I, too, shall give you a sign,' he said, 'that shall mean the same as yours.' And he picked a twig of pine needles from a tree beside them and twined it through a coil of her hair. Then, seizing her hands, he swung her round in a dance till they fell upon the river bank at last, tired out, and slept the sleep of children.
And after that, for a whole day it seemed, they wandered through this summer landscape, following the river to its source in the mountains, and then descending on the farther side to the shores of a blue-rimmed sea.
'There are the ships,' she cried, pointing to the shining expanse of water; 'and, see, there is our ship coming for us.'
And as she stood there, laughing with excitement like a child, a barque with painted figure-head and I brown sails yielding to the wind, came towards them! over the waves, the bales of fruit upon her decks 'scenting the air, the smell of rope and tar and salty f wood enticing them to distance and adventure, Through the cordage the very sound of the wind I called to them to be off.
'So at last we start upon our long, long voyage together,' she said mysteriously, blushing with pleasure, and leading him down towards the ship.
'And where are we to sail to?' he asked; for the flap of the sails and the waves beating against the sides made resistance impossible. The sea-smells were in his nostrils. He glanced down at the veiled face beside him.
'First to the Islands of the Night,' she whispered so low that not even the wind could carry it away; 'for there we shall be alone.'
'And then?'
'And then to the Islands of Delight,' she murmured more softly still; 'for there we shall find the lost children of the world—our children, and so be happy with them ever after, like the people in the fairy tales.'
With something like a shock he realised that some one else was walking beside him, talking of things that were real in a very different sense. He had been out walking longer than he knew, and had reached the house again. The autumnal mist already drew its gauze curtains about the old building. The smoke rose in straight lines from the chimneys, melting into dusk. That other place of sunshine and flowers had faded—sea, ship, islands, had all sunk beneath the depths within him. And this other person had been saying things for some minutes. . . .
'I don't believe you've been listening to a single word, Paul. You stand there with your eyes fixed on vacancy, and only nod your head and grunt.'
'I assure you, Margaret, dear,' he stammered, coming to the surface as from a long swim under water, 'I rarely miss anything you say. Only the Crack came so very suddenly. You were saying that Dick's niece was coming to us—Joan—er—Thingumybob, and—'
'So you heard some of it,' she laughed quietly, relenting. 'And I hope the Crack you speak about is in your head, not in mine.'
'It's everywhere,' he said with his grave humour.
'That's the trouble, you see; one never knows—'
Then, seeing that she was looking anxiously at the walls of the house and at the roof, he dropped his teasing and came back to solid earth again. 'And how soon do you expect her?' he asked in his most practical voice. 'When does she arrive upon the scene?'
'Why, Paul, I've already told you twice! You really are getting more absent-minded every day. Joan comes to-morrow, or the day after—she's to telegraph which—and stays here for as long as she can manage—a fortnight or so, I expect. She works herself to death, I believe, in town with those poor children, and I want her to get a real rest before she goes back.'
'Waifs, aren't they?' he asked, picking up the thread of the discourse like a thing heard in a dream, 'lost children of the slums?'
'Yes. You'll see them for yourself probably, as she has some of them down usually for a day in the country. One can be of use in that way—and it's so nice to help. Dick, you know, was absorbed in the scheme. You will help, won't you, when the time comes?'
He promised; and they went in together to tea.
CHAPTER XX
'THIS is him,' cried Jonah breathlessly, pointing with a hand that wore ink like a funeral glove. 'I've got him this time. Look!' And he waved a half-sheet of paper in his uncle's face.
'I've made one too—oh, a beauty!' echoed Toby; 'and I haven't made half such a mess as you.' Three of her fingers were in mourning. A crape-like line running from the nose to the corner of the mouth, lent her a certain distinction. She, too, waved a bit of paper in the air.
'Mine's the real Jack-of-the-Inkpot though, isn't he, Uncle Paul?' exclaimed the boy, leaving the schoolroom table, and running up to show it.
'They're all real—as real as your awful fingers,' decreed Paul.
He had been explaining how to make the figure of the Ink Sprite that leaves blots wherever he goes, blackens penholders and fingers, and leaves his crawly marks across even the neatest page of writing. Two blots and a line—then fold the paper. Open it again and the ink has run into the semblance of an outlandish figure with countless legs and arms, and a fantastic head; something between a spider, a centipede, and a sprite.
'It's Jack-of-the-Inkpot,' he told them. 'Half the time he does his dirty work invisibly, and if he touches blotting paper—he vanishes altogether.'
Jonah skipped about the room, waving his hideous creation in the air. Toby, in her efforts to make a still better one, almost climbed into the inkstand. Nixie sat on the window-sill, dangling her legs and looking on.
'Very little ink does it,' explained Paul, frightened at the results of his instruction. 'You needn't pour it on! He works with the smallest possible material, remember!' His own ringers were no longer as spotless as they might have been.
'Look!' shouted Jonah, standing on a chair and ignoring the rebuke. 'There he goes—just like a black spider flying!' He let his half-sheet drop through the air, ink running down its side as it fell, while Toby watched with the envy of despair.
Paul pounced upon the wriggling figure just in time to prevent further funeral trappings. He turned it face downwards upon the blotting paper.
'Oh, oh!' cried the children in the same breath; 'it's drank him up!'
'Drunk him up,' corrected Paul, relieved by the success of his manoeuvre. 'His feet touched the blotting-paper, you see.'
A pause followed. 'You promised to tell us his song, please,' observed Nixie from her perch on the window-sill.
'This is it, then,' he answered, looking round at the smudged and solemn faces, instantly grown still. 'To judge by appearances you know this Sprite better than I do!
I dance on your paper,
I hide in your pen,
I make in your ink-stand
My black little den;
And when you're not looking
I hop on your nose,
And leave on your forehead
