“By the way,” I said as I filled my pipe, “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 me 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 Elizbeth, 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 great big lie.”
“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.
“Any one 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
