“Well, go without him,” said the mole. “You understand perfectly, don’t you, that when he has stopped the clock your going is the same as your not going, and your being here is the same as not being, and—— What I mean,” it added, hastily returning to Sussex talk, “you needn’t be so turble put out. He won’t know you’ve gone nor yet ’e won’t believe you’ve come back. Be off with ’e, my gell.”
Elfrida hesitated. Then, “Oh, Edred,” she said, “I have had such a time! Did it seem very long? I know it was horrid of me, but it was so interesting I couldn’t come back before.”
“Nonsense,” said Edred. “Well, go if you like; I don’t mind.”
“I’ve been, I tell you,” said Elfrida, dragging him off the second hand of the daisy clock, whose soldiers instantly resumed their wheeling march.
“So now you see,” said the mole. “Tell you what—next time you wanter stop de clock we’ll just wheel de barrer on to it. Now you go along and play. You’ve had enough Arden magic for this ’ere Fursday, so you ’ave, bless yer hearts an’ all.”
And they went.
That was how Edred perceived the adventure of “The Highwayman and the ——.” But I will not anticipate. The way the adventure seemed to Elfrida was rather different.
After the mole said “my gell” she hesitated, and then went slowly towards the castle where the red roof of the house showed between the old, ivy-grown grey buttresses. She looked back, to see Edred and the Mouldiwarp close together on the face of the wonderful green and white clock. They were very still. She made her mind up—ran indoors and up the stairs and straight to The Door—she found it at once—shut the door, and opened the second chest to the right.
“You change your clothes and the times change too—
Change, that is what you’ve got to do;