E. Nesbit

“ 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.” ”

“ 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.
And quite soon they were at the top of Arden Hill, and the lights of the castle gleamed and blinked below them.
“Now, sweetheart,” said the highwayman, “I shall set you down in sight of the door and wait till the door opens. ”

“ To get into the past like we used to do.
Dear Mouldiwarp, we don’t want to worry
You—but we are in a frightful hurry.”
“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.”
“Is there any other way,” said Elfrida, “to get back into the past? We can’t find the door now.” ”

“ 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!
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. ”

“ 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.
“Oh, yes,” said Elfrida, and Edred did not say “Oh, no.”
“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.
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. ”

“ It is always difficult to remember exactly where one is when one happens to get into a century that is not one’s own.
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.
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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!
“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. ”

“ 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.
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And it was there, in a yew arbour, that she came suddenly on the grandest and handsomest gentleman that she had ever seen. ”

“ George?”
“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?”
“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?” ”

“ 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!
“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.” ”

“ 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.
“I’d give all my pocket-money for a year to hear what they’re saying,” Edred told himself.
“That daddy’s just like my daddy,” Elfrida was telling herself; “and just like the daddy in the Tower that was so like my own daddy.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.”
“Cruel!” said Elfrida. “I hope you didn’t look.”
“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. ”

“ 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.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Elfrida asked, very sorry indeed, for the old woman’s voice was very pitiful. ”

“ 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 she 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. ”

“ 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.
Elfrida could have cried. It seemed such a pity that everybody should not always be good and happy, as everybody looked to-day. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
Cousin Richard, still very much too big, stood looking down on them and laughing. They were too busy rolling to look at each other.
“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. ”

“ This isn’t a bit like the water-shoot or anything. Now, is it?”
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.
“So it’s here you’ve hidden yourselves!” she cried. “And I looking high and low to change your dress.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
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 were roads. ”

“ 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.”
“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.” ”

“ The cats looked imploringly at their father, but they went and stood by Richard.
“I suppose we may go?” he asked.
“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.”
The white cats looked at each other rather ruefully. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You’d never understand it if I was to tell it you, likely as not.”
“We like grown-up stories,” said Elfrida, with dignity; and Edred added—
“We can understand anything 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 that 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.” ”

“ 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. ”