[p9]
THE HEIRESS OF WYVERN COURT.

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CHAPTER I.
IN THE RAILWAY CARRIAGE—NEW FRIENDS.

“Well, little friend, and where do you hail from?”

The speaker was a merry-faced, brown-eyed boy of eleven, with curly brown hair—just the school-boy all over.

He had leaped into a railway carriage with cricket-bat, fishing-rod, and a knowing-looking little hamper, which he deposited on the seat beside him; then away went the snorting steam horse, train, people, and all, and out came this abrupt question. “Little friend” was a mite of a girl of nine, dressed in a homely blue serge frock and jacket, with blue velvet hat to match: a shy little midge of a grey-eyed maiden, with sunny brown curls twining about her forehead [p10] and rippling down upon her shoulders, nestling in one corner of the carriage—the sole occupant thereof until this merry questioner came to keep her company.

“I don’t quite know what you mean,” was the little girl’s reply—a sweet, refined way of speaking had she, and her eyes sparkled with shy merriment, although there was a startled look in them too.

“Well, where do you come from, my dear mademoiselle?” and now the merry speaker made a courtly bow.

“From London—but I’m not French, you know,” was the retort, with the demurest of demure smiles.

“No—just so; and where are you going?” One could but answer him, his questions came with such winning grace of manner.

“To Cherton—to uncle—to Mr. Jonathan Willett’s.”

“Cherton! why, that’s not far from my happy destination. I get out only one station before you.”

“Little friend” smiled her demure little smile again, as if she was glad to hear it.

[p11]
“So you’re going to Mr. Willett’s—Dr. Willett he’s generally called, being a physician,” continued the boy, after glancing from the window a second or two, as if to note how fast the landscape was rushing past the train, or the train past the landscape.

“Yes; do you know him?” inquired the silvery tongue of the other.

“Oh yes; I know him!”—a short assent, comically spoken.

“I don’t,” sighed the little girl, as if the thought oppressed her.

“Then you’d like to know what he’s like,” spoke the boy, using the word like twice for want of another.

“Yes—only—only would it be nice to talk about a person—one’s uncle, one doesn’t know, be——” she did not like to say behind his back, but the faltering little tongue stuck fast, and the small sensitive face of the child looked a little confused.

“Ah! behind his back,” spoke the boy readily. “Well, perhaps not; but you’ll know him soon enough, I’m quite sure, and all about Peggy, too. Peggy is the best of the couple,” he added.

[p12]
“Do you mean Mrs. Grant, my uncle’s housekeeper?”

“Yes, that very lady—only, you see, I like to call her Peggy.”

“Yes,” returned the child, supposing she ought to say something.

“’Tis a farm, you know—jolly old place. Do you know that?”

“Yes—that is, I know ’tis a farm; mamma told me that. But I didn’t know ’twas jolly; mamma said ’twas very pretty, and home-like, and nice.”

“Ah, yes! just a lady’s view of the place,” nodded the boy approvingly. “The farm is the best part of it all, and so you’ll say when——”

“Perhaps we’ll not talk about it,” broke in “little friend” timidly.

“Well, you are a precise little lady not to talk about a farm, your uncle’s farm, behind its back,” laughed the boy.

“It’s mamma’s uncle,” corrected the little maiden.

“Ah, yes! and your great uncle. Well, I thought he was an old fogey to be your uncle—I beg your pardon—old gentleman I mean.” He [p13] laughed and made a low bow, but his cheeks took a rosier tint at that real slip of his tongue.

“Well, suppose we talk about ourselves; that wouldn’t be behind our own backs, would it?”

“Oh no!” came with a pretty jingle of laughter.

“Do you know my name? Dick.”

“I thought so,” replied the little girl.

“You did!—why?”

“You look like a Dick.”

“Well, that’s just like a girl’s bosh—but still, you’re right: I am Dick Gregory, son of George Gregory, surgeon, living at Lakely, next station to Cherton, where you get out, you know.”

The girl nodded.

“Now, mademoiselle, what may your name be?” he asked, as the train carried them into the station with a whiz.

“Inna Weston.”

“Inna: is that short for anything?”

“Yes—for Peninnah: papa’s mother’s name is Peninnah; and so, and so——”

“And so your father chose to let you play grandmother to yourself in the matter of names?”

[p14]
“Yes,” a little ripple of a word full of laughter—her companion was so funny.

“Now guess what’s in this hamper?” was Dick’s next proposition; “that’s safe ground, you know, to guess over a hamper when the owner bids you,” he added, by way of encouragement.

“A kitten.” The train was carrying them on again, without any intruder to cut off the thread of their talk, except the guard, who put his head in at the window, and beamed a smile on Inna, as her caretaker; then he shut the door, and locked them in, and here was the train tearing on again.

“Well, now, you are a good guesser for a girl,” said Dick.

“I didn’t guess: I knew it. I heard her mew,” smiled Inna.

“Ah! Miss Inna is a little pitcher, pussy; she has sharp ears,” said pussy’s master, peering and speaking through the hamper.

“Me—e—e—w!” came like a prolonged protest against all the hurry-scurry and noise, so confusing to a kitten shut up in a hamper, not knowing why nor whither she was travelling.

[p15]
“Now, who am I taking her to? guess that; and if you guess right, I should say you’re a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and of gipsy origin”—so the merry boy challenged her.

“To your sister.”

“Right!” laughed Dick.

“But I’m not a seventh daughter—I’m only daughter to mamma, and so was mamma before me; and I’m not a gipsy.” Inna’s face was brimming over with shy merriment.

“Well, you ought to be, for you’re a clever guesser of dark secrets,” returned the boy. “Yes: I’m taking pussy home to my sister. Her name is—now, what is her name?”

Inna shook her head.

“Something pretty I should say, but I don’t know what.”

“Oh! you’re not much of a witch after all,” said Dick. “No, it isn’t anything pretty—it’s Jane.”

Inna smiled, and looked wise.

“Well, what is it, Miss Inna? Out with it!” cried Dick, watching her changeful little face.

“Mamma says, when one has an ugly name one must try to live a life to make it beautiful.”

[p16]
“Hum! Well, that isn’t bad. And when one has a beautiful name—like Dick, for instance,” said he waggishly, “what then?”

“Then the name should help the life, and the life the name—so mamma said when I asked her.”

“Well, your mother must be good,” said Dick to this.

“Yes, she is.” Wistful lights were stealing into Inna’s eyes, and Dick had a suspicion that there were tears in them.

“I’m not blest with one,” spoke he, carelessly to all seeming.

“With no mother?” inquired his companion gently.

“I’m sort of foster-child to Meggy, our cook and housekeeper—ours is Meggy, you know, and yours is Peggy, at Willett’s Farm.”

“Yes,” smiled Inna, “yes.” She had tided over that tenderness of spirit caused by speaking of her mother.

The train was steaming into a station again, but no passenger intruded; only the guard peeped in, as caretaker, to see if she was safe, as Dick remarked, when they were moving on again.

[p17]
“Has he got you under his wing?” asked he.

“The guard has me under his care; ma—mamma asked him to see me safe.” The wistfulness was coming into her eyes again.

“So she has a mother; I thought perhaps she hadn’t,” thought Dick. Aloud he said bluffly, “’Tis well to be a girl, to have all made smooth for one. Now here am I, come all the way from Wenley, turned out of school because of the measles, and never a creature as much as to say, ‘Have you got a ticket, or money to buy one?’”

“Oh, but they’d not let you come without a ticket,” smiled Inna.

“I mean our chums at school, and father at home. Of course my father knew I was all right about money, because he’d just sent my quarter’s allowance.”

“And have they got the measles at your school?”

“Yes: are you afraid of me? Infection, you know.”

“Afraid? oh no!”

“Well, if you caught it you’d be all right, your uncle being a doctor. A doctor at a farm [p18] —queer, isn’t it, now?” So Dick went skimming from subject to subject, very like a swallow skimming over the surface of water after flies and gnats.

“Yes,” Inna could but confess it was—very guardedly, though, lest they might verge upon gossip again.

“But Peggy’s the farmer; your uncle has enough to do to look after his patients. He’s a clever fo—man—so clever that some say he’s got medicine on the brain.”

Inna’s lips were sealed conscientiously; but out of the brief silence that followed she put the safe question—

“What colour’s your kitten?”

“White. Wouldn’t you like to take a peep at her?” and good-natured Dick held the hamper so that she might catch a glimpse of the small four-legged traveller.

“She’s a beauty!”—such was Inna’s opinion of her.

“And, according to you, she ought to have a beautiful name. But what of my sister Jane? I call her Jenny, and Jin; and that reminds me of the other gin with a g, you know; and that [p19] carries me on to trap, and trapper. I sometimes call her Trapper. That sounds quite romantic, and carries one away into North American Indian story life. Have you ever read any North American Indian stories—about Indians, and scalps, and all that?”

“No,” was the decisive, though smiling, reply.

Ah! they were steaming into a station again.

“Lakely at last, and this is my station!” cried Dick, gathering his belongings together, so as to be ready to leap out when the train stopped, while a porter went shouting up and down the platform, “Lakely! Lakely!”

“Well, good-bye, little friend; mind, Cherton comes next, then ’twill be your turn to turn out.” He wrung her hand, and was out on the platform in a twinkle, loaded like a bee, happy as a boy.

“I say, Miss Inna, I should like you to come over to our place to see Jenny, or Trapper. I shall ask the doctor to give you a lift over in his gig,” he put his head back into the carriage to say.

Now he was scudding away down the platform, and claiming a trunk and portmanteau from a medley of luggage, had it set aside by the [p20] porter, who seemed to know him; this done, he darted back again, smiled in at the carriage window, where that sweet girlish face still watched him, and then vanished.

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[p21]
CHAPTER II.
WILLETT’S FARM—TEA IN THE DINING-ROOM.

“Cherton! Cherton! Cherton!”

Inna sprang from the corner of her lonely carriage, and stepped out upon the platform, helped by the kindly guard.

“Now, my dear, what’s to be done? There’s nobody here waiting for you, as I see,” said the man, looking up and down the small platform, where she seemed to be the only arrival—she and her neat little trunk, which a porter brought and set down at her feet.

“No, they don’t know I’m coming,” returned the child, with a sober shake of her head.

“Where for, miss?” inquired the porter, as the guard looked at him.

“My—Mr. Willett’s, at Willett’s Farm,” said Inna, in a sort of startled importance at having to speak for herself.

“Do you know the way?” asked the man.

[p22]
“No; but I should if you told me—I mean——”

“Yes, miss; I know what you mean,” replied the porter, noting her childish confusion. “I’ll see to her, and send her safely,” he promised the busy guard, and took her small gloved hand in his, and led her away out into the open road by the station, stretching away among fields, all bathed in crimson and golden sunshine.

“Now, miss,” said he, pointing with his finger, “you go along this road and turn to your right, and along a lane, turn to your right, and along another; don’t turn to your left at all; then turn to your right again, and there you are at Willett’s Farm. Do you understand?” he asked kindly, bending down to something like her height, so as to get her view of the way.

“Yes, thank you; I must keep to the right all the way, and turn three times—but I don’t think I quite know what a farm is like,” confessed she bravely.

“Oh, miss, that’s easy; there isn’t another house before you reach the farm—the village is above Willett’s Farm.”

“Thank you; then I’ll think I’ll go now.”

[p23]
“You’ll not lose yourself? I’d go with you, but I expect another train in almost directly, and there isn’t a soul about here that I could send. And about your box, miss: will you send for it?”

“Yes, I’ll send for it; and—and I don’t think I shall lose myself.”

“Then good evening, miss.” The porter touched his hat, and she bade him “good evening” in return; then the child went wandering down the road from the station—a blue dot in the evening sunshine.

Well, she took her three turnings to the right, and they brought her to the farm, lying not far up the last lane; the farm-buildings—barn, stable, and a whole clump of outbuildings—lying back from the road a little, and all lit up by the last rays of sunset. The house looked out upon the lane, where the shadows were gathering fast, under the many-tinted elm trees overshadowing it. Three spotlessly white steps led up to the front door, a strip of green turf lying each side, enclosed by green iron railings, and shut in by a little green gate. A quaint old house it was, with many crooks, corners, [p24] and gables, and small lattice diamond-paned windows, through one of which gleamed the ruddy glow of a fire. Ah! the air was crisp, the sun well-nigh gone, the evening creeping on. Inna sighed, and, tripping through the little green gate, mounted the three white steps, and, by dint of straining, reached up, and knocked with the knocker almost as loudly as a timid mouse. But it brought an answer, in the shape of a middle-aged woman, in a brown stuff gown, white apron and cap, dainty frillings of lace encircling her face. A sober face it was, yet kindly, peering down in astonishment at our small heroine, standing silent there among the deepening shadows in the crisp chilly air.

“Well, dearie, what is it?” she questioned, as the child opened her lips to speak, and said nothing.

“I’m Inna: please may I come in and tell you all about it?” asked the silvery tongue then.

“Yes, of course—that is, if you have anything to tell;” and with this the woman made way for the little girl to pass her, and shut the door.

“This way,” she said; and that was to the kitchen.

[p25]
Such a clean, cheery, comfortable place, with its wood fire filling it with ruddy glow and warmth, which was like a silent welcome.

“Now, who’s ill and wants a doctor? Sick folks’ messengers shouldn’t lag,” said the woman, scanning her visitor as they both stood in the firelight glow.

“Oh, nobody is ill; and I only—I mean—I don’t know where to begin,” was the bewildering answer.

“Well, of course you know what brought you,” suggested the other.

“Oh, the train brought me; and I’ve come to stay here.”

“You have?” asked the woman.

“Yes; because Uncle Jonathan gave mamma a home once, when she was a little girl; and she said he would me, if she sent me.”

“And who are you? and who’s your mamma?”

“I’m Inna; and mamma is Uncle Jonathan’s niece.”

“You aren’t Miss Mercy’s daughter?” said the woman.

“Yes, I’m Miss Mercy’s daughter; and now, [p26] please, may I sit down?” asked the little tired voice.

“Yes, poor little unwelcome lamb; I’ll not be the one to deny that to Miss Mercy’s daughter. Come here;” and she set her own cushioned rocking-chair forward on the hearth. “But where is Miss Mercy? and why did she send you here?”

“Mamma is gone abroad with papa. Some people are afraid he’s dying; and”—Inna’s heart was full—“I’ve a letter in my pocket for Uncle Jonathan, to tell him all about it.”

“Well, well, this will be news for master—unwelcome news, I’m thinking,” muttered the woman as to herself, but speaking aloud.

“Do you mean I shan’t be welcome?” asked a strained little voice from the rocking-chair.

“Well, dearie, welcome or not, here you are, and here you must stay for to-night, at any rate. You see, Dr. Willett has one child on his hands already, and he’s a handful. I doubt if he’ll want another. But then, we must all have what we don’t want sometimes—eh, miss?”

To this Inna sighed a troubled little “Yes.”

Then Mrs. Grant—for she it was—bethought [p27] her to help her off with her jacket and hat, and inquired had she any belongings at the station? Yes, she had a trunk there; and an unknown Will—at least, unknown to Inna—was despatched for it.

“But maybe you’d like some tea?” suggested the housekeeper.

“Yes, I should, please,” the little lady assured her, folding her jacket neatly, as she had been taught.

“Well, they’re just having tea in the dining-room. Come along.”

No use for Inna to shrink or shiver, for Mrs. Grant was leading the way to those unknown tea-drinkers of whom she was to form one; the fire-light from the kitchen showing them the way along a passage. Then a door was opened, and the small shiverer thrust in, not unkindly, with the words—

“A little lady come for a bit and a sup with you, sir.”

Then the door closed, and she was in another fire-lit room. A lamp, too, burnt on a table in front of a wood fire, on which was laid a quaint old-fashioned tea equipage, with a hissing urn, [p28] and all complete. On the hearth knelt a lad, making toast; and by his side, leaning against the mantelpiece, was a tall man—red-haired, with streaks of grey in that of both head and closely-clipped beard. He had keen grey eyes, which seemed to scan Inna through; a small mouse-like figure by the door, afraid to advance.

“Oscar, where are your manners?” asked the gentleman, “to treat a lady in this way, when she’s thrust upon you?”

Thrust: here was another word which seemed to say she was not welcome.

“I beg your pardon,” lisped the child, thinking she ought to speak.

“No, no; a lady is very like a king—she never does wrong or needs pardon; ’tis this great lout of a boy here that is the aggressor.”

Whereupon the somewhat awkward, shy lad on the hearth laid down knife and toasting-fork, and came towards her.

“Well, whoever you are, will you please sit here?” said he, setting her a chair by the table, and taking another himself behind the urn.

“With a lady in the room, you’ll never do that,” said the gentleman, spying comically at [p29] him from where he still stood on the hearth, as the boy began to brew the tea.

“Oh no, thank you; I couldn’t manage the urn,” said Inna.

“I thought not,” growled Oscar, a big, handsome, fair-haired boy of eleven, with grey-blue eyes. “And now, here I am without a cup for you.”

Inna had not taken the seat he offered her by the table, but had glided round to the gentleman on the hearth. Oscar made a bolt from the room to fetch a cup and saucer.

“Won’t you say you will like to have me here, Uncle—Uncle Jonathan?” she asked hesitatingly. Such a mite she was, glancing up at the tall red-haired gentleman turning grey, such blushes coming and going in her cheeks.

“My dear little lady, I think you’re just the one element wanting in our male community: a little girl in our midst will save us from settling down into the savages we’re fast becoming,” replied the gentleman, glancing down in an amused way at her from his superior height.

“Well, isn’t that welcome enough?” he asked, still with that comical smile, as Inna gave a [p30] puzzled glance at him, as if not quite comprehending his high talk, and fumbling in her dress pocket.

“I have a letter that will tell you all about me—why I’ve come, you know,” said she.

“Ah yes, Dr. Willett’s letter,” he remarked, taking the missive from her and balancing it between his finger and thumb. Just then Oscar came back with a rush.

“I know all about you, and who you are,” said he, putting down the cup and saucer he had brought with a clatter. “You’re a sort of half-cousin of mine, and a great-niece of Uncle Jonathan’s,” he blurted out.

“Well, since you know so much, suppose you come here and enlighten your new half-cousin as to who I am. She has mistaken me for her uncle—and naturally too, since you, as host for the time being, were rude enough not to introduce us.”

At this reproach Oscar left his tea-making, and approached the two: Inna with burning cheeks, at her mistake about this unknown gentleman, not her uncle.

“Well, this is Mr. Barlow—Dr. Barlow, some [p31] people call him, but he’s no such thing; he’s a surgeon, and the one who plays David to Uncle Jonathan—you understand?” questioned the boy, with humour sparkling in his blue-grey eyes.

“Yes,” nodded Inna shyly; “his very dear friend, you mean.”

“Yes, that’s about the figure,” was the response, while the two bowed with ceremony.

“And now, I am—tell Mr. Barlow who I am, please,” pleaded the small maiden.

“Well, this is Miss Inna Weston, the daughter of a certain Mercy Willett, niece of Jonathan Willett, Doctor, who lived here years ago, before my time. Now, old man, come to tea.” With this, the boy slapped the other on the arm with pleasant familiarity, and went back to his tea-making.

Mr. Barlow led Inna to her seat, and saw her comfortable there, taking his own chair beside her, while Oscar sat with his back to the fire—like a cat on a frosty night, Mr. Barlow told him. Inna wondered where her uncle was, but asked no questions as yet—only munched away at her toast in her dainty way, and sipped her tea, [p32] trying hard to feel that she was at home. As for Oscar, he made such sloppy work with the urn, that Mr. Barlow had to say presently—

“Don’t make a sea of the table, boy. You see what incapable creatures we are, Miss Inna. I never could make tea, and your own eyes tell you what Oscar can do.”

“I suppose Uncle Jonathan makes tea when he is here,” was Inna’s reply.

At which the two gentlemen looked comically at each other.

“Well, I can’t say I ever saw the doctor come down from the clouds enough for that,” observed Mr. Barlow dryly; “but I hope his little great-niece—am I right in the pedigree, Oscar?—will set us to rights, and bring in the age of civilisation for us.”

Inna could but laugh a tinkling laugh at this, and asked timidly, “Do you live here, Mr. Barlow?”

“No, dear; but I’m here morning, noon, and night. My head-quarters are at Mrs. Tussell’s, whose name ought to be, now, guess what?”

People must suppose she had an aptitude for [p33] guessing, Inna thought, and asked with rosy cheeks was it “Fussy”?

“Just the word; only you mustn’t tell her so,” was the reply; at which Inna shook her head, and said she could not be so rude. Then came the sound of the doctor’s gig outside the house, a step and a voice in the passage.

“He’ll not come in here, dear,” Mr. Barlow told Inna, seeing her start and change colour; “he’ll have a cup of tea in his den, as we call it,” at which Oscar nodded, and said, “And a good name too!”

Tea over, Mr. Barlow rose, and said “Good-bye for to-night, Miss Inna; David is going to Jonathan,” patted her head, and was gone.

“Is his real name David?” she asked shyly of this cousin she had no idea of finding at Uncle Jonathan’s; nor had her mamma either, she decided in her own mind.

“No; William—Billy Barlow they call him in the village, only I didn’t say so just now,” returned Oscar drily.

“Mind your lessons, Master Oscar,” said Mrs. Grant, when she came in to fetch the tea equipage.

[p34]
“Fudge!” was the boy’s response, he and Inna established on the hearth, roasting chestnuts; and they were still there when Dr. Willett surprised them by a footfall close behind them.

Up sprang Inna, like a startled daisy.

“So you’re Mercy’s little daughter?” said he, by way of greeting.

[Back to Contents]

[p35]
CHAPTER III.
DR. WILLETT—THE NUTTING EXPEDITION—THE FIRE.

“So you’re Mercy’s little daughter?” said the doctor, by way of greeting.

“Yes,” faltered Inna; but she put her hand in his; this Uncle Jonathan, with whom she had come to live, was all she had in England now, except Oscar and Mr. Barlow, who was nobody as yet. The doctor pressed her small hand in his big strong one. Tall—taller than his friend David—was he, with dark hair and beard—at least, they had been dark, but were fast turning grey; his eyes were dark, piercing, and observant, full of fire; still, a kindly face, a kindly manner had he.

“Well, little woman, I’ve read your mother’s letter. I never intended to be troubled with any more children after Oscar fell to my lot; but for your mother’s sake, and her mother’s [p36] before her, I can’t shut my door against you. So now stay, and see if you can’t open another door on your own account.” This is what he said, still holding her hand in his.

“Do you know what door I mean?” he asked, as the child darted an upward glance at him.

“Yes,” she nodded, “yes.” She could not say more, her heart was thumping so, but her small twining fingers in the doctor’s palm told him a great deal.

He patted her on the head, and let her go; he did not kiss her. Inna wished he had when, later on, she was in bed, thinking of the many to-morrows she was to spend in this new uncle’s house. Her chamber was up in one of the gables of the quaint old house; the windows overlooked the garden and the home orchard, where, in the former, Michaelmas daisies and sunflowers flaunted in the sunshine when she looked out the next morning, and apples, rosy and golden, were waiting to be gathered in the latter. Birds were twittering and peeping at her through the ivy-wreathed window; away in the stubble fields, under the hills, sheep were straying, all in a glory of golden light; while rooks cawed [p37] and clamoured in the many-coloured elms by the house and garden, and all sweet morning freshness was everywhere. You may be sure she soon dressed, and tripped down the old-fashioned staircase—a dainty midge, in blue serge frock and white-bibbed apron. Below, she found Mary, the servant under the housekeeper, laying breakfast in the dining-room; and while the child stood shyly aloof by a window, in came Mrs. Grant with the urn, and her master behind her. Inna stepped forward, but her uncle took no notice of her; he only passed on to his seat at the table, took up his letters and newspaper, and, as it were, thus stepped into a world of his own. Oscar stole in like a thief, and began his usual tea-making—placing a cup by his uncle’s plate, upon which he laid slices of ham, carved as best he could; Inna, at a nod from him, cutting a piece of bread to keep company with the ham; while Mrs. Grant gave sundry nods, which the boy understood and returned, then she retired from the scene. Not a word was spoken during breakfast-time. Oscar helped himself and Inna to what the table afforded—ham, eggs, rolls, honey, golden butter—all so sweet and clean and homely.

[p38]
Before the young people had finished, the doctor rose and went tramping out.

“Good morning,” said he at the door, breaking the spell of silence. Inna, rising, wished to spring toward him, but he was gone.

“There, he’s safe till two o’clock,” sighed Oscar.

“Safe?” said Inna.

“Yes; booked with his patients, you know. Some say he has patients on the brain. I wish them joy of him.”

“Don’t—don’t you like him?” she inquired falteringly.

“Do you?” asked the other, helping himself to an egg.

“I ought.”

“Ought! I can’t bear that word ought: ’tis dinned into my ears morning, noon, and night. Now, I tell you what we’ll do: we’ll fling ‘ought’ to the winds, and go a nutting expedition this morning.”

In came Mrs. Grant.

“Well, Master Oscar, I should hope you’d go down to Mr. Fane’s for lessons to-day,” said she.

[p39]
“I can’t; I’ve a prior engagement,” said he, as loftily as a mouth full of bread and butter and egg could utter it.

“And what’s that, may I ask?”

“I’ve made a promise to a lady to go elsewhere.”

“Oh, Oscar! never mind me; you ought to do your lessons, you know.”

“I thought we flung that horrid word to the winds just now. There’s no ought in the case; I had a holiday yesterday, and I mean to to-day. I mean to take Inna to Black Hole, and round through the woods, on a nutting expedition—so there!”

This last to Mrs. Grant.

“Very well, Master Oscar; I shall have to set the doctor on to you again. I hope, Miss Inna, you’ll be a good little influence with him and teach him to obey his uncle.”

Oscar laughed, pushed back his plate, and left the table. “Now, Inna, run and put on your hat and jacket, and we’ll be off,” said he to the little girl.

“Go, dear,” said the housekeeper, as the child hesitated. “I suppose he means all right for [p40] this once, but he must take the consequence;” and away went Inna for hat and jacket, wondering if it was right to go.

When she came down, Oscar showed her a packet of sandwiches in the nutting basket, which Mrs. Grant had cut for them to eat if they were hungry.

“She isn’t a bad sort; her bark is worse than her bite,” said Oscar of her, when the two were well on their way.

On and on—over stubble fields they went, till by-and-by they were taking a short cut through a carriage drive in Owl’s Nest Park, as Oscar informed Inna. It was a pretty bowery walk, overarched with beeches and elms in all their autumn glory, and full of the clamour of rooks. Here they met an old lady in a wheel-chair, pushed by a page-boy—such a sweet sad-faced old lady was the occupant of the chair, with shining grey curls peeping out from beneath her black satin hood. She was wrapped in some sort of fur-lined cloak; and by her side walked two little dark-faced, shy-looking girls of seven, quaintly dressed in rich black velvet, very like two wee maidens stepped out of some old picture, [p41] and each wearing a hood similar to that worn by their aged companion.

[p40a]

“A DONKEY AND CART CAME DRIVING UP.”

[Return to List of Illustrations]

“This is Madame Giche—spelt G-i-c-h-e—and her two grand-nieces; a queer party, all of them,” said Oscar, still leading on. “This isn’t her place: she can’t live at her own place, they say, all about some trouble she’s had; and so she took the Owl’s Nest of Sir Hubert Larch, who never lives there, on lease.”

“Are we intruding here?” inquired Inna.

“Oh, no; there is a right of way: that is, madame gives it, and people take it. Come on.”

He had the grace to raise his hat to the party as they passed them by, and anon they were out of the park, and on a well-worn road. Here the sound of wheels greeted them, and a donkey and cart came driving up—Dick Gregory charioteer, and a girl of about Inna’s age seated in the bed of the cart behind him.

“Why, little friend,” cried the boy, recognising Inna, “this is a happy meeting!” and down he sprang, and seized her hand with a boyish grip.

“How d’ye do, Willett?” this to Oscar, who returned the salutation.

[p42]
“Now you must be introduced to Trapper. Here, Trapper,” said Dick, turning to the donkey-cart.

“Don’t be silly, Dick,” cried the pretty little maiden. “You know I’m not Trapper: at least, only to you, who call me Gin and then Trap and Trapper. My name is Jenny;” and down she sprang to Inna’s side.

“And I am Inna.”

“Yes; Dick has told me your name.”

“And how is your kitten?” Inna liked the pretty, free, fair-haired, fair-faced girl.

“Oh, first-rate, thank you, isn’t she, Dick?” said she, appealing to her brother, who was just settling with Oscar.

“Oh yes! We’ll just manage a morning of it in the woods; you can show your cousin Black Hole another time. Isn’t what?” he questioned of his sister.

“Isn’t Snowdrop first-rate?”

“Rather,” returned he, with a nod at Inna, which made her blush and laugh.

“I’m glad she’s well. And so you call her Snowdrop?”

“Yes; and what do you think of our donkey? [p43] We call him Rameses: that’s Dick’s choice of a name.”

“He’s a beautiful creature,” returned Inna, stroking the animal’s wise old head.

“Yes,” replied Dick, “I’m a lover of old names, so I thought I’d go back to the Pharaohs. Not a bad idea, was it? though no compliment, I daresay, to the old fogies.”

“No,” laughed Oscar; “but never mind about compliments for dead and gone fogies.”

“And what of the fogies of this generation?” inquired ready Dick.

“The same—never mind.”

“But come, we must make hay while the sun shines. In with you, you two girls, into the cart,” said Dick, which they did, Jenny helping Inna. Then up sprang the charioteer, Oscar beside him; crack went the whip, and off they drove like the wind.

That nutting expedition was like a fairy dream to London-reared Inna; the lads showed her a squirrel or two, a dormouse not yet gone to its winter snooze, in its mossy bed-chamber. A snake wriggled past them, which made her shudder; frogs and toads leaped here and there [p44] in dark places. Then, oh, the whir and whisper of the autumn wind among the trees! the lights and shadows! Oh, for the magic hand of her artist father to make them hers for ever in a picture for her bedroom! But the delight of a morning’s nutting must come to an end—so did theirs; the sandwiches demolished—share and share, as Oscar put it—they bethought themselves of dinner and the road leading thereto, so once more they were on their backward way, and parting company.

“Good-bye, mademoiselle!” cried Dick, as Inna stood at Oscar’s side, after she had kissed Jenny, and the two had vowed a girls’ eternal friendship. Then away went the donkey and cart, and our young people hastened home, just in time for dinner. A meal silent as breakfast was dinner, so far as they were concerned, for Mr. Barlow and the doctor kept a learned conversation high above their heads all the time—so Oscar said; and after it was over the boy vanished, nobody knew where. As for Inna, she roamed in the orchard all the afternoon in a dream of beauty, eating rosy apples, followed by tea—she and Mr. Barlow alone—she making [p45] the toast and managing the urn: a living proof of what can be done by trying, so the surgeon told her. Then he and the doctor went out, and Inna crept out to the kitchen, to wonder with Mrs. Grant where Oscar was, and what was keeping him.

“No good, Miss Inna; that boy’ll go to the dogs if somebody don’t take him in hand. You try, dearie, what you can do with him,” said the housekeeper.

“I!” cried astonished Inna. She try what she could do with a big boy like Oscar!

“But hark! that’s the fire-bell; there must be a fire somewhere,” said Mrs. Grant, and out she went, with her apron over her head, to listen at the back gates.

Inna, with no apron over her head, stole out to keep her company.

“Oh my!” said Mrs. Grant to shivering Inna. “I wish Master Oscar was at home. I’m thinking he’s a finger in the pie.”

Ah! there was the fire, sure enough; it was a flare and a flame against the darkening sky.

“What’s alight?” inquired Mrs. Grant of a man who went hurrying by.

[p46]
“Poor Jackson’s little farm; they say ’tis going like tinder, and he’s half crazed,” came back to them as the man ran on.

“Oh dear! that boy, what he’ll have to answer for!” cried the housekeeper.

“But we’re not sure ’tis his work,” said sensible Inna.

“No, dear; but there’s seldom any mischief going that he don’t help in the brewing of.”

Inna was silent, watching the red glare of the fire mounting heavenwards.

[Back to Contents]

[p47]
CHAPTER IV.
OSCAR’S BURNT ARM—BLACK HOLE.

“You see, dearie,” went on the housekeeper, “he’s playing truant these two days, and I don’t like to bother the doctor, and get him into trouble. I hide what I can, in pity for his friendlessness.”

“Hasn’t he anybody but Uncle Jonathan?” inquired Inna.

“No, dearie; father and mother both dead, leaving him not a penny. ’Twould have been a sad life but for master, as I tell him; but I think that sets him more against the right than ever.”

“Suppose you weren’t to tell him, but ask him to do his studies, and—and right things, for love of duty and love of pleasing you?” suggested Inna.

“That’s where it is. I think if he had a sister—now, if you were to get him to love you, you’d be able to do anything with him. Love [p48] for anybody is a mighty power, though ’tis said to be like a silk thread—something not seen, but felt—you see, ’tis stronger than it seems.”

“Yes,” sighed Inna; “mamma says a loving heart will find work to do anywhere. Yes, mamma, I will try,” said she inwardly, thinking of her last talk with her dear mother, and that only on the evening before yesterday, so short, and yet so long a time ago.

Well, Oscar did not come, so the two went in, leaving the fire to flare itself out. Neither did Dr. Willett and Mr. Barlow return. It was quiet anxious work, sitting there by the log-fire, hearkening to the ticking of the old clock, waiting for someone who did not come—someone up to mischief, as Mrs. Grant said. Out she went again, with her apron over her head.

“Burnt to the ground, dearie—burnt to a tinder, is the farm: so Sam, our carter, says; and ’twas done by some idle boys lighting a bonfire of dry furze near.” This was her report when she returned to the kitchen.

Then they heard the master and Mr. Barlow come in, and the housekeeper went to carry them in supper. Ten o’clock, and they were [p49] going out again, Inna heard them say. The little girl now stole out herself to the back gates; there, in the shadow of the wall, she saw a moving shadow.

“Oscar!” She spoke his name; and Oscar stepped out into the moonlight beside her.

“Where have you been?” she ventured.

“Where I like.”

“Yes; but have you seen the fire?”

“Yes, I suppose I have.”

“Did you—did you have——”

“Did I have a hand in setting it alight? Ah yes! there you go—you’re all alike.”

“No, Oscar; no, but——” her small hands were clinging to his arm.

“Hands off!” cried he, shaking her off, as if he could not bear her even to touch him.

His sleeve was in tatters, she felt, before he shook himself free.

“I want you to do something for me,” said he, gloomily enough.

A startled “Yes,” was the reply.

“Go and get some oil and some flour, and come up to my room—you know your way in the dark, don’t you?”

[p50]
“Yes, I think——”

“Think! be sure, and be quick!” With this grumpy injunction he swung himself away, hugging the shadows, and so into the house and upstairs.

Tap! tap! Gentle little Samaritan—she had the oil, if not the wine; and when he bade her enter, she saw that she had indeed to bind up his wounds. He stood with his arm bare to the elbow—a poor scorched arm, from which charred skin was hanging.

“Now, see here: mix some flour and oil into a paste in this pomatum-pot, and spread it on this handkerchief; then bind it on to my arm, and hold your tongue. Can you do it, do you think?”

“Yes;” and the small girlish hands soon had the plaster ready.

“Poor arm!” said she, as the boy winced at her kindly but bungling dressing.

“Fudge!” scoffed he.

“Oh, I wish you hadn’t had anything to do with it!” tearing a handkerchief into strips to bind it on with.

“Yes, that’s all you know about it. What [p51] has Mother Peggy been saying about me? I’m the dog with a bad name; I suppose she’s hanged me.”

“No; she said only kind words of you—at least, what she thought were kind.”

“Oh, ay! everybody is kind after that fashion, I suppose. Now, about holding your tongue?”

“Do you mean I mustn’t say anything about your burnt arm?”

“Yes.”

“I won’t, if I can help it.”

“We know you can help it. Good night.”

He let her go out, and she stole down to the kitchen, there to tell Mrs. Grant, when she came in from the dining-room, that Oscar was in, and gone to bed, without saying anything of what she had done.

“I say, come up here, and help me on with my jacket,” called Oscar, the next morning, from above stairs, to Inna below in the hall.

Up she ran, like a willing little friend in need, to the needy boy.

“This is my best jacket,” said he, when the injured arm was safe in its sleeve. “Now you [p52] hear what Mother Peggy will say when she sees me adorned with it.”

“Yes,” returned Inna; “has it pained you to-night?”

“Well, yes; I never slept a wink till ’twas almost get-up time.”

She looked at him; his face was worn, his eyes wild.

“Tell Uncle Jonathan, and let him see to it, or let me tell him.”

“At your peril, if you do!” said he, like a very despot. “And besides, ’tis more like Billy Barlow’s job than the doctor’s.”

“Let me tell Mr. Barlow, then,” she pleaded.

“I tell you, you shan’t. That’s the worst of having a girl in a mess—she won’t hold her tongue.”

“Yes, I will, if they don’t ask me about it,” said the child.

To which Oscar returned “Hum!” and ran downstairs, challenging her to catch him. Well-nigh over Mrs. Grant he went, she carrying in the urn, Inna like a dancing tom-tit behind.

“Have a care, Master Oscar,” said the house-[p53]keeper, coming to a full stop to let him pass. “And what’s that best jacket on for?”

“Because the one I wore yesterday is in holes,” was the moody reply; and he slipped away into the dining-room, to end the discussion.

There must be silence there, for the doctor was in his place at the table, buried in his papers, waiting for someone to minister to his wants.

“I can’t,” whispered Oscar, after a vain attempt to wield the carving-knife; and he and Inna changed places like two shadows. Well, trying generally brings some sort of success: it did to Inna. Carved very creditably were the slices of meat she laid on her uncle’s plate; and, fearing more of a deluge than usual at the urn, she took her seat at that, and presided over the meal with dainty dignity.

“I hope you’re going to lessons to-day,” said Mrs. Grant, as, the doctor gone, Oscar sauntered out into the passage.

“Yes, I am,” was the curt reply.

“And bring me that torn jacket to mend.”

“’Tis past mending,” was the reply, and, shouldering his book bag, the boy was gone.

“Do you think you could find your way down [p54] to the village, dearie, and inquire for Mrs. Jackson?” said the housekeeper to Inna. “I’ve known her from a girl, poor dear. Since she’s married she’s had losses, and now ’tis said she’s lost all by the fire.”

“I could find her by asking,” returned Inna.

“True, dearie; you have a tongue in your head.”

So a few minutes found Inna down in the heart of Cherton, asking for Mrs. Jackson. She found her in a neat cottage, and helping the mistress of the same to cook a monster dinner for two families. She looked pale and sad, but brightened at Inna’s kindly message, and the baskets of comforts she told her Mrs. Grant sent with her and the doctor’s compliments.

“Thank you, dear; and my compliments in return; and my heart’s best thanks to that brave boy, your—your—what is he to you, miss? I suppose he’s something?” said Mrs. Jackson.

“Do you mean Oscar?”

“Yes—he who saved my boy at the risk of his own young life.”

Inna’s cheeks flushed, and sweet lights stole into her eyes.

[p55]
“Do you mean——?” she faltered.

“I mean he rushed up the burning staircase, and brought down this little chap,” returned Mrs. Jackson, drawing a sunbeam of a boy of two to her side, “when strong men hesitated and stood back. Didn’t you know?”

“No; I know he burnt his arm.”

“Burnt, miss! ’Twas a wonder he wasn’t burnt to a cinder. Give him my blessing—a mother’s blessing—and tell him he ought to make a noble man.” This was Mrs. Jackson’s message to Oscar as she stood at the door, and watched the little girl away.

“Well, dear, that shows ’tisn’t wise to condemn people before they’re tried,” was Mrs. Grant’s comment when Inna told her of Oscar’s brave deed.

Dr. Willett and Mr. Barlow would dine late, and would be away all day. Oscar also failed to put in an appearance at dinner-time, so Inna dined in solitary state in the great dining-room, and had a pleasant afternoon in the orchard, where a man or two were gathering in apples. Still, she wished she knew why Oscar did not come to dinner, and where he was, for her heart [p56] was beginning to yearn already over the wilful, noble, undisciplined boy. It had always been her dream to have a brother—a big strong brother to lean upon, and here was one whom she would like to gather to her.

“I didn’t want any dinner, so saw no use in coming home,” was the account Oscar gave of himself that evening, when, at sundown, he came sauntering in. But he took his revenge by doing wonders at tea-time, sitting by the kitchen fire on a low stool, and eating his dinner, kept hot for him. Inna was in the dining-room, presiding at her uncle’s meal, like a small queen.

“Does it hurt, dear lad?” inquired Mrs. Grant of the boy.

“No; what good is it to make a fuss about a scratch like that?” returned he, wielding knife and fork as best he could, now one, now the other in his left hand.

But lo! to the astonishment of all, out came Dr. Willett and Mr. Barlow into the kitchen—who so seldom came there—followed by Inna.

“Oscar, let me see your arm,” said the doctor.

Ah! well the thing was out—so much for a girl.

[p57]
“I hardly know that I can, ’tis such a tight fit of a sleeve,” returned the boy, with a reproachful look at Inna.

“Well, it went in, I suppose, and it must come out,” said Mr. Barlow, coming to his side.

“Oh, don’t, sir!” It was pitiful to hear the boy plead thus at the very thought.

“Cut the sleeve,” spoke the decisive doctor.

“Oh don’t, sir, do that!”—it was Mrs. Grant’s turn to plead now—“’tis his best jacket.”

“Yes, and his best arm, being the right; better sacrifice a jacket than an arm”; and Mr. Barlow’s scissors did the work, and laid bare Inna’s surgical dressing.

A nasty burn, but not unskilfully dressed for such young hands, they said; then they dressed it their own way, prescribed a sling for the arm, and a good night’s rest for the boy.

“And, my boy,” said the doctor impressively, “I’ve heard two reports of you in the village, both bad and good; and I will let the good plead with me against the bad this once, and prevail. But remember, one noble deed doesn’t make a life work: there’s the boy’s plodding on, learn-[p58]ing, and doing as you’re bid, and a hundred other things—the very foundation of a good useful life.”

“’Tis such humdrum work,” grumbled Oscar.

“And so is ours—noble art of healing, as it’s sometimes called—eh, Mr. Barlow?”

“Yes, it would be, if we weren’t applying a salve to somebody’s sore; and I suppose that’s what almost all work amounts to—salving somebody’s sore, easing the wheels of life somewhere,” was that gentleman’s reply. “And the humdrum drudging of a schoolboy, in learning and unlearning, is but the easing the wheels of his ignorant brain.”

Well, whether Oscar laid this new thought to heart or not, certain it is that he kept zealously to lessons and Mr. Fane, took kindly to Inna, and called her “a little brick,” and all the many flattering names found in a boy’s vocabulary. But his wound would not heal, for which the weather was blamed, and the constant friction he gave it, until his two doctors advised he should not race about so much; and so it came about that November was well on its way before the arm was well, and Inna saw that abyss of mystery, [p59] the Black Hole. Very like a lake, with an unfathomable hole in the centre—or said to be unfathomable, because it had been sounded by the villagers and no bottom found—over-spanned by a bridge, its water having some hidden outlet, and lying on the north side of Owl’s Nest Park, among tangled bushes and faded herbage: such was Black Hole. It was on a sunless hazy afternoon when they paid their visit to the gloomy place. Oscar betook himself with boy-like zest to testing the depth of the so-called unfathomable hole with a long pole he used for leaping with, Inna watching him, and wondering the while whether the hole, with its darkly swirling waters, were bottomless, as it was said to be.

“Have a care,” her companion had warned her. “Don’t lean against the rails of the bridge; the old thing is as crazy as crazy.”

But, like a girl, as he said afterwards, she must needs forget; and lo! as he poked and fathomed as he had often done before and made no new discovery, a scream rang out, and he looked up to find Inna and the rail had both vanished.

“I told you so,” said he, like a lad in a night-[p60]mare, his hair standing on end; and then in he sprang, with the forlorn hope of bringing her out. Ah! there was a dark story told of the victim once sucked in by that yawning mouth.

[Back to Contents]

[p61]
CHAPTER V.
INNA AT THE OWL’S NEST—MORE WRONG STEPS.

But that strong unseen Hand, so often stretched out in our great extremities, was stretched out now, although only for the saving of one little girl. It guided the boy to the spot where the poor little floundering bundle rose to the surface, helped him to play the hero, and to snatch her from those yawning watery jaws, that would fain have swallowed her—she was shudderingly near to her end, but after a time he grasped her tightly, and drew her to him.

At last he was landing after such a brief long struggle, his burden in his arms, on the dreary bank, little dreaming that any spectator was watching him play the man. Yet there were four—Madame Giche, her nieces, and Phil, her page; and all four came bearing down upon him, chair and all, as he laid Inna down among [p62] the rough grass a moment, to just take breath, shake himself, and then home, or the poor mite would die of cold. Her eyes were closed, and she looked very death-like, as it was.

“Take her to the house, to the Owl’s Nest,” came the command, with the tone of authority, from the depths of Madame Giche’s black hood.

“I thought of taking her home,” returned Oscar without ceremony.

“Yes, young people think a great many wrong thoughts; but if you take her to the house, you’ll be glad in an hour’s time you did an old woman’s bidding,” was the decisive reply.

Oscar caught up the insensible girl in his arms in moody silence; truth to tell, he would be glad to get her into something dry and warm; she certainly did look death-like.

“Do you know the short cut to the house?” inquired Madame Giche.

“Yes, thank you; I know.”

“Can you carry her, or shall Phil help you?”

At this, he might have been the giant-killer in the old nursery tale, carrying poor little Jack, by the way he took up his burden, and struck away for the boundary of the park; a curt [p63] “No, thank you,” ringing back over his shoulder in scant courtesy as he went.

Then Madame Giche’s party turned and went homeward by a less direct road, because of her chair, and Black Hole was again deserted. Madame Giche, however, despatched Phil to run forward with her message to the servants, that the child was to be taken in and attended to; her nieces propelling her along at a brisk canter, because she wished to be herself early on the spot. So Phil and Oscar mounted the north terrace together. Phil gave the alarm, the servants flocked out, and Long, Madame’s own maid, took possession of Inna, and bore her away to her own little room, next to her mistress’s bedchamber, on the first floor. Of course, Oscar loitered about outside, on the terrace, like a lad in a book, to wait for tidings; he was there when Madame arrived, and assisted her up the steps, he on one side, Phil on the other, because a trembling fit, brought on by the shock, was upon her. A frail little mite of a gentlewoman was she between the two sturdy lads, her nieces, like meek little handmaids, following behind them.

[p64]
“Now, boy, if you’re mad, I’m not. Come in and take off those wet garments, and put on some of Phil’s.” So she half commanded half persuaded him, still grasping his arm with her clinging fingers.

And for once the boy obeyed, and submitted to be so equipped, Phil taking him under his especial care and leading the way to his bedroom. Anon, when he descended the stairs, longing for tidings of Inna, Phil grinning slily behind him at his second self, out stepped Long from somewhere, and told him the little lady had come out of her swoon, and they had given her something comforting, and tucked her up in bed. “Madame Giche’s compliments to Dr. Willett, and they would take good care of her till to-morrow.” Then Phil appeared with a cup of steaming coffee, which Long made him drink before he left; then he set forth homeward.

Willett’s Farm was more dreary that evening than ever before, with little cheery Inna away, if she had only known it. But she was sweetly sleeping all the evening, in a bed hastily wheeled in to keep company with Long’s; and when, at midnight, she awoke to find herself there, [p65] Long bending over her, the fire-light rosy on the hearth, a shaded lamp somewhere behind her, you may be sure she felt like a story-book heroine, not herself. Still she was herself, and when she had taken some soup, been told that Oscar had gone home, and she was at the Owl’s Nest, she fell asleep, and woke the next morning to breakfast in bed. After this she dressed herself, and went down to form the acquaintance of Madame Giche and her grand-nieces.

“And so you’re none the worse for your wetting, my dear?” said her hostess, drawing her to her, and kissing her, after the little girl had gone up to her, as she sat by the log fire, and timidly said—

“Good morning, Madame Giche. Thank you for being so good to me.”

The child assured her that she was none the worse, her rosy face testifying to the same.

“Then, dear, don’t think about thanks. You are quite a pleasant surprise visitor to us—lonely people; to me and my two little shy nieces, who will be the better for having a little girl friend. Let me introduce you; they’re on the very tip-toe of waiting.”

[p66]
Then the two wee maidens came round from behind their aged relative’s chair, and were introduced as Olive and Sybil. Two dark-haired, brown-skinned damsels were they, in quaintly cut velvet frocks, with frillings of lace at throat and wrists.

“Now see, dear, it’s pouring with rain. Do you think you could be happy as our guest to-day, or must I send you home in the carriage?” questioned Madame Giche.

They were in what was called the tapestried chamber, a room lined with needlework, done by dead fingers of long ago: those of some of the ladies whose portraits Inna was to see by-and-by in the grand staircase, and the gallery running round the hall.

“I should like—what would you like me to do, ma’am?” faltered Inna.

“We should much like you to stay, dear,” returned Madame Giche, still holding her hand.

“Then, thank you, I should like to stay.”

So it was decided, and Olive and Sybil, the twin sisters, drew away their guest to look at pretty foreign ornaments, in profusion all about the room.

[p67]
“All grand-auntie’s own,” as they told her, “which we brought from abroad. You see, this isn’t our own home, but grand-auntie took it on lease from a gentleman we met abroad. Grand-auntie has lived abroad for years and years, ever since her heart was broken.” So they chatted, and enlightened Inna.

This was in the afternoon, after they had lunched with Madame Giche in the tapestried room, and had wandered away up into the picture-gallery, to look at some of the pictures.

“There, that is grand-auntie; isn’t it like? That was done abroad,” said Sybil, who was the talker. Olive was sedate and somewhat silent.

There was no mistaking the sweet aged face peering down at them from the canvas, and Inna said so.

“And that is grand-auntie’s son—he who broke her heart, you know. He disappointed her, went abroad, married, and died,” whispered the child. “Ah! whisper it,” so she expressed it, “because it is all so sad. Grand-auntie was never reconciled to him, you see, and so can never make it up in this world. He had a wife [p68] and a little boy, and grand-auntie has searched Europe over, she says, and can’t find them.”

A dark, handsome, wilful young face had Madame Giche’s son, as seen in his portrait—a young man just on the threshold of manhood. Inna stood to gaze at it, wondering what it was stirring the depths of her sensitive little heart, and filling it with a lingering pain.

“Grand-auntie says these two pictures have no right here, and calls them alien pictures among aliens, because the house isn’t ours and the pictures don’t rightly belong here; but she took her son’s portrait with her in all her travels, and her own was done abroad, and of course she brought them here.”

“His wife wrote the letter telling of his death, and that he asked grand-auntie to forgive him—and that was all. She has never been able to find the wife nor the son.”

“’Tis sad,” sighed Inna; “because she might have been so fond of the son.”

“Papa’s portrait is at Wyvern Court—that’s grand-auntie’s own place, you know. Grand-auntie says we shall be twin heiresses by-and-by.”

[p69]
“And your papa is—” here Inna flushed at her inquisitive question.

“Dead; and mamma too,” said grave-browed Olive.

“Do you like living at the farm with your uncle?” inquired sprightly Sybil.

“Yes; only I haven’t been there long—and—and a grand-uncle isn’t like a grand-auntie,” said Inna.

“And Dr. Willett hasn’t got a broken heart,” returned Sybil; “I suppose doctors don’t have broken hearts.”

Well, the three dined in state at six with Madame Giche; the children were having a rather free-and-easy time of it, for their governess, Miss Gordon, was away nursing somebody ill, and so they did very much as they listed, so long as they did not weary their aged relative.

What a charmed life was that into which Inna took her one day’s peep, and the outcome of it all was that when Miss Gordon returned she was to go up to the Owl’s Nest, and have lessons with the twins. Meantime, she often spent a day there, and was brought home of an evening in the carriage; then Sybil and [p70] Olive came for tea at the farm, and, after a delightful evening spent in roasting chestnuts and the like, went back in their turn in the carriage, the happiest girls, perhaps, alive. Thus for a time all went merrily as Christmas bells; but one morning Oscar broke the pleasant spell by announcing, “I’m not going down to Mr. Fane’s to-day,” as Inna waited for him at the door to walk as far as the Rectory gates with him, on her way to the Owl’s Nest, her seat of learning.

“Oh! I wish you were,” said Inna.

“Why?” gruffly.

“Because you ought; because ’tis right.”

“Oh, bother right! I’m not going; in fact, I can’t. Dick Gregory’s coming over; there’s to be steam threshing in the yard, no end of fun, and I can’t disappoint him. Besides, it can’t be far wrong; doing it under uncle’s very nose;” and away went the boy, out of sight of his cousin’s reproachful eyes.

When Inna came home from the Owl’s Nest in the evening, a drizzling rain had come on. Oscar was absent somewhere with Dick Gregory, the two gentlemen still out; so after tea the little girl sat down with her knitting somewhat [p71] drearily by Mrs. Grant’s side, with tears not far from her eyes, because her cousin would persist in taking these sudden and backward steps.

“I know he’s to be a farmer, but there, even farmers mustn’t be blockheads of dunces, as Oscar’ll be if he don’t alter,” said Mrs. Grant.

“To be a farmer?” inquired Inna.

“Yes, dearie, that’s why his uncle is keeping on the farm. He talked of selling or letting it years ago, when it fell to him by heirship, but he didn’t, but kept it on and on; and when his brother’s orphan came to him, he said he’d keep it for him, if I didn’t mind seeing to it a few years longer; and I said I didn’t, being a farmer’s daughter. I think I’ve made a better farmer than—than your uncle,” laughed the good woman. “So the farm is for Master Oscar.”

“So Oscar is to be a farmer,” mused the little girl, hearkening for his coming, as she sat by the wood fire, while Mrs. Grant went presently to attend to the two hard-working doctors, just come in.

In he came at last.

“Well, Master Oscar, I hope you’ve had your [p72] swing,” said the housekeeper, meeting him in the passage.

“Yes, I have; and now I am going at once to make it straight with the doctor,” he peeped into the kitchen to say to Inna. “That’s a step in the right direction, you must confess;” and was gone.

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[p73]
CHAPTER VI.
INNA’S FIRSTFRUITS—ON THE TOR.

The going in to make confession of his neglect of his lessons by Oscar, that night, was like a very firstfruits to loving little Inna, in her endeavour to influence this big, strong, wilful cousin for good. Nay, she shamed him into industry and painstaking by her own application to studies, going to and from the Owl’s Nest, “like clockwork, you little grinder!” as the boy expressed it, making his awkward admission to her on Christmas Eve, the two wreathing the house with holly and evergreens. This was something which Carlo and Smut the black cat thought it their duty to look into, to judge from the way they pryingly inspected the monster heap of greenery in the wide passage, where the boy and girl worked, making Inna laugh and laugh again, till her uncle peeped out of his study door to inquire what was the matter.

[p74]
“I’m only laughing at Carlo and Smut, uncle,” was her shamefaced reply.

“Ah! laugh and grow fat.” With this, he went in and shut the door.

“Not at all a speech to address to a lady,” remarked Mr. Barlow, crossing the hall at the moment. “But Christmas is the time for liberties of all sorts and unheard-of requests—have you any of the latter, fair lady?” and the surgeon halted behind her.

“I have one little wish, and ’tis about uncle and his den,” ventured Inna, blushing a little.

“Well, suppose you tell me, and let me be the go-between—no enviable part to play, remember, to put a finger in anybody’s pie, much more in that of a doctor and a young lady combined.”

“May I put a bit of holly in uncle’s den?”

“Make Christmas in the lion’s den, eh, Oscar! Well, I’m off; but let me make sure of my errand. I go to prefer a petition from the lamb to the lion for permission to enter his den with a flag of truce.” In he went into the study.

“In the name of the lion, I say go in, little [p75] lamb, and at once,” he came out almost immediately to say, and he stood by Oscar and the holly heap, while Fairy Inna went on her magic mission.

After that evening the doctor’s study doors were open to Inna once and again; she tapped timidly for permission to go in and make up his fire on the cold evenings which came in with the new year, when snow lay upon the ground, and Mrs. Grant told her that most likely her studious, absorbed uncle was sitting with his fire gone out, and she herself dared not intrude to replenish it.

“Come in, dear,” he would say at such times. “You’ll not disturb me.” And before the winter was over he named her his “Little Salamander;” and once or twice peeped out and called for her when she did not come.

Well, winter was over at last, and March on its blustering way; the lambs in the fields, the colts in their paddock, and young exultant life everywhere. It was holiday time with Inna, for Miss Gordon was away with that invalid somebody again. Dick Gregory was still running wild in his happy banishment from school; [p76] Jenny, alias Trapper, was running wild with him whenever she could persuade the dear old lady who played the part of governess to her to forego her tales of ill-learnt lessons. A sad dunce was busy Mr. Gregory allowing his merry little daughter to grow up to be.

Well, with so many holiday keepers, Oscar dared to join hands, and to take French leave, as he called it, in plotting and planning an expedition to the Tor without asking permission of his uncle. Not that he anticipated a refusal, but just because young people will persist in thinking stolen waters are sweet—sweeter than any other waters. Ah, well! we know what the wise man says about the bread of deceit; it points out much the same moral.

But about the Tor. This was a high elevation—almost a mountain compared with the surrounding hills for miles—whence the sea could be descried, a misty mystery, not so far away; and around which sudden fogs wreathed themselves, shutting in those unfortunate enough to be on its heights in a rare tangle of perplexity when it thus chose to wrap itself up in this sullen mood. For there were ugly holes, pitfalls, and [p77] crevices in its ragged sides, making its descent a serious thing, except for adepts in climbing and scrambling down, even in the fair light of day. Moreover, there was on one side a disused flint-quarry, called by the ominous name of the Ugly Leap, because, once in the remote past, a shepherd boy, seeking a wandering lamb, had lost his way in the fog, having doubled and turned in his course unknowingly, and finally had fallen over the quarry side. Ah, well! he lost his life; and so his sad tale was told, and the Ugly Leap, with its suggestive name, bore witness to the same.

There were sea-fogs which swept up, and made the Tor so dangerous, Mrs. Grant affirmed; but Oscar always said “Fudge!” to this—a pet word of his, as he did on that fair March morning, when not a cloud or an atom of fog was to be seen anywhere, but all was cold and brilliant, as some March mornings are.

“Just the morning for the old Tor,” the lad said decisively: “the views splendid, sea and all.”

“But how about school and your uncle?” inquired Mrs. Grant.

[p78]
“Oh, they’ll do very well, if you don’t split upon me. I mean to go, and Inna won’t be mean enough to go with me and play tell-tale-tit afterwards; and besides, uncle wouldn’t refuse me this one day, just to show Inna the Tor.”

“But suppose we were to wait and ask him?” suggested Inna.

“I can’t wait. Dick Gregory and his sister are coming over. We shall make such a jolly party, and there’ll be more fun to steal a march upon someone:” this was Oscar’s reasoning.

Perhaps Inna ought to have stood out against this stealing a march, as it was for her the expedition was said to be planned, but she said nothing; she had set her heart upon seeing the Tor, and realising somewhat of the thrilling sensation of an Alpine climber; and she was but nine—no great age for unerring wisdom. “Young people’s heads are renowned for folly.” Mrs. Grant said something like this when Dick and Jenny mustered at the gates, and the four set off, fortified with a good supply of sandwiches and other nice things in a satchel, which Oscar swung over his shoulder, traveller fashion; and so they started. The two little dwellers at the [p79] Owl’s Nest looked out at them longingly at the park gates, as they passed that way; not far from the Black Hole, with its thrilling memories, did their road lead them. Then away on through young corn, and other crops that dared put forth their greenness in the cold health-giving March air; and anon they had reached the Tor.

Up, up, still mounting up, they went, putting their best foot before, as their two guides admonished the girls, giving them many a tug and many a pull; and when they were half-way up, down they sat in the sunshine, and ate a lunch picnic, taking sundry sips of cold water from a bottle Oscar insisted on bringing, because he said climbing was such thirsty work in the clear cold air of the old Tor. Well, after this they went mounting up again, sometimes, like spiders, on all fours.

“It does take the breath out of one,” said Dick, tugging at Trapper, who, girl-like, kept slipping back, Oscar doing the same with Inna.

Inna, the Londoner, was a very poor climber; but once on the summit, what exultant delight was there!—the blue heavens above their heads; [p80] the sunny landscape, in its dainty spring dress, at their feet; the Owl’s Nest in the distance not nearly so imposing to look upon seen from that elevation; the sea—they could even discern somewhat of its shimmering upheaving, in this clearest of clear March mornings.

Dick, who was gifted with far-reaching sight, affirmed he could see the sails of the fishing-smacks, but none of the others could; still they all clapped their hands, and sang in a wild chorus:

“I mean to be a sailor,” said Oscar, when the singing ended. Silence reigned on the old Tor, save for the blustering wind, which played havoc with the girls’ hair, and clutched at all their hats.

“Oh, Oscar! and uncle intends you to be a farmer!” cried Inna, her tongue running away with her better judgment, which would have whispered her to think twice before she spoke once. But her heart was stirred with pity for Oscar, and for her uncle, knowing what Mrs. Grant had said about the boy’s future.

[p81]
“And so Mother Peggy has been whispering that into your ear,” was the scoffing reply.

“Mrs. Grant told me so; but I don’t know that there was any whispering about it,” returned the little girl.

“Well, she told you what’ll never be. I mean to be a sailor, so there!”

“To be a farmer is no bad berth,” said sensible Dick.

“Oh yes, for them who take to it; but that’s not I. I mean to be a sailor, like my father before me.”

“Oh! but, Oscar, what will uncle say?” cried Inna.

“Oh, he’ll get over it. Every boy has a right to choose his own profession, and he knows it.”

“Yes; but ’tisn’t a right every boy goes in for. I meant to be a farmer, and my father set his heel upon that notion, and said I must be a doctor,” said Dick.

“Well?” and Oscar waited to hear more.

“I shall be a doctor; no good comes of a boy going on trying to go against his father’s way or will.”

[p82]
“No,” said the other, somewhat taken aback; “a father is different from an uncle.”

“Yes,” was Dick’s retort. “I suppose an uncle would expect a little more yielding of number one to number two.”

“Why?” growled Oscar, not liking Dick’s views of the case.

“Because of gratitude. I suppose gratitude ought to have a voice with a fellow about his father’s wishes; but it ought to have two voices with those of an uncle playing a father’s part.”

“Well, an uncle’s wish ought not to make one wreck one’s life; and that’s what I shall do if I am a farmer.”

“Phew! you’d be more likely to be wrecked as a sailor now,” replied Dick loftily.

“Well, I mean to stand up for my rights,” contended Oscar.

“Better not, if you value your peace of mind. Since I’ve given up youth’s charming dream of farming—ha! how the words rhyme!—I’ve been as happy as a peg-top,” answered Dick.

The girls smiled.

“Oh yes,” grumbled Oscar, “well enough for you to laugh. You girls never have to [p83] choose or wish—you always have all you want.”

“Oh, come, Willett; little friend there could contradict that, I know,” said Dick. “But we didn’t come up here to discuss our wants and wishes. Suppose we look about a bit, and see the sights. Look, Miss Inna, that jutting rock yonder, by the sea, is Swallow’s Cliff, and behind it is a little bay;” and then he drew her away to look down the Ugly Leap. A dizzy height it was to gaze down from above, with a deep gorge at its foot, in which a stream of water gurgled, said by some to have a connection with Black Hole, the lad told her; over which Inna shuddered and turned away.

Then they all sat down, and lunched in earnest—a late lunch, for the afternoon was fast slipping away—and took more sips from Oscar’s water-bottle. And while they chatted, laughed, and loitered on foot, for it was becoming bitterly cold to sit down any longer, up came the enemy, from the sea it may be, behind their backs; at any rate, it was there with them—ere they realised it the mist was come. Surely the old Tor wasn’t going to turn nasty and ill-natured [p84] to-day, of all days! they said, in startled dismay; and Oscar affirmed he had seen the fog settle and rise, settle and rise, as fickle as any girl’s temper. “’Twas nothing,” he said; “it would lift.”

But it was something, and it did not lift; instead, it shut them in so that they could not see one another’s faces; and oh! the girls’ teeth chattered with cold. Worse, snow began to fall—blinding snow, which enveloped them quite. Well for them that they had put on fur-lined cloaks and overcoats, but——

“I say, we’re in for it!” cried Dick; that was when they stood deep in snow, and the cold was chilling them to the very bone.

“Don’t you think you could steer us down out of this, Willett? You know the old villain better than I do. We shall freeze!”

And Oscar said, “No; better freeze than lose one’s way, and——” They knew he was thinking of the shepherd lad and the Ugly Leap.

“Still, something must be done,” urged Dick; then the two lads made the shivering girls move and spring up and down, and hoped that the storm would clear. But it did not.

[p85]
Would anyone come to find them? they wondered.

“Well, I’ll make the attempt to go down and get a lantern, and bring back someone,” volunteered Oscar at last. “I don’t mind for myself, but I can’t play guide for——”

“Ay, I know,” agreed Dick; “to be hampered with other people’s lives is a great responsibility. Well, take your own life in your hands and go, and I’d take mine and go with you; but——”

“You stay there with the girls,” growled Oscar, and gripped their hands, as in parting, all the way round.

They let him go a few steps away, and his shadowy form was lost. The girls clung to Dick, too cold, too scared, too much as in a dreadful dream, to cry—ay, too much benumbed. The boy shouted, Oscar responded; once and again shouts were exchanged, then came a scream—a scream so shrill that it seemed to cleave their poor failing hearts in two—and then silence, blank silence, save for the howl of the wind as it whirled the snow. Dick shouted himself hoarse, but there came no answer. Something terrible must have happened to Oscar.

[Back to Contents]

[p86]
CHAPTER VII.
OSCAR LOST—A FRUITLESS SEARCH.

The dead silence that followed, save for the hooting of the storm, was more terrible, if that could be, than Oscar’s scream, for it told of what? They did not say, but their hearts throbbed out what they feared.

“Oh, Dick! what shall we do?” cried the little girls, clinging to him.

He was a boy so strong, so brave—surely he could think of something. Well, he did think of something, but that was after they had shouted “Oscar! Oscar!” till the storm itself seemed the name. This is what he thought of.

“There is nothing to be done but for me to go and look for him.”

It sounded like a miserably forlorn hope, and the girls thought so; for they clung to him, crying, “Oh, Dick, Dick!” and almost unnerved him.

[p87]
“Well, I can do no good up here, and it seems heartless to hear that cry, and not to go a step to see what can be done. You know he ventured his life for us.”

“Yes; but throwing away your life wouldn’t save his if—if it isn’t lost,” faltered fond little Jenny.

“No,” returned her brother; “and, God willing, I don’t mean to throw away my life.”

They were silent for a moment, while the storm raved on. I think they all breathed a sort of wordless prayer, then Dick spoke.

“Now, you girls must stand by each other, and comfort each other; and, whatever you do, don’t sit down and give in to sleep. Good-bye.”

There was no wringing of hands; the three could not bear it with that scream of Oscar ringing in their ears.

He went away, his shadowy figure vanishing in the obscurity almost immediately, as Oscar’s had done. Then the two girls were alone. Shout after shout rang reassuringly back to them, and they screamed back theirs in reply. True, Dick’s shouts were farther away each time, but no screams followed; then there came a [p88] break, and they heard nothing. Very, very much alone they were now.

Well, down in the village people were shutting doors, closing shutters, and heaping up fires, and saying what a cold snowy ending it was to such a fair day, as they made themselves cosy, little dreaming there were two small wanderers up on the old Tor in the storm. The two children could picture it all, and wondered what was doing at the farm: whether they were in a great fright about them—Mrs. Grant, Dr. Willett, and Mr. Barlow. Jenny thought too of what they were saying and doing at her home, but oh! where was Dick, where was Oscar? How the minutes lengthened into hours in the cold, the weariness, ay, even drowsiness. But they must not yield to sleep—Dick had warned them of this; they knew that sleep up there in that extreme cold meant death. What should they do?

Oh! what was that? An ugly shadow of some monster beast looming upon them from out that vast whirling waste of snow. This was when hope was very low in their hearts; it seemed that it was an hour or two since Dick [p89] had left them, and no help had come—nothing; and they had pictured themselves two little maidens, stiff, stark, dead, and cold, found by someone, at some time, up there all alone. Now here was this apparition bearing down upon them. They shrieked and clung to each other; they could not move; they had no boy to fight for them. Fight! Why, it was dear old Carlo from the farm. How he barked, and whined, and caressed them! They could but laugh and cry in the same breath at his funny antics. And this laughter and crying, and the efforts they made to keep on their feet under his wild hugs and leaps, stirred their blood; and with this, hope leaped up within them again.

“Oh, Carlo! where are they all? are they coming?” cried Inna, her arms about his neck.

At which he licked her face, barked, and seemed to hearken, as if he too wanted someone. Why, surely the storm was clearing: they could see the glimmer of a lantern bobbing, now here, now there, as if someone was seeking and searching; and when Carlo barked a shout followed, and the dog bounded away, with his back covered with snow, like a very Father Christmas [p90] of a dog. They did not think of what they were like, with help coming—an assurance, as they took it, that Dick’s life had not been thrown away. Back came Carlo, and with him Dr. Willett, Mr. Barlow, and Sam the carter from the farm, and—and that was all. Where was Dick? Both children rushed into the arms of the rescuers.

“Thank Heaven!” said Dr. Willett, pressing his snowy little niece close to him.

“Thank Heaven!” muttered Mr. Barlow over Jenny, just such another snowball.

“But where is Dick—where is Oscar?”

“Lost, both lost!” sobbed the two poor little troubled hearts, as they poured out their story.

“No, no; boys are not so easily lost,” said Mr. Barlow, he and the doctor shaking the snow from the cloaks of their two small charges, and preparing to bid “Good night” to the old Tor. “’Tis true we’ve seen nothing of them, but that proves nothing—they may be at the farm and in bed by this time.” But in an aside he whispered to the doctor, “I don’t like Oscar’s scream, though;” and the doctor shook his head, as over [p91] an obstinate patient, when he scarcely knew what to do with him.

“Do you take the lantern, Sam,” went on the surgeon to the carter, “and search about for them. Of course, even give the Ugly Leap a call, and make inquiry for them; and when I’ve played the polite man, and seen the doctor well on his way with these young ladies, I’ll join you—two heads are better than one even in the matter of looking up two boys that we’re not sure are lost on a snowy night.”

With this, Sam marched off with the lantern, and Carlo with him, as if he understood the plan of operation, and that the lads were missing, and he must play his part in finding them.

“Better walk, dears; ’twill stir your blood,” said Dr. Willett at starting; and so they did for a time, but before they reached the farm they were glad to be carried, like two small over-done children as they were.

By the time they had reached the foot of the Tor the snow clouds had quite cleared, and the moon shone. Ah! upon what were those pale beams falling on those snowy heights? Not upon Dick, for when the party reached the farm [p92] they found that he was there, safe in bed, after being held almost a prisoner by Mrs. Grant. “You see, sir, he was that mad to be off again, when he heard you and Mr. Barlow had started for the Tor, that I had to shake some sense into him, and put him to bed—the best place for him, too, for he was ready to drop,” so the housekeeper told her master. Mr. Gregory, too, had just arrived to make inquiries for his two missing ones, so the three doctors turned into the snowy night again, to follow in Sam’s and Carlo’s wake, and hear of what success they had met with in their search.

None; nothing; nobody: this was Sam’s three-worded account of his failure—for it was failure—while Carlo hung his head, dropped his tail forlornly, and whined like a dog baffled.

He, Sam, had been to the Ugly Leap, and beat about everywhere he could think of, but could find no trace of the boy. All the dreary round he and the two doctors went again; all the long night they were out in the snow; but it was a fruitless quest—they were fain to return home in the grey light of the morning, with only this bare certainty, that Oscar was lost—to them [p93] at least. Dr. Willett was very sore at heart, as he and Carlo walked a little apart from the others of the returning party, the dog abject and depressed in attitude as he trotted by his side, as if conscious of what his master was feeling.

Mr. Gregory looked upon his sleeping children and returned home; the others retired for an hour’s rest before going out to their sick patients. Besides, there were new search parties to be organised. To the Ugly Leap went the doctor again as the day wore on; the dark waters of the gorge were searched, so far as such a mysterious stream could be searched, emerging from the heart of the earth, and only flowing a few yards, it may be, in the light of day, ere it dived away into the darkness and secrecy from which it had come. Ah! there was neither sign nor token of the missing boy, there or elsewhere. Nothing, nowhere—these were the words that went the round of Cherton, with their dreary hopelessness, as the days flowed on, and tidings went here and there of the lost boy, while his description was sent to the police authorities, far and wide.

But there came no answer as day succeeded [p94] day, and March blustered itself away, and sweet fickle April took its place; all was silence, as if the lad had indeed vanished from the earth. Had he?

Inna went daily for lessons to the Owl’s Nest. It was well to get away from the house, Mrs. Grant said, for the child moped and grew pale under the suspense and mystery of what had befallen this strong, wilful, good-natured cousin of hers, whom she had been gathering to her as the brother she had long sighed for. True, Jenny came over to see her, for she too was lonely, with Dick gone back to school; but what could Jenny understand about her heartache?—she with her brother safe at school, while Oscar, Inna’s all but brother, was nobody knew where.

“I wish he hadn’t played truant that day, and I wish I hadn’t let him:” this was the burdened little plaint, making her heart so heavy, and which she ventured to pour out to Mr. Barlow one day.

“Oh, my dear little lady, don’t think that what happened came of his playing truant. I know it isn’t a pleasant thought that there was [p95] that little hitch of underhand doings; and if he’d only mentioned the going to the Tor, we could have told you all snow was coming, thanks to the glass. But, mind me, we don’t get our deserts in that way, or we should be always having a whipping. And I never give up hope with a patient till the last remedy has been tried and fails; and, remember, there is no last remedy with a wise unfailing Providence.” This was the surgeon’s reply.

“Oh, yes. But suppose he is dead, was killed, washed under the Tor by the dark waters of the brook at the Ugly Leap,” sighed the child.

“Oh, well,” was the answer, “we can suppose almost anything—at least, a little imaginative girl can; but suppose he is dead—which I do not—dead or alive, he is in God’s good keeping,” was the reply.

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[p96]
CHAPTER VIII.
AT THE OWL’S NEST—THE SONG—THE SURPRISE.

Inna now had two new thoughts to ponder over. “Remember, there is no last remedy with a wise unfailing Providence;” “Oscar in God’s good keeping.” They came to her with thrilling freshness one day in the gallery at Owl’s Nest, as she wandered from picture to picture, musing and dreaming.

She was often at the Owl’s Nest. Besides going to and fro to lessons, Madame Giche invited her to stay there for days together; it was good for her little nieces to have a child companion, and it was good for the little girl herself, for, as has been said, she moped and grew pale over Oscar’s disappearance. So, although they missed her at the farm, they were glad to send her there. Jenny Gregory was invited also: quite a bevy of young people did the four make, wandering through the old house, not intruding upon its aged mistress, save at stated [p97] times and seasons, but making a pleasant holiday of it; notwithstanding lessons with Miss Gordon again, and the strumming through of many scales and exercises on the piano. They never tired of roaming the terraces, where the peacocks eyed them askance, and spread out their beautiful tails at them as in proud disdain—those walking flowers of girls, who seemed to vie with them and their plumage in their pretty bright spring dresses.

Glorious weather had followed Oscar’s disappearance. It was May now, and the other little girls were out in the park, gathering daisies, and having a romp with Carlo, who would often come self-invited when Inna was there. But, Inna had stolen away from them, for the rare treat of being alone in the gallery, to admire and think about the pictures. That of Madame Giche’s son had a strange interest for her, a stranger picture in a strange house, save for that of his mother keeping it company, like loving hearts that could not be separated. Those dark, smiling, beautiful eyes of his thrilled her through; she could not say why they always made her think of her father and mother; but then, [p98] perhaps, it was because they were strangers in the land of beautiful pictures. At any rate, the eyes seemed to belong to her, to follow her, as picture eyes will, with a strange wistfulness; she could but wonder that the possessor of such beautiful eyes could ever give his mother pain, part from her in anger, and break her heart. Of this last he never knew; he sent her a loving message at the end, begging her forgiveness; and she gave it to him, so far as it can be accorded to the absent and the dead—but it broke her heart. Then followed her search for his little son, whom she had never found. If life had no losses, no mistakes, she wondered where this missing little one was, in that indistinct shadowy uncertainty where Oscar was. Would either ever be found?

Outside lay the park, bathed in afternoon sunshine; she could see it all from the side window, and her young companion idling by the moat, where the marsh marigolds were blooming bright and yellow in the sunshine. There came a rustle as of a garment, and Madame Giche, leaning on her gold-headed cane, appeared, travelling towards her.

[p99]
“You here, my dear?” said she, in her gentle way, laying her hand on the little girl’s bright head.

“Yes, Madame Giche.”

“Wouldn’t you be better out in the sunshine with the rest, rather than up here moping?”

“I wasn’t moping, dear Madame Giche. I was looking at the pictures, and thinking about them;” and the child gave a little forced laugh over her confession.

“Well, what do you think of them all? Now, which do you think is the handsomest face here?” And Madame Giche gave a sweeping glance round, as she stood leaning on her stick.

“This is the face I like best,” was the child’s reply, glancing up at that stranger face, “save for that of his mother.”

“This is the face I like best, my dear, but he broke my heart. Do you know who it is?” inquired the mother, a thrill in her voice.

“Yes, dear Madame Giche—your son,” returned Inna, with a child’s sensitive shame at having listened to so much from Sybil.

“Then—then, you know his story?”

“Yes; Sybil told me. Forgive me, dear [p100] Madame Giche, if I ought not to have heard it. Sybil said I might; it was no secret, when we were talking of it.” Inna’s small fingers grasped Madame Giche’s thin ones.

“Yes, dear; it is no secret.”

The child stroked the hand she held, wondering what she ought to say next, a tear trickling down her cheek; and Madame Giche saw it.

“Are those tears for me, little Inna?” she asked gently.

“Yes.” A shy “Yes” it was.

“My dear, that will never do—young people’s sunshine should not be overshadowed by old people’s clouds. Now, do you know what I want you to do?”

“No, dear Madame Giche.”

“To come down and sing to me.”

The beautiful mellow-toned piano from the drawing-room had been removed to the tapestried chamber, and a new one sent from London to fill its place. Quite little musical parties did the aged lady have, now and then, of an evening, in the gloaming, the four children, with lights at the piano, trilling in their bird-like voices some little snatch of a juvenile song, duet, trio, and [p101] sometimes a quartette, their nimble fingers wandering among the keys the while in a tangle of melody. But of all the four, their aged listener loved best to hear Inna sing: her voice was so plaintive, so expressive. The charm lay in this: that she was always thinking of her mother at such times, and her heart seemed to speak in her voice. It did to-night, when she sat down to the piano, her gentle old friend on the hearth by the smouldering log fire.

“Sing that little thing I heard you practising so nicely yesterday,” came to her across the room. So, with a tinkling little prelude, she began—

“Yes, dear; it’s not so much what we are, or where we are, but what we’re doing, that makes a life of usefulness and fulness,” said Madame Giche, when the ditty came to an end.

“Yes; in filling others’ lives we fill our own. Is that what you mean, Madame Giche?” inquired Inna, leaving the piano, and coming to kneel on the hearth.

“Yes. The daisy wasn’t thinking of what she was doing, but rather of herself; seeking great things for herself, not seeing—poor little thing!—that in just blooming where she was placed she was in a way blessing heaven and earth, and making her own crown; and missing that, her life was a failure.”

Just then in came the three little girls from the park, Miss Gordon with them.

“Oh, grand-auntie, we’ve brought such a lovely bunch of marsh marigolds,” cried Sybil. [p103] “Jenny has them;” and Jenny came forward, dropping on one knee to present them, and tossing her hat on the floor.

The kindly old lady patted the yellow-haired fluffy head, taking the flowers from her, and touching their petals as in fond reverence.

“Children, at the sight of these flowers I always see myself a child again,” said she, a sweet far-away light in her dark eyes.

“And what do you see, grand-auntie—what were you like?” inquired nimble-tongued Sybil.

“Yes, dear Madame Giche, what were you like?” echoed Jenny.

“My dear, I was just what Sybil is now. I half fancy, sometimes, that it must be myself, when I see her running about on the terraces.”

“But your home wasn’t here, grand-auntie,” said Olive, surprised out of her silence.

“No, dear; ’tis the house recalls me to myself. Wyvern Court was very different from this.”

“Was that the name of your home, Madame Giche?” inquired matter-of-fact Jenny, out of the silence that followed.

“The dearest spot on earth to you—wasn’t it, grand-auntie?” prattled Sybil.

[p104]
“Yes; our childhood’s home is that, I suppose, be it a cottage or a castle, revisited in imagination at life’s close,” sighed the old lady.

“And that was your—your womanhood’s home—as well,” replied Sybil, hesitating a little to find a suitable word.

“Yes, dear; there I had all my joys and sorrows.”

“And now?” whispered Inna, who was kneeling by her side, stroking one of her soft wrinkled hands.

“It is life’s sweet after-glow with me; peace after pain and sorrow, like the light in the sky after sunset.”

“Oh, grand-auntie, how beautiful that must be to you if it is at all like that!” cried Sybil, pointing at a distant window. Outside lay the park, the copse, and surrounding landscape, all aglow with the changeful tints which follow a fair sun-setting.

“Yes, dear; and life’s after-glow is even more beautiful than that; for instead of being the blending of day and night together, it is the blending of day with day.”

“Day with day?” lisped thoughtful Olive.

[p105]
“Yes; life’s beautiful days here with life’s long beautiful day hereafter,” returned Madame Giche, her eyes glistening with her own sweet thoughts. “But come, dears, the present time is the day with which you have to do, with all its hopes and opportunities. I want you young larks to sing me the quartette we were talking of the other day. Where is Miss Gordon?”

“I am here, Madame Giche,” came from a distant window. “Do you require my services?”

“Do you play the accompaniment, and let me fancy myself—where shall I say, Sybil?”

“Sailing down the river in the park by moonlight, the same as we and Miss Gordon did last summer,” was the ready answer.

Madame Giche laughed.

“But that would be too romantic. Fancy what it would be to come back from such fairyland doings to find myself an old woman, sitting on her hearth, with four magpies chattering around her, asking her to make herself ridiculous.”

“I don’t think you could be that,” said flattering Jenny.

Then the four swept away to the piano, like a breath of a sweet spring breeze, where Miss [p106] Gordon played, and the quartette was rendered fairly well, Madame Giche sitting, a listening shadow, on the hearth.

“Thank you, dears,” said she, when it came to an end, and a servant announced, “Mary from the farm is come for the two young ladies, Madame.”

“Was it anything like sailing down the river?” asked Sybil, as they all clustered round her.

“It was very sweet and beautiful,” said the old lady kindly; then she kissed her two guests “good night,” and said, “No; not so late,” to her two nieces, when they pleaded to accompany them as far as the five-barred gate.

Jenny was really a guest at the farm for a few days, sleeping with Inna, but spending most of her time at the Owl’s Nest.

It was just what Inna needed, with her pale cheeks and troubled heart.

“If I only knew where Oscar was, I think I could bear it better,” was her cry. But Dr. Willett had to bear his ifs and regrets in silence, as best he could, without change or comfort from anything or anybody, save the going out among his patients. His fine face grew very grave [p107] and sorrowful, his hair was whitening too, as the days glided on into weeks, and no tidings came of the missing boy.

Down the quiet shadowy drive from the Owl’s Nest went the two little girls and their attendant. Inna little knew to what she was going, tripping along and talking to Jenny. Clear of the drive, their path home lay in the moonlight, and not far had they gone when a little wailing mew came to them from behind a hedge, and then a small white and black kitten emerged therefrom, and came and rubbed herself round Inna’s feet. She caught it up and fondled it, the knowing little pleader mewing such a pleased mew then, that you may be sure it went straight to the little girl’s heart.

“Oh, if I might keep it as my very own!” she cried; “but I’m afraid that Smut wouldn’t like it.”

“I’m afraid Mrs. Grant wouldn’t like it,” said Mary, as a stronger objection.

“Take the kitten home and ask her,” advised Jenny; “and if she says ‘No,’ you could but ask your uncle, and if he says ‘Yes,’ she wouldn’t dare to say ‘No.’”

[p108]
“I don’t think she would wish to say ‘No’ to anything that she thought would make uncle or me happy,” mused Inna aloud, and in this happy confidence she hugged the foundling to her, and went on her way through the moonlight, just as if she was not going home to the unlooked-for, that which would stir her poor little heart to its centre.

How would she bear it?

[Back to Contents]

[p109]
CHAPTER IX.
OSCAR’S RETURN—THE MYSTERY CLEARED—ON THE TOR AGAIN.

How did Inna bear it?

As she bounded into the fire-lit kitchen, to prefer her request to Mrs. Grant about her kitten, there sat Oscar by the fire, in his own especial chair, just as if he had sat there nightly for the last six weeks: save for this, that he had an ugly scar on his forehead scarcely healed, that his face was thin and wan, and that he wore somebody’s clothes, not his own—those in which he had vanished.

“Oscar!” she cried, and sat down and wept over her joy as if it were a sorrow, like a very excited little maiden—that is how she bore her surprise. Mary knew nothing of his arrival; he had come after she had left to bring the little girls home. The poor kitten went flying somewhere, anywhere to be out of the way of such sobs and tears.

[p110]
“Master—Dr. Willett,” called the housekeeper from out of the open kitchen door, wondering what effect the sight of Oscar would have upon the two doctors, who had to bear the sight of so much.

“Yes—what is it?” came wandering back up the passage. The speaker followed close behind, Mr. Barlow behind him. Oscar come back, Inna crying over it. Well, with the coming of the two doctors she soon dried her eyes and inquired for her kitten.

“Kitten, dear?” Mrs. Grant thought there was something a little wrong with her head still, just a cobweb not cleared away, because of her crying so, you know. Not so the doctor, for there came a piteous prolonged mew, and up scrambled the kitten, inside one of the legs of the doctor’s trousers. She had missed her way, you see, but had chosen a friend next best to Inna.

“Well, you’re no beauty,” quoth the doctor, drawing her down from her hiding-place, and holding her on his arm to stroke her; “and you’re nothing to cry over, lost or found.”

Dr. Willett put her into Inna’s arms, where [p111] the little thing nestled, as if she knew her rightful place already.

“I didn’t cry over the kitten, uncle; I cried over Oscar,” said the little girl.

Mr. Barlow had drawn Oscar from the room and himself stayed with him, to keep him there.

“Where is Oscar?—it isn’t a dream, is it?” and Inna’s eyes swept the room.

“Dream? no, my dear; he was here just now. Isn’t it his rightful place?” spoke the doctor drily.

“Yes, only—only——”

“Ah! yes, only you want to know where he has been, what he has been doing, and what right he had to come back in this matter-of-fact way, when you had been imagining all sorts of unlikely things about him; and so you cried over it, to give the whole thing the girl-like touch it lacked. Ha—ha!”

This was Mr. Barlow’s speech, putting his head in at the kitchen door, to see how they were getting on.

“Yes, come in, both of you,” said the doctor, that sorrowful gravity lifted from his face already.

“Well, my boy, you have taken a heavy [p112] weight from my heart and added years to my life by coming back,” was what he said, drawing the lad to him, and laying his hand on his shoulder.

“Have you missed me so much, uncle?” asked Oscar.

“Missed!” A look passed over Dr. Willett’s face, which Inna, watching, thought very like that on her father’s face when he kissed her “Good-bye,” before she came down to the farm.

“Missed you, Master Oscar! yes, we’re all missed, even when ’tis a boy we’re keeping the farm for,” was Mrs. Grant’s unlooked-for remark.

“Very silly of Mrs. Grant, to bring up that question of the farm on the first night of the boy’s return,” observed the doctor, when he and his friend were sipping their coffee together, the young folk gone to bed, the budget of Oscar’s adventures to be opened on the morrow.

“You see, dear,” said that lady to Inna, after Jenny was asleep; and Inna’s eyes were sadly wakeful. “You see, dear, I wanted Master Oscar to see, while his heart was tender, on this first night, that as he had been missed and wanted by his uncle, it ought to be ‘give and take’ with him, when I spoke about the farm.”

[p113]
“Give and take?”

“Yes, Miss Inna, give and take; it’s that as smooths life’s rough places. Master Oscar has nothing to give his uncle for all he’s doing for him, but his will—letting go that foolish nonsense about the sea. He ought to give up the sea and take to the farm—that would be his giving and taking; and his uncle would give him the farm, and take his—his obedience to his wishes, as a sort of harvest of love after all the years of sowing.”

“Sowing?” said Inna.

“Yes, the doctor has sown a deal of trouble, thought, and anxiety over this young brother of his, at last lost at sea—that’s Oscar’s father, you know. I think, in his quiet way, he’s set his heart on the boy making him some return, in the way of love and gratitude; and besides, he says, putting him into the farm is the best thing he can do for him, leaving out the love, obedience, and gratitude, and——” But Inna was asleep.

Well, the next evening’s tea-drinking, over which Inna presided, was a sort of state tea-drinking at which Dr. Willett sat down, a thing he had scarcely ever been known to do before. [p114] But then, Oscar was to tell his adventures during tea; a poor, thin, hollow-eyed narrator was he, who had been down well-nigh to death’s door.

The tea-table was gay with spring flowers, and through the open window came a chorus of sweet sounds, the bleating of lambs from the meadows, the lowing of the cows being driven home to their milking, the song of birds, the hum of insects—bees and gnats—the one toiling, the others dancing in idleness: types and shadows of the human race, as Mr. Barlow remarked. To which Jenny added, “Yes; and of boys and girls—the girls working, the boys idle.”

But to this there was no time to make reply, for Inna had supplied them all with tea, and Oscar had cleared his throat like a story-teller in a book, and was waiting to begin.

“Well, you know when I started, and you shouted, and I shouted back,” said he.

“Yes, we know—hurry up!” spoke Jenny, like an unmannerly boy.

“I went on first-rate for a time, then I came to a full stop, for I was at the Ugly Leap; and before I knew it I was over.”

“Not much of a full stop; I should say a [p115] note of exclamation was dashed in there,” remarked Mr. Barlow.

“I don’t think I uttered a sound; I think I was too horrified—that is as girlish, I know, as if I’d screamed!”

“Oh! Oscar, you did scream: ’twas that which told us something was wrong,” put in the interrupting damsel Jenny.

“And no wonder. I’m not sure I shouldn’t have screamed myself; and boys are but mortal, the same as doctors,” remarked Mr. Barlow.

“But not nearly so wise,” interrupted Jenny again.

“Nor yet so talkative as young ladies; and if present company will excuse me, I should like some of them to be quiet,” said Oscar.

“Well, my boy, after the scream——” prompted Mr. Barlow.

“Well, if I did scream, after that there was a silence and the full stop, for I fell to the bottom; and when I came to my senses I was jolting along in a caravan—such jolting, and I full of pain and dizziness. That was a ride to town, and no mistake—Bulverton, the town was called, where they took me to a hospital.”

[p116]
“Who?” inquired irrepressible Jenny.

“The gipsies—I was in a gipsy caravan; they were passing the road at the bottom of the Leap, hurrying away from justice of some sort, I should say, and, hearing me moan, were humane enough to pick me up out of my snowy bed, and carry me along with them. By the time they reached Bulverton I was unconscious, in a high fever, and I don’t know what. They made it all right with the hospital people, somehow, that they had no hand in bringing me to the state I was in. I was terribly knocked about—a blow on my head, besides this on my forehead, a broken arm, and a good shaking generally. ’Twas a wonder I escaped with my life, the doctors told me, when I came out of my bad turn—you know the dodge, Mr. Barlow; you all make a miracle of what you do for sick people.” Mr. Barlow shook his fist at him.

“I kept who I was a secret, though, and wouldn’t tell my name. I didn’t want to make a fuss here, you know, but on the last morning it all came out. One of the doctors saw your description of me, uncle, and the police came ferreting me out as well, I believe; and so I’d nothing [p117] to do but throw off my disguise, and come home like a bad penny. I daresay you’ll have a bill, uncle, for sticking-plaster and so on.”

“Which I shall be happy to pay, Oscar,” said the grave doctor.

This was Oscar’s story. Well, the bill came from the Bulverton hospital, and was duly settled by Dr. Willett, and all things fell into their usual train, save that Oscar, being unfit for study, and Dick away at school, had rather a dull time of it.

The weather was glorious, and of course he roamed about, and went some excursions with Inna, Jenny, and the donkey and cart, the twins from the Owl’s Nest sometimes swelling the number; but an outing with a pack of girls, as he said, was but a very tame affair, and often he sighed for midsummer and Dick.

Both came at last, as all good things are said to do to the waiting ones, and the meeting on the Lakely platform was almost overwhelming as Dick sprang out among them all; Oscar and the four girls clustering round him like bees, while Rameses, with the cart at a respectful distance, stretched out his neck, and brayed such [p118] a note of welcome, that the attendant porter laughed till he held his sides. With Dick’s coming, the state of affairs looked up—here, there, and everywhere went the two boys, not always with a string of girls after them, as Dick slightingly expressed it.

Once, according to their own words, they took revenge upon the old Tor, and had picnics upon its wind-swept heights in a body; but where the revenge lay they themselves best knew. But the girls looked down the Ugly Leap with awe, Oscar, with his scarred forehead, looking down with the rest. A wonderfully clear view they had of the sea and the Swallow’s Cliff.

“I say,” cried Dick, the happy thought striking him as he gazed, “couldn’t we take the girls over as far as the cliffs and the sea? They’ve never been there, you know, Willett, and ’twouldn’t be too far, if we took old Rameses and the cart.”

“Just a nice little outing,” agreed Oscar; and down they all sat in council to sketch out the programme, to use their own words.

[Back to Contents]

[p119]
CHAPTER X.
THE EXPEDITION TO SWALLOW’S CLIFF—CAUGHT BY THE TIDE.

“How far is it?” was Inna’s leading question.

“Three miles as the crow flies,” returned Dick.

“It would be delightful,” smiled she.

“It would be jolly,” said Jenny, using a word of Dick’s.

“And I hope grand-auntie will let us go,” sighed Sybil.

“Oh, she’ll be sure to if I stand surety for your safety, like a good old grandfather,” Dick assured them. “And, I say, it ought to be to-morrow, Willett,” he suggested.

“Short notice.”

“Yes; but it can be done. I’ll see Madame Giche on our way home.”

So when the gold was intermingling with the grey under the park trees, and it was hard upon sundown, the whole party went bounding up the avenue at the Owl’s Nest, the rooks over their [p120] heads cawing a noisy “good night” to them and the world in general. They found Madame Giche pacing to and fro on the terrace with the peacocks.

At first the aged lady was hard to manage: if her nieces were of the party, they must take Rance, their nurse, she said; but, as Dick assured her, there was no need.

“They’ll be as safe as safe, dear Madame Giche,” were his words, spoken with the persuasive grace of a courtier, smiling his boyish smile into her face. “With two such safeguards as Willett and me, they can’t come to any harm—in fact, there’s nothing they can come to harm in—’tis a safe shore, even if they took into their heads to bathe, which none of the young ladies will, I daresay.”

“No, grand-auntie; we don’t want to bathe or do anything dangerous,” pleaded Sybil.

“And we don’t want to be babies, and take our nurse,” objected Olive.

“Well, dears, you shall have your way,” promised over-persuaded grand-auntie; and so “the midges,” to use Dick’s words, “won the day.” Oh, the joy of waking with a whole long [p121] summer’s day of pleasure in store! An excursion to the beautiful sea—she had scarcely seen it in her short life.

Inna was up, and dressed and looking out of her chamber window, when Oscar came into the paddock below to attend to some lambs.

“Hurry up, old lady! ’tis a glorious morning,” cried he, looking up and catching sight of her at the window.

She waved her hand and was gone. She had to fill the vases with flowers; one she always placed in her uncle’s study. Since Christmas Eve, when she carried in her holly spray, she always contrived some sort of a nosegay for him.

It was pleasant to hear her tripping feet, and her young voice singing little snatches of ditties, through the house; to see her stand and feed the chickens in the morning sunshine. A willing little handmaid was she anywhere, and to anybody who needed her.

“I know she begins to save me a deal,” Mrs. Grant said of her.

“Well, Sunbeam, what do I read in your eyes this morning?” said Mr. Barlow, meeting her in the passage.

[p122]
“An excursion to the sea—to Swallow’s Cliff.”

“’Tis well to be a young lady of leisure. Are you going to foot it?”

“No; we’re going in Dick Gregory’s donkey-cart.”

“Ah! and ’tis well to be young to bear such jolting.” He passed on.

The two young people waited for the doctor at the breakfast-table, but Mr. Barlow did not keep him long; then passed the usually silent meal to its close, but not before Dick peeped in at the rose-wreathed window, and intimated by sundry nods that Jenny and the donkey and cart were waiting outside in the lane. Away went the busy doctor into the passage, just as Inna was saying—

“Oscar, you haven’t told uncle—you ought, you know.”

So Oscar, in the spirit of obedience for once, followed him.

“Uncle, may I and Inna go with Dick Gregory and his sister to Swallow’s Cliff to-day?” he asked.

“Swallow’s Cliff—that’s rather a long walk for a young lady.”

[p123]
“Only three miles, sir, as the crow flies,” put in Dick, appearing from somewhere.

“Yes; but as you’re not crows, and can’t fly, into the bargain, ’twould mean more than that to you—or rather, ’tis Inna I’m thinking of,” still objected the doctor.

“You forget the donkey-cart, Dr. Willett; the young ladies will ride—all of them,” observed Dick.

“All?” the doctor stood ready to start.

“Yes, sir; there are four of them: the mid——, Madame Giche’s nieces, Miss Inna, and my sister Jenny.”

“Well, I suppose I mustn’t be a bear, and say no.” Dr. Willett wheeled round upon Oscar. “Yes, I’ve no objection; only take good care of the little girls. A pleasant day to you.” The busy physician was gone.

Now a tempest of preparation swept through the house for a few minutes; then Mrs. Grant stood on the steps at the front door to watch them off. Dick touched up old Rameses, and drove along the lane with a flourish. Picking up the midges at the Owl’s Nest gates, with many injunctions from Rance to take good care of her charges, they made the best of their way [p124] onward, not exactly as the crow flies, but taking all the short cuts adventurous wheels could roll over: the more jolts and bumps the more the merriment; Jenny driving, the boys on foot. So, without hitch or hindrance, the sea was reached.

A glorious sight it was: not smooth, calm, and still, but with a beautiful ripple breaking over it, with glad little waves running here and there—just the mood to please the children. They all kept to the boundary-line of shore; there was to be no boating, no bathing: the boys had bound themselves by promise to Mrs. Grant that there were to be no seaside pranks or dangerous doings.

“No; no one shall come to a watery grave or an untimely end, if I can help it—I promise that:” these were Dick’s last words to the housekeeper, giving Rameses the touch which set him off with a bolt. So now he bade the little girls to pick up shells, look out for mermaids, and disport themselves in harmless lady-like fashion, while he and Oscar went here and there, scaled heights, and took a glance seaward from the height of the Swallow’s Cliff.

[p125]
“But first we’ll consult the luncheon hamper,” suggested he: which they did; and a very neat spread it was which the girls laid out for them on the unfrequented beach. This over, with a lifting of the hat, and “Good-bye for the present,” from Dick, and “Mind, Inna, the midges don’t get into mischief,” from Oscar, the two went straying away; and the girls, having cleared away luncheon, began to enjoy themselves. Such pretty shells they picked, such beautiful sprays of seaweed, and, oh, how the waves curled and ran races together! Once and again they saw a distant ship sail past, and Inna thought of the happy days when her father and mother would come sailing home in a ship like that. Then they all ran races and sat in the sun, while Jenny sang one of Dick’s songs, with the refrain—

and Inna sang one of Mrs. Grant’s, with this chorus—

By-and-by the boys came back to consult the hamper again—nothing like the sea to make [p126] people hungry, and nothing like the sea to steal away the time. So down they sat to the delights of pork-pie, sandwiches, tarts, and the like; and, at last, all had vanished, save a little lemonade, reserved for fear they should be thirsty at starting. As for Rameses, he munched his hay and drank his one jar of water, poured into a bucket which Dick had hung on under the cart.

“The old chap won’t be able to drink of the briny,” he had said in the morning, drawing attention to his forethought for the animal’s comfort.

“Now, just a whisk round, and we shall have to be moving homeward,” said Dick, consulting his watch as they sat together. “I promised Madame Giche not to be after sunset, and we’re keeping company hours with a vengeance with our late dinner. Why, ’tis between six and seven o’clock!”

“There’ll be a moon,” remarked Oscar.

“Yes; but that’s not a sun,” returned Dick, with a laugh. Then they all laughed—they were so happy, so light-hearted and gay.

“Now, you girls, make the most of the next [p127] half-hour or so, and then ’twill be, ‘Britons, strike home!’”

So Dick admonished them; and then he and Oscar went strolling away for their last bout, as they called it.

Who does not know how swiftly the last half-hour of a very enjoyable time whirls away? The four girls sat down in the glory of it all to sort their shells, arrange their seaweed, and just rest and, as it were, digest the day’s pleasure.

“And there has been no coming to grief, and no anything,” remarked Sybil: a speech which doubtless would have shocked Madame Giche, had she heard it.

No, so they thought—still, they must have been blind not to see that foe of foes, which will not be repulsed nor stayed, stealing up and up, and hemming them in. They must have been blind, as Dick said, shouting out to them from above their heads.

What had happened? The tide—a high one to-night—had shut them in; the waters were already beat-beating against a jutting rock, which made a bend in the shore on their one side; on their other the sea lay a wide waste of [p128] water; there was no retreating or fleeing, for the tide had shut them in.

Up the rocks they must go, or——the boys held their breath at this point, talking together above, where the sunlight still glinted about them, though the grey evening shadows were upon the little band of terrified maidens, wringing their hands, pale-faced and with startled eyes, looking this way and that, and seeing no way of escape.

“Oh, Dick! what can we do? You surely know some way to get us away?” cried Jenny.

But Dick shook his head.

“There is but one way: and that is, you must come up the rocks, and in pretty quick time too—see that!” A defiant wave broke not far from them, and dashed its spray over them. “As for old Rameses, he’s safe round the corner, where you ought to be; but if we were to go down and try to wade in to you on his back, he’d never do it. He’s game for anything a donkey can do, but not for that.” So that forlorn hope had to be given up.

“They must come up here: that’s their only chance,” said Oscar.

[p129]
“But how?” was Dick’s answer.

“I must try to go down and fetch them up,” was the other’s reply, with paling cheeks but resolute eyes.

“Yes,” said Dick, peering down; “and if we could land them on that ledge of rock down there, ’twould be something; the tide may not reach that—at least, not yet.” There was a friendly ledge of rock, not so far above where the girls stood. “But why should you go down? Let me,” volunteered ready Dick.

“No,” objected Oscar; “let me go. I ought to be game for that.” And he laughed.

“Well, yes, half sailor and all, you ought to know best.” How lightly those boys could speak, though their hearts were throbbing quickly with the thought of what might happen. “If I had a rope, I’d let you down; then if you’d land them on the ledge, I’d run for help, for we should never tug them up here by ourselves.”

“No,” mused Oscar. “And there is a rope in the donkey-cart—a strongish one, I think.”

Away went Dick as with winged feet, while the other stood crowned with red sunbeams, and viewed their position. Back came Dick.

[p130]
“’Twould never bear my weight,” observed Oscar, tossing off his jacket and tightening his belt for action.

“No, but it would steady you, if you’ll scramble down; or let me go down, and you hold the rope—I’m your man for either.”

“No, no, I must go down. See there, I can’t resist that,” whispered Oscar, pointing below. It was poor little Inna’s pale pleading face upturned to him in silence.

The boys had been talking and doing; the rope was fast round Oscar’s waist: a strong-looking rope, but weak, when one considered that it was in a sense to hold a life in its keeping.

“Oh, Dick!” cried Jenny from below, “the water is dashing up to our feet!”

Yes, the boys could see it was so—the twins were clinging together, and Inna stood with her arms thrown about them both.

“I’m coming!” cried Oscar reassuringly, and stepped over.

“Steady, old man, and the thing is done,” whispered Dick, gripping the rope with his strong young hands.

[p130a]

“IT SNAPPED AND HE WAS GONE.”

[Return to List of Illustrations]

[p131]
It was an heroic feat, yet no more than bold venturesome lads of their age have done before and since. There were ledges here and there for strongly planted feet to rest upon, and to which young grasping hands could cling, although steep as the walls of a house. A giddy descent, but one to be accomplished with a steady head—that of a half sailor, to use Dick’s words. The girls below were silent; even Jenny held her breath, although the water now was washing all their feet. Dick held the rope and his breath also.

But not far had the deliverer gone down his adventurous way when he stumbled, reeled, his hands forgot to cling, and poor panic-stricken Dick, who was clinging to that broken reed of a rope, knew it could not sustain the strain of Oscar’s weight; it snapped, and he was gone, falling down, to be caught by that very ledge of rock upon which he was to land the girls. He would never do it now; he moaned as he fell, then he lay, face downward, terribly motionless and still. And the girls were not rescued.

“Oh, Dick! the water is lifting us off our feet,” wailed Jenny.

[p132]
“Do you think he’s dead?” cried Inna, still holding the affrighted twins in her embrace.

“Jenny, you know how to climb almost like a boy; help Inna to land on the ledge: there’s room,” cried Dick in desperation, peering down in awe at Oscar, lying so still on his narrow resting-place. “Then between you tug up the twins, and I’ll go down to the shore yonder and get help and a rope, and come down to you.”

Thus instructed and admonished, Jenny took heart, and, thanks to the knowledge of climbing trees which Dick had taught her, she scrambled up with Inna, and planted her safe by her cousin’s side. Then down she slid again, brave little maiden, like a very boy, and tugged and twisted up the midges, as they sobbed in their forsaken terror, Inna reaching down and lending a helping hand.

They were safe at last, for the time being, from the clutching water, rising and still rising below them; then Dick sped away. But what of Oscar: was he dead? and what if help should not reach them in time, and the tide should overwhelm them, after all?

[Back to Contents]

[p133]
CHAPTER XI.
THE RESCUE—CLOUDY DAYS—GOOD NEWS AT LAST.

Like the wind sped Dick—it must be now or never. The fear was upon him that high tides, at any rate, did reach the ledge of safety where the girls were sheltering. He fancied he had seen water-marks above that. Then about Oscar: that was a terrible height to fall. What if he was dead? what if he should revive, and, not being sensible, fall off the shelf of rock?—the girls could not hold him back. He must have struck his head fearfully. “I thought, having such a craze for being a sailor, he would have had a steadier head and more of sea-legs. I wish I’d gone down, and he held the rope.” Such thoughts came crowding into the boy’s head as he scudded along.

Away to the right were the fishing-boats coming in, their sails dashed with gold and [p134] crimson, but not a craft of any kind lay to the left, where lives, so to speak, were being weighed in the balance. At last Dick was among the fisher-folk, telling his story, and a band of the hardy fellows put off in a boat for the scene of peril, a party mounting over the cliffs with a strong rope, Dick foremost of all.

“Let me go down: they are more to me than to you,” he pleaded, when they were on the cliffs, above where the little party crouched on their narrow strip of ledge. “I ought to have gone down instead of Willett; let me go down now.”

But the fishermen set him aside.

“No, sir, not while we men can go down better”; and one, a giant in height, strength, and kindliness of heart, tied the rope about himself, and, as poor unfortunate Oscar had done, stepped over to the rescue.

“Will the rope bear him?” asked Dick, thinking of the other’s failure.

“Yes, sir, bear a house; never you fear!” replied he who took charge of the rope.

The sun had set, the sea looked grey and frowning, the wind sighed and moaned among the rocks. Oscar lay perfectly still and motion-[p135]less; the girls had turned him over, and Inna sat with his head on her lap, his face covered with her handkerchief—it was so terrible to look upon: that was all the change since Dick had left. Jenny sat holding a hand of each of the twins.

“For Dick’s sake; because he promised for them to Madame Giche,” she kept whispering to herself, trying not to shudder when the spray from the rising waters dashed over them. Dick was right; the tide would wash the ledge presently, it was doing its best to reach it now.

How boldly the fisherman made the descent! It was as nothing to him, Dick thought, peering over. He was standing among the little prisoners.

“These first, please,” said Jenny, nodding at her two charges, “because they were given into our care, and they are the youngest.”

“All right, missie,” returned the man, and, taking one of them under his arm, went mounting up like a big fly or a spider.

Hurrah! one was safe, and back he went again. His comrades, with their boat, were standing off at no great distance, on the grey shadowy sea—the whole scene Dick never forgot.

[p136]
“How is it with Master Willett down there?” he asked of the man, as he landed with the first little girl.

While down there he had bent over the lad a moment, and had examined him, so was able to report.

“Well, sir, he’s senseless, and his face terribly battered, but he’s alive.”

He brought up the other little girl and Jenny, but as for Inna and Oscar—

“Better signal to our chaps out yonder to run in with the boat; ’twill be easier for the young gentleman to get him off that way,” shouted the man to Dick, watching from above, and made signs to his comrades to row in with the boat.

While this was being done Dick hurried away with Jenny and the twins to put Rameses into the cart, if the poor brute was to be found, and drive home without delay.

“Yes, sir, quick home is the word for them, for they’re wet, and cold, and frightened, poor dears!” said one of the men, who had children of his own.

So they left Oscar and Inna to the boatmen’s [p137] kindly care, and hurried away to look for Rameses. The dear old creature hailed them with such a prolonged braying, standing beside the cart, as if he knew they ought to be going. Dick put him in and drove home briskly, dropping the twins at the Owl’s Nest, where no ill tidings had as yet found its way. But they met Dr. Willett and Mr. Barlow well on the road, with the gig and some sort of stretcher-bed, hastily made, for someone had handed on the news to the farm; therefore Dick was thankful to meet the two doctors, as he could direct them to the spot where the boat was likely to land.

Poor, poor Oscar! he moaned sadly when the boatmen moved him; he was alive to pain, if to naught besides.

“Softly! softly!” so they whispered, handling him as if he had been a baby; but Inna’s heart ached, hearing him groan and moan, as she stepped into the boat, and nestled beside him, and more, taking his head in her lap; and so they moved off over the darkening seas.

Oscar had fallen into silent insensibility again when they landed. Then followed another [p138] moaning time of pain; they laid him on the stretcher-bed, and put him and it into the gig, as the doctor had arranged beforehand. Inna crept in beside him, the doctor after that, with his legs tucked up as best he could; then away they drove, as briskly as the state of the poor sufferer allowed, leaving Mr. Barlow to come after on foot. Mr. Gregory was at the farm when they arrived there; heavy tidings had been reported to him—whether it was Dick or Oscar killed, report did not know, but it fancied it was both; and two, if not more, of the little girls were drowned—that was the story report had told about the little party.

The first thing to be done was to hurry Dick and Jenny off to bed, and to put Oscar into his. Such a getting upstairs of sighs and moans was it, and of aching hearts, suffering over it all. Inna broke down at last, and sobbed as if her heart would break, when there was nothing more for her to bear or do, and Mary took charge of her, to see her to bed, Mrs. Grant and the doctors taking Oscar into their keeping. Well, there was no use in mincing matters—the boy’s face was much beaten and battered by the fall; [p139] it would show the scars for some time to come—perhaps for ever: concussion of the brain, a fractured leg; even Mrs. Grant’s heart grew sick, hearing the doctors enumerate the evils that had befallen him.

“Yes, he’ll live—at least, I don’t see why he shouldn’t,” said his uncle. “Yes, God willing, he’ll live;” but he went out to his patients the next morning with an anxious brow.

A terrible awakening came to Oscar, after that long death-like stillness; weary days of restless insensibility and pain followed. Poor suffering boy, it was hard to hear him moan and rave over the fancied peril of the girls.

“Inna, Inna!” he would cry. “I believe she cared for me more than anybody else in the world, and now I’m leaving her to die. I would save her if I could,” and he would try to spring out of his bed—only try, poor maimed lad; but these fits of restless insensibility wasted his strength sadly.

In vain Mrs. Grant tried to soothe him; sometimes his uncle sent to the Owl’s Nest for Inna, exiled there against her will, because being in the house, hearing his moans and wild cries, [p140] made her pale and ill, following close upon the strain to her childish nerves before.

The doctor’s heart misgave him terribly at this time. Would his dear dead brother’s son die—slip, as it were, away from him, his father’s brother, who had taken the friendless lad to his heart, in the place of the younger brother he had well-nigh idolised? Only in his quiet, reserved, absent-minded way he had never thought how much he cared for him. He sent for his small niece—the child who had stolen into all their hearts with her gentle, unobtrusive love, and would stand aside from the bed when she came with a heavy sigh, while she spoke the boy’s name. She had more power to soothe him than he; she laid her small cool hand on Oscar’s feverish one, holding it till he seemed to understand who it was near him. Then he would sink into long, unrefreshing, heavy slumber, to awake to all the wild frenzy again. Thus, to and fro went the little maiden from the farm to the Owl’s Nest and Madame Giche, who chatted to and tried to amuse her when there, and to beguile her from her childish anxiety.

“Yes, dear, my husband descended from a [p141] French family,” she said one evening, finding her in the picture-gallery, where she so loved to be, as usual passing from picture to picture, and always stopping at that of Madame Giche’s son, to think over the sad tale, and to wonder where that little child was whom Madame Giche had never found. “Yes, dear, he was of French family. Some said my son was like him, but I think he was more like me;” and the aged lady regarded his portrait fondly, standing behind her little guest.

“I think he’s very much like you, dear Madame Giche; and, do you know, he always reminds me of mamma; ’tis the eyes, I think—they look at me so!” There came a quiver into the child’s voice.

“Were mamma’s eyes dark?” questioned Madame Giche.

“Oh, no! Mamma’s eyes are like mine. People say I am very like mamma.”

“And papa—what is he like?”

“He is dark, and—and that is all.”

“An artist, is he not?”

“Yes; he was painting the portrait of the gentleman with whom he’s gone abroad when— [p142] when he was taken ill”—the child’s sweet grey eyes filled with tears. “He broke a blood-vessel, and—and ’twas said he would die if he spent the winter in England.”

“And so the gentleman took him abroad?”

“Yes; it was very kind of him. A Mr. Mortimer—his father was rich once, only he lost his estate, so his son was poor, only he married a rich lady; and they are so happy, and Mrs. Mortimer is so beautiful,” went on the child.

“Mortimer! Mortimer!”—the ancient lady shook her head. “No, I don’t know the name,” she sighed, looking at her son’s picture again.

“I wonder where the little boy is, Madame Giche?” said Inna, out of the silence that followed, noting the aged mother’s fond gaze.

“Little boy, dear?” was the dreamy response.

“Yes, Madame Giche, your dear little grandson.”

“My dear, he’s not a little boy—he’s thirty-three years of age—that is, if he’s living.”

“Oh, how strange! why, he is just as old as papa, and I keep fancying him a little boy.”

[p143]
“No, dear, no,” sighed Madame Giche. “And so papa is thirty-three?” she asked.

“Yes, just the age of Mr. Mortimer; they kept their last birthday together—you know—in Italy,” was the quivering response. She could not speak of her absent ones so calmly as her aged friend.

“But papa is better, is he not, my dear?” questioned Madame Giche cheerfully, noting the tremor in her voice.

“Oh, yes! and seeing and doing so much, he is almost well—and—and having his heart’s desire, at last, in seeing Rome.”

“Was he never there before?”

“No, not since he was a very little boy. But Mr. Mortimer was; he has travelled a great deal; he married his wife abroad—in Switzerland, I think.”

“Ah, indeed!” and again Madame Giche sighed.

“Yes, I think—I think he was tutor to a young gentleman there. You know, he does not mind my telling you; he often talks to people about that time—he doesn’t mind a bit,” said the conscientious little girl.

[p144]
Just then the twins brought Inna a letter from Italy, and from her mamma. Madame Giche saw how the child’s hand trembled at taking it, and drew the two little girls away, to let her read it in peace.

This she did, sitting down on the topmost stair of the grand staircase, among the coloured lights. It brought her good news—her father and mother were to come home early next summer, and she had thought when parted from them that they would not return for three years.

“Madame Giche,” said she, after she had wiped away the happy tears which would come, dancing into the tapestried room, almost like one of the twins, “papa and mamma are coming home next summer.”

“Indeed, dear: that won’t be long to wait,” returned the kindly old lady; and Inna, remembering the long, long years of waiting she had known, nestled to her side and kissed her.

Another joy came to Inna that same evening. Oscar was better, was conscious at last; he had just awoke from a sweet refreshing sleep, and cheered all their hearts at the farm, and his uncle had pronounced him out of danger. Dick [p145] Gregory brought the news to the Owl’s Nest. The change for the better in his friend had come at the right time; to-morrow he was to go back to school, he told Inna, as she strayed out to him on the moonlit terrace.

[p144a]

“DICK SHOOK HER BY THE HAND.”

[Return to List of Illustrations]

“And now, hurrah!” cried the happy boy, tossing up his cap, and making Inna laugh a tinkling, happy laugh, such as she had not indulged in for so many anxious days. Then Dick shook her by the hand as she told him of her letter, with its good news, bade her cheer up, and promised to tell Jenny, whom he pointed out to her away down the shadowy avenue, standing by the donkey and cart—not to shock Madame Giche with the rumbling old thing by bringing it nearer, he told her.

[Back to Contents]

[p146]
CHAPTER XII.
NEW THOUGHTS AND WAYS—THE HEIRESS OF WYVERN COURT.

Spring again, and Oscar and his uncle had been out round the farm. The boy was somewhat spiritless and weary-looking; he could not be pronounced to be ill or really weak now, yet there was something wanting in him which ought to have been there, making him more atune to spring-time.

His face was not much the worse for its battering on the rocks. He was still a good-looking youth, as Mr. Barlow told him one day; to which Inna responded, as the boy was silent, that she was glad, because nice looks were nice. This made Oscar laugh at last, and remark that nice, as used in the sense she used it, was only a girl’s way of using it. Yet he could be grumpy still, though there was certainly a change for the better in him in that way.

[p147]
As for Inna, she had been like a little shadow about him all through the winter, sitting by him through the long, cold, snowy days in the dining-room, he on a couch by the fire, she on a footstool, reading to him, chatting, working out puzzles—she and he together—and heaping up the fire till it blazed again. Once they had an earnest talk of that which was always making Oscar’s heart heavy and his brow gloomy, of the time when he would have to take to the farming.

Thus Oscar was, in a way, prepared for what his uncle said to him after their walk round the farm that fine spring day.

“Oscar, do you know why I’ve taken you round the farm to-day?”

The boy had thrown himself listlessly on a couch near the fire.

“Yes, I suppose to remind me of what I’m to be,” returned he.

“Well, yes, you have guessed rightly; and, my boy, has it ever struck you that you’re not fitted for what you want to be?” asked Dr. Willett, doctor-like, going to the point at once, and so saving suffering.

[p148]
“Yes, I know I’m too big a coward for it; and I suppose other people know it as well.”

“No, not a coward, Oscar—events have proved that not to be correct. For instance, no coward would have saved that child at the fire; yet they told me you fainted as soon as ’twas done. The doctor at Bulverton Hospital wrote me that he thought there was something peculiar in the formation of your brain: what happened at Swallow’s Cliff proves the same thing, and confirms my opinion of you, formed years ago—that your head would never do for climbing giddy heights, nor steer you through dangers in safety to yourself or to others. So, my boy, your sailor dream will have to be set aside.”

“It was more than a dream, it was—it was——” the boy broke down and sobbed, burying his face among the pillows of the couch.

There was silence for a while, and when Oscar looked up he saw a tear trickling down his uncle’s cheek, as he stood with his back to the fire.

“Uncle Jonathan, is that tear for me?” he asked, in wistful surprise.

“Yes, my boy; because I know what you are [p149] feeling. My life has been a silent one—too silent perhaps—but there are things that I, too, have missed in that same life. I doubt if there are many lives without the miss and the loss.”

Something prompted the boy to stretch out his hand toward his uncle, and he took it with such a warm grasp.

“Uncle, I’ll be a farmer; I’ve intended to tell you so for days—only——”

“Well, never mind, we understand each other now; and let me say this much, Oscar: the humdrum farm-life, as I’ve heard you call it behind my back”—Dr. Willett smiled somewhat sadly—“won’t be so humdrum as you think, if you make of it a life work—a something to be handled nobly, and made the most of. A tinker’s life could be hardly humdrum with that end in view.”

came jingling through the boy’s brain, and made him smile.

“Yes, uncle, I see; thank you for speaking out.” He raised his uncle’s hand to his lips and [p150] kissed it, as a girl might have done; the distance between him and his uncle was bridged over at last for ever.

“You see, I never thought Uncle Jonathan cared for me before,” he said to Inna afterward.

And now Inna seemed to walk on air; going here and there about the farm with Oscar, who was too weak for study still, but trying with all his might to take an interest in what was going on out of doors.

“A good long voyage would cure him of his sea-fever, and quite set him up for hard work,” remarked Mr. Barlow to the doctor; and both wondered if it could be managed.

Well, in the midst of all this, home came Mr. and Mrs. Weston one fine May day, like swallows, to make Inna’s summer complete. They arrived suddenly, as travellers often do, the letter that was sent to announce them making its appearance the morning after they were at the farm—for such things do happen now and then.

Now the days followed on indeed like a happy dream to Inna, she and her mother comparing notes together, and joining the threads of their [p151] divided lives again. Mr. Mortimer spirited her father off to London, for they all came in a bunch to the farm; Mrs. Mortimer also accompanied the gentlemen; but when the business which took them there was arranged, they were to return to keep holiday with Mrs. Weston and Inna.

Meanwhile, the little girl introduced her mother to Madame Giche and her nieces, and showed her, at her aged friend’s request, the fine old house, took her to the picture-gallery, to hear the story of Madame Giche’s son, who broke her heart; and if Mrs. Weston’s very soul was stirred within her, hearing the sad tale and looking at its poor dead subject’s face, nobody knew it—she kept it to herself. Then back came the three from London, like happy children, to join the rest.

“With his house full of company, the doctor felt bound to come out of his shell to entertain them,” as Mr. Barlow remarked to Oscar.

But Dr. Willett was quite equal to playing host, and taking the lead in all the clever talk going on at his table, between his old friend, who slily looked amused—an artist, a gentleman with a rich wife, and a beauty—and two ladies; [p152] the younger members hearing, and saying nothing, but wondering at Uncle Jonathan’s ease and eloquence. But there came a break to this; Madame Giche would like Inna to bring her artist father and his friend to the Owl’s Nest, to be introduced to her, and to see the pictures, some of which were supposed to be good.

So one day they all went, Inna feeling the importance of the part she had to play, and hoping she should come out of it all gracefully. Ah! she need not have disquieted herself. Sweetly gracious was Madame Giche, wrapped about with a black lace shawl, sitting by the wood fire in the tapestried room, and rising in her stately way when Inna led the gentlemen in, holding a hand of each, and saying—

“Madame Giche, this is papa, and this is Mr. Mortimer.”

Little dreamt she what would follow, nor they either. Inna fancied she heard her aged friend murmur, like an echo, her last word, “Mortimer!” as she glided from them, to stand by her side, then——

“Hugh!” they all heard that: ’twas like a musical wail of gladness; and Madame Giche [p153] sank into her high-backed chair—like a snowflake was her face for whiteness—and fainted.

“She is dead! Madame Giche is dead!” sobbed the little girl, but Long, whom they hastily summoned, said—

“No, miss; ’tis only a faint,” and asked if the gentlemen would carry her to her chamber, so that she could be revived in quiet.

This Mr. Weston did, lingering with his little daughter and Mr. Mortimer on the terrace outside, to hear tidings of the poor lady’s state before leaving. Here a servant came to them before many minutes had passed, though the time seemed long to them in their perplexity. Madame Giche was better, she said, but begged them to excuse her seeing them now, and would they come by appointment to-morrow, at ten o’clock?

You may be sure Inna lived in a state of continual excitement and curiosity, so mysterious was Madame Giche’s fainting fit to her, for the remainder of that day and until ten o’clock on the morrow; and when she saw the two gentlemen set forth alone for the interview, she not being needed now, she felt like a very inquisitive little girl, who did not half like being left behind [p154] and so not to see and hear what might happen next.

In the meantime, the two arrived at the Owl’s Nest, and reached the tapestried room, where Madame Giche, still like a snowflake for paleness, and sweetly weak and trembling, received them, not rising from her chair this time. Ah! well, it was no time for ceremony. Question followed question from the poor old lady’s lips as to who was Mr. Weston’s father, when born, his real name, and so forth, until the artist sat down and told her his story—for he had one.

“My father was a gentleman, and died rather suddenly in Italy, when I was three years old; my mother followed him three weeks after, of a broken heart, ’twas said, and I was adopted by a friend of my father’s, an artist, named Welthorp, a great traveller, but kind and good, who took me to Australia—in fact, almost all round the world—and finally to London, where he and his wife died—both died while I was a mere lad. But I had learnt to dabble and paint, and so, making the most of my knowledge, have managed by degrees to struggle up to what I am.”

This was his meagre story.

[p155]
“My father? no, I never knew who he was, nor his name—not Weston; Mr. Welthorp knew that much—but my father was a reserved man: he never mentioned who he was, nor what his position or property, not even to him. I’ve heard he sent a message to his mother when dying, but——”

The interruption came from Madame Giche, who suddenly clasped his hand, crying, “That ring, where did you get it—say?”

“It was my father’s ring, all he had to show of his former life, so to speak;” and Mr. Weston took the ring from his finger like a man in a dream—a costly gold ring, studded with diamonds.

“It is my dead husband’s ring; I gave it to my son to wear in memory of him when he attained his eighteenth birthday,” cried Madame Giche. “See here”—and her trembling fingers touched a spring—“here are their initials, my boy’s and his father’s.” Ah! yes, there they were, there was no denying it.

Denying it! sweet-eyed, eager old lady, she led them to the gallery, and made them look at that all-convincing portrait of her son, over [p156] which unconscious Inna had dreamt so often, longing for her mother, she scarcely knew why, while it was her father’s face spoke to her mystified little heart. Ah! it was as clear as the light of day before Mr. Weston and Mr. Mortimer left the Owl’s Nest that morning. Mr. Weston was the rightful master of Wyvern Court, and Inna its heiress to come after—Madame Giche’s great-granddaughter.

There was a right joyful Christmas keeping at Wyvern Court that year: it was all joy, peace, and home-coming to Madame Giche; all a fairy dream to Inna and the twins, to have Dick and Jenny as their guests, Dr. Willett, Mr. Barlow, and Oscar coming up for the Twelfth Night.

“I say, who would have thought you’d prove to be the heiress of Wyvern Court that day when I met you in the railway carriage?” said Dick Gregory—he, Jenny, Inna, the twins, all out on the terrace, in the moonlight, at the old court, listening to the bells on Christmas evening.

“I didn’t know it myself,” returned Inna. “You see, papa’s illness and all was like the cloud with the silver lining.”

[p157]
“Your cloud was lined with gold, Miss Giche,” remarked Dick, “and no mistake!”

“It is our cloud as well—mine and Olive’s—isn’t it, Inna dear?” spoke Sybil, clinging to the new little heiress’s hand. “We are to be co-heiresses, all three, and grand-auntie knows how.”

“Oh, ay! share and share, like dividing one apple between the three of you; but Inna is the heiress,” said Dick.

THE END

[p158]
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The Master of the Strong Hearts, A Story of Custer’s Last Rally.

By E. S. BROOKS. With 10 Plates. 322 pages. Cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, London; Paris, New York & Melbourne.