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 Elizabeth and proclaim her Queen, and the rest were to blow the Houses of Parliament up when the King went to open them." "I never heard this tale from my tutor," said Dickie. And without knowing why he felt uneasy, and because he felt uneasy he laughed. Then he said, "Proceed, cousin." Elfrida went on telling him about the Gunpowder Plot, but he hardly listened. The stopped-clock feeling was growing so strong. But he heard her say, "Mr. Tresham wrote to his relation, Lord Monteagle, that they were going to blow up the King," and he found himself saying, "What King?" though he knew the answer perfectly well.