The Heiress of Wyvern Court Part 15

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT SNAPPED AND HE WAS GONE."]

It was an heroic feat, yet no more than bold venturesome lads of their age have done before and since. There were ledges here and there for strongly planted feet to rest upon, and to which young grasping hands could cling, although steep as the walls of a house. A giddy descent, but one to be accomplished with a steady head--that of a half sailor, to use d.i.c.k's words. The girls below were silent; even Jenny held her breath, although the water now was washing all their feet. d.i.c.k held the rope and his breath also.

But not far had the deliverer gone down his adventurous way when he stumbled, reeled, his hands forgot to cling, and poor panic-stricken d.i.c.k, who was clinging to that broken reed of a rope, knew it could not sustain the strain of Oscar's weight; it snapped, and he was gone, falling down, to be caught by that very ledge of rock upon which he was to land the girls. He would never do it now; he moaned as he fell, then he lay, face downward, terribly motionless and still. And the girls were not rescued.

"Oh, d.i.c.k! the water is lifting us off our feet," wailed Jenny.

"Do you think he's dead?" cried Inna, still holding the affrighted twins in her embrace.

"Jenny, you know how to climb almost like a boy; help Inna to land on the ledge: there's room," cried d.i.c.k in desperation, peering down in awe at Oscar, lying so still on his narrow resting-place. "Then between you tug up the twins, and I'll go down to the sh.o.r.e yonder and get help and a rope, and come down to you."

Thus instructed and admonished, Jenny took heart, and, thanks to the knowledge of climbing trees which d.i.c.k had taught her, she scrambled up with Inna, and planted her safe by her cousin's side. Then down she slid again, brave little maiden, like a very boy, and tugged and twisted up the midges, as they sobbed in their forsaken terror, Inna reaching down and lending a helping hand.

They were safe at last, for the time being, from the clutching water, rising and still rising below them; then d.i.c.k sped away. But what of Oscar: was he dead? and what if help should not reach them in time, and the tide should overwhelm them, after all?

CHAPTER XI.

THE RESCUE--CLOUDY DAYS--GOOD NEWS AT LAST.

Like the wind sped d.i.c.k--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 d.i.c.k 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, d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k had left. Jenny sat holding a hand of each of the twins.

"For d.i.c.k'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. d.i.c.k 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, d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k, watching from above, and made signs to his comrades to row in with the boat.

While this was being done d.i.c.k 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. d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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, G.o.d 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, un.o.btrusive 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 pa.s.sing 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?"