"Betty did that," said Lloyd. "She traced the letters on first with
tracing-papah, and then burnt them. I remembah now, she made it a few
days befoah we came home. She thought we would have our usual tree, and
she intended to hang this on it for you. Then when we had the hunt
instead of a tree, she took this way of giving it to you. That is an
appropriate motto for a memorandum-book, isn't it? You'll appreciate it
moah when she tells you the story about it. Miss Chilton read it to the
English class one day, and had us write it from memory for the next
lesson."
"Then what's the matter with your telling it to me?" asked Rob, eying
the mailed hand and the spear with interest. "I'll be gone before Betty
gets back. Go on and tell it. This is an ideal time and place for
story-telling."
He leaned comfortably back against the warm chimney and half-closed his
eyes. The patter of the rain on the roof made him drowsy.
"Well," assented Lloyd, "I can't tell it with as many frills and
flourishes as Betty could, but I remembah it bettah than most stories,
because I had to write it from memory." Drawing the glittering cloak
closer around her, she began as if she were reading it, in the very
words of the green and gold volume:
"'Now there was a troubadour in the kingdom of
Arthur, who, strolling through the land with only
his minstrelsy to win him a way, found in every
baron's hall and cotter's hut a ready welcome.'"
Here and there she stumbled over some part of it, or told it
hesitatingly in her own words, but at last she ended it as well as Betty
herself could have done:
"So Ederyn won his sovereign's favour, and, by his
sovereign's grace permitted, went back to woo the
maiden and win her for his bride. Then henceforth
blazoned on his shield and helmet he bore the
crest, a heart with hand that grasped a spear,
and, underneath, the words, 'I keep the tryst.'"
"That's a corking good motto," said Rob as she paused. "I like that
story, Lloyd, and I'll remember it when I keep the engagements that I
put down in this little book."
He sat a moment, flipping the leaves and whistling a bar from "The Old
Oaken Bucket."
"Stop!" commanded Lloyd, suddenly, clapping her hands over her ears, and
making a wry face. "You're off the key. Haven't I told you a thousand
times that it doesn't go that way? This is it."
Puckering up her lips, she whistled the tune correctly, and he joined
in. At the end of the chorus he looked at his watch.
"It's been like old times this afternoon," he said. "I'll tell you what,
Lloyd, let's come up here once a year after this, just to keep tryst
with our old playtimes. I'll put that down as the first engagement in my
memorandum-book. A year from to-day we'll take another look at these
things."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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