“I wonder why,” said Edred, kicking his boots miserably against the leg of the table on which he sat. “That Dicky chap must have been here pretty often, to have an address at New Cross. I say, suppose we wrote to him. It would be something to do.”
So they wrote. At least Elfrida did, and they both signed it. This was the letter:—
“Dear Cousin Richard,—You remember meeting us at the Gunpowder Plot. If you are at these modern times again we should like to know you and to know how you get into the future. Perhaps we could get into the past the same way, because the way we used to get we can’t any more.
“Perhaps you could come here next time instead of New Cross.
“Your affectionate friends at a distance, (Miss) Elfrida Arden, (Lord) Edred Arden.
“PS.—I don’t know how lords sign letters because I have not been it long, but you’ll know who it is.
“PSS.—Remember old Parrot-nose.”
They walked down to the post with this, and as they went they remembered how they had gone to the “George” with old Lady Arden’s letter in Boney’s time; and Edred remarked, listlessly, that it would be rather fun to find the smugglers’ cave. So when they had bought a stamp and licked it and put it on the letter they went up on the cliff and looked among the furze-bushes for the entrance to the smugglers’ cave. But they did not find it. Nothing makes you hotter than looking for things that you can’t find—and there is no hotter place to look for things than a furze forest on the downs on a sunny summer afternoon. The children were glad to sit down on a clean, smooth, grassy space and look out at the faint blue line of the sea.
They had not really enjoyed looking for the smugglers’ cave. Vain regrets were busy in each breast. Edred gave voice to them when he said—
“Oh, if only we had put those gold clothes on when we had the chance!”
And Elfrida echoed the useless heartfelt wail with, “Oh, if we only had!”
And then they sat in silence and looked at the sea for quite a long time.
Now, if you sit perfectly silent for a long time and look at the sea, or the sky, or the running water of a river, something happens to you—a sort of magic. Not the violent magic that makes the kind of adventures that I have been telling you about, but a kind of gentle but very strong inside magic, that makes things clear, and shows you what things are important, and what are not. You try it next time you are in a very bad temper, or when you think some one has been very unjust to you, or when you are very disappointed and hurt about anything.
The magic worked in Edred and Elfrida till Edred said—