Chapter 12

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.