Chapter 8

OSCAR LOST--A FRUITLESS SEARCH.

The dead silence that followed, save for the hooting of the storm, was more terrible, if that could be, than Oscar's scream, for it told of what? They did not say, but their hearts throbbed out what they feared.

"Oh, Dick! what shall we do?" cried the little girls, clinging to him.

He was a boy so strong, so brave--surely he could think of something. Well, he did think of something, but that was after they had shouted "Oscar! Oscar!" till the storm itself seemed the name. This is what he thought of.

"There is nothing to be done but for me to go and look for him."

It sounded like a miserably forlorn hope, and the girls thought so; for they clung to him, crying, "Oh, Dick, Dick!" and almost unnerved him.

"Well, I can do no good up here, and it seems heartless to hear that cry, and not to go a step to see what can be done. You know he ventured his life for us."

"Yes; but throwing away your life wouldn't save his if--if it isn't lost," faltered fond little Jenny.

"No," returned her brother; "and, God willing, I don't mean to throw away my life."

They were silent for a moment, while the storm raved on. I think they all breathed a sort of wordless prayer, then Dick spoke.

"Now, you girls must stand by each other, and comfort each other; and, whatever you do, don't sit down and give in to sleep. Good-bye."

There was no wringing of hands; the three could not bear it with that scream of Oscar ringing in their ears.

He went away, his shadowy figure vanishing in the obscurity almost immediately, as Oscar's had done. Then the two girls were alone. Shout after shout rang reassuringly back to them, and they screamed back theirs in reply. True, Dick's shouts were farther away each time, but no screams followed; then there came a break, and they heard nothing. Very, very much alone they were now.

Well, down in the village people were shutting doors, closing shutters, and heaping up fires, and saying what a cold snowy ending it was to such a fair day, as they made themselves cosy, little dreaming there were two small wanderers up on the old Tor in the storm. The two children could picture it all, and wondered what was doing at the farm: whether they were in a great fright about them--Mrs. Grant, Dr. Willett, and Mr. Barlow. Jenny thought too of what they were saying and doing at her home, but oh! where was Dick, where was Oscar? How the minutes lengthened into hours in the cold, the weariness, ay, even drowsiness. But they must not yield to sleep--Dick had warned them of this; they knew that sleep up there in that extreme cold meant death. What should they do?

Oh! what was that? An ugly shadow of some monster beast looming upon them from out that vast whirling waste of snow. This was when hope was very low in their hearts; it seemed that it was an hour or two since Dick had left them, and no help had come--nothing; and they had pictured themselves two little maidens, stiff, stark, dead, and cold, found by someone, at some time, up there all alone. Now here was this apparition bearing down upon them. They shrieked and clung to each other; they could not move; they had no boy to fight for them. Fight! Why, it was dear old Carlo from the farm. How he barked, and whined, and caressed them! They could but laugh and cry in the same breath at his funny antics. And this laughter and crying, and the efforts they made to keep on their feet under his wild hugs and leaps, stirred their blood; and with this, hope leaped up within them again.

"Oh, Carlo! where are they all? are they coming?" cried Inna, her arms about his neck.

At which he licked her face, barked, and seemed to hearken, as if he too wanted someone. Why, surely the storm was clearing: they could see the glimmer of a lantern bobbing, now here, now there, as if someone was seeking and searching; and when Carlo barked a shout followed, and the dog bounded away, with his back covered with snow, like a very Father Christmas of a dog. They did not think of what they were like, with help coming--an assurance, as they took it, that Dick's life had not been thrown away. Back came Carlo, and with him Dr. Willett, Mr. Barlow, and Sam the carter from the farm, and--and that was all. Where was Dick? Both children rushed into the arms of the rescuers.

"Thank Heaven!" said Dr. Willett, pressing his snowy little niece close to him.

"Thank Heaven!" muttered Mr. Barlow over Jenny, just such another snowball.

"But where is Dick--where is Oscar?"

"Lost, both lost!" sobbed the two poor little troubled hearts, as they poured out their story.

"No, no; boys are not so easily lost," said Mr. Barlow, he and the doctor shaking the snow from the cloaks of their two small charges, and preparing to bid "Good night" to the old Tor. "'Tis true we've seen nothing of them, but that proves nothing--they may be at the farm and in bed by this time." But in an aside he whispered to the doctor, "I don't like Oscar's scream, though;" and the doctor shook his head, as over an obstinate patient, when he scarcely knew what to do with him.

"Do you take the lantern, Sam," went on the surgeon to the carter, "and search about for them. Of course, even give the Ugly Leap a call, and make inquiry for them; and when I've played the polite man, and seen the doctor well on his way with these young ladies, I'll join you--two heads are better than one even in the matter of looking up two boys that we're not sure are lost on a snowy night."

With this, Sam marched off with the lantern, and Carlo with him, as if he understood the plan of operation, and that the lads were missing, and he must play his part in finding them.

"Better walk, dears; 'twill stir your blood," said Dr. Willett at starting; and so they did for a time, but before they reached the farm they were glad to be carried, like two small over-done children as they were.

By the time they had reached the foot of the Tor the snow clouds had quite cleared, and the moon shone. Ah! upon what were those pale beams falling on those snowy heights? Not upon Dick, for when the party reached the farm they found that he was there, safe in bed, after being held almost a prisoner by Mrs. Grant. "You see, sir, he was that mad to be off again, when he heard you and Mr. Barlow had started for the Tor, that I had to shake some sense into him, and put him to bed--the best place for him, too, for he was ready to drop," so the housekeeper told her master. Mr. Gregory, too, had just arrived to make inquiries for his two missing ones, so the three doctors turned into the snowy night again, to follow in Sam's and Carlo's wake, and hear of what success they had met with in their search.

None; nothing; nobody: this was Sam's three-worded account of his failure--for it was failure--while Carlo hung his head, dropped his tail forlornly, and whined like a dog baffled.

He, Sam, had been to the Ugly Leap, and beat about everywhere he could think of, but could find no trace of the boy. All the dreary round he and the two doctors went again; all the long night they were out in the snow; but it was a fruitless quest--they were fain to return home in the grey light of the morning, with only this bare certainty, that Oscar was lost--to them at least. Dr. Willett was very sore at heart, as he and Carlo walked a little apart from the others of the returning party, the dog abject and depressed in attitude as he trotted by his side, as if conscious of what his master was feeling.

Mr. Gregory looked upon his sleeping children and returned home; the others retired for an hour's rest before going out to their sick patients. Besides, there were new search parties to be organised. To the Ugly Leap went the doctor again as the day wore on; the dark waters of the gorge were searched, so far as such a mysterious stream could be searched, emerging from the heart of the earth, and only flowing a few yards, it may be, in the light of day, ere it dived away into the darkness and secrecy from which it had come. Ah! there was neither sign nor token of the missing boy, there or elsewhere. Nothing, nowhere--these were the words that went the round of Cherton, with their dreary hopelessness, as the days flowed on, and tidings went here and there of the lost boy, while his description was sent to the police authorities, far and wide.

But there came no answer as day succeeded day, and March blustered itself away, and sweet fickle April took its place; all was silence, as if the lad had indeed vanished from the earth. Had he?

Inna went daily for lessons to the Owl's Nest. It was well to get away from the house, Mrs. Grant said, for the child moped and grew pale under the suspense and mystery of what had befallen this strong, wilful, good-natured cousin of hers, whom she had been gathering to her as the brother she had long sighed for. True, Jenny came over to see her, for she too was lonely, with Dick gone back to school; but what could Jenny understand about her heartache?--she with her brother safe at school, while Oscar, Inna's all but brother, was nobody knew where.

"I wish he hadn't played truant that day, and I wish I hadn't let him:" this was the burdened little plaint, making her heart so heavy, and which she ventured to pour out to Mr. Barlow one day.

"Oh, my dear little lady, don't think that what happened came of his playing truant. I know it isn't a pleasant thought that there was that little hitch of underhand doings; and if he'd only mentioned the going to the Tor, we could have told you all snow was coming, thanks to the glass. But, mind me, we don't get our deserts in that way, or we should be always having a whipping. And I never give up hope with a patient till the last remedy has been tried and fails; and, remember, there is no last remedy with a wise unfailing Providence." This was the surgeon's reply.

"Oh, yes. But suppose he is dead, was killed, washed under the Tor by the dark waters of the brook at the Ugly Leap," sighed the child.

"Oh, well," was the answer, "we can suppose almost anything--at least, a little imaginative girl can; but suppose he is dead--which I do not--dead or alive, he is in God's good keeping," was the reply.