





My Lady Caprice


by

Jeffery Farnol




CONTENTS

    I.  TREASURE TROVE
   II.  THE SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM
  III.  THE DESPERADOES
   IV.  MOON MAGIC
    V.  THE EPISODE OF THE INDIAN'S AUNT
   VI.  THE OUTLAW
  VII.  THE BLASTED OAK
 VIII.  THE LAND OF HEART'S DELIGHT



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 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, and occasionally a play,
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 pair of
lorgnette with such deadly precision?  Still, had Lisbeth been beside
me things