Chapter 7

INNA'S FIRSTFRUITS--ON THE TOR.

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

"I'm only laughing at Carlo and Smut, uncle," was her shamefaced reply.

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

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

"I have one little wish, and 'tis about uncle and his den," ventured Inna, blushing a little.

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

"May I put a bit of holly in uncle's den?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The sea! the sea! the open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever-free!"

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

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

"And so Mother Peggy has been whispering that into your ear," was the scoffing reply.

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

"Well, she told you what'll never be. I mean to be a sailor, so there!"

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

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

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

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

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

"Well?" and Oscar waited to hear more.

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

"No," said the other, somewhat taken aback; "a father is different from an uncle."

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

"Why?" growled Oscar, not liking Dick's views of the case.

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

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

"Phew! you'd be more likely to be wrecked as a sailor now," replied Dick loftily.

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

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

The girls smiled.

"Oh yes," grumbled Oscar, "well enough for you to laugh. You girls never have to choose or wish--you always have all you want."

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

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

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

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

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

And Oscar said, "No; better freeze than lose one's way, and----" They knew he was thinking of the shepherd lad and the Ugly Leap.

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

Would anyone come to find them? they wondered.

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

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

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

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