"Imp," I cried, "are you sure--quite sure that she was angry with Mr.
Selwyn yesterday morning?"
"'Course I am. I always know when Auntie Lisbeth's angry. An' now
let's go an' play at 'Blasted Oaks.'"
"Anything you like, Imp, so long as we find her."
"You're forgetting your fishing-rod an'----"
"Bother the fishing-rod!" I exclaimed, and set off hurriedly in the
direction Lisbeth had taken.
The Imp trotted beside me, stumbling frequently over his "trusty sword"
and issuing numberless commands in a hoarse, fierce voice to an
imaginary "band of outlaws." As for me, I strode on unheeding, for my
mind was filled with a fast-growing suspicion that I had judged Lisbeth
like a hasty fool.
In this manner we scoured the neighbourhood very thoroughly, but with no
success. However, we continued our search with unabated ardour--along
the river path to the water-stairs and from thence by way of the gardens
to the orchard; but not a sign of Lisbeth. The shrubbery and paddock
yielded a like result, and having interrogated Peter in the
harness-room, he informed us that "Miss Helezabeth was hout along with
Miss Dorothy."
At last, after more than an hour of this sort of thing, even the Imp
grew discouraged and suggested "turning pirates."
Our wanderings had led by devious paths, and now, as luck would have it,
we found ourselves beneath "the blasted oak."
We sat down very solemnly side by side, and for a long time there was
silence.
"It's fine to make 'tyrants tremble,' isn't it, Uncle Dick?" said the
Imp at last.
"Assuredly," I nodded.
"But I should have liked to kiss Auntie Lisbeth good-bye first, an'
Dorothy an' Louise----"
"What do you mean, my Imp?"
"Oh, you know, Uncle Dick! 'My roof henceforth shall be the broad
expanse.' I'm going to fight giants an'--an' all sorts of cads, you
know. An' then, if ever I get to Persia an' do find the wonderful lamp,
I can wish everything all right again, an' we should all be 'happy ever
after'--you an' Auntie Lisbeth an' Dorothy an' me; an' we could live in
a palace with slaves. Oh, it would be fine!"
"Yes, it's an excellent idea, Imp, but on the whole slightly risky,
because it's just possible that you might never find the lamp; besides,
you'll have to stop here, after all, because, you see, I'm going away
myself."
"Then let's go away together, Uncle Dick, do!"
"Impossible, my Imp; who will look after your Auntie Lisbeth and Dorothy
and Louise?"
"I forgot that," he answered ruefully.
"And they need a deal of taking care of," I added.
"'Fraid they do," he nodded; "but there's Peter," he suggested,
brightening.
"Peter certainly knows how to look after horses, but that is not quite
the same. Lend me your 'trusty sword.'"
He rose, and drawing it from his belt, handed it to me with a flourish.
"You remember in the old times, Imp, when knights rode out to battle, it
was customary for them when they made a solemn promise to kiss the
cross-hilt of their swords, just to show they meant to keep it. So now
I ask you to go back to your Auntie Lisbeth, to take care of her, to
shield and guard her from all things evil, and never to forget that you
are her loyal and true knight; and now kiss your sword in token, will
you?" and I passed back the weapon.
"Yes," he answered, with glistening eyes, "I will, on my honour," and he
kissed the sword.
"Good!" I exclaimed. "Thank you, Imp."
"But are you really going away?" he inquired, looking at me with a
troubled face.
"Yes!"
"Must you go?"
"Yes."
"Will you promise to come back some day--soon?"
"Yes, I promise."
"On your honour?"
"On my honour!" I repeated, and in my turn I obediently kissed his
extended sword-hilt.
"Are you going to-night, Uncle Dick?"
"I start very early in the morning, so you see we had better say
'good-bye' now, my Imp."
"Oh!" he said, and stared away down the river. Now, in the buttonhole
of my coat there hung a fading rosebud which Lisbeth had given me two
days ago, and acting on impulse, I took it out.
"Imp," I said, "when you get back, I want you to give this to your
Auntie Lisbeth and say--er--never mind, just give it to her, will you?"
"Yes, Uncle Dick," he said, taking it from me, but keeping his face
turned away.
"And now good-bye, Imp!"
"Good-bye!" he answered, still without looking at me.
"Won't you shake hands?"
He thrust out a grimy little palm, and as I clasped it I saw a big tear
roll down his cheek.
"You'll come back soon--very soon--Uncle Dick?"
"Yes, I'll come back, my Imp."
And thus it was we parted, the Imp and I, beneath the "blasted oak," and
I know my heart was strangely heavy as I turned away and left him.
After I had gone some distance I paused to look back. He still stood
where I had left him, but his face was hidden in his arms as he leaned
sobbing against the twisted trunk of the great tree.
All the way to the Three Jolly Anglers and during the rest of the
evening the thought of the little desolate figure haunted me, so much so
that, having sent away my dinner untasted, I took pen and ink and wrote
him a letter, enclosing with it my penknife, which I had often seen him
regard with "the eye of desire," despite the blade he had broken upon a
certain memorable occasion. This done, I became possessed of a
determination to send some message to Lisbeth also--just a few brief
words which should yet reveal to her something of the thoughts I bore
her ere I passed out of her life for ever.
For over an hour I sat there, chewing the stem of my useless pipe and
racking my brain, but the "few brief words" obstinately refused to come.
Nine o'clock chimed mournfully from the Norman tower of the church hard
by, yet still my pen was idle and the paper before me blank; also I
became conscious of a tapping somewhere close at hand, now stopping, now
beginning again, whose wearisome iteration so irritated my fractious
nerves that I flung down my pen and rose.
The noise seemed to come from the vicinity of the window. Crossing to
it, therefore, I flung the casement suddenly open, and found myself
staring into a round face, in which were set two very round eyes and a
button of a nose, the whole surmounted by a shock of red hair.
"'Allo, Mr. Uncle Dick!"
It needed but this and a second glance at the round face to assure me
that it pertained to Ben, the gardener's boy.
"What, my noble Benjamin?" I exclaimed.
"No, it's me!" answered the redoubtable Ben. "'E said I was to give you
this an' tell you, 'Life an' death!'" As he spoke he held out a roll of
paper tied about the middle with a boot lace; which done, the round head
grinned, nodded, and disappeared from my ken. Unwinding the boot lace,
I spread out the paper and read the following words, scrawled in pencil:
"Hi the to the Blarsted Oke and all will be forgiven. Come back to your
luving frends and bigones shall be bigones. Look to the hole in the
trunk there of.
"Sined,
"ROBIN, Outlaw and Knight.
"P.S.--I mean where i hid her stockings--you no."
I stood for some time with this truly mysterious document in my hand, in
two minds what to do about it; if I went, the chances were that I should
run against the Imp, and there would be a second leave-taking, which in
my present mood I had small taste for. On the other hand, there was a
possibility that something might have transpired which I should do well
to know.
And yet what more could transpire? Lisbeth had made her choice, my
dream was over, to-morrow I should return to London--and there was an
end of it all; still----
In this pitiful state of vacillation I remained for some time, but in
the end curiosity and a fugitive hope gained the day, and, taking my
cap, I sallied forth.
It was, as Stevenson would say, "a wonderful night of stars," and the
air was full of their soft, quivering light, for the moon was late and
had not risen as yet. As I stepped from the inn door, somebody in the
tap-room struck up "Tom Bowling" in a rough but not unmusical voice; and
the plaintive melody seemed somehow to become part of the night.
Truly my feet trod a path of "faerie," carpeted with soft mosses, a path
winding along beside a river of shadows, on whose dark tide stars were
floating. I walked slowly, breathing the fragrance of the night and
watching the great silver moon creeping slowly up the spangled sky. So
I presently came to the "blasted oak." The hole in the trunk needed
little searching for. I remembered it well enough, and thrusting in my
hand, drew out a folded paper. Holding this close to my eyes, I managed
with no little difficulty to decipher this message:
"Don't go unkel dick bekors Auntie lisbeth wants you and i want you to.
I heard her say so to herself in the libree and she was crying to, and
didn't see me there but i was. And she said O Dick i want you so, out
loud bekors she didn't no I was there. And i no she was crying bekors i
saw the tiers. And this is true on my onner.
"Sined,
"Yore true frend and Knight,
"REGINALD AUGUSTUS."
A revulsion of feeling swept over me as I read. Ah! if only I could
believe she had said such words--my beautiful, proud Lisbeth.
Alas! dear Imp, how was it possible to believe you? And because I knew
it could not possibly be true, and because I would have given my life to
know that it was true, I began to read the note all over again.
Suddenly I started and looked round; surely that was a sob! But the
moon's level rays served only to show the utter loneliness about me. It
was imagination, of course, and yet it had sounded very real.