Sometimes a butterfly hovered past, a bee filled the air with his drone, or a bird settled for a moment upon the stairs near by to preen a ruffled feather, while soft and drowsy with distance came the ceaseless roar of the weir.
I do not know how long I had sat thus, supremely content, when I was suddenly aroused by a rustling close at hand.
"Hist!"
I looked up sharply, and beheld a head, a head adorned with sundry feathers, and a face hideously streaked with red and green paint; but there was no mistaking those golden curls--it was the Imp!
"Hist!" he repeated, bringing out the word with a prolonged hiss, and then--before I could even guess at his intention--there was the swift gleam of a knife, a splash of the severed painter, and caught by the tide the old boat swung out and was adrift.
The Imp stood gazing on his handiwork with wide eyes, and then as I leaped to my feet something in my look seemed to frighten him, for without a word he turned and fled.
But all my attention was centred in the boat, which was drifting slowly into mid-stream with Lisbeth still fast asleep. And as I watched its sluggish progress, with a sudden chill I remembered the weir, which foamed and roared only a short half-mile away. If the boat once got drawn into that----!
Now, I am quite aware that under these circumstances the right and proper thing for me to have done, would have been to throw aside my coat, tear off my boots, etc., and "boldly breast the foamy flood." But I did neither, for the simple reason that once within the "foamy flood" aforesaid, there would have been very little chance of my ever getting out again, for--let me confess the fact with the blush of shame--I am no swimmer.
Yet I was not idle, far otherwise. Having judged the distance between the drifting boat and the bank, I began running along, seeking the thing I wanted. And presently, sure enough, I found it--a great pollard oak, growing upon the edge of the water, that identical tree with the "stickie-out" branches which has already figured in these narratives.
Hastily swinging myself up, I got astride the lowest branch, which projected out over the water. I had distanced the boat by some hundred yards, and as I sat there I watched its drift, one minute full of hope, and the next as miserably uncertain.