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‘And now the healing of my hands is for you,’ she said. ‘You have brought me a love-gift. Never a gift have I had these fifty years but was a gift of fear or a payment for help – to buy me to take off a spell or put a spell on. But you have brought me a love-gift, and I tell you you shall have your heart’s desire. You shall have love around and about you all your life long. That which is lost shall be found. That which came not shall come again. In this world’s goods you shall be blessed, and blessed in the goods of the heart also. I know – I see – and for you I see everything good and fair. Your future shall be clean and sweet as your kind heart.’
She took her hands away. Elfrida, very much impressed by these flattering remarks which she felt she did not deserve, stood still, not knowing what to say or do; she rather wanted to cry.
‘I only brought it because cook told me,’ she said.
‘Cook didn’t give you the kind heart that makes you want to cry for me now,’ said the witch.
The old woman sank down in a crouching heap, and her voice changed to one of singsong.
‘I know,’ she said, – ‘I know many things. All alone the live- `long 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.
‘Kiss me,’ said the old woman, – ‘kiss me with your little child’s mouth, that has come back a hundred years to do it.’
Elfrida did not wish to kiss the wrinkled, grey face, but her heart wished her to be kind, and she obeyed her heart.
‘Ah!’ said the wise woman, ‘now I see. Oh, never have I had such a vision. None of them all has ever been like this. I see great globes of light like the sun in the streets of the city, where now are only little oil-lamps and guttering lanterns. I see iron roads, with fiery dragons drawing the coaches, and rich and poor riding up and down on them. Men shall speak in England and their voice be heard in France – more, the voices of men dead shall be kept alive in boxes and speak at the will of those who still live. The handlooms shall cease in the cottages, and the weavers shall work in palaces with a thousand windows lighted as bright as day. The sun shall stoop to make men’s portraits more like than any painter can make them. There shall be ships that shall run under the seas like conger-eels, and ships that shall ride over the clouds like great birds. And bread that is now a shilling and ninepence shall be five pence, and the corn and the beef shall come from overseas to feed us. And every child shall be taught who can learn, and—’
‘Peace, prater,’ cried a stern voice in the doorway. Elfrida turned. There stood the grandfather, Lord Arden, very straight and tall and grey, leaning on his gold-headed cane, and beside him Edred, looking very small and found-out.
The old witch did not seem to see them; her eyes, that rolled and blinked, saw nothing. But she must have heard, for—
‘Loss to Arden,’ she said; ‘loss and woe to Arden. The hangings of your house shall be given to the spider, and the mice shall eat your carved furnishings. Your gold shall be less and less, and your house go down and down till there is not a field that is yours about your house.’
Lord Arden shrugged his shoulders.
‘Likely tales,’ he said, ‘to frighten babes with. Tell me rather, if you would have me believe, what shall hap tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow,’ said the wise woman, ‘the French shall land in Lymchurch Bay.’
Lord Arden laughed.
‘And I give you a sign – three signs,’ said the woman faintly; for it is tiring work seeing into the future, even when you are enlightened with a kiss from someone who has been there. ‘You shall see the white Mouldiwarp, that is the badge of Arden, on your threshold as you enter.’
‘That shall be one sign,’ said the old man mockingly.
‘And the second,’ she said, ‘shall be again the badge of your house, in your own chair in your own parlour.’
‘That seems likely,’ said Lord Arden, sneering.
‘And the third,’ said she, ‘shall be the badge of your house in the arms of this child.’
She turned her back, and picked the hen out of the ashes.
Lord Arden led Edred and Elfrida away, one in each hand, and as he went he was very severe on disobedient children who went straying after wicked witches, and they could not defend themselves without blaming the cook, which, of course, they would not do.
‘Bread and water for dinner,’ he said, ‘to teach you better ways.’
‘Oh, Grandfather,’ said Elfrida, catching at his hand, ‘don’t be so unkind! Just think about when you were little. I’m sure you liked looking at witches, didn’t you, now?’
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.’
Lord Arden chuckled again.
‘Why, the little white mouse has found a tongue, and never was I spoken to so bold since the days I wore petticoats myself,’ he said. ‘Well, well; we’ll say no more about it this time.’
And Edred, who had privately considered that Elfrida was behaving like an utter idiot, thought better of it.
So they turned across the summer fields to Arden Castle. There seemed to be more of the castle than when the children had first seen it, and it was tidier, much. And on the doorstep sat a white mole.
‘There now!’ said Elfrida. The mole vanished like a streak of white paint that is rubbed out.
‘Pooh!’ said Lord Arden. ‘There’s plenty white moles in the world.’
But when he saw the white mole sitting up in his own carved arm-chair in the parlour, he owned that it was very unusual.
Elfrida stooped and held out her arms. She was extremely glad to see the mole. Because ever since she and her brother had come into this strange time she had felt that it would be the greatest possible comfort to have the mole at hand – the mole, who understood everything, to keep and advise; and, above all, to get them safely back into the century they belonged to.
And the Mouldiwarp made a little run and a little jump, and Elfrida caught it and held it against her waist with both her hands.
‘Stay with me,’ whispered Elfrida to the mole.
‘By George!’ said Lord Arden to the universe.
‘So now you see,’ said Edred to Lord Arden.
Chapter IV.
The Landing of the French
Then they had dinner. The children had to sit very straight and eat very slowly, and their glasses were filled with beer instead of water; and when they asked for water Lady Arden asked how many more times they would have to be told that water was unwholesome. Lord