The House of Arden

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, weatherworn walls. And of the male Ardens there were now known two only⁠—an old man and a child.

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, windswept town on a cliff.

“Well⁠—” Edred was beginning; but at that same moment the mole also, suddenly and astonishingly, said, “Well?”

There was a hushed pause. Then⁠—

“Did you say that?” Elfrida whispered.

“No,” said Edred, “you did.”

“Don’t whisper, now,” said the mole; “ ’tain’t purty manners, so I tells ’ee.”

With one accord the two children came to their knees, one on each side of the white mole.

“I say!” said Edred.

“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.”

“But not to talk with?” said Elfrida softly.

“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.”

“When you’re where?” said Edred, rather annoyed at being forced to believe in fairy tales, which he had never really liked.

“Why, in a fairy tale for sure,” said the mole. “Wherever to goodness else on earth do you suppose you be?”

“We’re here,” said Edred, kicking the ground to make it feel more solid and himself more sure of things, “on Arden Knoll.”

“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?”

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 crossroads, 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—

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“I want the collar of pearls,” said he, “and the pomander, and the little gold watch, and the jewels that have been reset.”

Then Elfrida knew who he was.

“Oh,” she cried, “you are mean!”

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.

The sewing was difficult, and hurt her eyes, but she persevered. Presently someone 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.