LITMIR.BIZ

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with him among the lilies in shady pools while he smoked his pipe and told me of Cambridge and Harrow-on-the-Hill and the vales of Devon. He had lived once, so he told me, next door to a castle, though it did not resemble Warwick or Kenilworth in the least.

      "It was just a cah-sle," said Mr. Bob, in his funny way.

      "With a moat, Mr. Bob?"

      "Oh yes, a moat, I dare say – but dry, you know."

      "And a drawbridge, Mr. Bob?"

      "Well, no – not precisely; at any rate, you couldn't draw it up."

      "But a portcullis, I'll bet, Mr. Bob?"

      "Well – I cahn't say as to that, I'm sure, Bertram."

      He had lived next door to a castle, mind you, and did not know if it had a portcullis! He had never even looked to see! He had never even asked! Still, Mr. Bob was a languid fellow, Bertram Weatherby was bound to admit, even in speech, and drawled out the oddest words sometimes, talking of "trams" and "guards" and "luggage-vans," which did seem queer in a college man, though Bertram remembered he was not a Senior and doubtless would improve his English in due time. Indeed, he helped him, according to his light, and the credit is the boy's that the young Britisher, after a single summer in Grassy Ford, could write from Cambridge to Letitia: "I guess I will never forget the folks in Grassy Ford! Remember me to the little kid, my quondam guide, philosopher, and friend."

      Robin was always pleasant with Letitia, helping her with her housework, I remember, wiping her dishes for her, tending her fires, and weeding her kitchen-garden. There never had been so many holidays, she declared, gratefully, and she used to marvel that he had come so far, all that watery way from Devon, yet could be content with such poor fare and such humble work and quiet pleasures in an alien land so full of wonders. Yet it must have been cheerful loitering, for he stayed on, week after week. He had come intending, he confessed, to "stop" but one, but somehow had small hankering thereafter to see, he said, "what is left of America, liking your Grassy Fordshire, Bertram, so very well." Perhaps secretly he was touched by the obvious penury and helplessness of his father's friend, as well as by the daughter's loving and heavy service, so that he stayed on but to aid them in the only unobtrusive way, overpaying them, Letitia says, for what he whimsically called "tuition in the quiet life," as he gently closed her fingers over the money which she blushed to take. Then he would quote for her those lines from Pope:

      "… Quiet by day,

      Sound sleep by night; study and ease

      Together mixt, sweet recreation,

      And innocence, which most doth please

      With meditation."

      He read Greek and Latin with Dr. Primrose, and many an argument of ancient loves and wars I listened to, knowing by the keen-edged feeling of my teeth when the fray was over that my mouth had been wide open all the while. Letitia, too, could hear from the kitchen where she made her pies, for it was a conversational little house, just big enough for a tête-á-tête, as Dr. Primrose used to say, and when debate waxed high, she would stand sometimes in the kitchen doorway, in her gingham apron, wiping the same cup twenty times.

      "Young Devon oak," the doctor called him, sometimes half vexed to find how ribbed and knotty the young tree was.

      "We'll look it up, then," he would cry, "but I know I'm right."

      "You'll find you are mistaken, I think, doctor."

      "Well, now, we'll see. We'll see. You're fresh from the schools and I'm a bit rusty, I'll confess, but I'm sure I'm – here, now – hm, let's see – why, can that be possible? – I didn't think so, but – by George! you're right. You're right, sir. You're right, my boy."

      He said it so sadly sometimes and shut the book with an air so beaten, lying back feebly in his chair, that Robin, Letitia says, would lead the talk into other channels, merely to contend for ground he knew he could never hold, to let the doctor win. It was fine to see him then, the roused old gentleman, his eyes shining, sitting bolt upright in his chair waving away the young man's arguments with his feeble hand.

      "I think you are right, doctor, after all. I see it now. You make it clear to me. Yes, sir, I'm groggy. I'm down, sir. Count me out."

      And you should have seen the poet then in his triumph, if victory so gracious may be called by such a name. There was no passing under the yoke – no, no! He would gaze far out of the open window, literally overlooking his vanquished foe, and delicately conveying thus a hint that it was of no utter consequence which had conquered; and so smoothing the young man's rout, he would fall to expatiating, soothingly, remarking how natural it was to go astray on a point so difficult, so many-sided, so subtle and profound – in short, speaking so eloquently for his prone antagonist, expounding so many likely arguments in defence of that lost cause, one listening would wonder sometimes who had won.

      Evenings, when Letitia's work was done, she would come and sit with us, Robin and me, upon the steps. There in the summer moonlight we would listen to his tales, lore of the Dartmoor and Exmoor wilds, until my heart beat strangely at the shadows darkening my homeward way when the clock struck ten. Grape-vines, I noted then, were the very place for an ambush by the Doones, of whom they talked so much, Robin and Letitia! Later, when the grapes were ripe, a Doone could regale himself, leisurely waiting to step out, giant-wise, upon his prey! There were innumerable suspicious rustlings as I passed, and in particular a certain strange – a dreadful brushing sound as of ghostly wings when I squeezed, helpless, through the worn pickets! – and then I would strike out manfully across the lawn.

      One day in August – it was August, I know, for it was my birthday and Robin had given me a rod and line – we took Letitia with us to the top of Sun Dial, a bald-crowned hill from which you see all Grassy Fordshire green and golden at your feet. Leaving the village, we crossed a brook by a ford of stones and plunged at once into the wild wood, forest and ancient orchard that clothed the slope. I was leading – to show the way. Robin followed with Letitia – to help her over the rocks and brambles and steeper places of the long ascent, which was far more arduous than one might think, looking up at it from the town below.

      I strode on proudly, threading the narrow hunter's trail I knew by heart, a remnant of an old wagon-lane long overgrown. I strode on swiftly, I remember, breaking the cob-webs, parting the fragrant tangle that beset the way – vines below, branches above me – keeping in touch the while, vocally, when the thickets intervened, with the pair that followed. I could hear them laughing together over the green barriers which closed behind me, and I was pleased at their troubles among the briers. I had led them purposely by the roughest way. Robin, stalking across the ford, had made himself merry with my short legs, and I had vowed secretly that before the day was out he should feel how long those legs could be.

      "I'll show you, Mr. Bob," I muttered, plunging through the brushwood, and setting so fast a pace it was no great while before I realized how faintly their voices came to me.

      "Hello-o!" I cried.

      "H'lo-o!" came back to me, but from so far behind me I deemed it wiser to stop awhile, awaiting their approach.

      The day was glorious, but quiet for a boy. The world was nodding in its long, midsummer nap, and no birds sang, no squirrels chattered. I looked in vain for one; but there were berries and the mottled fruit of an antique apple-tree to while the time away – and so I waited.

      I remember chuckling as I nibbled there, wondering what Mr. Bob would say of those short legs which had outstripped him. I fancied him coming up red and breathless to find me calmly eating and whistling between bites – and I did whistle when I thought them near enough. I whistled "Dixie" till I lost the pucker, thinking what fun it was, and tried again, but could not keep the tune for chuckling. And so I waited – and then I listened – but all the wood was still.

      "Hello-o!" I cried.

      There was no answer.

      "Hello-o!" I called again, but still heard nothing in reply save my own echo.

      "Hello-o!" I shouted. "Hello-o!" till the wood rang, and then they answered:

      "H'lo-o!" but as faint and distant as before.

      They

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