Exploring the old smugglers' caves was exciting and delightful, as exploring caves always is. It turned out that more than one old man in the village had heard from his father about the caves and the smuggling that had gone on in those parts in old ancient days. But they had not thought it their place to talk about such things, and I suspect that in their hearts they did not more than half believe them. Old Beale said—
"Why didn't you ask me? I could a-told you where they was. Only I shouldn't a done fear you'd break your precious necks."
Of course the children were desperately anxious to open up the brickwork and let the stream come out into the light of day; only their father thought it would be too expensive. But Edred and Elfrida worried and bothered in a perfectly gentle and polite way till at last a very jolly gentleman in spectacles, who came down to spend a couple of days, took their part. From the moment he owned himself an engineer Edred and Elfrida gave him no peace, and he seemed quite pleased to be taken to see the caves. He pointed out that the removal of the simple dam would send the water back into the old channel. It would be perfectly simple to have the brickwork knocked out, and to let the stream find its way back, if it could, to its old channel, and thence down the arched way which Edred and Elfrida told him they were certain was under a mound below the Castle.
"You know a lot about it, don't you?" he said good-humoredly.
"Yes," said Edred simply.
Then they all went down to the mound, and the engineer then poked and prodded it and said he should not wonder if they were not so far out. And then Beale and another man came with spades, and presently there was the arch, as good as ever, and they exclaimed and admired and went back to the caves.
It was a grand moment when the bricks had been taken out and daylight poured into the cave, and nothing remained but to break down the dam and let the water run out of the darkness into the sunshine. You can imagine with what mixed feelings the children wondered whether they would rather stay in the cave and see the dam demolished, or stay outside and see the stream rush out. In the end the boys stayed within, and it was only Elfrida and her father who saw the stream emerge. They sat on a hillock among the thin harebells and wild thyme and sweet lavender-colored gipsy roses, with their eyes fixed on the opening in the hillside, and waited and waited and waited for a very long time.
"Won't you mind frightfully, daddy," Elfrida asked during this long waiting, "if it turns out that you're not Lord Arden?"
He paused a moment before he decided to answer her without reserve.