My Lady Caprice Part 20

That I should thus shoulder the responsibility for the Imp's misdeeds was ridiculous, and wrong as it was unjust, for if ever boy deserved punishment that boy was the Imp. And yet, probably because he was the Imp, or because of that school-boy honour which forbids "sneaking," and which I carried with me still, I held my peace; seeing which, Lisbeth turned and left me.

I stood where I was, with head bent in an att.i.tude suggestive of innocence, broken hopes, and gentle resignation, but in vain; she never once looked back. Still, martyr though I was, the knowledge that I had immolated myself upon the altar of friendship filled me with a sense of conscious virtue that I found not ill-pleasing. Howbeit, seeing I am but human after all, I sat down and re-filling my pipe, fell once more anathematising the Imp.

"Hist!"

A small shape flittered from behind an adjacent tree, and lo! the subject of my thoughts stood before me.

Imp' I said "come here." He obeyed readily. "When you cut that rope and set your Auntie Lisbeth adrift, you didn't remember the man who was drowned in the weir last month, did you?"

"No!" he answered, staring.

"Of course not," I nodded; "but all the same it is not your fault that your Auntie Lisbeth is not drowned--just as he was."

"Oh!" exclaimed the Imp, and his beloved bow slipped from his nerveless fingers.

"Imp," I went on, "it was a wicked thing to cut that rope, a mean, cruel trick, Don't you think so?"

"I 'specks it was, Uncle d.i.c.k."

"Don't you think you ought to be punished?" He nodded. "Very well," I answered, "I'll punish you myself. Go and cut me a nice, straight switch," and I handed him my open penknife. Round-eyed, the Imp obeyed, and for a s.p.a.ce there was a prodigious cracking and snapping of sticks. In a little while he returned with three, also the blade of my knife was broken, for which he was profusely apologetic.

"Now," I said as I selected the weapon fittest for the purpose, "I am going to strike you hard on either hand with this stick that is, if you think you deserve it."

"Was Aunt Lisbeth nearly drowned--really?" he inquired.

"Very nearly, and was only saved by a chance."

"All right, Uncle d.i.c.k, hit me," he said, and held out his hand. The stick whizzed and fell--once--twice. I saw his face grow scarlet and the tears leap to his eyes, but he uttered no sound.

"Did it hurt very much, my Imp?" I inquired, as I tossed the stick aside. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, while I turned to light my pipe, wasting three matches quite fruitlessly.

"Uncle d.i.c.k," he burst out at last, struggling manfully against his sobs, "I--I'm awfull'--sorry--"

"Oh, ifs all right now, Imp. Shake hands!" Joyfully the little, grimy fingers clasped mine, and from that moment I think there grew up between us a new understanding.

"Why, Imp, my darling, you're crying!" exclaimed a voice, and with a rustle of skirts Lisbeth was down before him on her knees.

"I know I am--'cause I'm awfull' sorry--an' Uncle d.i.c.k's whipped my hands--an' I'm glad!"

"Whipped your hands?" cried Lisbeth, clasping him closer, and glaring at me, "Whipped your hands--how dare he! What for?"

"'Cause I cut the rope an' let the boat go away with you, an' you might have been drowned dead in the weir, an' I'm awfull' glad Uncle d.i.c.k whipped me."

"O-h-h!" exclaimed Lisbeth, and it was a very long drawn "oh!" indeed.

"I don't know what made me do it," continued the imp. "I 'specks it was my new knife--it was so nice an sharp, you know."

"Well, it's all right now, my Imp," I said, fumbling for a match in a singularly clumsy manner. "If you ask me, I think we are all better friends than ever--or should be. I know I should be fonder of your Auntie Lisbeth even than before, and take greater care of her, if I were you. And--and now take her in to tea, my Imp, and--and see that she has plenty to eat," and lifting my hat I turned away. But Lisbeth was beside me, and her hand was on my arm before I had gone a yard.

"We are having tea in the same old place--under the trees. If you would care to--to--would you?"

"Yes, do--oh do, Uncle d.i.c.k!" cried the Imp. "I'll go and tell Jane to set a place for you," and he bounded off.

"I didn't hit him very hard," I said, breaking a somewhat awkward silence; "but you see there are some things a gentleman cannot do. I think he understands now."

"Oh, d.i.c.k!" she said very softly; "and to think I could imagine you had done such a thing--you; and to think that you should let me think you had done such a thing--and all to shield that Imp? Oh, d.i.c.k! no wonder he is so fond of you. He never talks of any one but you--I grow quite jealous sometimes. But, d.i.c.k, how did you get into that boat?"

"By means of a tree with 'stickie-out' branches."

"Do you mean to say--"

"That, as I told you before, I dropped in, as it were."

"But supposing you had slipped?"

"But I didn't."

"And you can't swim a stroke!"

"Not that I know of."

"Oh, d.i.c.k! can you ever forgive me?"

"On three conditions."

"Well?"

"First, that you let me remember everything you said to me while we were drifting down to the river."

"That depends, d.i.c.k. And the second?"

"The second lies in the fact that not far from the village of Down, in Kent, there stands an old house--a quaint old place that is badly in want of some one to live in it--an old house that is lonely for a woman's sweet presence and gentle, busy hands, Lisbeth!"

"And the third?" she asked very softly.

"Surely you can guess that?"

"No, I can't, and, besides, there's Dorothy coming--and--oh, d.i.c.k!"

"Why, Auntie," exclaimed Dorothy, as she came up, "how red you are! I knew you'd get sunburned, lying in that old boat without a parasol!

But, then, she will do it, Uncle d.i.c.k--oh, she will do it!"

VI

THE OUTLAW

Everybody knew old Jasper Trent, the Crimean Veteran who had helped to beat the "Roosians and the Proosians," and who, so it was rumored, had more wounds upon his worn, bent body than there were months in the year.