“I tried to find you—I asked for Lord Arden. What I found wasn’t you—it was your father. And the time was your time, July, 1908.”
“WHAT!” cried Edred and Elfrida together.
“Your father—he’s alive—don’t you understand? And you’ve been bothering about finding treasure instead of about finding him.”
“Daddy—alive!” Elfrida clung to her brother. “Oh, it’s not right, mixing him up with magic and things. Oh, you’re cruel—I hate you! I know well enough I shall never see my daddy again.”
“You will if you aren’t little cowards as well as little duffers,” said Richard scornfully. “You go and find him, that’s what you’ve got to do. So long!”
And with that, before the Mouldiwarp or the nurse could interfere, he had leapt on to the long pearl and ivory minute hand of the clock and said, “Home!” just as duchesses (and other people) do to their coachmen (or footmen).
And before anything could be done the hands of the clock began to go round, slowly at first, then faster and faster, till at last they went so fast that they became quite invisible. The ivory and pearl figures of the clock could still be seen on the sand of the cave.
Edred and Elfrida, still clinging together, turned appealing eyes to the Mouldiwarp. They expected it to be very angry indeed, instead of which it seemed to be smiling. (Did you ever see a white mole smile? No? But then, perhaps you have never seen a white mole, and you cannot see a smile without seeing the smiler, except of course in the case of Cheshire cats.)
“He’s a bold boy, a brave boy,” said the witch.
“Ah!” said the Mouldiwarp, “he be summat like an Arden, he be.”