THE CHRONICLES OF THE IMP

THE CHRONICLES OF THE IMP

A ROMANCE

BY

JEFFERY FARNOL

AUTHOR OF "THE BROAD HIGHWAY," "THE MONEY MOON," "THE AMATEUR GENTLEMAN," "THE HON. MR. TAWNISH," "BELTANE THE SMITH"

ALSO AN APPRECIATION THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORK BY CLEMENT K. SHORTER

NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION

LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO., LTD. 1915

JEFFERY FARNOL AND HIS WORK

An Appreciation

BY

CLEMENT K. SHORTER

Mr. Jeffery Farnol is an Englishman, and his best-known book, The Broad Highway, is redolent of the atmosphere of his native country. Nevertheless it was written in the United States of America, and perhaps it has enjoyed its greatest popularity there. Yet three American publishers refused the book, and so Mr. Farnol is one of a long list of authors who have worked their way through much tribulation to success. I confess that such episodes in the romance of publishing attract me mightily. I rather like to hear of the short-sighted publisher who rejects an author's book and finds out, when too late, that he has lost money and reputation by his lack of prescience. And I like also to hear the story of the loyal friend who, reading a manuscript, stands by his judgment and introduces that friend to a publisher, with the happiest results for both. That is Mr. Farnol's personal romance. The friend in question was Mr. Shirley Byron Jevons, to whom the manuscript was sent from America. Mr. Jevons, after an enthusiastic perusal, carried it to Mr. Fred J. Rymer, a director of Sampson Low, Marston & Co., the publishers. The book was published, and a sale throughout the English-speaking world of 600,000 was the result. I hope I may be forgiven for recalling that Mr. Rymer brought the manuscript to me. Well do I remember his enthusiasm and my lack of it. I have read too many manuscripts in my life as an editor ever to wish to usurp the duties of a publisher or of a publisher's literary adviser. I should hate the life. Think of that publisher and what he would feel about you if perchance you had persuaded him to refuse this or that "best-seller," as our American friends call the very popular book. Imagine the feelings of the publishers whose readers advised them to refuse Charlotte

Brontë's Professor without at the same time persuading the author to write a Jane Eyre. But Mr. Rymer was an old acquaintance and I promised to read his new-found story. I added the remark, I remember, that I was rather used to publishers counting their geese as swans. Mr. Rymer told me long afterwards that he brought the book to me because he knew of my devotion to George Borrow.

In any case I read The Broad Highway with avidity, and recognised at once—as who would not have done?—that here was a striking addition to picaresque romances, that the author had not read Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and the best stories by Defoe and Fielding for nothing, nor had he walked along the broad highways of England without observation and profit any more than had the creator of Lavengro and Romany Rye. For the vast multitude of readers of each epoch the dictum of Emerson stands: "Every age must write its own books." It is of no use for the pedantic critic to affirm, with pontifical fervour, that Cervantes and Le Sage and Defoe are masters of literature and that our contemporaries are but pigmies in comparison. The great reading public of any age will not be bullied into reading the authors who have reached the dignity of classics. The writer who can catch some element of the spirit of the "masters" and modernise it, is destined to win the favour of the crowd. And thus Mr. Jeffery Farnol has entered into his kingdom.

Mr. Farnol was born in Birmingham some thirty-six years ago. His early years were spent at Lee, in Kent, where he and a younger brother Ewart, who fell in the Boer War, went to school. Our author recalls with gratitude that his mother never failed to believe in his possession of a literary gift, and had, in his boyhood, hopes of seeing him an author, and faith that he would be a successful one. But circumstances seemed to throw him into a quite different kind of activity, and everything pointed to the probability that his livelihood would be obtained in a world remote from literature. Schooldays were followed by an apprenticeship to engineering in London and in Birmingham. His experience included the work of the smithy, which must have been of service to him when he came to write The Broad Highway. Very badly equipped for the struggle of life in a strange land he rashly betook himself to New York, where his wife—he married when quite young—had friends. I imagine that a great gulf is fixed between the world to which Mr. Farnol introduces us in his romances and the early struggles that he met with in New York. For a long period he was a scene painter at the Astor Theatre, "and must," a friend assures us, "have daubed miles of scenery in his time." His income from this work was supplemented by the sale of occasional short stories. And then, in this most practical of cities, amid an atmosphere of up-to-dateness and progress of which those who only know the quieter ways of London can form no idea, he wrote his romance of an unprogressive world with stage coaches, boxers, and idyllic love—the world that Mr. Austin Dobson has so happily presented in his poem, "A Gentleman of the Old School":

He lived in that past Georgian day, When men were less inclined to say That "Time is Gold," and overlay With toil their pleasure; He held some land, and dwelt thereon,— Where, I forget,—the house is gone; His Christian name, I think, was John,— His surname, Leisure.

Then followed some unhappy days which lengthened into months during which the author of The Broad Highway was endeavouring to find a publisher. Three separate publishing houses in New York refused the book; two turned it down without ceremony; a third gave as a reason that it was "too long and too English." One of the actors of the Astor Theatre was about to fulfil an engagement in Boston, and offered to show the manuscript to a publisher in that city. Long months afterwards that friend returned to New York, and Mr. Farnol found to his chagrin that he had forgotten all about his promise. The unlucky story was still at the bottom of his trunk. The author, now almost in despair, sent the manuscript to his wife, who was residing at Engelwood, New Jersey, and asked her to burn it. But his wife had the happy thought of sending it to England—to Mr. Shirley Jevons, who was then occupying the editorial chair of The Sportsman, and was a friend of the family. Mr. Jevons read it with enthusiasm, and with such results as we have already noted. The book sold like wildfire. The author returned to England to win further laurels. Here I find a pleasant coincidence in the fact that the London firm of Sampson Low, having accepted the story, offered it to Little, Brown & Co. of Boston, where their accomplished representative, Mr. Herbert Jenkins, at once perceived the merits of the story and acquired the American rights. This, it seems, was the very firm to which Mr. Farnol's actor-friend intended to show the manuscript and forgot to keep his promise. The Broad Highway, as I have said, sold in hundreds of thousands. It has appeared in an édition de luxe with beautiful illustrations by C. E. Brock. It is a breezy, healthy book, as unpretentious as it is sincere. Neither its author nor

his friends need to worry themselves as to whether it is a masterpiece of literature. For our day, at least, it has added to the stock of harmless pleasures. To the critic who complains that "it is but an exercise in archæology," and that the author "has never felt what he has written but has gathered it up from books," one can but reply in the language of Goldsmith's Mr. Burchell, "Fudge." It is still possible in England, in spite of its railway trains and its mechanical development, to feel the impulse which inspired Charles Dickens, George Borrow, and all the masters of the picaresque romance, who have in days gone by travelled with delight through the countryside, seeking adventures and finding them. "I felt some desire," says Lavengro, "to meet with one of those adventures which, upon the roads of England, are as plentiful as blackberries in autumn." Mr. Farnol has a talent for recreating such adventures, and he is perfectly frank with his readers, anticipating a certain type of criticism. "Whereas the writing of books was once a painful art," he makes Peter Vibart say in The Broad Highway, "it has of late become a trick very easy of accomplishment, requiring no regard for probability and little thought, so long as it is packed sufficiently full of impossible incidents through which a ridiculous heroine and a more absurd hero duly sigh their appointed way to the last chapter. Whereas books were once a power, they are of late degenerated into things of amusement, with which to kill an idle hour, and be promptly forgotten the next."

One might almost have believed that it was impossible to accomplish the "trick" twice and to provide yet a second adventure story as good as the first, but this our author has achieved in The Amateur Gentleman, where the adventures of Barnabas, the son of the prize-fighter, are as varied and exciting as those of Peter Vibart in the earlier romance. Mr. Farnol has been responsible for yet two other stories, The Money Moon and The Honourable Mr. Tawnish, but nothing has he written quite in the lines of The Chronicles of the Imp. Here indeed is a simple story with which we may pass a pleasant hour. I hope you will like the Imp and his Aunt as much as I have done. Alone among the successful authors of our generation—among those, that is, whose work runs into circulations of hundreds of thousands—Mr. Farnol wins me by his unpretentiousness. He has no gospel to preach, no crude law of life to enunciate. He is content to entertain and amuse, to give us sunny hours of recreation, and never more than now are writers of this order needed for our solace.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

Treasure Trove

The Sheriff of Nottingham

The Desperadoes

At the Three Jolly Anglers

The Episode of the Indian's Aunt

The Outlaw

The Blasted Oak

The Land of Heart's Delight

THE CHRONICLES OF THE IMP

CHAPTER I

TREASURE TROVE

I sat fishing. I had not caught anything, of course—I rarely do, nor am I fond of fishing in the very smallest degree, but I fished assiduously all the same, because circumstances demanded it.

It had all come about through Lady Warburton, Lisbeth's maternal aunt. Who Lisbeth is you will learn if you trouble to read these veracious narratives—suffice it for the present that she has been an orphan from her youth up, with no living relative save her married sister Julia and her Aunt (with a capital A)—the Lady Warburton aforesaid.

Lady Warburton is small and somewhat bony, with a sharp chin and a sharper nose, and invariably uses a lorgnette; also, she is possessed of much worldly goods.

Precisely a week ago Lady Warburton had requested me to call upon her—had regarded me with a curious exactitude through her lorgnette, and gently though firmly (Lady Warburton is always firm) had suggested that Elizabeth, though a dear child, was young and inclined to be a little self-willed. That she (Lady Warburton) was of opinion that Elizabeth had mistaken the friendship which had existed between us so long for something stronger. That although she (Lady Warburton) quite appreciated the fact that one who wrote books was not necessarily immoral—still I was, of course, a terrible Bohemian, and the air of Bohemia was not calculated to conduce to that degree of matrimonial harmony which she (Lady Warburton) as Elizabeth's Aunt, standing to her in place of a mother, could wish for. That, therefore, under these circumstances, my attentions were—etc. etc.

Here I would say in justice to myself that despite the torrent of her eloquence I had at first made some attempt at resistance; but who could hope to contend successfully against a woman possessed of such an indomitable nose and chin, and one, moreover, who could level a jewelled lorgnette with such deadly precision? Still, had Lisbeth been beside me, things might have been different even then; but she had gone away into the country—so Lady Warburton had informed me. Thus, alone and at her mercy, she had succeeded in wringing from me a half promise that I would cease my attentions for the space of six months, "just to give dear Elizabeth time to learn her own heart in regard to the matter."

This was last Monday. On the Wednesday following, as I wandered aimlessly along Piccadilly, at odds with fortune and myself, but especially with myself, my eye encountered the Duchess of Chelsea.

The Duchess is familiarly known as the "Conversational Brook" from the fact that when once she begins she goes on for ever. Hence, being in my then frame of mind, it was with a feeling of rebellion that I obeyed the summons of her parasol and crossed over to the brougham.

"So she's gone away?" was her greeting as I raised my hat—"Lisbeth," she nodded, "I happened to hear something about her, you know."

It is strange, perhaps, but the Duchess generally does "happen to hear" something about everything.

"And you actually allowed yourself to be bullied into making that promise—Dick! Dick! I'm ashamed of you."

"How was I to help myself?" I began. "You see—"

"Poor boy!" said the Duchess, patting me affectionately with the handle of her parasol, "it wasn't to be expected, of course. You see, I know her—many, many years ago I was at school with Agatha Warburton."

"But she probably didn't use lorgnettes then, and—"

"Her nose was just as sharp though—'peaky,' I used to call it," nodded the Duchess. "And she has actually sent Lisbeth away—dear child—and to such a horrid, quiet little place, too, where she'll have nobody to talk to but that young Selwyn—"

"I beg pardon, Duchess, but—"

"Horace Selwyn, of Selwyn Park—cousin to Lord Selwyn, of Brankesmere. Agatha has been scheming for it a long time, under the rose, you know. Of course, it would be a good match in a way—wealthy, and all that—but I must say he bores me horribly—so very serious and precise!"

"Really!" I exclaimed, "do you mean to say—"

"I expect she will have them married before they know it—Agatha's dreadfully determined. Her character lies in her nose and chin."

"But Lisbeth is not a child—she has a will of her own, and—"

"True," nodded the Duchess, "but is it a match for Agatha's chin? And then, too, it is rather more than possible that you are become the object of her bitterest scorn by now."

"But, my dear Duchess—"

"Oh, Agatha is a born diplomat. Of course she has written before this, and, without actually saying it, has managed to convey the fact that you are a monster of perfidy; and Lisbeth, poor child, who is probably crying her eyes out, or imagining she hates you, is ready to accept the first proposal she receives out of pure pique."

"What on earth can I do?" I exclaimed.

"You might go fishing," the Duchess suggested thoughtfully.

"Fishing!" I repeated, "—er, to be sure, but—"

"Riverdale is a very pretty place, they tell me," pursued the Duchess in the same thoughtful tone; "there is a house there, a fine old place, called Fane Court. It stands facing the river, and adjoins Selwyn Park, I believe."

"Duchess," I exclaimed, as I jotted down the address upon my cuff, "I owe you a debt of gratitude that I can never—"

"Tut, tut!" said her Grace.

"I think I'll start to-day, and—"

"You really couldn't do better," nodded the Duchess.

And so it befell that upon this August afternoon I sat in the shade of the alders fishing, with the smoke of my pipe floating up into the sunshine.

By adroit questioning I had elicited from mine host of the Three Jolly Anglers the precise whereabouts of Fane Court, the abode of Lisbeth's sister, and, guided by his directions, had chosen this sequestered spot, where by simply turning my head I could catch a glimpse of its tall chimneys above the swaying green of tree-tops.

It is a fair thing upon a hot summer's afternoon, within some shady bower, to lie upon one's back and stare up through a network of branches into the limitless blue beyond, while the air is full of the stir of leaves, and the murmur of water among the reeds. Or, propped on lazy elbow, to watch perspiring wretches, short of breath and purple of visage, urge boats up stream or down, each deluding himself into the belief that he is enjoying it. Life under such conditions may seem very fair, as I say; yet I was not happy. The words of the Duchess seemed everywhere about me.

"You are become the object of her bitterest scorn by now," sobbed the wind.

"You are become," etc. etc., moaned the river. It was therefore with no little trepidation that I looked forward to my meeting with Lisbeth.

It was at this moment that the bushes parted and a boy appeared. He was a somewhat diminutive boy, clad in a velvet suit with a lace collar, both of which were plentifully bespattered with mud. He carried his shoes and stockings beneath one arm, and in the other hand swung a hazel branch. He stood with his little brown legs well apart, regarding me with a critical eye; but when at length he spoke his attitude was decidedly friendly.

"Hallo, man!"

"Hallo," I returned; "and who may you be?"

"Well," he answered gravely, "my real name is Reginald Augustus, but they call me 'The Imp.'"

"I can well believe it," I said, eyeing his muddy person.

"If you please, what is an imp?"

"An imp," I explained, "is a sort of an—angel."

"But," he demurred, after a moment's thought, "I haven't got any wings an' things—or a trumpet."

"Your kind never do have wings, or trumpets."

"Oh, I see," he said; and sitting down began to wipe the mud from his legs with his stockings.

"Rather muddy, aren't you?" I hinted. The boy cast a furtive glance at his draggled person.

"'Fraid I'm a teeny bit wet, too," he said hesitatingly. "You see, I've been playing at 'Romans,' an' I had to wade, you know, 'cause was the standard-bearer who jumped into the sea waving his sword an' crying, 'Follow me!' You remember him, don't you?—he's in the history book."

"To be sure," I nodded; "a truly heroic character. But if you were the Romans, where were the Ancient Britons?"

"Oh, they were the reeds, you know; you ought to have seen me slay them. It was fine; they went down like—like—"

"Corn before the sickle," I suggested.

"Yes, just!" he cried; "the battle raged for hours."

"You must be rather tired."

"'Course not," he answered, with an indignant look. "I'm not a girl—an' I'm nearly nine, too."

"I gather from your tone that you are not partial to the sex—you don't like girls, eh, Imp?"

"Should think not," he returned; "silly things, girls are. There's Dorothy, you know; we were playing at executions the other day—she was Mary Queen of Scots an' I was the headsman. I made a lovely axe with wood and silver paper, you know; an' when I cut her head off she cried awfully, an' I only gave her the weeniest little tap—an' they sent me to bed at six o'clock for it. I believe she cried on purpose—awfully caddish, wasn't it?"

"My dear Imp," said I, "the older you grow the more the depravity of the sex will become apparent to you."

"Do you know, I like you," he said, regarding me thoughtfully. "I think you are fine."

"Now that's very nice of you, Imp; in common with my kind I have a weakness for flattery—please go on."

"I mean, I think you are jolly."

"As to that," I said, shaking my head and sighing, "appearances are often very deceptive; at the heart of many a fair blossom there is a canker-worm."

"I'm awfull' fond of worms, too," said the Imp.

"Indeed?"

"Yes. I got a pocketful yesterday, only Auntie found out an' made me let them all go again."

"Ah—yes," I said sympathetically; "that was the woman of it."