"Edging my way, therefore, still further along the branch, I kicked out in a desperate endeavour to reach the boat."
THE CHRONICLES
OF THE IMP
A ROMANCE
BY
JEFFERY FARNOL
AUTHOR OF "THE BROAD HIGHWAY," "THE MONEY MOON,"
"THE AMATEUR GENTLEMAN," "THE HON. MR. TAWNISH,"
"BELTANE THE SMITH"
ALSO
AN APPRECIATION
THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORK
BY CLEMENT K. SHORTER
NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO., LTD.
1915
JEFFERY FARNOL AND HIS WORK
An Appreciation
BY
CLEMENT K. SHORTER
Mr. Jeffery Farnol is an Englishman, and his best-known book, The Broad Highway, is redolent of the atmosphere of his native country. Nevertheless it was written in the United States of America, and perhaps it has enjoyed its greatest popularity there. Yet three American publishers refused the book, and so Mr. Farnol is one of a long list of authors who have worked their way through much tribulation to success. I confess that such episodes in the romance of publishing attract me mightily. I rather like to hear of the short-sighted publisher who rejects an author's book and finds out, when too late, that he has lost money and reputation by his lack of prescience. And I like also to hear the story of the loyal friend who, reading a manuscript, stands by his judgment and introduces that friend to a publisher, with the happiest results for both. That is Mr. Farnol's personal romance. The friend in question was Mr. Shirley Byron Jevons, to whom the manuscript was sent from America. Mr. Jevons, after an enthusiastic perusal, carried it to Mr. Fred J. Rymer, a director of Sampson Low, Marston & Co., the publishers. The book was published, and a sale throughout the English-speaking world of 600,000 was the result. I hope I may be forgiven for recalling that Mr. Rymer brought the manuscript to me. Well do I remember his enthusiasm and my lack of it. I have read too many manuscripts in my life as an editor ever to wish to usurp the duties of a publisher or of a publisher's literary adviser. I should hate the life. Think of that publisher and what he would feel about you if perchance you had persuaded him to refuse this or that "best-seller," as our American friends call the very popular book. Imagine the feelings of the publishers whose readers advised them to refuse Charlotte Brontë's Professor without at the same time persuading the author to write a Jane Eyre. But Mr. Rymer was an old acquaintance and I promised to read his new-found story. I added the remark, I remember, that I was rather used to publishers counting their geese as swans. Mr. Rymer told me long afterwards that he brought the book to me because he knew of my devotion to George Borrow.
In any case I read The Broad Highway with avidity, and recognised at once--as who would not have done?--that here was a striking addition to picaresque romances, that the author had not read Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and the best stories by Defoe and Fielding for nothing, nor had he walked along the broad highways of England without observation and profit any more than had the creator of Lavengro and Romany Rye. For the vast multitude of readers of each epoch the dictum of Emerson stands: "Every age must write its own books." It is of no use for the pedantic critic to affirm, with pontifical fervour, that Cervantes and Le Sage and Defoe are masters of literature and that our contemporaries are but pigmies in comparison. The great reading public of any age will not be bullied into reading the authors who have reached the dignity of classics. The writer who can catch some element of the spirit of the "masters" and modernise it, is destined to win the favour of the crowd. And thus Mr. Jeffery Farnol has entered into his kingdom.
Mr. Farnol was born in Birmingham some thirty-six years ago. His early years were spent at Lee, in Kent, where he and a younger brother Ewart, who fell in the Boer War, went to school. Our author recalls with gratitude that his mother never failed to believe in his possession of a literary gift, and had, in his boyhood, hopes of seeing him an author, and faith that he would be a successful one. But circumstances seemed to throw him into a quite different kind of activity, and everything pointed to the probability that his livelihood would be obtained in a world remote from literature. Schooldays were followed by an apprenticeship to engineering in London and in Birmingham. His experience included the work of the smithy, which must have been of service to him when he came to write The Broad Highway. Very badly equipped for the struggle of life in a strange land he rashly betook himself to New York, where his wife--he married when quite young--had friends. I imagine that a great gulf is fixed between the world to which Mr. Farnol introduces us in his romances and the early struggles that he met with in New York. For a long period he was a scene painter at the Astor Theatre, "and must," a friend assures us, "have daubed miles of scenery in his time." His income from this work was supplemented by the sale of occasional short stories. And then, in this most practical of cities, amid an atmosphere of up-to-dateness and progress of which those who only know the quieter ways of London can form no idea, he wrote his romance of an unprogressive world with stage coaches, boxers, and idyllic love--the world that Mr. Austin Dobson has so happily presented in his poem, "A Gentleman of the Old School":
He lived in that past Georgian day,
When men were less inclined to say
That "Time is Gold," and overlay
With toil their pleasure;
He held some land, and dwelt thereon,--
Where, I forget,--the house is gone;
His Christian name, I think, was John,--
His surname, Leisure.
Then followed some unhappy days which lengthened into months during which the author of The Broad Highway was endeavouring to find a publisher. Three separate publishing houses in New York refused the book; two turned it down without ceremony; a third gave as a reason that it was "too long and too English." One of the actors of the Astor Theatre was about to fulfil an engagement in Boston, and offered to show the manuscript to a publisher in that city. Long months afterwards that friend returned to New York, and Mr. Farnol found to his chagrin that he had forgotten all about his promise. The unlucky story was still at the bottom of his trunk. The author, now almost in despair, sent the manuscript to his wife, who was residing at Engelwood, New Jersey, and asked her to burn it. But his wife had the happy thought of sending it to England--to Mr. Shirley Jevons, who was then occupying the editorial chair of The Sportsman, and was a friend of the family. Mr. Jevons read it with enthusiasm, and with such results as we have already noted. The book sold like wildfire. The author returned to England to win further laurels. Here I find a pleasant coincidence in the fact that the London firm of Sampson Low, having accepted the story, offered it to Little, Brown & Co. of Boston, where their accomplished representative, Mr. Herbert Jenkins, at once perceived the merits of the story and acquired the American rights. This, it seems, was the very firm to which Mr. Farnol's actor-friend intended to show the manuscript and forgot to keep his promise. The Broad Highway, as I have said, sold in hundreds of thousands. It has appeared in an édition de luxe with beautiful illustrations by C. E. Brock. It is a breezy, healthy book, as unpretentious as it is sincere. Neither its author nor his friends need to worry themselves as to whether it is a masterpiece of literature. For our day, at least, it has added to the stock of harmless pleasures. To the critic who complains that "it is but an exercise in archæology," and that the author "has never felt what he has written but has gathered it up from books," one can but reply in the language of Goldsmith's Mr. Burchell, "Fudge." It is still possible in England, in spite of its railway trains and its mechanical development, to feel the impulse which inspired Charles Dickens, George Borrow, and all the masters of the picaresque romance, who have in days gone by travelled with delight through the countryside, seeking adventures and finding them. "I felt some desire," says Lavengro, "to meet with one of those adventures which, upon the roads of England, are as plentiful as blackberries in autumn." Mr. Farnol has a talent for recreating such adventures, and he is perfectly frank with his readers, anticipating a certain type of criticism. "Whereas the writing of books was once a painful art," he makes Peter Vibart say in The Broad Highway, "it has of late become a trick very easy of accomplishment, requiring no regard for probability and little thought, so long as it is packed sufficiently full of impossible incidents through which a ridiculous heroine and a more absurd hero duly sigh their appointed way to the last chapter. Whereas books were once a power, they are of late degenerated into things of amusement, with which to kill an idle hour, and be promptly forgotten the next."
One might almost have believed that it was impossible to accomplish the "trick" twice and to provide yet a second adventure story as good as the first, but this our author has achieved in The Amateur Gentleman, where the adventures of Barnabas, the son of the prize-fighter, are as varied and exciting as those of Peter Vibart in the earlier romance. Mr. Farnol has been responsible for yet two other stories, The Money Moon and The Honourable Mr. Tawnish, but nothing has he written quite in the lines of The Chronicles of the Imp. Here indeed is a simple story with which we may pass a pleasant hour. I hope you will like the Imp and his Aunt as much as I have done. Alone among the successful authors of our generation--among those, that is, whose work runs into circulations of hundreds of thousands--Mr. Farnol wins me by his unpretentiousness. He has no gospel to preach, no crude law of life to enunciate. He is content to entertain and amuse, to give us sunny hours of recreation, and never more than now are writers of this order needed for our solace.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
- [Treasure Trove]
- [The Sheriff of Nottingham]
- [The Desperadoes]
- [At the Three Jolly Anglers]
- [The Episode of the Indian's Aunt]
- [The Outlaw]
- [The Blasted Oak]
- [The Land of Heart's Delight]
THE CHRONICLES OF THE IMP
CHAPTER I
TREASURE TROVE
I sat fishing. I had not caught anything, of course--I rarely do, nor am I fond of fishing in the very smallest degree, but I fished assiduously all the same, because circumstances demanded it.
It had all come about through Lady Warburton, Lisbeth's maternal aunt. Who Lisbeth is you will learn if you trouble to read these veracious narratives--suffice it for the present that she has been an orphan from her youth up, with no living relative save her married sister Julia and her Aunt (with a capital A)--the Lady Warburton aforesaid.
Lady Warburton is small and somewhat bony, with a sharp chin and a sharper nose, and invariably uses a lorgnette; also, she is possessed of much worldly goods.
Precisely a week ago Lady Warburton had requested me to call upon her--had regarded me with a curious exactitude through her lorgnette, and gently though firmly (Lady Warburton is always firm) had suggested that Elizabeth, though a dear child, was young and inclined to be a little self-willed. That she (Lady Warburton) was of opinion that Elizabeth had mistaken the friendship which had existed between us so long for something stronger. That although she (Lady Warburton) quite appreciated the fact that one who wrote books was not necessarily immoral--still I was, of course, a terrible Bohemian, and the air of Bohemia was not calculated to conduce to that degree of matrimonial harmony which she (Lady Warburton) as Elizabeth's Aunt, standing to her in place of a mother, could wish for. That, therefore, under these circumstances, my attentions were--etc. etc.
Here I would say in justice to myself that despite the torrent of her eloquence I had at first made some attempt at resistance; but who could hope to contend successfully against a woman possessed of such an indomitable nose and chin, and one, moreover, who could level a jewelled lorgnette with such deadly precision? Still, had Lisbeth been beside me, things might have been different even then; but she had gone away into the country--so Lady Warburton had informed me. Thus, alone and at her mercy, she had succeeded in wringing from me a half promise that I would cease my attentions for the space of six months, "just to give dear Elizabeth time to learn her own heart in regard to the matter."
This was last Monday. On the Wednesday following, as I wandered aimlessly along Piccadilly, at odds with fortune and myself, but especially with myself, my eye encountered the Duchess of Chelsea.
The Duchess is familiarly known as the "Conversational Brook" from the fact that when once she begins she goes on for ever. Hence, being in my then frame of mind, it was with a feeling of rebellion that I obeyed the summons of her parasol and crossed over to the brougham.
"So she's gone away?" was her greeting as I raised my hat--"Lisbeth," she nodded, "I happened to hear something about her, you know."
It is strange, perhaps, but the Duchess generally does "happen to hear" something about everything.
"And you actually allowed yourself to be bullied into making that promise--Dick! Dick! I'm ashamed of you."
"How was I to help myself?" I began. "You see----"
"Poor boy!" said the Duchess, patting me affectionately with the handle of her parasol, "it wasn't to be expected, of course. You see, I know her--many, many years ago I was at school with Agatha Warburton."
"But she probably didn't use lorgnettes then, and----"
"Her nose was just as sharp though--'peaky,' I used to call it," nodded the Duchess. "And she has actually sent Lisbeth away--dear child--and to such a horrid, quiet little place, too, where she'll have nobody to talk to but that young Selwyn----"
"I beg pardon, Duchess, but----"
"Horace Selwyn, of Selwyn Park--cousin to Lord Selwyn, of Brankesmere. Agatha has been scheming for it a long time, under the rose, you know. Of course, it would be a good match in a way--wealthy, and all that--but I must say he bores me horribly--so very serious and precise!"
"Really!" I exclaimed, "do you mean to say----"
"I expect she will have them married before they know it--Agatha's dreadfully determined. Her character lies in her nose and chin."
"But Lisbeth is not a child--she has a will of her own, and----"
"True," nodded the Duchess, "but is it a match for Agatha's chin? And then, too, it is rather more than possible that you are become the object of her bitterest scorn by now."
"But, my dear Duchess----"
"Oh, Agatha is a born diplomat. Of course she has written before this, and, without actually saying it, has managed to convey the fact that you are a monster of perfidy; and Lisbeth, poor child, who is probably crying her eyes out, or imagining she hates you, is ready to accept the first proposal she receives out of pure pique."
"What on earth can I do?" I exclaimed.
"You might go fishing," the Duchess suggested thoughtfully.
"Fishing!" I repeated, "--er, to be sure, but----"
"Riverdale is a very pretty place, they tell me," pursued the Duchess in the same thoughtful tone; "there is a house there, a fine old place, called Fane Court. It stands facing the river, and adjoins Selwyn Park, I believe."
"Duchess," I exclaimed, as I jotted down the address upon my cuff, "I owe you a debt of gratitude that I can never----"
"Tut, tut!" said her Grace.
"I think I'll start to-day, and----"
"You really couldn't do better," nodded the Duchess.
And so it befell that upon this August afternoon I sat in the shade of the alders fishing, with the smoke of my pipe floating up into the sunshine.
By adroit questioning I had elicited from mine host of the Three Jolly Anglers the precise whereabouts of Fane Court, the abode of Lisbeth's sister, and, guided by his directions, had chosen this sequestered spot, where by simply turning my head I could catch a glimpse of its tall chimneys above the swaying green of tree-tops.
It is a fair thing upon a hot summer's afternoon, within some shady bower, to lie upon one's back and stare up through a network of branches into the limitless blue beyond, while the air is full of the stir of leaves, and the murmur of water among the reeds. Or, propped on lazy elbow, to watch perspiring wretches, short of breath and purple of visage, urge boats up stream or down, each deluding himself into the belief that he is enjoying it. Life under such conditions may seem very fair, as I say; yet I was not happy. The words of the Duchess seemed everywhere about me.
"You are become the object of her bitterest scorn by now," sobbed the wind.
"You are become," etc. etc., moaned the river. It was therefore with no little trepidation that I looked forward to my meeting with Lisbeth.
It was at this moment that the bushes parted and a boy appeared. He was a somewhat diminutive boy, clad in a velvet suit with a lace collar, both of which were plentifully bespattered with mud. He carried his shoes and stockings beneath one arm, and in the other hand swung a hazel branch. He stood with his little brown legs well apart, regarding me with a critical eye; but when at length he spoke his attitude was decidedly friendly.
"Hallo, man!"
"Hallo," I returned; "and who may you be?"
"Well," he answered gravely, "my real name is Reginald Augustus, but they call me 'The Imp.'"
"I can well believe it," I said, eyeing his muddy person.
"If you please, what is an imp?"
"An imp," I explained, "is a sort of an--angel."
"But," he demurred, after a moment's thought, "I haven't got any wings an' things--or a trumpet."
"Your kind never do have wings, or trumpets."
"Oh, I see," he said; and sitting down began to wipe the mud from his legs with his stockings.
"Rather muddy, aren't you?" I hinted. The boy cast a furtive glance at his draggled person.
"'Fraid I'm a teeny bit wet, too," he said hesitatingly. "You see, I've been playing at 'Romans,' an' I had to wade, you know, 'cause was the standard-bearer who jumped into the sea waving his sword an' crying, 'Follow me!' You remember him, don't you?--he's in the history book."
"To be sure," I nodded; "a truly heroic character. But if you were the Romans, where were the Ancient Britons?"
"Oh, they were the reeds, you know; you ought to have seen me slay them. It was fine; they went down like--like----"
"Corn before the sickle," I suggested.
"Yes, just!" he cried; "the battle raged for hours."
"You must be rather tired."
"'Course not," he answered, with an indignant look. "I'm not a girl--an' I'm nearly nine, too."
"I gather from your tone that you are not partial to the sex--you don't like girls, eh, Imp?"
"Should think not," he returned; "silly things, girls are. There's Dorothy, you know; we were playing at executions the other day--she was Mary Queen of Scots an' I was the headsman. I made a lovely axe with wood and silver paper, you know; an' when I cut her head off she cried awfully, an' I only gave her the weeniest little tap--an' they sent me to bed at six o'clock for it. I believe she cried on purpose--awfully caddish, wasn't it?"
"My dear Imp," said I, "the older you grow the more the depravity of the sex will become apparent to you."
"Do you know, I like you," he said, regarding me thoughtfully. "I think you are fine."
"Now that's very nice of you, Imp; in common with my kind I have a weakness for flattery--please go on."
"I mean, I think you are jolly."
"As to that," I said, shaking my head and sighing, "appearances are often very deceptive; at the heart of many a fair blossom there is a canker-worm."
"I'm awfull' fond of worms, too," said the Imp.
"Indeed?"
"Yes. I got a pocketful yesterday, only Auntie found out an' made me let them all go again."
"Ah--yes," I said sympathetically; "that was the woman of it."
"I've only got one left now," continued the Imp; and thrusting a hand into the pocket of his knickerbockers he drew forth six inches or so of slimy worm and held it out to me upon his small, grimy palm.
"He's nice and fat!" I said.
"Yes," nodded the Imp; "I caught him under the gooseberry bushes;" and dropping it back into his pocket he proceeded to don his shoes and stockings.
"'Fraid I'm a bit muddy," he said suddenly.
"Oh, you might be worse," I answered reassuringly.
"Do you think they'll notice it?" he inquired, contorting himself horribly in order to view the small of his back.
"Well," I hesitated, "it all depends, you know."
"I don't mind Dorothy, or Betty the cook, or the governess--it's Auntie Lisbeth I'm thinking about."
"Auntie--who?" I exclaimed, regardless of grammar.
"Auntie Lisbeth," repeated the Imp.
"What is she like?"
"Oh, she's grown up big, only she's nice. She came to take care of Dorothy an' me while mother goes away to get nice an' strong--oh, Auntie Lisbeth's jolly, you know."
"With black hair and blue eyes?" The Imp nodded.
"And a dimple at the corner of her mouth?" I went on dreamily.
"An' do you know my Auntie Lisbeth?"
"I think it extremely probable--in fact, I'm sure of it."
"Then you might lend me your handkerchief, please; I tied mine to a bush for a flag, you know, an' it blew away."
"You'd better come here and I'll give you a rub down, my Imp." He obeyed, with many profuse expressions of gratitude.
"Have you got any Aunties?" he inquired, as I laboured upon his miry person.
"No," I answered, shaking my head; "unfortunately mine are all Aunts, and that is vastly different."
"Oh," said the Imp, regarding me with a puzzled expression; "are they nice--I mean do they ever read to you out of the history book, an help you to sail boats, an' paddle?"
"Paddle?" I repeated.
"Yes. My Aunt Lisbeth does. The other day we got up awfull' early an' went for a walk, an' we came to the river, so we took off our shoes an' stockings an' we paddled; it was ever so jolly, you know. An' when Auntie wasn't looking I found a frog an' put it in her stocking."
"Highly strategic, my Imp! Well?"
"It was awfull' funny," he said, smiling dreamily. "When she went to put 'em on she gave a little high-up scream, like Dorothy does when I pinch her a bit--an' then she throwed them both away, 'cause she was afraid there was frogs in both of them. Then she put on her shoes without any stockings at all, so I hid them."
"Where?" I cried eagerly.
"Reggie!" called a voice some distance away--a voice I recognised with a thrill. "Reggie!"
"Imp, would you like half a crown?"
"'Course I would; but you might clean my back, please!" and he began rubbing himself feverishly with his cap, after the fashion of a scrubbing-brush.
"Look here," I said, pulling out the coin, "tell me where you hid them--quick--and I'll give you this." The Imp held out his hand, but, even as he did so, the bushes parted, and Lisbeth stood before us. She gave a little low cry of surprise at sight of me, and then frowned.
"You?" she exclaimed.
"Yes," I answered, raising my cap. And there I stopped, trying frantically to remember the speech I had so carefully prepared--the greeting which was to have explained my conduct and disarmed her resentment at the very outset. But, rack my brain as I would, I could think of nothing but the reproach in her eyes--her disdainful mouth and chin--and that one haunting phrase--
"'I suppose I am become the object of your bitterest scorn by now?'" I found myself saying.
"My Aunt informed me of--of everything, and naturally----"
"Let me explain," I began.
"Really, it is not at all necessary."
"But, Lisbeth, I must--I insist----"
"Reginald," she said, turning toward the Imp, who was still busy with his cap, "it's nearly tea-time, and--why, whatever have you been doing to yourself?"
"For the last half-hour," I interposed, "we have been exchanging our opinions on the sex."
"An' talking 'bout worms," added the Imp. "This man is fond of worms, too, Auntie Lisbeth--I like him."
"Thanks," I said; "but let me beg of you to drop your very distant mode of address. Call me Uncle Dick."
"But you're not my Uncle Dick, you know," he demurred.
"Not yet, perhaps; but there's no knowing what may happen some day if your Auntie thinks us worthy--so take time by the forelock, my Imp, and call me Uncle Dick."
Whatever Lisbeth might or might not have said was checked by the patter of footsteps, and a little girl tripped into view, with a small, fluffy kitten cuddled in her arms.
"Oh, Auntie Lisbeth," she began, but stopped to stare at me over the back of the fluffy kitten.
"Hallo, Dorothy!" cried the Imp; "this is Uncle Dick. You can come an' shake hands with him if you like."
"I didn't know I had an Uncle Dick," said Dorothy, hesitating.
"Oh yes; it's all right," answered the Imp reassuringly. "I found him, you know, an' he likes worms, too!"
Dorothy gave me her hand demurely.
"How do you do, Uncle Dick?" she said in a quaint, old-fashioned way. "Reginald is always finding things, you know, an' he likes worms, too!"
From somewhere near by there came the silvery chime of a bell.
"Why, there's the tea-bell!" exclaimed Lisbeth; "and, Reginald, you have to change those muddy clothes. Say good-bye to Mr. Brent, children, and come along."
"Imp," I whispered, as the others turned away, "where did you hide those stockings?" And I slipped the half-crown into his ready palm.
"Along the river there's a tree--very big an' awfull' fat, you know, with a lot of stickie-out branches, an' a hole in its stomach--they're in there."
"Reginald!" called Lisbeth.
"Up stream or down?"
"That way," he answered, pointing vaguely down stream; and with a nod that brought the yellow curls over his eyes he scampered off.
"Along the river," I repeated, "in a big, fat tree with a lot of stickie-out branches!" It sounded a trifle indefinite, I thought--still I could but try. So having packed up my rod I set out upon the search.
It was strange, perhaps, but nearly every tree I saw seemed to be either "big" or "fat"--and all of them had "stickie-out" branches.
Thus the sun was already low in the west, and I was lighting my fifth pipe when I at length observed the tree in question.
A great pollard oak it was, standing upon the very edge of the stream, easily distinguishable by its unusual size and the fact that at some time or another it had been riven by lightning. After all, the Imp's description had been in the main correct; it was "fat," immensely fat; and I hurried joyfully forward.
I was still some way off when I saw the distinct flutter of a white skirt, and--yes, sure enough, there was Lisbeth, walking quickly, too, and she was a great deal nearer the tree than I.
Prompted by a sudden conviction I dropped my rod and began to run. Immediately Lisbeth began running too. I threw away my creel and sprinted for all I was worth. I had earned some small fame at this sort of thing in my university days, yet I arrived at the tree with only a very few yards to spare. Throwing myself upon my knees, I commenced a feverish search, and presently--more by good fortune than anything else--my random fingers encountered a soft silken bundle. When Lisbeth came up, flushed and panting, I held them in my hands.
"Give them to me!" she cried.
"I'm sorry----"
"Please," she begged.
"I'm very sorry----"
"Mr. Brent," said Lisbeth, drawing herself up, "I'll trouble you for my--them."
"Pardon me, Lisbeth," I answered, "but if I remember anything of the law of 'treasure-trove' one of these should go to the Crown, and one belongs to me."
Lisbeth grew quite angry--one of her few bad traits.
"You will give them up at once--immediately."
"On the contrary," I said very gently, "seeing the Crown can have no use for one, I shall keep them both to dream over when the nights are long and lonely."
Lisbeth actually stamped her foot at me, and I tucked "them" into my pocket.
"How did you know they--they were here?" she inquired after a pause.
"I was directed to a tree with 'stickie-out' branches," I answered.
"Oh, that Imp!" she exclaimed, and stamped her foot again.
"Do you know, I've grown quite attached to that nephew of mine already?" I said.
"He's not a nephew of yours," cried Lisbeth quite hotly.
"Not legally, perhaps; that is where you might be of such assistance to us, Lisbeth. A boy with only an aunt here and there, is unbalanced, so to speak; he requires the stronger influence of an uncle. Not," I continued hastily, "that I would depreciate aunts--by the way, he has but one, I believe?" Lisbeth nodded coldly.
"Of course," I nodded, "and very lucky in that one--extremely fortunate. Now, years ago, when I was a boy, I had three, and all of them blanks, so to speak. I mean none of them ever read to me out of the history book, or helped me to sail boats, or paddled and lost their---- No, mine used to lecture me about my hair and nails, I remember, and glare at me over the big tea-urn until I choked into my teacup. A truly desolate childhood mine. I had no big-fisted uncle to thump me persuasively when I needed it; had fortune granted me one I might have been a very different man, Lisbeth. You behold in me a horrible example of what one may become whose boyhood has been denuded of uncles."
"If you will be so very obliging as to return my--my property."
"My dear Lisbeth," I sighed, "be reasonable; suppose we talk of something else"--and I attempted, though quite vainly, to direct her attention to the glories of the sunset.
A fallen tree lay near by, upon which Lisbeth seated herself with a certain determined set of her little round chin that I knew well.
"And how long do you intend keeping me here?" she asked in a resigned tone.
"Always, if I had my way."
"Really?" she said, and whole volumes could never describe all the scorn she managed to put into that single word. "You see," she continued, "after what Aunt Agatha wrote and told me----"
"Lisbeth," I broke in, "if you'll only----"
"I naturally supposed----"
"If you'll only let me explain----"
"That you would abide by the promise you made her and wait----"
"Until you knew your own heart," I put in. "The question is how long will it take you? Probably, if you would allow me to teach you----"
"Your presence here now stamps you as--as horribly deceitful!"
"Undoubtedly," I nodded; "but, you see, when I was foolish enough to give that promise, your very excellent Aunt made no reference to her intentions regarding a certain Mr. Selwyn."
"Oh!" exclaimed Lisbeth. And feeling that I had made a point, I continued with redoubled ardour:
"She gave me to understand that she merely wished you to have time to know your own heart in the matter. Now, as I said before, how long will it take you to find out, Lisbeth?"
She sat, chin in hand, staring straight before her, and her black brows were still drawn together in a frown. But I watched her mouth--just where the scarlet underlip curved up to meet its fellow.
Lisbeth's mouth is a trifle wide, perhaps, and rather full-lipped, and somewhere at one corner--I can never be quite certain of its exact location, because its appearance is, as a rule, so very meteoric--but somewhere there is a dimple. Now, if ever there was an arrant traitor in this world it is that dimple; for let her expression be ever so guileless, let her wistful eyes be raised with a look of tears in their blue depths, despite herself that dimple will spring into life and undo it all in a moment. So it was now; even as I watched, it quivered round her lips, and feeling herself betrayed, the frown vanished altogether and she smiled.
"And now, Dick, suppose you give me my--my----"
"Conditionally," I said, sitting down beside her.
The sun had set, and from somewhere among the purple shadows of the wood the rich, deep notes of a blackbird came to us, with pauses now and then, filled in with the rustle of leaves and the distant lowing of cows.
"Not far from the village of Down in Kent," I began dreamily, "there stands an old house with quaint, high-gabled roofs and twisted Tudor chimneys. Many years ago it was the home of fair ladies and gallant gentlemen, but its glory is long past. And yet, Lisbeth, when I think of it at such an hour as this, and with you beside me, I begin to wonder if we could not manage between us to bring back the old order of things."
Lisbeth was silent.
"It has a wonderful old-fashioned rose garden, and you are fond of roses, Lisbeth."
"Yes," she murmured; "I'm very fond of roses."
"They would be in full bloom now," I suggested.
There was another pause, during which the blackbird performed three or four difficult arias with astonishing ease and precision.
"Aunt Agatha is fond of roses, too!" said Lisbeth at last very gravely. "Poor dear Aunt, I wonder what she would say if she could see us now?"
"Such things are better left to the imagination," I answered.
"I ought to write and tell her," murmured Lisbeth.
"But you won't do that, of course?"
"No, I won't do that, if----"
"Well?"
"If you will give me--them."
"One," I demurred.
"Both!"
"On one condition, then--just once, Lisbeth?"
Her lips were very near, her lashes drooped, and for one delicious moment she hesitated. Then I felt a little tug at my coat pocket, and springing to her feet she was away with "them" clutched in her hand.
"Trickery!" I cried, and started in pursuit.
There is a path through the woods leading to the Shrubbery at Fane Court. Down this she fled, and her laughter came to me on the wind. I was close upon her when she reached the gate, and darting through, turned, flushed but triumphant.
"I've won!" she mocked, nodding her head at me.
"Who can cope with the duplicity of a woman?" I retorted. "But, Lisbeth, you will give me one--just one?"
"It would spoil the pair."
"Oh, very well," I sighed, "good-night, Lisbeth," and lifting my cap I turned away.
There came a ripple of laughter behind me, something struck me softly upon the cheek, and, stooping, I picked up that which lay half unrolled at my feet, but when I looked round Lisbeth was gone.
So presently I thrust "them" into my pocket and walked back slowly along the river path toward the hospitable shelter of the Three Jolly Anglers.
CHAPTER II
THE SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM
To sit beside a river on a golden afternoon listening to its whispered melody, while the air about one is fragrant with summer, and heavy with the drone of unseen wings!--What ordinary mortal could wish for more?
And yet, though conscious of this fair world about me, I was still uncontent, for my world was incomplete--nay, lacked its most essential charm, and I sat with my ears on the stretch, waiting for Lisbeth's chance footstep on the path and the soft whisper of her skirts.
The French are indeed a great people, for among many other things they alone have caught that magic sound a woman's garments make as she walks, and given it to the world in the one word "frou-frou."
O wondrous word! O word sublime! How full art thou of delicate suggestion! Truly there can be no sweeter sound to ears masculine upon a golden summer afternoon--or any other time, for that matter--than the soft "frou-frou" that tells him She is coming.
At this point my thoughts were interrupted by something which hurtled through the air and splashed into the water at my feet. Glancing at this object, I recognised the loud-toned cricket cap affected by the Imp, and reaching for it, I fished it out on the end of my rod. It was a hideous thing of red, white, blue, and green--a really horrible affair, and therefore much prized by its owner, as I knew.
Behind me the bank rose some four or five feet, crowned with willows and underbrush, from the other side of which there now came a prodigious rustling and panting. Rising to my feet, therefore, I parted the leaves with extreme care, and beheld the Imp himself.
He was armed to the teeth--that is to say, a wooden sword swung at his thigh, a tin bugle depended from his belt, and he carried a bow and arrow. Opposite him, was another boy, particularly ragged at knee and elbow, who stood with hands thrust into his pockets and grinned.
"Base caitiff, hold!" cried the Imp, fitting an arrow to the string; "stand an' deliver. Give me my cap, thou varlet, thou!" The boy's grin expanded.
"Give me my cap, base slave, or I'll shoot you--by my troth!" As he spoke the Imp aimed his arrow, whereupon the boy ducked promptly.
"I ain't got yer cap," he grinned from the shelter of his arm. "It's been an' gone an' throwed itself into the river!" The Imp let fly his arrow, which was answered by a yell from the Base Varlet.
"Yah!" he cried derisively as the Imp drew his sword with a melodramatic flourish. "Yah! put down that stick an' I'll fight yer."
The Imp indignantly repudiated his trusty weapon being called "a stick"--"an' I don't think," he went on, "that Robin Hood ever fought without his sword. Let's see what the book says," and he drew a very crumpled paper-covered volume from, his pocket, which he consulted with knitted brows, while the Base Varlet watched him, open-mouthed.
"Oh yes," nodded the Imp; "it's all right. Listen to this!" and he read as follows in a stern, deep voice:
"'Then Robin tossed aside his trusty blade, an' laying bare his knotted arm, approached the dastardly ruffian with many a merry quip and jest, prepared for the fierce death-grip.'"
Hereupon the Imp laid aside his book and weapons and proceeded to roll up his sleeve, having done which to his satisfaction, he faced round upon the Base Varlet.
"Have at ye, dastardly ruffian!" he cried, and therewith ensued a battle, fierce and fell.
If his antagonist had it in height, the Imp made up for it in weight--he is a particularly solid Imp--and thus the struggle lasted for some five minutes without any appreciable advantage to either, when, in eluding one of the enemy's desperate rushes, the Imp stumbled, lost his balance, and next moment I had caught him in my arms. For a space "the enemy" remained panting on the bank above, and then with another yell turned and darted off among the bushes.
"Hallo, Imp!" I said.
"Hallo, Uncle Dick!" he returned.
"Hurt?" I inquired.
"Wounded a bit in the nose, you know," he answered, mopping that organ with his handkerchief; "but did you see me punch 'yon varlet' in the eye?"
"Did you, Imp?"
"I think so, Uncle Dick; only I do wish I'd made him surrender. The book says that Robin Hood always made his enemies 'surrender an' beg their life on trembling knee!' Oh, it must be fine to see your enemies on their knee!"
"Especially if they tremble," I added.
"Do you s'pose that boy--I mean 'yon base varlet' would have surrendered?"
"Not a doubt of it--if he hadn't happened to push you over the bank first."
"Oh!" murmured the Imp rather dubiously.
"By the way," I said, "where is your Auntie Lisbeth?"
"Well, I chased her up the big apple-tree with my bow an' arrow."
"Of course," I nodded. "Very right and proper!"
"You see," he explained, "I wanted her to be a wild elephant an' she wouldn't."
"Extremely disobliging of her!"
"Yes, wasn't it? So when she was right up I took away the ladder an' hid it."
"Highly strategic, my Imp."
"So then I turned into Robin Hood, I hung my cap on a bush to shoot at, you know, an' 'the Base Varlet' came up an' ran off with it."
"And there it is," I said, pointing to where it lay. The Imp received it with profuse thanks, and, having wrung out the water, clapped it upon his curls and sat down beside me.
"I found another man who wants to be my uncle," he began.
"Oh, indeed?"
"Yes; but I don't want any more, you know."
"Of course not. One like me suffices for your everyday needs--eh, my Imp?"
The Imp nodded. "It was yesterday," he continued. "He came to see Auntie Lisbeth, an' I found them in the summer-house in the orchard. An' I heard him say, 'Miss Elizabeth, you're prettier than ever!'"
"Did he though, confound him!"
"Yes, an' then Auntie Lisbeth looked silly, an' then he saw me behind a tree an' he looked silly, too. Then he said, 'Come here, little man!' An' I went, you know, though I do hate to be called 'little man.' Then he said he'd give me a shilling if I'd call him Uncle Frank."
"And what did you answer?"
"'Fraid I'm awfull' wicked," sighed the Imp, shaking his head, "'cause I told him a story."
"Did you, Imp?"
"Yes. I said I didn't want his shilling, an' I do, you know, most awfully, to buy a spring-pistol with."
"Oh, well, we'll see what can be done about the spring-pistol," I answered. "And so you don't like him, eh?"
"Should think not," returned the Imp promptly. "He's always so--so awfull' clean, an' wears a little moustache with teeny sharp points on it."
"Anyone who does that deserves all he gets," I said, shaking my head. "And what is his name?"
"The Honourable Frank Selwyn, an' he lives at Selwyn Park--the next house to ours."
"Oho!" I exclaimed, and whistled.
"Uncle Dick," said the Imp, breaking in upon a somewhat unpleasant train of thought conjured up by this intelligence, "will you come an' be 'Little-John under the merry greenwood tree'? Do."
"Why, what do you know about 'the merry greenwood,' Imp?"
"Oh, lots!" he answered, hastily pulling out the tattered book. "This is all about Robin Hood an' Little-John. Ben, the gardener's boy, lent it to me. Robin Hood was a fine chap, an' so was Little-John, an' they used to set ambushes an' capture the Sheriff of Nottingham an' all sorts of caddish barons, an' tie them to trees."
"My Imp," I said, shaking my head, "the times are sadly changed. One cannot tie barons--caddish or otherwise--to trees in these degenerate days."
"No, I s'pose not," sighed the Imp dolefully; "but I do wish you would be Little-John, Uncle Dick."
"'Oh, certainly, Imp, if it will make you any happier; though of a truth, bold Robin," I continued after the manner of the story-books, "Little-John hath a mind to bide awhile and commune with himself here; yet give but one blast upon thy bugle horn and thou shalt find my arm and quarter-staff ready and willing enough, I'll warrant you!"
"That sounds awfull' fine, Uncle Dick, only--you haven't got a quarter-staff, you know."
"Yea, 'tis here!" I answered, and detached the lower joint of my fishing-rod. The Imp rose, and folding his arms, surveyed me as Robin Hood himself might have done--that is to say, with an "eye of fire."
"So be it, my faithful Little-John," quoth he; "meet me at the Blasted Oak at midnight. An' if I shout for help--I mean blow my bugle--you'll come an' rescue me, won't you, Uncle Dick?"
"Ay; trust me for that," I answered, all unsuspecting.
"'Tis well!" nodded the Imp; and with a wave of his hand he turned and scrambling up the bank disappeared.
Of the existence of Mr. Selwyn I was already aware, having been notified in this particular by the Duchess, as I have told in the foregoing narrative.
Now, a rival in air--in the abstract, so to speak--is one thing, but a rival who was on a sufficiently intimate footing to deal in personal compliments, and above all, one who was already approved of and encouraged by the powers that be, in the person of Lady Warburton--Lisbeth's formidable aunt--was another consideration altogether.
"Miss Elizabeth, you're prettier than ever!"
Somehow the expression rankled.
What right had he to tell her such things?--and in a summer-house, too;--the insufferable audacity of the fellow!
A pipe being indispensable to the occasion, I took out my matchbox, only to find that it contained but a solitary vesta.
The afternoon had been hot and still hitherto, with never so much as a breath of wind stirring; but no sooner did I prepare to strike that match than from somewhere there came a sudden flaw of wind that ruffled the glassy waters of the river and set every leaf whispering. Waiting until what I took to be a favourable opportunity, with infinite precaution I struck a light. It flickered in a sickly fashion for a moment between my sheltering palms, and immediately expired.
This is but one example of that "Spirit of the Perverse" pervading all things mundane which we poor mortals are called upon to bear as best we may. Therefore I tossed aside the charred match, and, having searched fruitlessly through my pockets for another, waited philosophically for some "good Samaritan" to come along. The bank I have mentioned sloped away gently on my left, thus affording an uninterrupted view of the path.
Now as my eyes followed this winding path I beheld an individual some distance away who crawled upon his hands and knees, evidently searching for something. As I watched, he succeeded in raking a Panama hat from beneath a bush, and, having dusted it carefully with his handkerchief, replaced it upon his head and continued his advance.
With some faint hope that there might be a loose match hiding away in some corner of my pockets, I went through them again more carefully, but alas! with no better success; whereupon I gave it up and turned to glance at the approaching figure.
My astonishment may be readily imagined when I beheld him in precisely the same attitude as before--that is to say, upon his hands and knees.
I was yet puzzling over this phenomenon when he again raked out the Panama on the end of the hunting-crop he carried, dusted it as before, looking about him the while with a bewildered air, and, setting it firmly upon his head, came down the path.
He was a tall young fellow, scrupulously neat and well groomed from the polish of his brown riding-boots to his small, sleek moustache, which was parted with elaborate care and twisted into two fine points. There was about his whole person an indefinable air of self-complacent satisfaction, but he carried his personality in his moustache, so to speak, which, though small, as I say, and precise to a hair, yet obtruded itself upon one in a vaguely unpleasant way. Noticing all this, I thought I might make a very good guess as to his identity if need were.
All at once, as I watched him--like a bird rising from her nest the devoted Panama rose in the air, turned over once or twice and fluttered (I use the word figuratively) into a bramble bush. Bad language was writ large in every line of his body as he stood looking about him, the hunting-crop quivering in his grasp.
It was at this precise juncture that his eye encountered me, and, pausing only to recover his unfortunate headgear, he strode toward where I sat.
"Do you know anything about this?" he inquired in a somewhat aggressive manner, holding up a length of black thread.
"A piece of ordinary pack-thread," I answered, affecting to examine it with a critical eye.
"Do you know anything about it?" he said again, evidently in a very bad temper.
"Sir," I answered, "I do not."
"Because if I thought you did----"