Chapter 5

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 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 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?"

"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 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 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 housekeeper, 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 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.

"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 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.

"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, learning, 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, 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 nightmare, 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.