The House of Arden by E. Nesbit (first ebook reader .txt) 📕

“All right, then,” she ended; “you can have it. Only give me half next time you get a penny; that’s only fair.”

“I’m not usually unfair,” said Edred coldly. “Don’t let’s be pilgrims.”

“But I should like to,” said Elfrida.

Edred was obstinate. “No,” he said, “we’ll just walk.”

So they just walked, rather dismally.

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.

“Good luck!” says I to my sweetheart,
“For I will love you true;
And all the while we’ve got to part,
My luck shall go with you.”

“That’s lucky for us,” said Elfrida amiably.

“We’re not her silly sweetheart,” said Edred.

“No; but we heard her sing it, and he wasn’t here, so he couldn’t. There’s a signpost. I wonder how far we’ve gone? I’m getting awfully tired.”

“You’d better have been pilgrims,” said Edred. “They never get tired, however many peas they have in their shoes.”

“I will now,” said Elfrida.

“You can’t,” said Edred; “it’s too late. We’re miles and miles from the stick shop.”

“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.”

“Don’t, then,” said Edred bitterly. “Go along home if you like. You’re only a girl.”

“I’d rather be only a girl than what you are,” said she.

“And what’s that, I should like to know?”

Elfrida stopped and shut her eyes tight.

“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!”

“Don’t let’s what?”

“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.”

“Suppose they don’t like?” said he, kicking 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 signpost. 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