‘He is not in this county, I trust.’
‘Did you never hear of the old lady who lost the store closet key and hunted everywhere except in her own pocket? What is under your nose is overlooked.’
‘Go back to Martin. Tell him, as he values his safety and my peace of mind, to keep out of the country, certainly out of the county. Tell him to take to some honest work and stick to it, and to begin his repentance by——’
‘There! if I carry a preachment away with me I shall never reach Martin. I had a surfeit of this in the olden days, Jasper. I know a sailor lad who has been fed on salt junk at sea till if you put but as much as will sit on the end of your knife under his nose when he is on land he will upset the table. It is the same with Martin and me. No sermons for us, Jasper. So—see, I am off at the first smell of a text.’
He darted into the wood and disappeared, singing at the top of his voice ‘Life let us cherish.’
[CHAPTER XVII.]
FORGET-ME-NOT!
That night Eve could not sleep. She thought of her wonderful adventure. Who was that strange boy? And who was Martin? And, what was the link between these two and Jasper?
Towards morning, when she ought to have been stirring, she fell asleep, and laughed in her dreams. She woke with the sun shining in on her, and her father standing by her bed, watching her.