“After all, we’ve got the castle;” and Elfrida said—
“And we have had some ripping times.”
And then they looked at the sea in more silence, during which Hope came and whispered to Elfrida, who instantly said—
“The Mouldiwarp! Perhaps it’s not all over. It told us to find the door. And we did find the door. Perhaps it would tell us something new if we called it now—and if it came.”
“And if it came,” said Edred.
“Don’t talk—make poetry,” said Elfrida. But that was one of the things that Edred never could do. Trying to make poetry was, to him, like trying to remember a name you have never heard, or to multiply a number that you’ve forgotten by another number that you don’t recollect.
But Elfrida, that youthful poet, frowned and bit her lips and twisted her hands, and reached out in her mind to words that she just couldn’t quite think of, till the words grew tame and flew within reach, and she caught them and caged them behind the bars of rhyme. This was her poem—
“Dear Mouldiwarp, do come if you can,
And tell us if there is any plan
That you can tell us of for us two