Part 30

"You are a-going to come up to the 'ouse with me, and no blooming nonsense either; d'ye 'ear?"

"Then must I needs smite thee for a barbarous dog--hence--base slave--begone!" Wherewith I delivered what is technically known in "sporting" circles as a "right hook in the ear," followed by a "left swing to the chin," and my assailant immediately disappeared behind a bush, with a flash of pink silk calves and buckled shoes. Then, while the trim maidservant filled the air with her lamentations, the imp and I ran hot-foot for the wall, over which I bundled him neck and crop, and we set off pell-mell along the river-path.

"Oh, Uncle Dick," he panted, "how--how fine you are! you knocked yon footman--I mean varlet--from his saddle like--like anything. Oh, I do wish you would play like this every night!"

"Heaven forbid!" I exclaimed fervently.

Coming at last to the shrubbery gate, we paused awhile to regain our breath.

"Uncle Dick," said the Imp, regarding me with a thoughtful eye, "did you see his arm--I mean before you smote him 'hip and thigh'?"

"I did."

"It was round her waist."

"Imp, it was."

"Just like Peter's?"

"Yes."

"An' the man with the funny name?"

"Archibald's, yes,"

"An'--an--"

"And mine," I put in, seeing he paused.

"Uncle Dick--why?"

"Ah! who knows, Imp--perhaps it was the Moon-magic. And now by my troth! 'tis full time all good knights were snoring, so hey for bed and the Slumber-world!"

The ladder was dragged from its hiding place, and the Imp, having mounted, watched me from his window as I returned it to the laurels for very obvious reasons.

"We didn't see any fairies, did we, Uncle Dick?"

"Well, I think I did, Imp, just for a moment; I may have been mistaken, of course, but anyhow, it has been a very wonderful night all the same. And so--God rest you, fair Knight!"

THE EPISODE OF THE INDIAN'S AUNT

The sun blazed down, as any truly self-respecting sun should, on a fine August afternoon; yet its heat was tempered by a soft, cool breeze that just stirred the leaves above my head. The river was busy whispering many things to the reeds, things which, had I been wise enough to understand, might have helped me to write many wonderful books, for, as it is so very old, and has both seen and heard so much, it is naturally very wise. But alas! being ignorant of the language of rivers, I had to content myself with my own dreams, and the large, speckled frog, that sat beside me, watching the flow of the river with his big, gold-rimmed eyes.

He was happy enough I was sure. There was a complacent satisfaction in every line of his fat, mottled body. And as I watched him my mind very naturally reverted to the "Pickwick Papers," and I repeated Mrs. Lyon-Hunter's deathless ode, beginning:

Can I see thee panting, dying, On a log, Expiring frog!

The big, green frog beside me listened with polite attention, but, on the whole, seemed strangely unmoved. Remembering the book in my pocket, I took it out; an old book, with battered leathern covers, which has passed through many hands since it was first published, more than two hundred years ago.

Indeed it is a wonderful, a most delightful book, known to the world as "The Compleat Angler," in which, to be sure, one may read something of fish and fishing, but more about old Izaac's lovable self, his sunny streams and shady pools, his buxom milkmaids, and sequestered inns, and his kindly animadversions upon men and things in general. Yet, as I say, he does occasionally speak of fish and fishing, and amongst other matters, concerning live frogs as bait, after describing the properest method of impaling one upon the hook, he ends with this injunction:

Treat it as though you loved it, that it may live the longer!

Up till now the frog had preserved his polite attentiveness in a manner highly creditable to his upbringing, but this proved too much; his over-charged feelings burst from him in a hoarse croak, and he disappeared into the river with a splash.