"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.

"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 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 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.'"

"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?



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.

"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 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 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."

"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. 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 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."

"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 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 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.



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 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 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.

"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."

"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 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.

"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—

"Three cheers for the briny-ho!"

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

"Ho-ho! for the fisherman's child to-night, Ho-ho! for the fisherman's wife; Ho-ho! for the fisherman's bark to-night, Ho-ho! for the fisherman's life."

By-and-by the boys came back to consult the hamper again—nothing like the sea to make 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 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 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.

"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.

"'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.



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.

"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?



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 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 motionless; 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.

"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 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 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; 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, 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 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—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."

"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.

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 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.



"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.



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.

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.

"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 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."

"If I were a tinker, no tinker beside Should mend an old kettle like me; Let who will be second, whatever betide, The first I'm determined to be,"

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 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 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; 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 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 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.

"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 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."

"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



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Transcriber's notes: Obvious spelling/typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. Inconsistent hyphenations (school-boy/schoolboy, fire-light/ firelight, bed-chamber/bedchamber) have been retained.

THE END