"Sir, I can't thank ye now, I never can. It--it won't come; but----" With a nervous, awkward gesture he caught my hand, suddenly pressed it to his lips, and was gone down the lane.
Thus it was that old Jasper's "bye Jarge" went out to make a trial of life a second time, and as I watched him striding through the moonlight, his head erect, very different from the shambling creature he had been, it seemed to me that the felon was already ousted by the man.
"I 'specks he forgot all 'bout me!" said the Imp disconsolately.
"No," I answered, shaking my head; "I don't think he will ever forget you, my Imp."
"I s'pose he's awfull' fond of you, Uncle Dick?"
"Oh, well--er--perhaps it is a way he has!"
A door opened and closed very softly, and Lisbeth came towards us down the path, whereupon the Imp immediately "took cover" in the ditch.
"He is dead, Dick!" she said, as I opened the gate. "He died in his son's arms--the George he was always talking about. And oh, Dick, he died trying to sing 'The British Grenadiers.'"
"It was strange that he should come back as he did--just in time; it almost seems like the hand of Providence, doesn't it, Dick?"
"Yes." Lisbeth was standing with her elbows upon the gate and her chin in her hands, staring up at the moon, and I saw that her eyes were wet with tears.
"Why, where is your cap?" she exclaimed, when at last she condescended to look at me.
"On the head of an escaped convict," I answered.
"Yes, Lisbeth; it was a ridiculous piece of sentiment, I admit. Your law-abiding level-headed citizen would doubtless be highly shocked, not to say scandalised; likewise the Law might get up on its hind legs and kick--quite unpleasantly; but all the same, I did it."
"You were never what one might call--very 'level-headed,' were you, Dick?"
"And, do you know, I think that is the very reason why I--good gracious!--what is that?" She pointed toward the shadow of the hedge.
"Merely the Imp," I answered; "but never mind that--tell me what you were going to say--'the very reason why you'--what?"
"Reginald!" said Lisbeth, unheeding my question, "come here, sir!" Very sheepishly the Imp crept forth from the ditch, and coming up beside me, stole his hand into mine, and I put it in my pocket.