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.
[Illustration: "DICK SHOOK HER BY THE HAND."]
"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.