Chapter III.—The Restoration.

It was a terrible position. The goblin and the hornet glared at one another as fiercely as two ladies, who have got on the same patterned frocks. It was one of those moments when you could no more tell the hour by blowing thistle-down than attempt to make snowballs out of hoar frost. Kipper was the first to recover his presence of mind. "What do you want here?" he shouted to the hornet with all the virtuous force which he could put into a voice not naturally bass. "What do you want here?" he repeated, more angrily; and, nearly cracking his organ of speech, he screamed, with a superb air of command, "Be off, you rascal! I say, be off!" The giant hornet smiled in that sort of way which gives an honest ladybird the creeps, as he growled, "What do I want? That girl!"—and he pointed to the terrified Eglantine. "I'll teach her to interfere in my business. I've no quarrel with you, Kipper, so I strongly advise you to mount your old horny-head" (here the stag-beetle said a rude remark to himself), "get out of my way, and let me do my will." "Never!" cried Kipper, drawing his fine sword-grass blade. "Come on!" "O! Kipper, dear Kipper, don't risk your life for me," sighed Eglantine; "please don't." "Keep quiet!" muttered Kipper, testily. "Why do women always interfere in these little matters?" Then to Nippard he added, "Come on, you swaggering bully, you tormentor of every peaceful inhabitant, you horrid tyrant, you——"

But here the hornet, stung by these reproaches, tried to reply in similar but more practical fashion. Kipper, however, was too quick for him, and gave him a sharp prod in the right wing just as he was swooping down on the crouching Eglantine. The stagbeetle clapped his horns together at the thrust, while the toad waddled out of his hole and took notes of the affray without comment, for he had just as fine a sense of the value of neutrality as Mr. Gladstone or the President of the United States. Nippard, however, was in nowise discomfited and made another ferocious dash, this time straight at Kipper, who fenced his sting, but got a buffet on the head from the hornet's body which almost knocked him off his legs. However, he recovered himself and stood once more on guard. Eglantine meanwhile had pressed some more wild mint between her fingers and anointed her champion's brow. This seemed to refresh him very much. As to the stagbeetle, he was too frightened to do anything. So the fight continued, now Kipper got a good stroke, now Nippard wounded the goblin, but the hornet was never able to get full power into his sling, nor the goblin into his sword, so nimble were both.

At last Kipper, in parrying a most venomous onslaught, tripped and fell backwards, and, ere Eglantine or the stagbeetle could come to his assistance, his foe had pounced upon him. It was a fearful sight as both struggled on the sward. At last Kipper's blade was thrust with a shout of triumph into the monster's body, and he stood on it as it fell. But alas! scarcely had he done so, when he himself rolled lifeless beside the corpse of his enemy. He had forgotten that hornets, like wasps and writers of reminiscences, can still sting, when they no longer breathe. Eglantine and the stagbeetle vainly endeavoured to revive the champion, who had won. He was as insensible to their attentions as is an ironclad ship to the persistence of an exploded torpedo. The stagbeetle, who was getting rather weary from want of refreshment, and hated "scenes," proposed that he should go and fetch assistance while Eglantine might watch the body. This she readily consented to do. Hardly had the beetle droned himself out of sight when she flung herself upon the remains of the hero and shed many bitter tears ere she could speak. At last she cried in her anguish "Oh! my dearest, who was so good to me, come back, come back, for I love you; yes! I love you dearly."

Scarcely were the words out of her mouth when the little form of Kipper disappeared, and there arose in his place not a prince in velvet doublet and silken hose, but a well favoured man of about thirty, dressed in a tweed suit, with billycock hat to match. Eglantine, though very much surprised, was not the least bit frightened, not even when the stranger addressed her. "Sweetest Eglantine," he said, "know that I am not a goblin, but a human being like yourself. I was fortunate enough to discover a mine of virgin gold in Western Australia, and to have the property assigned to me by the government. Selfishly I kept the secret to myself, and thereby incurred the anger of the King of the Gnomes, who, as a punishment for my sin against the welfare of humanity, caused me to be seized and transported here by the Underground Antipodes Railway. In this forest I was to abide in the repulsive form of Kipper the Goblin, and to make myself as disagreeable as possible to everybody. I have done so, with considerable success. Only one chance of release was given to me, and that was when some pure-hearted maiden should declare her love for me. My case seemed hopeless; but you, darling, have broken the spell, and restored me to my real self. My true name is Archibald Johnson. Will you be Mrs. J.?"

Eglantine, having no fixed ideas as to "the proper age of love," unhesitatingly answered "Yes."

So the inhabitants of the New Forest, big and little, knew Eglantine no more, and her mother retired to a house in Grosvenor Square, where she was waited on by a butler who looked like a bishop, and by sixteen tall footmen, whose discharges from the Life Guards she had bought at considerable expense to her son-in-law. But he was rich and happy, and his beautiful wife's photographs were in all the stationers' shop-windows. No trace of the great fight exists, except the body of Nippard the Hornet, which the toad, with an eye to business, stuffed, and exhibits on bank holidays and Coronation Day to all the lower members of creation at four barleycorns a head; moles, earthworms, and tadpoles half-price. He devotes part of the proceeds to the Home for Decrepit Dormice, so it costs him nothing. As to the stagbeetle, he joined a travelling circus, after being painted white with black spots. He was accidentally killed, when doing the hoop-trick, and may now be seen labelled a "Remarkable Specimen" in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington.

THE END.