Chapter II: Part 2

“A poor runner for all he is a big man and wears a red beard,” thought Robin, as he watched him lumbering over the grass. Nearer and nearer he came, until at length he was close behind the tree. Then there was a soft thud on the ground, and Robin, gliding a little way round the trunk, saw the runner lying on his face, his big shoulders rising and falling as he struggled for breath. Robin waited, suspiciously watching every deep shadow round the glade.

Presently the man raised himself on his elbow, and sighed in weariness, as though he was speaking to the ground, “I cannot go further. They must take me.”

When he heard those words, Robin stepped forward, burning with a boyish pity for one who was being pursued. “By your grace, Sir,” he said defiantly, “they must take me too then.”

The man stared, as dazed as if the oak itself had spoken aloud.

“How far are they behind?” asked Robin eagerly.

The man shook his head.

“Have they hounds with them?”

“I am not certain,” said the man, laying one hand on the knotted trunk and rising slowly to his feet.

“Follow me then,” said Robin; “I can save you.”

The man smiled, and shook his head at this confident boy; but for all that he followed him. Listening for every sound upon the air, Robin glided away from his oak tree, and past another of great girth, whose branches spread into those of the first, until he came to a little bank, at the bottom of which under an archway of branches ran a stream. Into this he stepped up to his knees.

“Come down to me and climb on my back,” he said, setting his arms against the bank, as if he were playing leapfrog. The man obeyed in silence. “And now swing up to the third branch above your head. Quick!”

The man looked up into the tree, and shook his head once again, but once again he could not resist the eager boy who was trying to help him, and praying that his strength would hold out yet a little while, he planted his dripping foot on Robin's shoulders, and with much labour and snapping of twigs hoisted himself into the tree. Robin waited, listening impatiently to the noise, until the man had reached the third thick bough, and then swung himself up too in his turn, and being nimbler of foot and much lighter in weight, quickly took the lead. First they climbed up and up, and then, when at last they reached a main stem, the man saw what cunning was in the boy's plan. High above the lower branches it was as though a pathway had been made from one tree to the other, and along this they passed cautiously, listening lest at any moment they might hear the sound of voices through the leaves below. So they moved, foot by foot, towards the fork of that first big oak tree where Robin had his forest home, and at length reached it, before the pursuers had come in sight. There the stranger sank down, and nodding as if to say, “I thank you,” closed his eyes in utter weariness. For three days and three nights he had not slept, and his strength was spent.

Meanwhile, Robin was peering through the branches, and as he caught sight of a flash of red and silver, he quivered with a new excitement. These were serving-men of the proud Abbot of Dore, nearly a dozen, armed with swords and bows, hurrying along behind a large hound, which ran close to the earth straight towards the oak tree. There for a moment it seemed to hesitate, and then, with a low cry, it headed fast for the stream. What an age it seemed to Robin, as he heard the voices arguing and shouting to one another round the shadows of the next tree, and what a relief when he heard the sound of splashing water, and at length the voices dying away into the forest! After much wrangling, the pursuers had decided that the fugitive had gone along the stream to put them off his scent, and get back into his old tracks again, and that way they went also.

So once again stillness came over the great woodland. But now Robin's secret was no longer his own. At first, as he watched the stranger soundly sleeping among his own sheepskins, he felt rather jealous of him; but then he remembered that it had all been his own plan, and he became ashamed that he should grudge help to anyone, who was in danger from the Abbot of Dore; for of the Abbot's evil ways he had heard many a poor man tell. Then he grew inquisitive. For what had this stranger run away? And at last, eager to know this mysterious thing, he crept over to him, and tried to waken him; but the man only opened his eyes and smiled sleepily and shut them again. He then looked at the slant of the sunbeams through the trees, and knew he must go, if he would reach the Castle in time to put on his livery and wait at supper; for waiting at meals was one of his duties as a page, and supper in those days was at five o'clock.

So, making up his mind to come back at daybreak and question the stranger then, he laid what little food he had left by his hand, and stole away back across the stream, and thence through a mile of dense trees, and came at length to open spaces on the brow of a hill, and from there across the plain he could see, far down to the left, the three towers of the Abbey of Dore, and three miles away to the right the grey Castle keep of Sayes, guarding the long bridge that crossed the river Ley.

Down the hill he began to run, skipping over fallen trunks and through the high, golden bracken, until the woods ended, and he came on the king's highroad, and along its wide green border he took his way to the Castle.

He crossed the drawbridge over the moat. All was quiet within the great courtyard, for messengers had come with the news that the Baron would not arrive before sundown. Robin had even hoped that his master might be kept at the King's Council for yet another day or more, for when he returned the Castle would be filled again with guests, and then there was little time for running away to the forest. But guest or no guest, as he strode into the hall, where the servants were already making the first preparations for a feast that evening, he made an oath with himself that nothing would keep him at daybreak from the stranger he had left in the forest.

Then he went up the hall, past the dais, and through a door leading to the Baron's retiring room. There he found the chamberlain. The chamberlain, who was old and fussy, and almost overcome with the thought of his master's return, bade him straight begone to the kitchens and learn his duties from the steward. So he went back the way he had come. Serving in the kitchens was not one of his duties; he served only at the high table, where he attended on his master or his guests, and carved the trenchers and even now was allowed to carve the simpler meats, each according to rule; and at times he played the harp also, but this not often, for not even the threat of flogging would ever make him practise enough in his leisure time. Still, he was ready enough now to go to the kitchens for many reasons. He was hungry; he loved its bustle, as much as he disliked the tedious ceremonies of the hall; and, more than all, he wanted to gather a store of food for the morrow.

As he came singing to the passage that led from the hall to the kitchens, he met coming from them the Baron's young niece, a girl of twelve, named Marian. Gaily dressed she was, with scarlet gown and white silk sleeves; and Robin, thinking that her nose was tipped too high with pride, tweaked one of her long black plaits in tune to his singing; and before she could scold him, had darted along the passage to the kitchens. Here, under the high roof all the noise in the Castle was gathered. There was the roar of the big fires, the clatter of pots and pans, the hissing of the spits, as they turned roasting their many meats, partridge, goose, and mallard, mutton, chickens, and venison. Everywhere was heat and hurry and the pungent fumes of cookery. At the thick wooden benches the cooks were preparing dish upon dish, and all about them lay a plenty of materials: wines and spices, flour and butter, almonds and nuts, saffron and ginger, eggs and onions, dates and raisins, milk and vinegar, and countless other things.

As he roved about among all this plenty, keeping out of the way of the steward, Robin gathered a store of food, and finding an empty crock, he filled it, and setting it in a cupboard asked his favourite cook to take great care that it was not touched that night.

At sundown the Baron and his company returned, and after he had washed off the dust of the journey and arrayed himself in soft raiment, the minstrels welcomed him to the hall, and the feast began. But it lasted no longer than two hours, for the long journey had wearied the new-comers, and so the Baron retired early to his chamber. Robin crept up to the gallery over the hall, where in a little recess by the door of the Baron's sleeping room he had his own couch, and there putting off his gold and silver livery, and praying that the Saints would waken him before the sun, he stretched himself on his mattress and fell asleep.

It was a sharp, frosty night, and the cold air, pouring through the draughty gallery, made him restless long before the dawn; and while it was yet a grey twilight, he woke, and taking a bag and a length of rope from the chest in which he kept his clothes, he felt his way along the gallery, and down the stairs into the hall. Here upon the rush-strewn floor lay groups of sleeping servants, and such a snoring they set up, that he was glad when he had threaded his way over their sprawling bodies and out into the kitchens. There he filled his bag with the food he had gathered the evening before, and then climbed through a window out into the courtyard, and stole like a shadow along the dark buttresses of the wall to the gatehouse. There, opening a door in one of its thick towers he listened. The gatekeeper was breathing in a deep sleep, and his dog tapped its tail once or twice gently, as a lazy sign of friendship. So Robin tiptoed past them to a staircase leading up the tower itself. Ten steps up he went and there came to a window, narrowing to a slit, through which he could just squeeze his body. From this window ran a ledge round the outside of the tower to the outside of the gateway itself, and many a time had he used this ledge to pass in and out, when the great gates were locked, and the bridge was not drawn up. If the bridge was drawn up, it meant swimming the moat also, and for that he had no mind in the bitter cold of the early morning. To his joy, when he had come through the window, he saw the outline of the bridge suspended across the water, and hanging the bag over his shoulder, he quickly worked his way along the ledge, and came to the side of the bridge, and then sprang down, and a minute after he was lost in the white mist of the meadows by the river.

The bag of food he knew would be too heavy to carry as fast as he wanted to go to the forest, and so he had brought the length of rope with him; for somewhere in the meadows grazed a horse called Saracen, that he often rode and for whom he had made with his own hands a leathern headstall. He would have whistled, but already he heard sounds of voices through the mists. It was the swineherds driving the long-legged village pigs to feed in the woods. So, keeping silence, he wandered unseen over the drenching grass until he came upon his horse. He fastened the rope to its headstall, leapt on its back, and after picking up the bag he had left by the moat, he was away to the forest, as the first beams of the sun broke crimson through the silver clouds.

But for all his care he had not gone unseen. High in the keep slept Marian with the two daughters of her uncle, the Baron of Sayes; and at the time when Robin was down in the meadows, an owl had perched on the sill of their window and hooted and startled them from their beds. And after it was driven away, and the other two had fallen asleep again, Marian still lingered by the window, wondering and downcast about many things, which she did not understand. She wondered, why for many months no news had come from her mother in the North; why her aunt never spoke of her mother now; why her uncle no longer spoke of her father, who had gone to the wars in France; and she was troubled too by the stern look he had fixed on her when he was talking to his wife in their private chamber that very night. She knew by his look that it must be herself they were speaking of, but she had heard nothing, except once or twice the words “the Lord Abbot of Dore.” It was all a mystery to her; and only one thing she knew for certain, and that was, that she wished she were riding fast to her home in the North.

And, as the wish was in her heart, and her eyes looked down on the bank of mist that lay below round the river sides, she saw a tiny horse move through it like a ghost, and then suddenly spring out into the dim golden sunlight. That horse and rider, her eyes told her, could be no other than Saracen and Robin. And with an angry sigh she left the window. Why couldn't she too go free like a boy? Why should Robin torment her thus again? She had not forgiven him for catching hold of her plait that evening. He deserved to have all his tricks and escapades told to her uncle. But she could not punish him even in that way. For then she would be telling tales herself. Truly, she sighed, it was all very tiresome.

Meanwhile, suspecting nothing, Robin had tethered his horse far within the forest, and was tramping with his bag, as hot now as he had been cold, down the deeply-wooded side of the hill, beyond which lay his secret oak tree; and at last he came down to the stream near by it, his heart beating with excitement. His quick eye glanced to the second trunk, and saw something move in the branches above it. The stranger was still there.

In less time than it would take to tell, Robin was in the tree, and the stranger was making a meal; and as he ate, he glanced with an admiring eye at the boy, who had thus helped him; and ever and anon he questioned him. Robin, on his side, met his eye with a steady gaze. He liked the man's rugged, bearded face, and answered him frankly. At last the man seemed to be satisfied with his questioning, and putting his hand into his tunic, he drew out the end of a chain, on which hung a little silver ornament shaped like a ship, and he said simply:

“I am called Brian of the Bow.”—Robin started with surprise, for he had heard foresters speak of that name with awe.—“You have once given me my life to keep, if I can, and right glad I am, for I hope to teach my son to loose a shaft better than his father before I die.”

“How old may he be?” said Robin.

“Sixteen years, and six feet high already, and he can shoot as straight as I can,” said Brian of the Bow, with a proud nod of his head. Robin's countenance fell; and he set his chin. He had himself shot with a man's long bow, but the Baron's archers had laughed, as his arrow flew short and wide of the mark. Even a stag would sit on his haunches and laugh aloud, they had told him, if it saw the flight of such an arrow; and here was news of one, but two years older, already a man in skill. He was downcast.

“I shall teach him, too, one other thing,” said Brian, seeing the shadow on Robin's face, “to remember that he would never have been John of the Bow if his father had perished yesterday,” and then, knitting his brows, he went on: “You have saved my life once. I shall put it once again in your hands, and, it may be, the life of another also. You see this silver ship. That was entrusted to me by the lady I serve and her name you will have heard many a time, if you have been long at yonder Castle. She is Catharine of Arlington, and her husband is the brother of your master.”

“Marian——” said Robin.

“Her mother,” said Brian. “It is now many months since she had news of her daughter, and all her messengers have been driven back and cruelly used, and she is sick almost to death with fear that some evil may be hanging over this same Marian. You saw the men who followed me yesterday, and whose men they were. My mistress fears that their master, the Lord Abbot, intends to trap her daughter into his power. Many are his plottings, and time is too short to tell you them now. You will know enough if I tell you but this: I was sent to carry this silver ship to my lady's daughter. This ship says 'return'!” and he took it off the chain, and held it up for Robin to see closely. “If I could give it my lady's daughter this forenoon, she would be far into the forest by nightfall, and six leagues to the north I know a woodman who would give us rest and shelter, and again six leagues and we should be in a friendlier country, by the forest of Barnwood.”

“Give it to me,” said Robin impetuously, holding out his hand, “and by noon, if it be as you say, she will be here by this tree, and perchance two horses with her.”

“Never make too high a promise,” said Brian, and Robin's cheeks flamed at the rebuke; “but this I know,” he went on, “you may succeed now where I am like to fail,” and with these words he gave Robin the silver ship, and commended him to God. Robin had already swung out on a branch, and dropped to the ground, when Brian called after him in a low voice, “Do this for me, and in days to come I will teach you to loose a shaft as well as any man.” Cheered by these words, Robin set off hot-foot for his horse Saracen, and when he came to him, where he was still peaceably grazing, he stood leaning by his shoulder and thought awhile, until Saracen in his turn stopped grazing, and stood and seemed to think also. Thus they stood and stared together into space, while Robin tried to imagine what was likely to happen at the Castle of Sayes that day. At length he seemed to make a decision, and jumping on Saracen, rode back towards the Castle; but when he came to the wide common land that lay by the bridge, he dismounted, and turning Saracen loose, made the rest of the way on foot.

As he came to the gatehouse, a rider in the Abbot's livery thundered out over the wooden planks of the drawbridge.

“Good day,” said Robin, with a twinkling eye, and wanting very much to flourish the silver ship in front of his face. The man passed him without answering.

Then through the gateway Robin saw the Baron striding up and down the narrow lawn that lay under the shadow of the hall, and he saw, too, that there was deep anger on his brow, and he trembled, as he drew near, trying to swagger along with a bold step. Still the Baron strode to and fro, and all the time watched Robin with a stern eye. Once that morning already he had called for him to prepare his bath, and there had been no answer. But still, as he strode to and fro, he did not speak. Dark and gloomy secret thoughts were vexing his heart and making his tongue silent. For he had just heard that the sister of the Abbot of Dore was coming that day to go a-hawking, and he knew that she would return that night with his niece Marian a captive in her train. He knew that it had been planned that while Marian was out with the hawking party, she should be drawn into the woods, in order that the Abbot's serving-men might seem to rescue her, and carry her off for safety to the Abbey. All this he knew, and yet he could do nothing; for he had consented to the plot, unhappy man, afraid that the Abbot would ruin him in the King's Councils. So without speaking, and with the least twist of a bitter smile on his lips, he watched his truant page swagger past him to the great hall door.

A deep sigh of relief came from Robin's heart as he swung the heavy door of the hall back to its socket. But he was happy too soon. For, as he shut the door, a small, commanding voice bade him open it again, and he turned to meet Marian and one of the Baron's daughters, dressed for riding. And worse still, they began to laugh at him, as though they had a secret about him that amused them. Two girls foolishly laughing, and Brian of the Bow waiting in desperate suspense!

For a moment he lost temper, and was tempted to swing the door open again, and let them go. Instead, he stood fidgeting against it, and at last he stammered with downcast eye:

“I have seen a silver ship this morning.”

Marian's lip fell, and the dimples fled from her cheek. Then the latch of the door clattered and the Baron entered brushing Robin aside.

“Father,” cried his daughter, stepping forward to him with a mocking laugh, “have you seen the silver ship this morning?” The Baron stopped suddenly in his stride.

“Who has?” he growled.

“Robin,” faltered his daughter, frightened by the harsh change in his voice.

The Baron for a moment stared at Robin, his face set as hard as stone, and then he abruptly walked away. “Get them their ponies,” he called over his shoulder, and again, in a still sterner tone, “Let me never hear those words again.”

Scared by her mistake, his daughter hastened out into the courtyard, calling Marian after her; but Marian did not move, for Robin had caught her by the sleeve. He watched the Baron disappear through the further end of the hall, and then whispering, “Brian of the Bow gave me that,” he pushed the silver ship into her hand. For a moment she stood speechless and amazed, as though she saw her mother actually standing before her. Then her eyes turned from the ship to Robin's face, and from his face to the ship. “Where is he? Tell me,” she begged.

“I'll tell you, as we saddle the ponies. Can you get some food, for it will be a long journey?”

“A long journey! He is waiting!” she cried joyously, so joyously that Robin's heart grew light too, as though all this serious adventure was turning into a mischievous game of hide-and-seek.

It was then close upon nine, and at ten dinner would be served, and in less than an hour the Abbot's sister would be coming into the hall with her retainers. So the two rushed away to the pantry, and while for a few breathless minutes they ate, Robin stuffed a pie into the fold of his tunic and another into his hood, and then they fled after the Baron's daughter, and a fine excuse it made for hurrying past the surly and suspicious gatekeeper. As they crossed the moat, the Baron's daughter, sauntering ahead, was already close to the long, level strip of turf where the girls daily exercised their ponies under the eye of the watchman on the walls. But Robin did not mean that Marian should follow her there. Instead, he beckoned her after him into the main stables, which stood across the highroad opposite the gatehouse. There the ponies were quickly saddled, and Marian mounting hers, Robin took its bridle, and bidding a groom lead the other before them, he and Marian followed so slowly that when they came out on the highway, they were already some way behind. There he stopped, and calling to the others that he wanted to fetch his own horse Saracen from the common land over the bridge, he turned that way.

“I can come with you,” called Marian, in a voice that all who wished to hear might hear, and when she saw the groom bow his head in consent to her call, she turned her pony slowly after Robin; and so the two passed to the bridge, and still slowly moved out of sight.

As soon, as he saw their heads appear above the parapet, Saracen had pricked up his ears, and with two or three flourishes with his heels, and two or three boisterous circlings, he pranced up to them. Straightway Robin unknotted the rope from his headstall, and the next moment Marian and he were racing to the nearest point in the forest.

“How lovely!” she cried breathless, as they plunged under the sun-dappled trees. “Robin, I'm free!”

“Not yet,” he said soberly, his eyes looking eagerly for familiar marks by which to guide their path. Steadily they moved up towards the crest of the hills, and then threaded their way along just beneath it, catching glimpses of the Castle, as it grew smaller and smaller in the distance. And still they saw nobody setting out in pursuit. And thus at length they came near the secret oak, and the only trouble Robin had was to stop Marian startling everything around with her laughing voice. The serious-eyed quiet Marian had gone, and a new, merry, jolly, light-hearted Marian had appeared in her place. He was filled with wonder. Her laughter was so gay that he felt that even the rabbits would forget their cares, and all their holes would shake with silent jokes.

As they crossed the stream, Brian of the Bow rushed from his hiding-place, and to Saracen's surprise threw himself on his knees before them, tears of joy coursing down his brown cheeks, now that the long suspense was over.

“The saints be praised, my little mistress!” he cried, and Marian jumped from her pony and flung herself into his great arms, while Robin rescued the pies, that had danced to many pieces in the folds of his tunic.

There was little time for all that they wished to say then. Every minute they waited made their course more dangerous, and so all was soon hurriedly prepared for setting out. All the stores that were of use from the oak tree were put into two bundles and slung on a rope over Saracen's back; for Robin, though it cost him a pang, bade Brian ride him as far as the woodman's hut six leagues through the forest, and then set him loose to find his own way back.

“God thank you always,” said Brian solemnly, before he mounted; “and when we meet again I will string a bow for you.”

“Robin,” said Marian shyly in her turn, “I like you very much to-day,” and he beamed at her with pleasure as she turned to ride away.

So they started, and as he watched them disappear Robin wished that he also had been starting with them on this new adventure, over the hills and far away. But he had to bide his time; and all the way, as he returned through the woods back towards the highway and kept watch against the coming of the hawking party, lest he should be seen, he was trying to plan how that good time might come to him.

There was hue and cry both in the Castle and in the Abbey that night. Riders galloped this way and that. Rumours flew. But when midnight came, only Saracen was on his way back through the dark trees; and Marian and Brian, after a few hour's sleep in the woodman's hut were already starting on the second stage of their journey, and no servant of the Abbot had either seen or heard of them. And in the Castle at the same time Robin was preparing his master's bed, so drowsy that sometimes for a moment he dreamed that he was tossing in a silver ship, and sometimes that he was riding in the forest under the stars. Suddenly a voice smote his ears.

“I will do that for myself,” it said, and Robin, blinking in the candlelight, saw the Baron standing in front of him.

“Go and rest, go and rest,” the Baron said, laying his hand in a kindly way on his shoulder. “You have served me well enough already for one day. Go and rest.”

Years after Robin came to understand how he had served the Baron well that day; how he had done for the Baron what he could not do for himself, and saved him from a mean and treacherous act; and years after he used the bow as skilfully as Brian's great son, Little John. But that was when men called him Robin Hood, the outlaw of Sherwood, and Marian had become Maid Marian.

“THE ORDER OF THE BATH” _By MABEL MARLOWE_

Every Saturday night the gnomes all went down to the river to bathe. They used the archway under the wooden bridge for a dressing-room, putting their clothes in little heaps on the stones.

The gnomes that could swim wore red bathing drawers, and were very proud of them, too. Those who could take one foot off the bottom wore blue bathing drawers; and those who could only paddle and splash, wore white ones.

At seven o'clock they all went into the water, where it was shallow at the edge, and grew deep (but not too deep). For half an hour they splashed and swam, and dived, and kicked. Then Humpy the Weather-gnome, who was the Master-of-the-Bath, stood up, and clapped his hands.

“Ready,” he called, and he ran under the bridge and fetched a piece of soap from his pocket. For “batheing” night was also bath night.

Then the gnomes all stood in a row in the water, where it was deep (but not too deep). They stood in a row, with the tallest at the back, and the shortest at the front, and all the others in their right places according to size. Then Humpy gave the piece of soap to Lanky Tom, who was always at the back, and scuttled to his place in front of Toby.

“All ready?” he said.

“Yes. All ready.”

“Then—Soap!”

Then Lanky Tom dipped the soap in the water to make it froth. He soaped the back of Toby. Then Toby took the soap and soaped the back of Humpy. Humpy soaped Sut. Sut soaped Barney. Barney soaped Lob. And Lob soaped Dump the dwarf, who was always in the front. Then all the gnomes dipped.

Fizz! went the froth. The river sounded like sherbet, and grew the colour of milk. The little wafer of soap that was left went floating away down stream. After that, the gnomes all ran under the bridge, and dried and dressed, chatting all the time.

But one Saturday night a fuss began. Lanky Tom, the ladder-gnome, commenced to grumble.

“It isn't fair,” he said.

“What isn't fair?” asked Humpy.

“It isn't fair that I am always at the back. I never get any soap.”

“Why, you get the soap first of all.”

“Yes, I know. But I soap Toby, and Toby soaps Humpy—but nobody ever soaps me. For twelve years I have had no soap. It isn't fair.”

“H'm! No, it doesn't seem fair,” mumbled Humpy. “It certainly is not fair. But I do not see how we can help it. It isn't our fault that you are the tallest one.”

“No, you can't blame us,” said the other gnomes, all talking at once. Then they began to argue—and they grew so hot about it that they all steamed dry.

At last Dump the dwarf (who was always in the front) raised his voice.

“Listen to me,” he cried. “I may be the littlest one here, but I have got the most sense. Let's all go into the water again—but let's go the other way round, with the tallest in the front.”

“OF COURSE!” said Humpy. “That is a very bright idea. Line up! Quick March! Left, Right! Now, RIGHT-ABOUT-FACE!”

Solemnly the gnomes marched into the stream in their usual order, and then faced about, so that Lanky Tom was in the front, and Dump the dwarf was at the back. Then Humpy took another tablet of soap and gave it to Dump.

Dump soaped Lob. Lob soaped Barney. Barney soaped Sut. Sut soaped Humpy. Humpy soaped Toby. And Toby soaped Lanky Tom. He lathered his shoulders, and rubbed his back, and gave him such a frothing that when he dipped the whole river boiled and sizzled like a steam engine.

All the willows shook in the breeze, and the fishes gave their tails a mighty flick, and were off.

Back scuttled the gnomes to the bridge, and began to dress.

“Well, are you satisfied now?” asked Humpy, towelling his head.

“Yes,” replied Lanky Tom. “Yes, I am satisfied now. I have had a good wash at last.”

“So that's settled,” said Humpy, and he began to pull his socks on.

“No, indeed! It isn't settled! It isn't fair!” cried Dump the dwarf, getting red in the face.

“What isn't fair?” asked all the others in chorus.

“I have only had one soaping, and the rest of you have had two.”

“I have only had one, and I am quite satisfied,” said Lanky Tom.

“One is quite enough,” said Barney.

“THAT'S NOT THE POINT,” cried Dump, growing excited. “The point is this. ONE gnome was being treated unfairly before. We all admit that. But now TWO gnomes have been treated unfairly. Matters are worse than they were before.”

“It's your own fault. You suggested it. You have got us into a fine muddle with your interference,” said Humpy.

“Yes, indeed!” said Lob. “I've got a complaint to make, too. I've been washed twice.”

“So have all the rest of us,” cried the others, all speaking at once.

“What a waste of soap. Two pieces used instead of one!”

“H'm! That's a serious thing about the soap,” said Humpy. “If we use two tablets each time the soap will only last for half a year, and we shall have to stop grimy for six months at a time.”

“Let's bath once a fortnight,” said Sut.

“No! I don't like that idea at all,” said Barney. “There is no sense in that—to have two washes in one day, and then none for two weeks.”

“We've done it to-day,” said Sut. “I've been washed when I was perfectly clean.”

“I MAY BE THE LITTLEST ONE HERE,” shouted Dump, “BUT THAT IS NO REASON WHY I SHOULD BE TREATED WORSE THAN ANYONE ELSE.”

“Tut-ut-tut!” said Toby. “What a fuss! What a silly commotion! And all about nothing! I suggest that we go on the same way as we used to do. We have done it for twelve years. We can do it for twelve years more.”

“OH! CAN WE?” said Lanky Tom, in an awful voice. “Can we INDEED!” And he stumped up the bank and went off in a huff.

Oh, the consternation under that wooden bridge! The water chattered over the stones; the rushes whispered together, and all the echoes of that dim archway sounded like the moans of a gathering storm.

“Dear, dear! What shall we do?”

“Let's bath by ourselves.”

“No. We can't reach our own backs. Our arms are too short.”

“I shall resign,” said Humpy, shaking his beard. “For twelve years I have been Master-of-the-Bath, but now I shall resign.”

Gloomily, with many sighs, the gnomes dressed and went away. One by one they disappeared along the lane, and at last Humpy was left alone.

He sat on a stone in the shadows, watching the water as it lapped at the pebbly banks. Twilight settled over the land. Stars began to glimmer in the sky. But Humpy sat under the bridge, and did not move.

He felt very sad, and very old.

Suddenly he heard a voice calling his name.

“Humpy! Humpy! Where are you?”

Mrs. Humpy came running down the bank, peering anxiously under the arch of the bridge.

“I'm here.”

“Oh, I thought you must be drowned. I watched the other gnomes coming home—and they looked very grave—no smiles or anything—and it made me feel afraid that something had happened.”

“Something has happened,” said Humpy, and he drew her down beside him, and told her all about it.

She listened to the end without a sound. Then—she laughed aloud.

“Oh, you silly, foolish Humpy,” she cried. “You need not resign at all. There is a much simpler way than that. Next week, when the gnomes come down to bath—make them stand in a _ring_.”

“OF COURSE!” said Humpy slowly.

If you should pass by the stream on a Saturday evening, you will see a happy sight. A ring of gnomes will be standing in the water, like a clump of rushes, where it is deep, but not too deep.

Listen, and you will hear Humpy, the Master-of-the-Bath, give a loud, clear order.

“SOAP!”

Then Lanky will soap Toby, and Toby will soap Humpy, and Humpy will soap Sut, and all round the ring the soap will go. Each gnome will be soaped fairly and well, and when they dip you will hear a fizzling, and see a frothing. The stream will sputter, and the edges of the water will cream and hump as if with snow. Rainbow bubbles will go sailing along under the willows, like a fairy fleet, and the silver fish will hide in the pools, keeping very still.

Not a word will there be of unfairness. Not a grumble. Not a single complaint.

And Humpy the Weather-gnome is still the Master-of-the-Bath.

THE SHIP-BOY'S SONG (FOURTEENTH CENTURY) _By DOROTHY MARGARET
STUART_

High on the yard-arm here sit I,
A-swing to scan the sea and sky,
While far below the Ship-man stands
And shouts to me between his hands.

I make a sign to him
That now the coast grows dim
And sinks from sight;
Now from our dipping bows
The dark-blue water flows
All silver-bright.

Whither we steer I do not care,
Crete, Alicant or Finisterre,
For casks of wine or russet bales,
So we have fair winds for our sails.

The wind that I love best,
Blow it from east or west
Across the foam,
Is that which bears us toward
Grey tower and daisied sward,
Harbour and home.

Strange lands and strange folk I behold,
Faces of bronze and domes of gold,
Green spires that clang with brazen sound
Above the temples of Mahound.[1]

But Dick my brother now
Jogs whistling by the plough
And marvelleth sore
That I should choose again
To brave the wind and rain
So far from shore.

I am no 'prentice, for I've made
Three voyages, thrice seen England fade
Astern, and thrice beheld it shine
Ahead on the horizon-line.

But Wat my brother sits
In school, and cracks his wits
O'er A and Z,
And envieth me much,
Me who have stuffed none such
Into _my_ head.

Salt beef and stiff, dry bread and brown,
Will be my meed when I climb down;
I dare not doze upon my perch—
A rope's no softer than a birch!

Yet not with Dick or Wat
I'd choose to change my lot,
Nor any boy;
Though I be fain, no doubt,
When homeward bound I shout—
Ho, Land Ahoy!

The boys ashore have some delights;
They need not wake and watch o' nights,
Nor clamber where the sharp winds blow
To hang the lanthorn on the bow;

No decks have they to scour
White as a lily-flower,
No chains to clean;
And orchard raids are theirs
For plums and sweet brown pears
And pippins green.

Yet rather than on shore to stay
And trudge a furrow half the day,
Or plod in school at clerkish craft,
I'd sail alone upon a raft!

Oh, it is brave to watch
Our great square mainsail catch
A humming breeze,
And golden amidst blue
To see our prow cleave through
The crested seas!

Five candles oft our Master vows
To St. Bartholomew his house;[2]
But to St. Nicholas[3] one will burn
This night, I know, for my return;

My Mother never yet
That candle did forget,
And never will;
Nor to that Saint to call
To guard me and us all
From every ill.

If after dusk I sit aloft
When waves are gentle and winds soft
I love to watch, between the spars,
The solemn kindling of the stars.

They look like candles faint
Holden in lanthorns quaint
Of silver glass;
Mayhap they are lit by thee,
Thou friend of boys at sea,
St. Nicholas!

Footnote 1:

Mahomet.

Footnote 2:

The Priory of St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield, where Kentish
seamen were wont to make offerings after their safe return to port.

Footnote 3:

Patron Saint of sailors and children.

OLD JOE _By WALTER DE LA MARE_

The house in which old Mr. Bolsover lived was of a faded primrose colour, and, apart from a high gable in which showed the windows of the guest-room and an attic, it was long and low. Its other back windows looked out across meadows which now lay spreading out before them into the distance, bright green beneath a merry morning sun. A narrow terrace skirted the house. At either end of this was a worn, grey stone pedestal on which stood two dancing fauns, for ever piping one to another above the wallflowers and the pinks. And it was the pinks that were now in full bloom, filling the air with their fragrance.

Along the terrace leaning down from the house wall was a canopy made of copper, and painted green; and this was supported by slim pillars, around which clematis and jessamine clambered. It was just after breakfast-time, and old Mr. Bolsover at this very moment was coming out at the French windows of the breakfast-room with his small niece, Letitia. She had a nimble way of walking and a quick way of turning her head that was like a bird, and she was chattering away to her old uncle as she stepped along beside him. They came to a standstill together, looking out across the meadows.

“Oh, Uncle Tim, what a _perfectly_ lovely morning!” said she.

“A lovely morning,” repeated Uncle Tim. “One of the most beautiful I can remember, simply because a small person of the name of Letitia is here to share it with me.”

“Oh, Uncle Tim,” said Letitia; “that's flattery.”

“No, my dear, not exactly flattery,” replied Uncle Tim, squinnying at her from under the glasses of his spectacles; “but just the plain, beautiful, solemn truth.”

“Ah, I know all about that!” said she.... “And to think, Uncle Tim, it's exactly a year since I was here before. Why, you wouldn't believe a single flower was different. And there,” she went on hastily, twisting her head on her slender neck—“why there's that curious old Guy Fawkes thing still, over there by the willows.”

“Why, yes, so it is,” said Uncle Tim.

Letitia continued to gaze at it. “You know, he _is_ a little alarming, Uncle Tim, if you look at him long enough. And you don't seem to remember,” she went on solemnly, “that the very last morning I was here you promised faithfully to tell me what it's there _for_. And then you didn't, because Mother came in just when I was asking you, and you forgot all about it.”

“Well, so I did,” said Uncle Tim. “That's just what comes of the piecrust which promises are made of. It melts in your mouth.... That's Old Joe right enough. _Old_ Joe indeed, poor soul, for he must be at least as old as I am. Ninety-nine, Letitia, if he's a day!”

“You're please not to say that, Uncle Tim. You are the youngest, kindest Uncle Tim there ever was. So there! But what _is_ Old Joe? Where did he come from? What is he for? Isn't there a tune about an Old Joe, Uncle Tim? Is that him? Tell me _now_,” cried Letitia. “Let's sit down here comfily on the stones—they're as warm as toast in the sun. And now go straight on. _Please._”

Down sat old Mr. Bolsover; down sat Letitia—side by side like an ancient Pharaoh and his bride. And this is his story of Old Joe:

“I must tell you first, Letitia,” he began, “that when I was about your age I used frequently to stay with an old friend of my mother's—your grandmother's, that is—whose name was Mrs. Lumb. She was a stout woman, and used, I remember, to wear an amethyst-coloured velvet cap flat over her ears, and a lace thingummy over her shoulders. I can see her now: her wide face all creased up in smiles, and her fat fingers with the emeralds and the sapphires; and even the cameo brooch at her neck. She wasn't even so much as my godmother, but she was immensely kind to me. She had a cook, too, that could make every sort of prime rich cake there is. Jams, jellies, raspberry-fool, apple charlotte, tipsy-cake—they were the best I've ever tasted. So were her stuffed eggs.”

“Oh, Uncle Tim,” said Letitia, “you greedy thing!”

“You shall see for yourself at lunch,” said her uncle; “for if I'm not an unprophetic Dutchman, I can smell apple charlotte. But never mind about that. You'll agree, at any rate, that my friend Mrs. Lumb was the right kind of person to stay _with_. It was always during the holidays, and in those days, while there was plenty of honest hard tack at school—impots, ferrules, bread-and-scrape and what-not—there was no such thing as a holiday task. You hadn't, I mean, to sit and hate reading a book you'd have loved to read for its own sake if you had never been told to. But never mind about that either. At Mrs. Lumb's I did just what I liked. Hers was an old, roaming house; a good deal older than this, and twice the size; and there was beautiful country all around it. Wide sweeping hills with ploughed fields stretching down their sunny slopes; little woods and copses, too, on the crests and in the folds and valleys; and a stream meandering its way along and actually brawling over stones at the foot of our long, sloping garden. If ever I go to heaven, my dear, I hope to see that house and garden again.”

“But isn't it here _still_?” said Letitia. “I mean wherever in the world it used to be?”

“Alas, my dear, no,” said old Mr. Bolsover. “The house was destroyed by fire—burned clean to the ground—forty years ago. But not, I am thankful to say, before Mrs. Lumb had left it and had gone out to live with her younger brother in Ceylon—where the strong tea comes from.

“In those days I was uncommonly fond of birds; too fond of them to carry a catapult, but not too fond of them to set traps and try to catch and keep them, poor creatures, for pets. How would you like to be a linnet or a starling or a blackbird barred up inside a cage by an oaf of a boy like me when I was nine or thereabouts?”

“Not at all,” said Letitia; “though I would sooner be kept by you than by any other boy.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said Mr. Bolsover; “that's a bargain. Still, caging wild birds is usually very poor fun for the wild birds. But I was a boy and I did as boys do, bless their hearts. My traps were scattered everywhere, sometimes in places where they had no business to be. What I was after was _rare_ birds, and deep down my one desire was for a bird unspeakably marvellous in colour and appearance and song, and one that nobody had ever seen. Which means I was a little cracked on the subject. There was a particular place that I had in mind for a trap for a long time before I ventured to make the attempt. It was at the edge of a field where I used to notice a great many birds were accustomed to visit, and that in spite of Old Joe there.”

“_That_ Old Joe _there_?” enquired Letitia, pointing with her finger at the queer, stooping figure with its head and old hat on one side which stood blankly gazing at them from under the willow where she had noticed him before.

“Yes, that same Old Joe _there_,” said Uncle Tim. “Between you and me, my dear—though please not to look his way for a minute, as I shouldn't like to hurt his feelings—Old Joe is a Scarecrow, an antiquated hodmadod. And he has never been anything else; though, after all these years he and I have been together, of course he's now a kind of twin brother. He's Joseph, you see (in the coat), and I'm Benjamin; and as you see, my dear, we are much alike.”

“How _can_ you say such things, Uncle Tim,” cried Letitia, pushing her hand in under his arm. “You know quite well that's a kind of flattery, too—of yourself, you bad thing!”

“No,” said Uncle Tim, “but of Old Joe. But never mind about that. The first time I saw him, he gave me a real fright. I had come creeping along on the other side of the hedge, keeping a wary eye open for anybody that might be in the field; even though there was very little likelihood of this, for, unless the field was being ploughed or harrowed or sown or hoed, there never _was_ anybody. The field belonged to a farmer called Jones. It was a good-sized, sloping, forty-acre field, with a plantation of spruce down along all one side of it.

“That particular morning was in March; and the field was just waiting—and on a morning rather like this, but much colder—for its crops to come up. I was skirting along the hedge, as I say, carrying the snare I had with me under my jacket, and hardly able to breathe for excitement. For, thought I to myself as I peered through the hedge in which the thornbuds were just breaking, that's the place for me. I could just see across to the lower edge of it, where lay a ditch and another hedge that had been allowed to sprout. It was truly a little paradise of birds, my dear. There seemed to be hundreds busying and disporting and delighting themselves there in the early sunshine.

“As bold as paint I turned the corner by the old gate, and at that precise moment caught sight of what I supposed was either Farmer Jones himself or one of his men staring at me across the field not thirty yards away. I fairly jumped in my clodhoppers at sight of him, turned hot, then cold, and waited, staring back. It seemed almost as if I could see his very eyeballs moving. But not he! No common human he! It was Old Joe. My Old Joe—_that_ Old Joe _there_!

“I have seen a good many scarecrows in my time, but never one at which you must look longer before you can be perfectly sure he is not real—alive. After all, what _is_ life, Letitia?”

“That's perfectly true, Uncle Tim,” whispered Letitia, edging a little closer. “He _might_ be alive at this very moment.”