th. Elfrida did not seem very anxious to talk, either. The
garden was most interesting, and the only blot on the scene was the
black figure of the tutor walking up and down with a sour face and his
thumbs in one of his dull-looking books.

The children sat down on the step of one of the stone seats, and Dickie
was wondering why he had felt that queer clock-stopping feeling, when he
was roused from his wonderings by hearing Elfrida say--

"Please to remember
The Fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot."

"How odd!" he thought. "I didn't know that was so old as all this." And
he remembered hearing his father, Sir Richard Arden, say, "Treason's a
dangerous word to let lie on your lips these days." So he said--

"'Tis not a merry song, cousin, nor a safe one. 'Tis best not to sing of
treason."

"But it didn't come off, you know, and he's always burnt in the end."

So already Guy Fawkes burnings went on. Dickie wondered whether there
would be a bonfire to-night. It _was_ the Fifth of November. He had had
to write the date two hundred times so he was fairly certain of it. He
was afraid of saying too much or too little. And for the life of him he
could not remember the date of the Gunpowder Plot. Still he must say
something, so he said--

"Are there more verses?"

"No," said Elfrida.

"I wonder," he said, trying to feel his way, "what treason the ballad
deals with?"

He felt it had been the wrong thing to say, when Elfrida answered in
surprised tones--

"Don't you know? _I_ know. And I know some of the names of the
conspirators and who they wanted to kill and everything."

"Tell me" seemed the wisest thing to say, and he said it as carelessly
as he could.

"The King hadn't been fair to the Catholics, you know," said Elfrida,
who evidently knew all about the matter, "so a lot of them decided to
kill him and the Houses of Parliament. They made a plot--there were a
whole lot of them in it."

The clock-stopping feeling came on again. Elfrida was different somehow.
The Elfrida who had gone on the barge to Gravesend and played with him
at the Deptford house had never used such expressions as "a whole lot of
them in it." He looked at her and she went on--

"They said Lord Arden was in it, but he wasn't, and some of them were to
pretend to be hunting and to seize the Princess Eli