The House of Arden | Page 5

his boots in the thick, white
dust.
"Well," said she, "I'll say I'm sorry first. Will that do?"
"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."
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.
"Let's go by train," said Edred grandly.
"No money," said Elfrida, very forlornly indeed.
"Aha!" said Edred; "now you'll see. I'm not mean about money. I
brought my new florin."
"Oh, Edred," said the girl, stricken with remorse, "you are noble."
"Pooh!" said the boy, and his ears grew red with mingled triumph and
modesty; "that's nothing. Come on."
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.
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.
"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.
Two bites of sandwich and one of peppermint cream; that was the rule.
And all the time they were munching they looked down on the castle,
and loved it more and more.
"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.
"It is real, what there is of it."
"Yes; but I mean if it was a house with chimneys, and fireplaces, and
doors with bolts, and glass in the windows."
"I wonder if we could get in?" said Edred.
"We might climb over," said Elfrida, looking hopefully at the enormous
walls, sixty feet high, in which no gate or gap showed.
"There's an old man going across that field no, not that one; the very
green field. Let's ask him."
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.
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!"
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.
"Well," said he, "and what do you want?"
"We want to know--" said Elfrida.
"About the castle," said Edred, "Can we get in and look at it?"
"I've got the keys," said the old man, and put his hand in at his door and
reached them from a nail.
"I s'pose no one lives there?" said Elfrida.
"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."
"I wish I was the new lord," said Edred, as they followed the old man
along the lane.
"An' how old might you be?" the old man asked.
"I'm ten nearly. It's my birthday to-morrow," said Edred. "How old are

you?"
"Getting on for eighty.