They looked for Dickie to right and left and here and there under bushes, and by stiles and hedges, and with trembling hearts they searched in the little old chalk quarry, and the white moon came up very late to help them. But they did not find him, though they roused a dozen men in the village to join in the search, and old Beale himself, who knew every yard of the ground for five miles round, came out with the spaniel who knew every inch of it for ten. But True rushed about the house and garden whining and yelping so piteously that 'Melia tied him up, and he stayed tied up.
And so, when Edred and Elfrida came down to breakfast, Mrs. Honeysett met them with the news that Dickie was lost and their father still out looking for him.
"It's that beastly magic," said Edred as soon as the children were alone. "He's done it once too often, and he's got stuck some time in history and can't get back."
"And we can't do anything. We can't get to him," said Elfrida. "Oh! if only we'd got the old white magic and the Mouldiwarp to help us, we could find out what's become of him."
"Perhaps he has fallen down a disused mine," Edred suggested, "and is lying panting for water, and his faithful dog has jumped down after him and broken all its dear legs."
Elfrida melted to tears at this desperate picture, melted to a speechless extent.
"We can't do anything," said Edred again; "don't snivel like that, for goodness' sake, Elfrida. This is a man's job. Dry up. I can't think, with you blubbing like that."
"I'm not," said Elfrida untruly, and sniffed with some intensity.
"If you could make up some poetry now," Edred went on, "would that be any good?"
"Not without the dresses," she sniffed. "You know we always had dresses for our magic, or nearly always; and they have to be dead and gone people's dresses, and you'll only go to the dead and gone people's time when the dresses were worn. Oh! dear Dickie, and if he's really down a mine, or things like that, what's the good of anything?"