For over an hour I sat there, chewing the stem of my useless pipe
and racking my bran, but the "few brief words" obstinately refused
to come. Nine o'clock chimed mournfully from the Norman tower of
the church hard by, yet still my pen was idle and the paper before
me blank; also I became conscious of a tapping somewhere close at
hand, now stopping, now beginning again, whose wearisome iteration
so irritated my fractious nerves that I flung down my pen and rose.
The noise seemed to come from the vicinity of the window. Crossing
to it, therefore, I flung the casement suddenly open, and found
myself staring into a round face, in which were set two very round
eyes and a button of a nose, the whole surmounted by a shock of
red hair.
"'Allo, Mr. Uncle Dick!"
It needed but this and a second glance at the round face to assure
me that it pertained to Ben, the gardener's boy.
"What, my noble Benjamin?" I exclaimed.
"No, it's me!" answered the redoubtable Ben. "'E said I was to
give you this an' tell you, 'Life an' death!'" As he spoke he held
out a roll of paper tied about the middle with a boot lace; which
done, the round head grinned, nodded, and disappeared from my ken.
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