats must only mew and purr, and
do whatever I tell you. You’ll see how I work
it. Don’t do anything for any one but me and
your father.”</p>
<p>“Is father really here?” asked Elfrida,
trembling a little.</p>
<p>“He’s on the other side of the great cliff,”
said Richard,—“the cliff no man can climb.
But <i>you</i> can come.”</p>
<p>He got on the Mouldiwarp’s back and put his
arms round its Polar-bear-like neck, and it
began to climb. That <i>was</i> a climb. Even the
cats, which Edred and Elfrida now could not
help seeing that they were, found it as much
as they could do to keep their footing on those
little, smooth, shelving ledges. If it had not
been that they had cat’s eyes, and so could see
in the dark, they never could have done it.
And it was such a long, long climb too; it
seemed as though it would last for ever.</p>
<p>“I’ve heard of foreign climbs,” said Elfrida,
“but I never thought they would be like this.
I suppose it <i>is</i> foreign?”</p>
<p>“South American,” said Richard. “You can
look for it on the map when you get home—but
you won’t find it. Come on!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_335">335</div>
<p>And then when they had climbed to the top
of the cliff they had to go down on the other
side. For the cliff rose like a wall between the
forest and a wide plain, and by the time they
reached that plain the sun was looking down
at them over the cliff.</p>
<p>The plain was very large and very wonderful,
and a towering wall of cliff ran all round it.
The plain was all laid out in roads and avenues
and fields and parks. Towns and palaces were
dotted about it—a tall aqueduct on hundreds
of pillars brought water from an arch in the
face of the cliff to the middle of the plain, and
from these canals ran out to the cliff wall that
bounded the plain all round, even and straight,
like the spokes of a wheel, and disappeared
under low arches of stone, back under the cliff.
There were lakes, there were gardens, there
were great stone buildings whose roofs shone
like gold where the rising sun struck them.</p>
<p>In the fields were long-horned cattle and
strange, high-shouldered sheep, which Richard
said were llamas.</p>
<p>“I know,” he explained, “from seeing them on
the postage stamps.”</p>
<p>They advanced into the plain and sat down
under a spreading tree.</p>
<p>“We must just wait till we’re found,” said
Richard. He had assumed entire command of
the expedition, and Edred and Elfrida, being
cats, had to submit, but they did not like it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_336">336</div>
<p>Presently shepherds coming early to attend
to their flocks found a boy in strange clothes,
attended by a great white bear and two white
cats, sitting under a tree.</p>
<p>The shepherds did not seem afraid of the bear—only
curious and interested; but when the
Mouldiwarp had stood up on its hind legs and
bowed gravely and the cats had stood up and
lain down and shaken paws and turned somersaults
at the word of command one of the
shepherds wrapped his red woollen cloak round
him with an air of determination and, making
signs that Richard was to follow, set off with all
his might for the nearest town.</p>
<p>Quite soon they found themselves in the
central square of one of the most beautiful
towns in the world. I wish I had time to tell
you exactly what it was like, but I have not.
I can only say that it was at once clean and
grand, splendid and comfortable. There was
not a dirty corner nor a sad face from one end
of the town to the other. The houses were
made of great blocks of stone inlaid wonderfully
with gold and silver; clear streams—or baby
canals—ran by the side of every street, and
each street had a double row of trees running
all along its wide length. There were open,
grassy spaces and flower-beds set with flowers,
some glowing with their natural and lovely
colours and some cunningly fashioned of gold
and silver and jewels. There were fountains
and miniature waterfalls. The faces of the
people were dark, but kind and unwrinkled.
There was a market with stalls of pleasant fruits
and cakes and bright-coloured, soft clothes.
There was a great Hall in the middle of the
town with a garden on its flat roof, and to this
Hall the shepherd led the party.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_337">337</div>
<div class="img" id="pic33">
<img src="images/pmage338.jpg" alt="" width="388" height="800" />
<p class="caption">“THE HOUSES WERE MADE OF GREAT BLOCKS OF STONE.”</p>
</div>
<div class="pb" id="Page_338">338</div>
<p>The big doors of inlaid wood were set wide
and a crowd, all dressed in soft stuffs of beautiful
colours, filled the long room inside. The room
was open to the sky; a wrinkled awning drawn
close at one side showed that the people could
have a roof when it suited them.</p>
<p>There was a raised stone platform at one end,
and on this three chairs. The crowd made way
for the shepherd and his following, and as they
drew near to the raised platform the two white
cats, who were Edred and Elfrida, looked up
and saw in the middle and biggest chair a
splendid, dark-faced man in a kind of fringed
turban with two long feathers in it, and in the
two chairs to right and left of him, clothed in
beautiful embroidered stuffs, with shining collars
of jewels about their necks, Father and Uncle
Jim!</p>
<p>“Not a word!” said Cousin Dick, just in time
to restrain the voices of the children who were
cats. Their actions he could not restrain.
Every one in that Hall saw two white cats
spring forward and rub themselves against the
legs of the man who sat in the right-hand chair.
Compelled to silence as they were by the danger
of their position, Edred and Elfrida rubbed their
white-cat bodies against their father’s legs in a
rapture which I cannot describe and purred
enthusiastically. It was a wonderful relief to
be able to purr, since they must not speak.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_339">339</div>
<p>The King—he who sat on the high seat—stood
up, looking down on them with wise, kind
eyes, and spoke, seeming to ask a question.</p>
<p>Quite as wonderfully as any trained bear,
and far more gracefully, the white Mouldiwarp
danced before the King of that mysterious
hidden kingdom.</p>
<p>Then Dick whistled, and Edred and Elfrida
withdrew themselves from their passionate
caresses of the only parts of their father that
they could get at, and stood upon their white-hind-cat-feet.</p>
<p>“The minuet,” said Edred, in a rapid whisper.
Dick whistled a tune that they had never heard,
but the tune was right; and now was seen the
spectacle of two white cats slowly and solemnly
going through the figures of that complicated
dance, to the music of Dick’s clear whistling,
turning, bowing, pacing with all the graces that
Aunt Edith had taught them when they were
Edred and Elfrida and not white cats.</p>
<p>When the last bow and curtsey ended the
dance, the King himself shouted some word that
they were sure meant, “Well done!” All the
people shouted the same word, and only father
and Uncle Jim shouted “Bravo!”</p>
<p>Then the King questioned Dick.</p>
<p>No answer. He laid his finger on his lips.</p>
<p>Then the King spoke to father, and he in
turn tried questions, in English and French
and then in other languages. And still Dick
kept on laying his finger on his lips, and the
white bear shook its head quite sadly, and the
white cats purred aloud with their eyes on
their father.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_340">340</div>
<p>Richard stooped. “When your father goes
out, follow him,” he whispered.</p>
<p>And so, when the King rose from his throne
and went out, and every one else did the same,
the white cats, deserting Dick, followed close on
their father’s footsteps. When the King saw
this, he spoke to the men about him, who were
leading Richard in another direction, and
presently the cats and the bear that was the
Mouldiwarp, and Richard found themselves
alone with Uncle Jim and the father of Elfrida
on a beautiful terrace shaded by trees, and set
all along its edge with wonderful trailing
flowers of red and white and purple that grew
out of vases of solid silver.</p>
<p>And now, there being none of the brown
people near, Richard looked full in the eyes
of the father of Edred and Elfrida, and said in
a very low voice—</p>
<p>“I am English. I’ve come to rescue you.”</p>
<p>“You’re a bold boy,” said Edred and Elfrida’s
father, “but rescue’s impossible.”</p>
<p>“There’s not much time,” said Richard again;
“they’ve only let us come here just to see if you
know us. I expect they’re listening. You are
Lord Arden now—the old lord is dead. I can
get you out if you do exactly as I say.”</p>
<p>“It’s worth trying,” said Uncle Jim,—“it’s
worth trying anyhow, whatever it is.”</p>
<p>“Are you free to go where you like?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_341">341</div>
<p>“Yes,” said Lord Arden—not Edred, but
Edred’s father, for Edred was now no longer
Lord Arden. “You see there’s no way out but
the one, and that’s guarded by a hundred men
with poisoned arrows.”</p>
<p>“There <i>is</i> another way,” said Richard; “the
way we came. The white bear can carry you,
one at a time.”</p>
<p>“Shall we risk it?” said Lord Arden, a little
doubtfully.</p>
<p>“Rather!” said Uncle Jim; “think of Edith
and the kids.”</p>
<p>“That’s what I <i>am</i> thinking of,” said Lord
Arden; “while we’re alive there’s a chance. If
we try this and fail, they’ll kill us.”</p>
<p>“You won’t fail,” said Richard. “I’ll help
you to get home; but I would like to know how
you got into this fix. It’s only curiosity. But
I wish you’d tell me. Perhaps I shan’t see you
again after to-day.”</p>
<p>“We stumbled on the entrance, the only
entrance to the golden plain,” said Lord Arden,
“prospecting for gold among these mountains.
They have kept us prisoners ever since, because
they are determined not to let the world know
of the existence of the plain. There are always
rumours of it, but so far no ‘civilised’ people
have found it. Every King when he comes to
the throne takes an oath that he will die sooner
than allow the plain to be infected by the
wicked cruelties of modern civilisation.”</p>
<p>“I think so too,” said Dick.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_342">342</div>
<p>“This is an older civilisation than that of the
Incas,” said Lord Arden, “and it is the most
beautiful life I have ever dreamed of. If they
had trusted me, I would never have betrayed
them. If I escape, I will never betray them.
If I let in our horrible system of trusts and
syndicates, and commercialism and crime, on
this golden life, I should know myself to be as
great a criminal as though I had thrown a little
child to wild beasts.”</p>
<p>The white cats noticed with wonder and
respect that their father addressed Richard
exactly as though he had been a grown-up.</p>
<p>“We managed to send one line to a newspaper,
to say that we were taken by bandits,”
Lord Arden went on; “it was all that they
would allow us to do. But except that we have
not been free, we have had everything—food,
clothes, kindness, justice, affection. We <i>must</i>
escape, if we can, because of my sister and the
children, but it is like going out of Eden into
the Black Country.”</p>
<p>“That’s so,” said Uncle Jim.</p>
<p>“And if we’re not to see you again,” Lord
Arden went on, “tell me why you have come—at
great risk it must be—to help us.”</p>
<p>“I owe a debt,” said Richard, in a low voice,
“to all who bear the name of Arden.” His voice
sank so low that the two cats could only hear
the words “head of the house.”</p>
<p>“And now,” Richard went on, “you see that
black chink over there?” he pointed to the
crevice in the cliff. “Be there, both of you, at
moonrise, and you shall get away safely to
Arden Castle.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_343">343</div>
<p>“You must come with us, of course,” said
Lord Arden. “I might be of service to you.
We have quite a respectable little fortune in a
bank at Lima—not in our own names—but we
can get it out, if you can get <i>us</i> out. You’ve
brought us luck, I’m certain of it. Won’t you
go with us, and share it?”</p>
<p>“I can’t,” said Richard. “I must go back to
my own time, my own place, I mean. Now
I’ll go. Come on, cats.”</p>
<p>The cats looked imploringly at their father,
but they went and stood by Richard.</p>
<p>“I suppose we <i>may</i> go?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Every one is perfectly free here,” said Lord
Arden. “The only thing you may not do is to
leave the golden plain. It is very strange.
There are hardly any laws. We are all free
to do as we like, and no one seems to like to
do anything that hurts any one else. Only if,
any one is caught trying to get into the outer
world, or to let the outer world in, he is killed—without
pain, and not as vengeance but as
necessity.”</p>
<p>The white cats looked at each other rather
ruefully. This was not at all the way in which
they remembered their daddy’s talking to them.</p>
<p>“But,” said Lord Arden, “for the children and
my sister we must risk it. I trust you completely,
and we will be at the crevice when the
moon rises.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_344">344</div>
<p>So Richard and his three white animals went
out down steps cut in the solid rock, and the
townspeople crowded round them with fruits
and maize-cakes for Richard, and milk in golden
platters for the cats.</p>
<p>And later Richard made signs of being sleepy,
and they let him go away among the fields,
followed by the three white creatures. And
at the appointed hour they all met under the
vast cliff that was the natural wall and guardian
of the golden plain.</p>
<p>And the Mouldiwarp carried Uncle Jim up to
the top, and then came back for Lord Arden
and Richard. But before there was time to do
more a shout went up, and a thousand torches
sprang to life in the city they had left, and they
knew that their flight had been discovered.</p>
<p>“There’s no time,” the white Bear-Mouldiwarp,
to the utter astonishment of Lord
Arden, opened its long mouth and spoke. And
the white cats also opened their mouths and
cried, “Oh, daddy, how awful! what shall
we do?”</p>
<p>“Hold your silly tongues,” said the Mouldiwarp
crossly. “You was told not to go gossiping.
Here! scratch a way out with them white
paws of yours.”</p>
<p>It set the example, scratching at the enormous
cliff with those strong, blunt, curved front feet
of it. And the cats scratched too, with their
white, padded gloves that had tiger claws to
them. And the rock yielded—there was a white
crack—wider, wider. And the swaying, swirling
torches came nearer and nearer across the plain.</p>
<p>“In with you!” cried the Mouldiwarp; “in
with you!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_345">345</div>
<p>“Jim!” said Lord Arden. “I’ll not go without
Jim!”</p>
<p>“He’s half-way there already,” said the Mouldiwarp,
pushing Lord Arden with its great
white shoulder. “Come, I say, come!” It
pushed them all into the crack of the rock,
and the cliff closed firm and fast behind them,
an unanswerable “<i>No</i>” set up in the face of
their pursuers.</p>
<p>“This way out,” said the Mouldiwarp, pointing
its dusty claw to where ahead light showed.</p>
<p>“Why,” said Edred, “it’s the smugglers’ cave—and
there’s the clock!”</p>
<p>Next moment there it wasn’t, for Richard had
leapt on it, and he and it had vanished together,
the Mouldiwarp clinging to the hour hand at
the last moment.</p>
<p>The white cats, which were Edred and Elfrida,
drew back from the whirl of the hands that was
the first step towards vanishment. They saw
their father and Uncle Jim go up the steps that
led to the rude wooden door whose key was like
a church key—the door that led to the opening
among the furze that they had never been able
to find again.</p>
<p>When the vanishing of the clock allowed them
to follow, and they regained the sunny outer
air where the skylarks were singing as usual,
they were just in time to see two figures going
towards the castle and very near it.</p>
<p>They turned to look at each other.</p>
<p>“Why,” said Edred, “you’re not a cat any
more!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_346">346</div>
<p>“No more are you, if it comes to that,” said
Elfrida. “Oh, Edred, they’re going in at the
big gate! Do you think it’s really real—or have
we just dreamed it—this time? It was much
more dreamish than any of the other things.”</p>
<p>“I feel,” said Edred, sitting down abruptly,
“as if I’d been a cat all my life, and been swung
round by my tail every day of my life. I think
I’ll sit here till I’m quite sure whether I’m a
white cat or Edred Arden.”</p>
<p>“I know which <i>I</i> am,” said Elfrida; but she,
too, was not sorry to sit down.</p>
<p>“That’s easy. You aren’t either of them,”
said Edred.</p>
<p class="center"><span class="gs">· · · · ·</span></p>
<p>When, half an hour later, they slowly went
down to the castle, still doubtful whether
anything magic had ever really happened, or
whether all the magic things that had seemed
to happen had really been only a sort of double,
or twin, dream. They were met at the door by
Aunt Edith, pale as the pearl and ivory of the
white clock, and with eyes that shone like the
dewdrops on the wild flowers that Elfrida had
given to the Queen.</p>
<p>“Oh, kiddies!” she cried. “Oh, dear, darling
kiddies!”</p>
<p>And she went down on her knees so that she
should be nearer their own height and could
embrace them on more equal terms.</p>
<p>“Something lovely’s happened,” she said;
“something so beautiful that you won’t be
able to believe it.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_347">347</div>
<p>They kissed her heartily, partly out of affection,
and partly to conceal their want of
surprise.</p>
<p>“Darlings, it’s the loveliest thing that could
possibly happen. What do you think?”</p>
<p>“Daddy’s come home,” said Elfrida, feeling
dreadfully deceitful.</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Aunt Edith. “How clever of you,
my pet! And Uncle Jim. They’ve been kept
prisoners in South America, and an English boy
with a performing bear helped them to escape.”</p>
<p>No mention of cats. The children felt hurt.</p>
<p>“And they had the most dreadful time—months
and months and months—coming across
the interior—no water, and Indians and all sorts
of adventures; and daddy had fever, and would
insist that the bear was the Mouldiwarp—our
crest, you know—come to life, and talking just
like you or me, and that there were white cats
that had your voices, and called him daddy.
But he’s all right now, only very weak. That’s
why I’m telling you all this. You must be very
quiet and gentle. Oh, my dears, it’s too good to
be true, too good to be true!”</p>
<p class="center"><span class="gs">· · · · ·</span></p>
<p>Now, was it the father of Edred and Elfrida
who had brain fever and fancied things? Or
did they, blameless of fever, and not too guilty
of brains, imagine it all? Uncle Jim can tell
you exactly how it all happened. There is no
magic in <i>his</i> story. Father—I mean Lord
Arden—does not talk of what he dreamed when
he had brain fever. And Edred and Elfrida do
not talk of what happened when they hadn’t.
At least they do, but only to me.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_348">348</div>
<p>It is all very wonderful and mysterious, as
all life is apt to be if you go a little below the
crust, and are not content just to read newspapers
and go by the Tube Railway, and buy
your clothes ready-made, and think nothing can
be true unless it is uninteresting.</p>
<p class="center"><span class="gs">· · · · ·</span></p>
<p>“I’ve found the most wonderful photographs
of pictures of Arden Castle,” said Aunt Edith,
later on. “We can restore the castle perfectly
from them. I do wish I knew where the
original pictures were.”</p>
<p>“I’m afraid we can’t restore the castle,” said
Lord Arden laughing; “our little fortune’s
enough to keep us going quite comfortably—but
it won’t rebuild Norman masonry.”</p>
<p>“I do wish we could have found the buried
treasure,” said Edred.</p>
<p>“We’ve got treasure enough,” said Aunt Edith,
looking at Uncle Jim.</p>
<p>As for what Elfrida thinks—well, I wish you
could have seen her face when she went into the
parlour that evening after Aunt Edith had knelt
down to meet them on equal terms, and tell
them of the treasure of love and joy that had
come home to Arden.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_349">349</div>
<p>There was Lord Arden, looking exactly like
the Lord Arden she had known in the Gunpowder
Plot days, and also exactly like the
daddy she had known all her life, sitting at ease
in the big chair just underneath the secret panel
behind which Sir Edward Talbot had hidden
when he was pretending to be the Chevalier
St. George. His dear face was just the same
and the smile on it was her own smile—the
merry, tender, twinkling smile that was for her
and for no one else in the world. It was just a
moment that she stood at the door. But it was
one of these moments that are as short as a
watch-tick, and as long as a year. She stood
there and asked herself, “Have I dreamed it
all? Isn’t there really any Mouldiwarp or any
treasure?”</p>
<p>And then a great wave of love and longing
caught at her, and she knew that, Mouldiwarp
or no Mouldiwarp, the treasure was hers, and
in one flash she was across the room and in her
father’s arms, sobbing and laughing and saying
again and again—</p>
<p>“Oh, my daddy! Oh, my daddy, my daddy!”</p>
<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">THE END</span></p>
<h2>Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
<ul>
<li>Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.</li>
<li>Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.</li>
<li>In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)</li>
</ul>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57799 ***</div>
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