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.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“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. 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?”

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.

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.

“Sit thee down,” said the nurse, “and sew on thy sampler.”

There was the sampler, very fine indeed, in a large polished wood frame.

“I wish I needn’t,” said Elfrida, looking anxiously at the fine silks.

“Tut, tut,” said the nurse, “how’ll thee grow to be a lady if thou doesn’t mind thy needle?”

“I’d much rather talk to you,” said Elfrida coaxingly.

“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.”

“I suppose,” thought Elfrida, taking up the needle, “that I am fond of my Cousin Richard.”

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 is 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.

“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 was fond of him.

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.

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.

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.

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 that 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 does know.

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—

“I say, Cousin Richard, what day is it?”

Elfrida understood him to say that it was the fifth of November.

“Is it really?” she said. “Then it’s Guy Fawkes day. Do you have fireworks?” And in pure lightness of heart began to hum—

“’Tis not a merry song, cousin,” said Cousin Richard, “nor a safe one. ’Tis best not to sing of treason.”

“But it didn’t come off, you know, and he’s always burnt in the end,” said Elfrida.

“Are there more verses?” Cousin Dick asked.

“No.”

“I wonder what treason the ballad deals with?” said the boy.

“Don’t you know?” It was then that Elfrida made the mistake of showing off her historical knowledge. “I know. And I know some of the names of the conspirators, too, and who they wanted to kill, and everything.”

“Tell me,” said Cousin Richard idly.

“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.”

“I never heard this tale from my tutor,” said Cousin Richard laughing. “Proceed, cousin.”

“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——”

“What King?” said Cousin Richard.

“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.

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).

“Now, Mistress Arden,” he said softly, “tell me over again this romance that you tell your cousin.”

Elfrida told it.

“And where did you hear this pretty story?” he asked.

“Where are we now?” gasped Elfrida, who was beginning to understand.

“Here in the garden—where else?” said Cousin Richard, who seemed to understand nothing of the matter.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.

“But—but—it’s history,” cried Elfrida, in despair. “It’s in all the books.”

“Which books?” he asked keenly.

“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.

“Now,” said the hateful tutor, for such Elfrida felt him to be, “tell me the names of the conspirators.”

“It can’t 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 has happened, and it can’t make any difference what I say, so I’d better tell all the names I know.”

The hateful tutor shook her.

“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—

“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, out of doors behind stone seats, when people are talking nonsense to their own cousins.”

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.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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. 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.

CHAPTER IX
THE PRISONERS IN THE TOWER

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 was 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 not very fond of alone a prisoner in the Tower in the time of James I. and the Gunpowder Plot.

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 one 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.

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.

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.

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—

“Your servant, sir;” adding, “you do look ripping!”

“I do not take your meaning,” said the gentleman, but he smiled kindly.

“I mean, how splendid you look!”

The old gentleman looked pleased.

“I am happy to command your admiration,” he said.

“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.”

“Praise to my face isn’t open disgrace,” said the gentleman, “it is a pleasant novelty in these walls.”

“Is it your birthday or anything?” Edred asked.

“It is not my birthday,” said the gentleman smiling. “But why the question?”

“Because you’re so grand,” said Edred. “I suppose you’re a prince then?”

“No, not a prince—a prisoner.”

“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 am so glad. At least, I’m sorry you’re going, but I’m glad on your account.”

“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.

“Oh!” 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.”

“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?”

“I’m sorry,” said Edred humbly.

“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.”

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.

“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.

“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 Destiny, 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 know it’s true. It’s all in the book?”

“The book?” Sir Walter asked. “A prophecy, belike?”

“You can call it that if you want to,” said Edred cautiously; “but, anyhow, it’s true.”

He had read it all in the History of Arden.

“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.”

“Thank you, very much,” said Edred, “it is very kind of you: but I shall not be there.”

And all Sir Walter’s questions did not make him say how he knew this, or what he meant by it.

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 seemed 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 really went into the real 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.

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.

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.

Of course Elfrida was kept in the Tower because she had sung the rhyme about—

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 how she knew it, without being a traitor.

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?”

“No!” Elfrida would say, hugging him as well as she could for his ruff. “I know you wouldn’t beat your girl, don’t I, daddy?” And as she hugged him it felt almost like hugging her own daddy, who would never come home from America.

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.

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 won’t be found guilty of treason—he won’t be executed. He’ll just be sent to Arden, and live there quietly with you. I saw it all in a book.”

But Lady Arden only cried and cried.

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.”

“He’s always messing about—nasty sneak,” said Edred. “I should like to be even with him before I go. And I will too.”

“Before you go? Go whither?” Cousin Richard asked.

“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—

“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.”

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.

“Get her out of the Tower?” Dick laughed and then was sad. “I would we could!” he said.

“We can,” 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.

“One grown-up?” Dick asked.

“Yes. I think Nurse would do it. And I’m going to find out if we can trust her.”

“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.”

“Then that’s all right,” said Edred.

“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.

“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 do know that.”

“But how did my Lady Nithsdale get my Lord Nithsdale out—and from what?” Dick asked.

“Why, out of the Tower, you know,” Edred was beginning, when he remembered that Dick did not 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—

“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 haven’t time to tell you the story, but any grown-up who knows history will be only too pleased to tell it.

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.

“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 were present. Therefore, I take it, I am a virtuous youth.”

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.

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.

“So much the better,” said the old nurse, “so much the better.”

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.

And again, “So much the better,” the nurse said, “so much the better.”

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.

“Go with Nurse,” he whispered through the hug. “Do exactly what she tells you.”

“But I’ve made a piece of poetry,” Elfrida whispered, “and now you’re here.”

“Do what you’re told,” 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.”

Then Elfrida understood. Her arms fell from round Edred’s neck and she ran back to Lord Arden and put her arms round his neck and kissed him over and over again.

“There, there, my maid, there, there!” he said, patting her shoulder softly, for she was crying.

“Come with me to thy chamber,” said the nurse. “I would take thy measure for a new gown and petticoat.”

But Elfrida clung closer. “She does not want to leave her dad,” said Lord Arden—“dost thou, my maid?”

“No, no,” said Elfrida quite wildly, “I don’t want to leave my daddy!”

“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.”

“Goodbye, dear, dear, dear daddy!” said Elfrida, suddenly standing up. “Oh, my dear daddy, goodbye!”

“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.

“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!”

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.

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.

“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.”

“Is it so?” said the guard kindly. “Poor child! Well, such is life, mistress, and we all have tears to weep.”

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.

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.

“I will convey him to our coach, good masters,” she said to the guard, “and return for my other charge, young Master Richard Arden.”

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.

“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.

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 one little boy as they would expect, but with two. 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.

“So now for it,” said Edred, as he and Richard followed the nurse down the narrow steps and across the snowy courtyard.

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.

“But it was Edred thought of it,” said Richard, as in honour bound, “and he arranged everything and carried it out.”

“How splendid of him!” said Elfrida warmly; and I think it was rather splendid of her 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.

So they came to Arden House.