[p9]THE HEIRESS OF WYVERN COURT.

[p9]THE HEIRESS OF WYVERN COURT.[Back toContents]CHAPTER I.IN THE RAILWAY CARRIAGE—NEW FRIENDS.“Well, little friend, and where do you hail from?”The speaker was a merry-faced, brown-eyed boy of eleven, with curly brown hair—just the school-boy all over.He had leaped into a railway carriage with cricket-bat, fishing-rod, and a knowing-looking little hamper, which he deposited on the seat beside him; then away went the snorting steam horse, train, people, and all, and out came this abrupt question. “Little friend” was a mite of a girl of nine, dressed in a homely blue serge frock and jacket, with blue velvet hat to match: a shy little midge of a grey-eyed maiden, with sunny brown curls twining about her forehead[p10]and rippling down upon her shoulders, nestling in one corner of the carriage—the sole occupant thereof until this merry questioner came to keep her company.“I don’t quite know what you mean,” was the little girl’s reply—a sweet, refined way of speaking had she, and her eyes sparkled with shy merriment, although there was a startled look in them too.“Well, where do you come from, my dear mademoiselle?” and now the merry speaker made a courtly bow.“From London—but I’m not French, you know,” was the retort, with the demurest of demure smiles.“No—just so; and where are you going?” One could but answer him, his questions came with such winning grace of manner.“To Cherton—to uncle—to Mr. Jonathan Willett’s.”“Cherton! why, that’s not far from my happy destination. I get out only one station before you.”“Little friend” smiled her demure little smile again, as if she was glad to hear it.[p11]“So you’re going to Mr. Willett’s—Dr. Willett he’s generally called, being a physician,” continued the boy, after glancing from the window a second or two, as if to note how fast the landscape was rushing past the train, or the train past the landscape.“Yes; do you know him?” inquired the silvery tongue of the other.“Oh yes; I know him!”—a short assent, comically spoken.“I don’t,” sighed the little girl, as if the thought oppressed her.“Then you’d like to know what he’s like,” spoke the boy, using the word like twice for want of another.“Yes—only—only would it be nice to talk about a person—one’s uncle, one doesn’t know,be——”she did not like to say behind his back, but the faltering little tongue stuck fast, and the small sensitive face of the child looked a little confused.“Ah! behind his back,” spoke the boy readily. “Well, perhaps not; but you’ll know him soon enough, I’m quite sure, and all about Peggy, too. Peggy is the best of the couple,” he added.[p12]“Do you mean Mrs. Grant, my uncle’s housekeeper?”“Yes, that very lady—only, you see, I like to call her Peggy.”“Yes,” returned the child, supposing she ought to say something.“’Tis a farm, you know—jolly old place. Do you know that?”“Yes—that is, I know ’tis a farm; mamma told me that. But I didn’t know ’twas jolly; mamma said ’twas very pretty, and home-like, and nice.”“Ah, yes! just a lady’s view of the place,” nodded the boy approvingly. “The farm is the best part of it all, and so you’ll saywhen——”“Perhaps we’ll not talk about it,” broke in “little friend” timidly.“Well, you are a precise little lady not to talk about a farm, your uncle’s farm, behind its back,” laughed the boy.“It’s mamma’s uncle,” corrected the little maiden.“Ah, yes! and your great uncle. Well, I thought he was an old fogey to be your uncle—I beg your pardon—oldgentlemanI mean.” He[p13]laughed and made a low bow, but his cheeks took a rosier tint at that real slip of his tongue.“Well, suppose we talk about ourselves; that wouldn’t be behind our own backs, would it?”“Oh no!” came with a pretty jingle of laughter.“Do you know my name? Dick.”“I thought so,” replied the little girl.“You did!—why?”“You look like a Dick.”“Well, that’s just like a girl’s bosh—but still, you’re right: I am Dick Gregory, son of George Gregory, surgeon, living at Lakely, next station to Cherton, where you get out, you know.”The girl nodded.“Now, mademoiselle, what may your name be?” he asked, as the train carried them into the station with a whiz.“Inna Weston.”“Inna: is that short for anything?”“Yes—for Peninnah: papa’s mother’s name is Peninnah; and so, andso——”“And so your father chose to let you play grandmother to yourself in the matter of names?”[p14]“Yes,” a little ripple of a word full of laughter—her companion was so funny.“Now guess what’s in this hamper?” was Dick’s next proposition; “that’s safe ground, you know, to guess over a hamper when the owner bids you,” he added, by way of encouragement.“A kitten.” The train was carrying them on again, without any intruder to cut off the thread of their talk, except the guard, who put his head in at the window, and beamed a smile on Inna, as her caretaker; then he shut the door, and locked them in, and here was the train tearing on again.“Well, now, you are a good guesser for a girl,” said Dick.“I didn’t guess: I knew it. I heard her mew,” smiled Inna.“Ah! Miss Inna is a little pitcher, pussy; she has sharp ears,” said pussy’s master, peering and speaking through the hamper.“Me—e—e—w!” came like a prolonged protest against all the hurry-scurry and noise, so confusing to a kitten shut up in a hamper, not knowing why nor whither she was travelling.[p15]“Now, who am I taking her to? guess that; and if you guess right, I should say you’re a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and of gipsy origin”—so the merry boy challenged her.“To your sister.”“Right!” laughed Dick.“But I’m not a seventh daughter—I’m only daughter to mamma, and so was mamma before me; and I’m not a gipsy.” Inna’s face was brimming over with shy merriment.“Well, you ought to be, for you’re a clever guesser of dark secrets,” returned the boy. “Yes: I’m taking pussy home to my sister. Her name is—now, what is her name?”Inna shook her head.“Something pretty I should say, but I don’t know what.”“Oh! you’re not much of a witch after all,” said Dick. “No, it isn’t anything pretty—it’s Jane.”Inna smiled, and looked wise.“Well, what is it, Miss Inna? Out with it!” cried Dick, watching her changeful little face.“Mamma says, when one has an ugly name one must try to live a life to make it beautiful.”[p16]“Hum! Well, that isn’t bad. And when one has a beautiful name—like Dick, for instance,” said he waggishly, “what then?”“Then the name should help the life, and the life the name—so mamma said when I asked her.”“Well, your mother must be good,” said Dick to this.“Yes, she is.” Wistful lights were stealing into Inna’s eyes, and Dick had a suspicion that there were tears in them.“I’m not blest with one,” spoke he, carelessly to all seeming.“With no mother?” inquired his companion gently.“I’m sort of foster-child to Meggy, our cook and housekeeper—ours is Meggy, you know, and yours is Peggy, at Willett’s Farm.”“Yes,” smiled Inna, “yes.” She had tided over that tenderness of spirit caused by speaking of her mother.The train was steaming into a station again, but no passenger intruded; only the guard peeped in, as caretaker, to see if she was safe, as Dick remarked, when they were moving on again.[p17]“Has he got you under his wing?” asked he.“The guard has me under his care; ma—mamma asked him to see me safe.” The wistfulness was coming into her eyes again.“So she has a mother; I thought perhaps she hadn’t,” thought Dick. Aloud he said bluffly, “’Tis well to be a girl, to have all made smooth for one. Now here am I, come all the way from Wenley, turned out of school because of the measles, and never a creature as much as to say, ‘Have you got a ticket, or money to buy one?’”“Oh, but they’d not let you come without a ticket,” smiled Inna.“I mean our chums at school, and father at home. Of course my father knew I was all right about money, because he’d just sent my quarter’s allowance.”“And have they got the measles at your school?”“Yes: are you afraid of me? Infection, you know.”“Afraid? oh no!”“Well, if you caught it you’d be all right, your uncle being a doctor. A doctor at a farm[p18]—queer, isn’t it, now?” So Dick went skimming from subject to subject, very like a swallow skimming over the surface of water after flies and gnats.“Yes,” Inna could but confess it was—very guardedly, though, lest they might verge upon gossip again.“But Peggy’s the farmer; your uncle has enough to do to look after his patients. He’s a clever fo—man—so clever that some say he’s got medicine on the brain.”Inna’s lips were sealed conscientiously; but out of the brief silence that followed she put the safequestion—“What colour’s your kitten?”“White. Wouldn’t you like to take a peep at her?” and good-natured Dick held the hamper so that she might catch a glimpse of the small four-legged traveller.“She’s a beauty!”—such was Inna’s opinion of her.“And, according to you, she ought to have a beautiful name. But what of my sister Jane? I call her Jenny, and Jin; and that reminds me of the other gin with a g, you know; and that[p19]carries me on to trap, and trapper. I sometimes call her Trapper. That sounds quite romantic, and carries one away into North American Indian story life. Have you ever read any North American Indian stories—about Indians, and scalps, and all that?”“No,” was the decisive, though smiling, reply.Ah! they were steaming into a station again.“Lakely at last, and this is my station!” cried Dick, gathering his belongings together, so as to be ready to leap out when the train stopped, while a porter went shouting up and down the platform, “Lakely! Lakely!”“Well, good-bye, little friend; mind, Cherton comes next, then ’twill be your turn to turn out.” He wrung her hand, and was out on the platform in a twinkle, loaded like a bee, happy as a boy.“I say, Miss Inna, I should like you to come over to our place to see Jenny, or Trapper. I shall ask the doctor to give you a lift over in his gig,” he put his head back into the carriage to say.Now he was scudding away down the platform, and claiming a trunk and portmanteau from a medley of luggage, had it set aside by the[p20]porter, who seemed to know him; this done, he darted back again, smiled in at the carriage window, where that sweet girlish face still watched him, and then vanished.[Back toContents][p21]CHAPTER II.WILLETT’S FARM—TEA IN THE DINING-ROOM.“Cherton! Cherton! Cherton!”Inna sprang from the corner of her lonely carriage, and stepped out upon the platform, helped by the kindly guard.“Now, my dear, what’s to be done? There’s nobody here waiting for you, as I see,” said the man, looking up and down the small platform, where she seemed to be the only arrival—she and her neat little trunk, which a porter brought and set down at her feet.“No, they don’t know I’m coming,” returned the child, with a sober shake of her head.“Where for, miss?” inquired the porter, as the guard looked at him.“My—Mr. Willett’s, at Willett’s Farm,” said Inna, in a sort of startled importance at having to speak for herself.“Do you know the way?” asked the man.[p22]“No; but I should if you told me—Imean——”“Yes, miss; I know what you mean,” replied the porter, noting her childish confusion. “I’ll see to her, and send her safely,” he promised the busy guard, and took her small gloved hand in his, and led her away out into the open road by the station, stretching away among fields, all bathed in crimson and golden sunshine.“Now, miss,” said he, pointing with his finger, “you go along this road and turn to your right, and along a lane, turn to your right, and along another; don’t turn to your left at all; then turn to your right again, and there you are at Willett’s Farm. Do you understand?” he asked kindly, bending down to something like her height, so as to get her view of the way.“Yes, thank you; I must keep to the right all the way, and turn three times—but I don’t think I quite know what a farm is like,” confessed she bravely.“Oh, miss, that’s easy; there isn’t another house before you reach the farm—the village is above Willett’s Farm.”“Thank you; then I’ll think I’ll go now.”[p23]“You’ll not lose yourself? I’d go with you, but I expect another train in almost directly, and there isn’t a soul about here that I could send. And about your box, miss: will you send for it?”“Yes, I’ll send for it; and—and I don’t think I shall lose myself.”“Then good evening, miss.” The porter touched his hat, and she bade him “good evening” in return; then the child went wandering down the road from the station—a blue dot in the evening sunshine.Well, she took her three turnings to the right, and they brought her to the farm, lying not far up the last lane; the farm-buildings—barn, stable, and a whole clump of outbuildings—lying back from the road a little, and all lit up by the last rays of sunset. The house looked out upon the lane, where the shadows were gathering fast, under the many-tinted elm trees overshadowing it. Three spotlessly white steps led up to the front door, a strip of green turf lying each side, enclosed by green iron railings, and shut in by a little green gate. A quaint old house it was, with many crooks, corners,[p24]and gables, and small lattice diamond-paned windows, through one of which gleamed the ruddy glow of a fire. Ah! the air was crisp, the sun well-nigh gone, the evening creeping on. Inna sighed, and, tripping through the little green gate, mounted the three white steps, and, by dint of straining, reached up, and knocked with the knocker almost as loudly as a timid mouse. But it brought an answer, in the shape of a middle-aged woman, in a brown stuff gown, white apron and cap, dainty frillings of lace encircling her face. A sober face it was, yet kindly, peering down in astonishment at our small heroine, standing silent there among the deepening shadows in the crisp chilly air.“Well, dearie, what is it?” she questioned, as the child opened her lips to speak, and said nothing.“I’m Inna: please may I come in and tell you all about it?” asked the silvery tongue then.“Yes, of course—that is, if you have anything to tell;” and with this the woman made way for the little girl to pass her, and shut the door.“This way,” she said; and that was to the kitchen.[p25]Such a clean, cheery, comfortable place, with its wood fire filling it with ruddy glow and warmth, which was like a silent welcome.“Now, who’s ill and wants a doctor? Sick folks’ messengers shouldn’t lag,” said the woman, scanning her visitor as they both stood in the firelight glow.“Oh, nobody is ill; and I only—I mean—I don’t know where to begin,” was the bewildering answer.“Well, of course you know what brought you,” suggested the other.“Oh, the train brought me; and I’ve come to stay here.”“You have?” asked the woman.“Yes; because Uncle Jonathan gave mamma a home once, when she was a little girl; and she said he would me, if she sent me.”“And who are you? and who’s your mamma?”“I’m Inna; and mamma is Uncle Jonathan’s niece.”“You aren’t Miss Mercy’s daughter?” said the woman.“Yes, I’m Miss Mercy’s daughter; and now,[p26]please, may I sit down?” asked the little tired voice.“Yes, poor little unwelcome lamb; I’ll not be the one to deny that to Miss Mercy’s daughter. Come here;” and she set her own cushioned rocking-chair forward on the hearth. “But where is Miss Mercy? and why did she send you here?”“Mamma is gone abroad with papa. Some people are afraid he’s dying; and”—Inna’s heart was full—“I’ve a letter in my pocket for Uncle Jonathan, to tell him all about it.”“Well, well, this will be news for master—unwelcome news, I’m thinking,” muttered the woman as to herself, but speaking aloud.“Do you mean I shan’t be welcome?” asked a strained little voice from the rocking-chair.“Well, dearie, welcome or not, here you are, and here you must stay for to-night, at any rate. You see, Dr. Willett has one child on his hands already, and he’s a handful. I doubt if he’ll want another. But then, we must all have what we don’t want sometimes—eh, miss?”To this Inna sighed a troubled little “Yes.”Then Mrs. Grant—for she it was—bethought[p27]her to help her off with her jacket and hat, and inquired had she any belongings at the station? Yes, she had a trunk there; and an unknown Will—at least, unknown to Inna—was despatched for it.“But maybe you’d like some tea?” suggested the housekeeper.“Yes, I should, please,” the little lady assured her, folding her jacket neatly, as she had been taught.“Well, they’re just having tea in the dining-room. Come along.”No use for Inna to shrink or shiver, for Mrs. Grant was leading the way to those unknown tea-drinkers of whom she was to form one; the fire-light from the kitchen showing them the way along a passage. Then a door was opened, and the small shiverer thrust in, not unkindly, with thewords—“A little lady come for a bit and a sup with you, sir.”Then the door closed, and she was in another fire-lit room. A lamp, too, burnt on a table in front of a wood fire, on which was laid a quaint old-fashioned tea equipage, with a hissing urn,[p28]and all complete. On the hearth knelt a lad, making toast; and by his side, leaning against the mantelpiece, was a tall man—red-haired, with streaks of grey in that of both head and closely-clipped beard. He had keen grey eyes, which seemed to scan Inna through; a small mouse-like figure by the door, afraid to advance.“Oscar, where are your manners?” asked the gentleman, “to treat a lady in this way, when she’s thrust upon you?”Thrust: here was another word which seemed to say she was not welcome.“I beg your pardon,” lisped the child, thinking she ought to speak.“No, no; a lady is very like a king—she never does wrong or needs pardon; ’tis this great lout of a boy here that is the aggressor.”Whereupon the somewhat awkward, shy lad on the hearth laid down knife and toasting-fork, and came towards her.“Well, whoever you are, will you please sit here?” said he, setting her a chair by the table, and taking another himself behind the urn.“With a lady in the room, you’ll never do that,” said the gentleman, spying comically at[p29]him from where he still stood on the hearth, as the boy began to brew the tea.“Oh no, thank you; I couldn’t manage the urn,” said Inna.“I thought not,” growled Oscar, a big, handsome, fair-haired boy of eleven, with grey-blue eyes. “And now, here I am without a cup for you.”Inna had not taken the seat he offered her by the table, but had glided round to the gentleman on the hearth. Oscar made a bolt from the room to fetch a cup and saucer.“Won’t you say you will like to have me here, Uncle—Uncle Jonathan?” she asked hesitatingly. Such a mite she was, glancing up at the tall red-haired gentleman turning grey, such blushes coming and going in her cheeks.“My dear little lady, I think you’re just the one element wanting in our male community: a little girl in our midst will save us from settling down into the savages we’re fast becoming,” replied the gentleman, glancing down in an amused way at her from his superior height.“Well, isn’t that welcome enough?” he asked, still with that comical smile, as Inna gave a[p30]puzzled glance at him, as if not quite comprehending his high talk, and fumbling in her dress pocket.“I have a letter that will tell you all about me—why I’ve come, you know,” said she.“Ah yes, Dr. Willett’s letter,” he remarked, taking the missive from her and balancing it between his finger and thumb. Just then Oscar came back with a rush.“I know all about you, and who you are,” said he, putting down the cup and saucer he had brought with a clatter. “You’re a sort of half-cousin of mine, and a great-niece of Uncle Jonathan’s,” he blurted out.“Well, since you know so much, suppose you come here and enlighten your new half-cousin as to who I am. She has mistaken me for her uncle—and naturally too, since you, as host for the time being, were rude enough not to introduce us.”At this reproach Oscar left his tea-making, and approached the two: Inna with burning cheeks, at her mistake about this unknown gentleman, not her uncle.“Well, this is Mr. Barlow—Dr. Barlow, some[p31]people call him, but he’s no such thing; he’s a surgeon, and the one who plays David to Uncle Jonathan—you understand?” questioned the boy, with humour sparkling in his blue-grey eyes.“Yes,” nodded Inna shyly; “his very dear friend, you mean.”“Yes, that’s about the figure,” was the response, while the two bowed with ceremony.“And now, I am—tell Mr. Barlow who I am, please,” pleaded the small maiden.“Well, this is Miss Inna Weston, the daughter of a certain Mercy Willett, niece of Jonathan Willett, Doctor, who lived here years ago, before my time. Now, old man, come to tea.” With this, the boy slapped the other on the arm with pleasant familiarity, and went back to his tea-making.Mr. Barlow led Inna to her seat, and saw her comfortable there, taking his own chair beside her, while Oscar sat with his back to the fire—like a cat on a frosty night, Mr. Barlow told him. Inna wondered where her uncle was, but asked no questions as yet—only munched away at her toast in her dainty way, and sipped her tea,[p32]trying hard to feel that she was at home. As for Oscar, he made such sloppy work with the urn, that Mr. Barlow had to say presently—“Don’t make a sea of the table, boy. You see what incapable creatures we are, Miss Inna. I never could make tea, and your own eyes tell you what Oscar can do.”“I suppose Uncle Jonathan makes tea when he is here,” was Inna’s reply.At which the two gentlemen looked comically at each other.“Well, I can’t say I ever saw the doctor come down from the clouds enough for that,” observed Mr. Barlow dryly; “but I hope his little great-niece—am I right in the pedigree, Oscar?—will set us to rights, and bring in the age of civilisation for us.”Inna could but laugh a tinkling laugh at this, and asked timidly, “Do you live here, Mr. Barlow?”“No, dear; but I’m here morning, noon, and night. My head-quarters are at Mrs. Tussell’s, whose name ought to be, now, guess what?”People must suppose she had an aptitude for[p33]guessing, Inna thought, and asked with rosy cheeks was it “Fussy”?“Just the word; only you mustn’t tell her so,” was the reply; at which Inna shook her head, and said she could not be so rude. Then came the sound of the doctor’s gig outside the house, a step and a voice in the passage.“He’ll not come in here, dear,” Mr. Barlow told Inna, seeing her start and change colour; “he’ll have a cup of tea in his den, as we call it,” at which Oscar nodded, and said, “And a good name too!”Tea over, Mr. Barlow rose, and said “Good-bye for to-night, Miss Inna; David is going to Jonathan,” patted her head, and was gone.“Is his real name David?” she asked shyly of this cousin she had no idea of finding at Uncle Jonathan’s; nor had her mamma either, she decided in her own mind.“No; William—Billy Barlow they call him in the village, only I didn’t say so just now,” returned Oscar drily.“Mind your lessons, Master Oscar,” said Mrs. Grant, when she came in to fetch the tea equipage.[p34]“Fudge!” was the boy’s response, he and Inna established on the hearth, roasting chestnuts; and they were still there when Dr. Willett surprised them by a footfall close behind them.Up sprang Inna, like a startled daisy.“So you’re Mercy’s little daughter?” said he, by way of greeting.[Back toContents][p35]CHAPTER III.DR. WILLETT—THE NUTTING EXPEDITION—THE FIRE.“Soyou’re Mercy’s little daughter?” said the doctor, by way of greeting.“Yes,” faltered Inna; but she put her hand in his; this Uncle Jonathan, with whom she had come to live, was all she had in England now, except Oscar and Mr. Barlow, who was nobody as yet. The doctor pressed her small hand in his big strong one. Tall—taller than his friend David—was he, with dark hair and beard—at least, they had been dark, but were fast turning grey; his eyes were dark, piercing, and observant, full of fire; still, a kindly face, a kindly manner had he.“Well, little woman, I’ve read your mother’s letter. I never intended to be troubled with any more children after Oscar fell to my lot; but for your mother’s sake, and her mother’s[p36]before her, I can’t shut my door against you. So now stay, and see if you can’t open another door on your own account.” This is what he said, still holding her hand in his.“Do you know what door I mean?” he asked, as the child darted an upward glance at him.“Yes,” she nodded, “yes.” She could not say more, her heart was thumping so, but her small twining fingers in the doctor’s palm told him a great deal.He patted her on the head, and let her go; he did not kiss her. Inna wished he had when, later on, she was in bed, thinking of the many to-morrows she was to spend in this new uncle’s house. Her chamber was up in one of the gables of the quaint old house; the windows overlooked the garden and the home orchard, where, in the former, Michaelmas daisies and sunflowers flaunted in the sunshine when she looked out the next morning, and apples, rosy and golden, were waiting to be gathered in the latter. Birds were twittering and peeping at her through the ivy-wreathed window; away in the stubble fields, under the hills, sheep were straying, all in a glory of golden light; while rooks cawed[p37]and clamoured in the many-coloured elms by the house and garden, and all sweet morning freshness was everywhere. You may be sure she soon dressed, and tripped down the old-fashioned staircase—a dainty midge, in blue serge frock and white-bibbed apron. Below, she found Mary, the servant under the housekeeper, laying breakfast in the dining-room; and while the child stood shyly aloof by a window, in came Mrs. Grant with the urn, and her master behind her. Inna stepped forward, but her uncle took no notice of her; he only passed on to his seat at the table, took up his letters and newspaper, and, as it were, thus stepped into a world of his own. Oscar stole in like a thief, and began his usual tea-making—placing a cup by his uncle’s plate, upon which he laid slices of ham, carved as best he could; Inna, at a nod from him, cutting a piece of bread to keep company with the ham; while Mrs. Grant gave sundry nods, which the boy understood and returned, then she retired from the scene. Not a word was spoken during breakfast-time. Oscar helped himself and Inna to what the table afforded—ham, eggs, rolls, honey, golden butter—all so sweet and clean and homely.[p38]Before the young people had finished, the doctor rose and went tramping out.“Good morning,” said he at the door, breaking the spell of silence. Inna, rising, wished to spring toward him, but he was gone.“There, he’s safe till two o’clock,” sighed Oscar.“Safe?” said Inna.“Yes; booked with his patients, you know. Some say he has patients on the brain. I wish them joy of him.”“Don’t—don’t you like him?” she inquired falteringly.“Do you?” asked the other, helping himself to an egg.“I ought.”“Ought! I can’t bear that word ought: ’tis dinned into my ears morning, noon, and night. Now, I tell you what we’ll do: we’ll fling ‘ought’ to the winds, and go a nutting expedition this morning.”In came Mrs. Grant.“Well, Master Oscar, I should hope you’d go down to Mr. Fane’s for lessons to-day,” said she.[p39]“I can’t; I’ve a prior engagement,” said he, as loftily as a mouth full of bread and butter and egg could utter it.“And what’s that, may I ask?”“I’ve made a promise to a lady to go elsewhere.”“Oh, Oscar! never mind me; you ought to do your lessons, you know.”“I thought we flung that horrid word to the winds just now. There’s no ought in the case; I had a holiday yesterday, and I mean to to-day. I mean to take Inna to Black Hole, and round through the woods, on a nutting expedition—so there!”This last to Mrs. Grant.“Very well, Master Oscar; I shall have to set the doctor on to you again. I hope, Miss Inna, you’ll be a good little influence with him and teach him to obey his uncle.”Oscar laughed, pushed back his plate, and left the table. “Now, Inna, run and put on your hat and jacket, and we’ll be off,” said he to the little girl.“Go, dear,” said the housekeeper, as the child hesitated. “I suppose he means all right for[p40]this once, but he must take the consequence;” and away went Inna for hat and jacket, wondering if it was right to go.When she came down, Oscar showed her a packet of sandwiches in the nutting basket, which Mrs. Grant had cut for them to eat if they were hungry.“She isn’t a bad sort; her bark is worse than her bite,” said Oscar of her, when the two were well on their way.On and on—over stubble fields they went, till by-and-by they were taking a short cut through a carriage drive in Owl’s Nest Park, as Oscar informed Inna. It was a pretty bowery walk, overarched with beeches and elms in all their autumn glory, and full of the clamour of rooks. Here they met an old lady in a wheel-chair, pushed by a page-boy—such a sweet sad-faced old lady was the occupant of the chair, with shining grey curls peeping out from beneath her black satin hood. She was wrapped in some sort of fur-lined cloak; and by her side walked two little dark-faced, shy-looking girls of seven, quaintly dressed in rich black velvet, very like two wee maidens stepped out of some old picture,[p41]and each wearing a hood similar to that worn by their aged companion.[p40a]“A DONKEY AND CART CAME DRIVING UP.”[Return toList of Illustrations]“This is Madame Giche—spelt G-i-c-h-e—and her two grand-nieces; a queer party, all of them,” said Oscar, still leading on. “This isn’t her place: she can’t live at her own place, they say, all about some trouble she’s had; and so she took the Owl’s Nest of Sir Hubert Larch, who never lives there, on lease.”“Are we intruding here?” inquired Inna.“Oh, no; there is a right of way: that is, madame gives it, and people take it. Come on.”He had the grace to raise his hat to the party as they passed them by, and anon they were out of the park, and on a well-worn road. Here the sound of wheels greeted them, and a donkey and cart came driving up—Dick Gregory charioteer, and a girl of about Inna’s age seated in the bed of the cart behind him.“Why, little friend,” cried the boy, recognising Inna, “this is a happy meeting!” and down he sprang, and seized her hand with a boyish grip.“How d’ye do, Willett?” this to Oscar, who returned the salutation.[p42]“Now you must be introduced to Trapper. Here, Trapper,” said Dick, turning to the donkey-cart.“Don’t be silly, Dick,” cried the pretty little maiden. “You know I’m not Trapper: at least, only to you, who call me Gin and then Trap and Trapper. My name is Jenny;” and down she sprang to Inna’s side.“And I am Inna.”“Yes; Dick has told me your name.”“And how is your kitten?” Inna liked the pretty, free, fair-haired, fair-faced girl.“Oh, first-rate, thank you, isn’t she, Dick?” said she, appealing to her brother, who was just settling with Oscar.“Oh yes! We’ll just manage a morning of it in the woods; you can show your cousin Black Hole another time. Isn’t what?” he questioned of his sister.“Isn’t Snowdrop first-rate?”“Rather,” returned he, with a nod at Inna, which made her blush and laugh.“I’m glad she’s well. And so you call her Snowdrop?”“Yes; and what do you think of our donkey?[p43]We call him Rameses: that’s Dick’s choice of a name.”“He’s a beautiful creature,” returned Inna, stroking the animal’s wise old head.“Yes,” replied Dick, “I’m a lover of old names, so I thought I’d go back to the Pharaohs. Not a bad idea, was it? though no compliment, I daresay, to the old fogies.”“No,” laughed Oscar; “but never mind about compliments for dead and gone fogies.”“And what of the fogies of this generation?” inquired ready Dick.“The same—never mind.”“But come, we must make hay while the sun shines. In with you, you two girls, into the cart,” said Dick, which they did, Jenny helping Inna. Then up sprang the charioteer, Oscar beside him; crack went the whip, and off they drove like the wind.That nutting expedition was like a fairy dream to London-reared Inna; the lads showed her a squirrel or two, a dormouse not yet gone to its winter snooze, in its mossy bed-chamber. A snake wriggled past them, which made her shudder; frogs and toads leaped here and there[p44]in dark places. Then, oh, the whir and whisper of the autumn wind among the trees! the lights and shadows! Oh, for the magic hand of her artist father to make them hers for ever in a picture for her bedroom! But the delight of a morning’s nutting must come to an end—so did theirs; the sandwiches demolished—share and share, as Oscar put it—they bethought themselves of dinner and the road leading thereto, so once more they were on their backward way, and parting company.“Good-bye, mademoiselle!” cried Dick, as Inna stood at Oscar’s side, after she had kissed Jenny, and the two had vowed a girls’ eternal friendship. Then away went the donkey and cart, and our young people hastened home, just in time for dinner. A meal silent as breakfast was dinner, so far as they were concerned, for Mr. Barlow and the doctor kept a learned conversation high above their heads all the time—so Oscar said; and after it was over the boy vanished, nobody knew where. As for Inna, she roamed in the orchard all the afternoon in a dream of beauty, eating rosy apples, followed by tea—she and Mr. Barlow alone—she making[p45]the toast and managing the urn: a living proof of what can be done by trying, so the surgeon told her. Then he and the doctor went out, and Inna crept out to the kitchen, to wonder with Mrs. Grant where Oscar was, and what was keeping him.“No good, Miss Inna; that boy’ll go to the dogs if somebody don’t take him in hand. You try, dearie, what you can do with him,” said the housekeeper.“I!” cried astonished Inna. She try what she could do with a big boy like Oscar!“But hark! that’s the fire-bell; there must be a fire somewhere,” said Mrs. Grant, and out she went, with her apron over her head, to listen at the back gates.Inna, with no apron over her head, stole out to keep her company.“Oh my!” said Mrs. Grant to shivering Inna. “I wish Master Oscar was at home. I’m thinking he’s a finger in the pie.”Ah! there was the fire, sure enough; it was a flare and a flame against the darkening sky.“What’s alight?” inquired Mrs. Grant of a man who went hurrying by.[p46]“Poor Jackson’s little farm; they say ’tis going like tinder, and he’s half crazed,” came back to them as the man ran on.“Oh dear! that boy, what he’ll have to answer for!” cried the housekeeper.“But we’re not sure ’tis his work,” said sensible Inna.“No, dear; but there’s seldom any mischief going that he don’t help in the brewing of.”Inna was silent, watching the red glare of the fire mounting heavenwards.[Back toContents][p47]CHAPTER IV.OSCAR’S BURNT ARM—BLACK HOLE.“Yousee, 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[p48]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[p49]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 youhave——”“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’tyou?”[p50]“Yes, Ithink——”“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[p51]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[p52]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 house-[p53]keeper, 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[p54]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.[p55]“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’tyou 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[p56]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.[p57]“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, learn-[p58]ing, 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,[p59]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 night-[p60]mare, 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.[Back toContents]

[p9]THE HEIRESS OF WYVERN COURT.[Back toContents]CHAPTER I.IN THE RAILWAY CARRIAGE—NEW FRIENDS.“Well, little friend, and where do you hail from?”The speaker was a merry-faced, brown-eyed boy of eleven, with curly brown hair—just the school-boy all over.He had leaped into a railway carriage with cricket-bat, fishing-rod, and a knowing-looking little hamper, which he deposited on the seat beside him; then away went the snorting steam horse, train, people, and all, and out came this abrupt question. “Little friend” was a mite of a girl of nine, dressed in a homely blue serge frock and jacket, with blue velvet hat to match: a shy little midge of a grey-eyed maiden, with sunny brown curls twining about her forehead[p10]and rippling down upon her shoulders, nestling in one corner of the carriage—the sole occupant thereof until this merry questioner came to keep her company.“I don’t quite know what you mean,” was the little girl’s reply—a sweet, refined way of speaking had she, and her eyes sparkled with shy merriment, although there was a startled look in them too.“Well, where do you come from, my dear mademoiselle?” and now the merry speaker made a courtly bow.“From London—but I’m not French, you know,” was the retort, with the demurest of demure smiles.“No—just so; and where are you going?” One could but answer him, his questions came with such winning grace of manner.“To Cherton—to uncle—to Mr. Jonathan Willett’s.”“Cherton! why, that’s not far from my happy destination. I get out only one station before you.”“Little friend” smiled her demure little smile again, as if she was glad to hear it.[p11]“So you’re going to Mr. Willett’s—Dr. Willett he’s generally called, being a physician,” continued the boy, after glancing from the window a second or two, as if to note how fast the landscape was rushing past the train, or the train past the landscape.“Yes; do you know him?” inquired the silvery tongue of the other.“Oh yes; I know him!”—a short assent, comically spoken.“I don’t,” sighed the little girl, as if the thought oppressed her.“Then you’d like to know what he’s like,” spoke the boy, using the word like twice for want of another.“Yes—only—only would it be nice to talk about a person—one’s uncle, one doesn’t know,be——”she did not like to say behind his back, but the faltering little tongue stuck fast, and the small sensitive face of the child looked a little confused.“Ah! behind his back,” spoke the boy readily. “Well, perhaps not; but you’ll know him soon enough, I’m quite sure, and all about Peggy, too. Peggy is the best of the couple,” he added.[p12]“Do you mean Mrs. Grant, my uncle’s housekeeper?”“Yes, that very lady—only, you see, I like to call her Peggy.”“Yes,” returned the child, supposing she ought to say something.“’Tis a farm, you know—jolly old place. Do you know that?”“Yes—that is, I know ’tis a farm; mamma told me that. But I didn’t know ’twas jolly; mamma said ’twas very pretty, and home-like, and nice.”“Ah, yes! just a lady’s view of the place,” nodded the boy approvingly. “The farm is the best part of it all, and so you’ll saywhen——”“Perhaps we’ll not talk about it,” broke in “little friend” timidly.“Well, you are a precise little lady not to talk about a farm, your uncle’s farm, behind its back,” laughed the boy.“It’s mamma’s uncle,” corrected the little maiden.“Ah, yes! and your great uncle. Well, I thought he was an old fogey to be your uncle—I beg your pardon—oldgentlemanI mean.” He[p13]laughed and made a low bow, but his cheeks took a rosier tint at that real slip of his tongue.“Well, suppose we talk about ourselves; that wouldn’t be behind our own backs, would it?”“Oh no!” came with a pretty jingle of laughter.“Do you know my name? Dick.”“I thought so,” replied the little girl.“You did!—why?”“You look like a Dick.”“Well, that’s just like a girl’s bosh—but still, you’re right: I am Dick Gregory, son of George Gregory, surgeon, living at Lakely, next station to Cherton, where you get out, you know.”The girl nodded.“Now, mademoiselle, what may your name be?” he asked, as the train carried them into the station with a whiz.“Inna Weston.”“Inna: is that short for anything?”“Yes—for Peninnah: papa’s mother’s name is Peninnah; and so, andso——”“And so your father chose to let you play grandmother to yourself in the matter of names?”[p14]“Yes,” a little ripple of a word full of laughter—her companion was so funny.“Now guess what’s in this hamper?” was Dick’s next proposition; “that’s safe ground, you know, to guess over a hamper when the owner bids you,” he added, by way of encouragement.“A kitten.” The train was carrying them on again, without any intruder to cut off the thread of their talk, except the guard, who put his head in at the window, and beamed a smile on Inna, as her caretaker; then he shut the door, and locked them in, and here was the train tearing on again.“Well, now, you are a good guesser for a girl,” said Dick.“I didn’t guess: I knew it. I heard her mew,” smiled Inna.“Ah! Miss Inna is a little pitcher, pussy; she has sharp ears,” said pussy’s master, peering and speaking through the hamper.“Me—e—e—w!” came like a prolonged protest against all the hurry-scurry and noise, so confusing to a kitten shut up in a hamper, not knowing why nor whither she was travelling.[p15]“Now, who am I taking her to? guess that; and if you guess right, I should say you’re a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and of gipsy origin”—so the merry boy challenged her.“To your sister.”“Right!” laughed Dick.“But I’m not a seventh daughter—I’m only daughter to mamma, and so was mamma before me; and I’m not a gipsy.” Inna’s face was brimming over with shy merriment.“Well, you ought to be, for you’re a clever guesser of dark secrets,” returned the boy. “Yes: I’m taking pussy home to my sister. Her name is—now, what is her name?”Inna shook her head.“Something pretty I should say, but I don’t know what.”“Oh! you’re not much of a witch after all,” said Dick. “No, it isn’t anything pretty—it’s Jane.”Inna smiled, and looked wise.“Well, what is it, Miss Inna? Out with it!” cried Dick, watching her changeful little face.“Mamma says, when one has an ugly name one must try to live a life to make it beautiful.”[p16]“Hum! Well, that isn’t bad. And when one has a beautiful name—like Dick, for instance,” said he waggishly, “what then?”“Then the name should help the life, and the life the name—so mamma said when I asked her.”“Well, your mother must be good,” said Dick to this.“Yes, she is.” Wistful lights were stealing into Inna’s eyes, and Dick had a suspicion that there were tears in them.“I’m not blest with one,” spoke he, carelessly to all seeming.“With no mother?” inquired his companion gently.“I’m sort of foster-child to Meggy, our cook and housekeeper—ours is Meggy, you know, and yours is Peggy, at Willett’s Farm.”“Yes,” smiled Inna, “yes.” She had tided over that tenderness of spirit caused by speaking of her mother.The train was steaming into a station again, but no passenger intruded; only the guard peeped in, as caretaker, to see if she was safe, as Dick remarked, when they were moving on again.[p17]“Has he got you under his wing?” asked he.“The guard has me under his care; ma—mamma asked him to see me safe.” The wistfulness was coming into her eyes again.“So she has a mother; I thought perhaps she hadn’t,” thought Dick. Aloud he said bluffly, “’Tis well to be a girl, to have all made smooth for one. Now here am I, come all the way from Wenley, turned out of school because of the measles, and never a creature as much as to say, ‘Have you got a ticket, or money to buy one?’”“Oh, but they’d not let you come without a ticket,” smiled Inna.“I mean our chums at school, and father at home. Of course my father knew I was all right about money, because he’d just sent my quarter’s allowance.”“And have they got the measles at your school?”“Yes: are you afraid of me? Infection, you know.”“Afraid? oh no!”“Well, if you caught it you’d be all right, your uncle being a doctor. A doctor at a farm[p18]—queer, isn’t it, now?” So Dick went skimming from subject to subject, very like a swallow skimming over the surface of water after flies and gnats.“Yes,” Inna could but confess it was—very guardedly, though, lest they might verge upon gossip again.“But Peggy’s the farmer; your uncle has enough to do to look after his patients. He’s a clever fo—man—so clever that some say he’s got medicine on the brain.”Inna’s lips were sealed conscientiously; but out of the brief silence that followed she put the safequestion—“What colour’s your kitten?”“White. Wouldn’t you like to take a peep at her?” and good-natured Dick held the hamper so that she might catch a glimpse of the small four-legged traveller.“She’s a beauty!”—such was Inna’s opinion of her.“And, according to you, she ought to have a beautiful name. But what of my sister Jane? I call her Jenny, and Jin; and that reminds me of the other gin with a g, you know; and that[p19]carries me on to trap, and trapper. I sometimes call her Trapper. That sounds quite romantic, and carries one away into North American Indian story life. Have you ever read any North American Indian stories—about Indians, and scalps, and all that?”“No,” was the decisive, though smiling, reply.Ah! they were steaming into a station again.“Lakely at last, and this is my station!” cried Dick, gathering his belongings together, so as to be ready to leap out when the train stopped, while a porter went shouting up and down the platform, “Lakely! Lakely!”“Well, good-bye, little friend; mind, Cherton comes next, then ’twill be your turn to turn out.” He wrung her hand, and was out on the platform in a twinkle, loaded like a bee, happy as a boy.“I say, Miss Inna, I should like you to come over to our place to see Jenny, or Trapper. I shall ask the doctor to give you a lift over in his gig,” he put his head back into the carriage to say.Now he was scudding away down the platform, and claiming a trunk and portmanteau from a medley of luggage, had it set aside by the[p20]porter, who seemed to know him; this done, he darted back again, smiled in at the carriage window, where that sweet girlish face still watched him, and then vanished.[Back toContents][p21]CHAPTER II.WILLETT’S FARM—TEA IN THE DINING-ROOM.“Cherton! Cherton! Cherton!”Inna sprang from the corner of her lonely carriage, and stepped out upon the platform, helped by the kindly guard.“Now, my dear, what’s to be done? There’s nobody here waiting for you, as I see,” said the man, looking up and down the small platform, where she seemed to be the only arrival—she and her neat little trunk, which a porter brought and set down at her feet.“No, they don’t know I’m coming,” returned the child, with a sober shake of her head.“Where for, miss?” inquired the porter, as the guard looked at him.“My—Mr. Willett’s, at Willett’s Farm,” said Inna, in a sort of startled importance at having to speak for herself.“Do you know the way?” asked the man.[p22]“No; but I should if you told me—Imean——”“Yes, miss; I know what you mean,” replied the porter, noting her childish confusion. “I’ll see to her, and send her safely,” he promised the busy guard, and took her small gloved hand in his, and led her away out into the open road by the station, stretching away among fields, all bathed in crimson and golden sunshine.“Now, miss,” said he, pointing with his finger, “you go along this road and turn to your right, and along a lane, turn to your right, and along another; don’t turn to your left at all; then turn to your right again, and there you are at Willett’s Farm. Do you understand?” he asked kindly, bending down to something like her height, so as to get her view of the way.“Yes, thank you; I must keep to the right all the way, and turn three times—but I don’t think I quite know what a farm is like,” confessed she bravely.“Oh, miss, that’s easy; there isn’t another house before you reach the farm—the village is above Willett’s Farm.”“Thank you; then I’ll think I’ll go now.”[p23]“You’ll not lose yourself? I’d go with you, but I expect another train in almost directly, and there isn’t a soul about here that I could send. And about your box, miss: will you send for it?”“Yes, I’ll send for it; and—and I don’t think I shall lose myself.”“Then good evening, miss.” The porter touched his hat, and she bade him “good evening” in return; then the child went wandering down the road from the station—a blue dot in the evening sunshine.Well, she took her three turnings to the right, and they brought her to the farm, lying not far up the last lane; the farm-buildings—barn, stable, and a whole clump of outbuildings—lying back from the road a little, and all lit up by the last rays of sunset. The house looked out upon the lane, where the shadows were gathering fast, under the many-tinted elm trees overshadowing it. Three spotlessly white steps led up to the front door, a strip of green turf lying each side, enclosed by green iron railings, and shut in by a little green gate. A quaint old house it was, with many crooks, corners,[p24]and gables, and small lattice diamond-paned windows, through one of which gleamed the ruddy glow of a fire. Ah! the air was crisp, the sun well-nigh gone, the evening creeping on. Inna sighed, and, tripping through the little green gate, mounted the three white steps, and, by dint of straining, reached up, and knocked with the knocker almost as loudly as a timid mouse. But it brought an answer, in the shape of a middle-aged woman, in a brown stuff gown, white apron and cap, dainty frillings of lace encircling her face. A sober face it was, yet kindly, peering down in astonishment at our small heroine, standing silent there among the deepening shadows in the crisp chilly air.“Well, dearie, what is it?” she questioned, as the child opened her lips to speak, and said nothing.“I’m Inna: please may I come in and tell you all about it?” asked the silvery tongue then.“Yes, of course—that is, if you have anything to tell;” and with this the woman made way for the little girl to pass her, and shut the door.“This way,” she said; and that was to the kitchen.[p25]Such a clean, cheery, comfortable place, with its wood fire filling it with ruddy glow and warmth, which was like a silent welcome.“Now, who’s ill and wants a doctor? Sick folks’ messengers shouldn’t lag,” said the woman, scanning her visitor as they both stood in the firelight glow.“Oh, nobody is ill; and I only—I mean—I don’t know where to begin,” was the bewildering answer.“Well, of course you know what brought you,” suggested the other.“Oh, the train brought me; and I’ve come to stay here.”“You have?” asked the woman.“Yes; because Uncle Jonathan gave mamma a home once, when she was a little girl; and she said he would me, if she sent me.”“And who are you? and who’s your mamma?”“I’m Inna; and mamma is Uncle Jonathan’s niece.”“You aren’t Miss Mercy’s daughter?” said the woman.“Yes, I’m Miss Mercy’s daughter; and now,[p26]please, may I sit down?” asked the little tired voice.“Yes, poor little unwelcome lamb; I’ll not be the one to deny that to Miss Mercy’s daughter. Come here;” and she set her own cushioned rocking-chair forward on the hearth. “But where is Miss Mercy? and why did she send you here?”“Mamma is gone abroad with papa. Some people are afraid he’s dying; and”—Inna’s heart was full—“I’ve a letter in my pocket for Uncle Jonathan, to tell him all about it.”“Well, well, this will be news for master—unwelcome news, I’m thinking,” muttered the woman as to herself, but speaking aloud.“Do you mean I shan’t be welcome?” asked a strained little voice from the rocking-chair.“Well, dearie, welcome or not, here you are, and here you must stay for to-night, at any rate. You see, Dr. Willett has one child on his hands already, and he’s a handful. I doubt if he’ll want another. But then, we must all have what we don’t want sometimes—eh, miss?”To this Inna sighed a troubled little “Yes.”Then Mrs. Grant—for she it was—bethought[p27]her to help her off with her jacket and hat, and inquired had she any belongings at the station? Yes, she had a trunk there; and an unknown Will—at least, unknown to Inna—was despatched for it.“But maybe you’d like some tea?” suggested the housekeeper.“Yes, I should, please,” the little lady assured her, folding her jacket neatly, as she had been taught.“Well, they’re just having tea in the dining-room. Come along.”No use for Inna to shrink or shiver, for Mrs. Grant was leading the way to those unknown tea-drinkers of whom she was to form one; the fire-light from the kitchen showing them the way along a passage. Then a door was opened, and the small shiverer thrust in, not unkindly, with thewords—“A little lady come for a bit and a sup with you, sir.”Then the door closed, and she was in another fire-lit room. A lamp, too, burnt on a table in front of a wood fire, on which was laid a quaint old-fashioned tea equipage, with a hissing urn,[p28]and all complete. On the hearth knelt a lad, making toast; and by his side, leaning against the mantelpiece, was a tall man—red-haired, with streaks of grey in that of both head and closely-clipped beard. He had keen grey eyes, which seemed to scan Inna through; a small mouse-like figure by the door, afraid to advance.“Oscar, where are your manners?” asked the gentleman, “to treat a lady in this way, when she’s thrust upon you?”Thrust: here was another word which seemed to say she was not welcome.“I beg your pardon,” lisped the child, thinking she ought to speak.“No, no; a lady is very like a king—she never does wrong or needs pardon; ’tis this great lout of a boy here that is the aggressor.”Whereupon the somewhat awkward, shy lad on the hearth laid down knife and toasting-fork, and came towards her.“Well, whoever you are, will you please sit here?” said he, setting her a chair by the table, and taking another himself behind the urn.“With a lady in the room, you’ll never do that,” said the gentleman, spying comically at[p29]him from where he still stood on the hearth, as the boy began to brew the tea.“Oh no, thank you; I couldn’t manage the urn,” said Inna.“I thought not,” growled Oscar, a big, handsome, fair-haired boy of eleven, with grey-blue eyes. “And now, here I am without a cup for you.”Inna had not taken the seat he offered her by the table, but had glided round to the gentleman on the hearth. Oscar made a bolt from the room to fetch a cup and saucer.“Won’t you say you will like to have me here, Uncle—Uncle Jonathan?” she asked hesitatingly. Such a mite she was, glancing up at the tall red-haired gentleman turning grey, such blushes coming and going in her cheeks.“My dear little lady, I think you’re just the one element wanting in our male community: a little girl in our midst will save us from settling down into the savages we’re fast becoming,” replied the gentleman, glancing down in an amused way at her from his superior height.“Well, isn’t that welcome enough?” he asked, still with that comical smile, as Inna gave a[p30]puzzled glance at him, as if not quite comprehending his high talk, and fumbling in her dress pocket.“I have a letter that will tell you all about me—why I’ve come, you know,” said she.“Ah yes, Dr. Willett’s letter,” he remarked, taking the missive from her and balancing it between his finger and thumb. Just then Oscar came back with a rush.“I know all about you, and who you are,” said he, putting down the cup and saucer he had brought with a clatter. “You’re a sort of half-cousin of mine, and a great-niece of Uncle Jonathan’s,” he blurted out.“Well, since you know so much, suppose you come here and enlighten your new half-cousin as to who I am. She has mistaken me for her uncle—and naturally too, since you, as host for the time being, were rude enough not to introduce us.”At this reproach Oscar left his tea-making, and approached the two: Inna with burning cheeks, at her mistake about this unknown gentleman, not her uncle.“Well, this is Mr. Barlow—Dr. Barlow, some[p31]people call him, but he’s no such thing; he’s a surgeon, and the one who plays David to Uncle Jonathan—you understand?” questioned the boy, with humour sparkling in his blue-grey eyes.“Yes,” nodded Inna shyly; “his very dear friend, you mean.”“Yes, that’s about the figure,” was the response, while the two bowed with ceremony.“And now, I am—tell Mr. Barlow who I am, please,” pleaded the small maiden.“Well, this is Miss Inna Weston, the daughter of a certain Mercy Willett, niece of Jonathan Willett, Doctor, who lived here years ago, before my time. Now, old man, come to tea.” With this, the boy slapped the other on the arm with pleasant familiarity, and went back to his tea-making.Mr. Barlow led Inna to her seat, and saw her comfortable there, taking his own chair beside her, while Oscar sat with his back to the fire—like a cat on a frosty night, Mr. Barlow told him. Inna wondered where her uncle was, but asked no questions as yet—only munched away at her toast in her dainty way, and sipped her tea,[p32]trying hard to feel that she was at home. As for Oscar, he made such sloppy work with the urn, that Mr. Barlow had to say presently—“Don’t make a sea of the table, boy. You see what incapable creatures we are, Miss Inna. I never could make tea, and your own eyes tell you what Oscar can do.”“I suppose Uncle Jonathan makes tea when he is here,” was Inna’s reply.At which the two gentlemen looked comically at each other.“Well, I can’t say I ever saw the doctor come down from the clouds enough for that,” observed Mr. Barlow dryly; “but I hope his little great-niece—am I right in the pedigree, Oscar?—will set us to rights, and bring in the age of civilisation for us.”Inna could but laugh a tinkling laugh at this, and asked timidly, “Do you live here, Mr. Barlow?”“No, dear; but I’m here morning, noon, and night. My head-quarters are at Mrs. Tussell’s, whose name ought to be, now, guess what?”People must suppose she had an aptitude for[p33]guessing, Inna thought, and asked with rosy cheeks was it “Fussy”?“Just the word; only you mustn’t tell her so,” was the reply; at which Inna shook her head, and said she could not be so rude. Then came the sound of the doctor’s gig outside the house, a step and a voice in the passage.“He’ll not come in here, dear,” Mr. Barlow told Inna, seeing her start and change colour; “he’ll have a cup of tea in his den, as we call it,” at which Oscar nodded, and said, “And a good name too!”Tea over, Mr. Barlow rose, and said “Good-bye for to-night, Miss Inna; David is going to Jonathan,” patted her head, and was gone.“Is his real name David?” she asked shyly of this cousin she had no idea of finding at Uncle Jonathan’s; nor had her mamma either, she decided in her own mind.“No; William—Billy Barlow they call him in the village, only I didn’t say so just now,” returned Oscar drily.“Mind your lessons, Master Oscar,” said Mrs. Grant, when she came in to fetch the tea equipage.[p34]“Fudge!” was the boy’s response, he and Inna established on the hearth, roasting chestnuts; and they were still there when Dr. Willett surprised them by a footfall close behind them.Up sprang Inna, like a startled daisy.“So you’re Mercy’s little daughter?” said he, by way of greeting.[Back toContents][p35]CHAPTER III.DR. WILLETT—THE NUTTING EXPEDITION—THE FIRE.“Soyou’re Mercy’s little daughter?” said the doctor, by way of greeting.“Yes,” faltered Inna; but she put her hand in his; this Uncle Jonathan, with whom she had come to live, was all she had in England now, except Oscar and Mr. Barlow, who was nobody as yet. The doctor pressed her small hand in his big strong one. Tall—taller than his friend David—was he, with dark hair and beard—at least, they had been dark, but were fast turning grey; his eyes were dark, piercing, and observant, full of fire; still, a kindly face, a kindly manner had he.“Well, little woman, I’ve read your mother’s letter. I never intended to be troubled with any more children after Oscar fell to my lot; but for your mother’s sake, and her mother’s[p36]before her, I can’t shut my door against you. So now stay, and see if you can’t open another door on your own account.” This is what he said, still holding her hand in his.“Do you know what door I mean?” he asked, as the child darted an upward glance at him.“Yes,” she nodded, “yes.” She could not say more, her heart was thumping so, but her small twining fingers in the doctor’s palm told him a great deal.He patted her on the head, and let her go; he did not kiss her. Inna wished he had when, later on, she was in bed, thinking of the many to-morrows she was to spend in this new uncle’s house. Her chamber was up in one of the gables of the quaint old house; the windows overlooked the garden and the home orchard, where, in the former, Michaelmas daisies and sunflowers flaunted in the sunshine when she looked out the next morning, and apples, rosy and golden, were waiting to be gathered in the latter. Birds were twittering and peeping at her through the ivy-wreathed window; away in the stubble fields, under the hills, sheep were straying, all in a glory of golden light; while rooks cawed[p37]and clamoured in the many-coloured elms by the house and garden, and all sweet morning freshness was everywhere. You may be sure she soon dressed, and tripped down the old-fashioned staircase—a dainty midge, in blue serge frock and white-bibbed apron. Below, she found Mary, the servant under the housekeeper, laying breakfast in the dining-room; and while the child stood shyly aloof by a window, in came Mrs. Grant with the urn, and her master behind her. Inna stepped forward, but her uncle took no notice of her; he only passed on to his seat at the table, took up his letters and newspaper, and, as it were, thus stepped into a world of his own. Oscar stole in like a thief, and began his usual tea-making—placing a cup by his uncle’s plate, upon which he laid slices of ham, carved as best he could; Inna, at a nod from him, cutting a piece of bread to keep company with the ham; while Mrs. Grant gave sundry nods, which the boy understood and returned, then she retired from the scene. Not a word was spoken during breakfast-time. Oscar helped himself and Inna to what the table afforded—ham, eggs, rolls, honey, golden butter—all so sweet and clean and homely.[p38]Before the young people had finished, the doctor rose and went tramping out.“Good morning,” said he at the door, breaking the spell of silence. Inna, rising, wished to spring toward him, but he was gone.“There, he’s safe till two o’clock,” sighed Oscar.“Safe?” said Inna.“Yes; booked with his patients, you know. Some say he has patients on the brain. I wish them joy of him.”“Don’t—don’t you like him?” she inquired falteringly.“Do you?” asked the other, helping himself to an egg.“I ought.”“Ought! I can’t bear that word ought: ’tis dinned into my ears morning, noon, and night. Now, I tell you what we’ll do: we’ll fling ‘ought’ to the winds, and go a nutting expedition this morning.”In came Mrs. Grant.“Well, Master Oscar, I should hope you’d go down to Mr. Fane’s for lessons to-day,” said she.[p39]“I can’t; I’ve a prior engagement,” said he, as loftily as a mouth full of bread and butter and egg could utter it.“And what’s that, may I ask?”“I’ve made a promise to a lady to go elsewhere.”“Oh, Oscar! never mind me; you ought to do your lessons, you know.”“I thought we flung that horrid word to the winds just now. There’s no ought in the case; I had a holiday yesterday, and I mean to to-day. I mean to take Inna to Black Hole, and round through the woods, on a nutting expedition—so there!”This last to Mrs. Grant.“Very well, Master Oscar; I shall have to set the doctor on to you again. I hope, Miss Inna, you’ll be a good little influence with him and teach him to obey his uncle.”Oscar laughed, pushed back his plate, and left the table. “Now, Inna, run and put on your hat and jacket, and we’ll be off,” said he to the little girl.“Go, dear,” said the housekeeper, as the child hesitated. “I suppose he means all right for[p40]this once, but he must take the consequence;” and away went Inna for hat and jacket, wondering if it was right to go.When she came down, Oscar showed her a packet of sandwiches in the nutting basket, which Mrs. Grant had cut for them to eat if they were hungry.“She isn’t a bad sort; her bark is worse than her bite,” said Oscar of her, when the two were well on their way.On and on—over stubble fields they went, till by-and-by they were taking a short cut through a carriage drive in Owl’s Nest Park, as Oscar informed Inna. It was a pretty bowery walk, overarched with beeches and elms in all their autumn glory, and full of the clamour of rooks. Here they met an old lady in a wheel-chair, pushed by a page-boy—such a sweet sad-faced old lady was the occupant of the chair, with shining grey curls peeping out from beneath her black satin hood. She was wrapped in some sort of fur-lined cloak; and by her side walked two little dark-faced, shy-looking girls of seven, quaintly dressed in rich black velvet, very like two wee maidens stepped out of some old picture,[p41]and each wearing a hood similar to that worn by their aged companion.[p40a]“A DONKEY AND CART CAME DRIVING UP.”[Return toList of Illustrations]“This is Madame Giche—spelt G-i-c-h-e—and her two grand-nieces; a queer party, all of them,” said Oscar, still leading on. “This isn’t her place: she can’t live at her own place, they say, all about some trouble she’s had; and so she took the Owl’s Nest of Sir Hubert Larch, who never lives there, on lease.”“Are we intruding here?” inquired Inna.“Oh, no; there is a right of way: that is, madame gives it, and people take it. Come on.”He had the grace to raise his hat to the party as they passed them by, and anon they were out of the park, and on a well-worn road. Here the sound of wheels greeted them, and a donkey and cart came driving up—Dick Gregory charioteer, and a girl of about Inna’s age seated in the bed of the cart behind him.“Why, little friend,” cried the boy, recognising Inna, “this is a happy meeting!” and down he sprang, and seized her hand with a boyish grip.“How d’ye do, Willett?” this to Oscar, who returned the salutation.[p42]“Now you must be introduced to Trapper. Here, Trapper,” said Dick, turning to the donkey-cart.“Don’t be silly, Dick,” cried the pretty little maiden. “You know I’m not Trapper: at least, only to you, who call me Gin and then Trap and Trapper. My name is Jenny;” and down she sprang to Inna’s side.“And I am Inna.”“Yes; Dick has told me your name.”“And how is your kitten?” Inna liked the pretty, free, fair-haired, fair-faced girl.“Oh, first-rate, thank you, isn’t she, Dick?” said she, appealing to her brother, who was just settling with Oscar.“Oh yes! We’ll just manage a morning of it in the woods; you can show your cousin Black Hole another time. Isn’t what?” he questioned of his sister.“Isn’t Snowdrop first-rate?”“Rather,” returned he, with a nod at Inna, which made her blush and laugh.“I’m glad she’s well. And so you call her Snowdrop?”“Yes; and what do you think of our donkey?[p43]We call him Rameses: that’s Dick’s choice of a name.”“He’s a beautiful creature,” returned Inna, stroking the animal’s wise old head.“Yes,” replied Dick, “I’m a lover of old names, so I thought I’d go back to the Pharaohs. Not a bad idea, was it? though no compliment, I daresay, to the old fogies.”“No,” laughed Oscar; “but never mind about compliments for dead and gone fogies.”“And what of the fogies of this generation?” inquired ready Dick.“The same—never mind.”“But come, we must make hay while the sun shines. In with you, you two girls, into the cart,” said Dick, which they did, Jenny helping Inna. Then up sprang the charioteer, Oscar beside him; crack went the whip, and off they drove like the wind.That nutting expedition was like a fairy dream to London-reared Inna; the lads showed her a squirrel or two, a dormouse not yet gone to its winter snooze, in its mossy bed-chamber. A snake wriggled past them, which made her shudder; frogs and toads leaped here and there[p44]in dark places. Then, oh, the whir and whisper of the autumn wind among the trees! the lights and shadows! Oh, for the magic hand of her artist father to make them hers for ever in a picture for her bedroom! But the delight of a morning’s nutting must come to an end—so did theirs; the sandwiches demolished—share and share, as Oscar put it—they bethought themselves of dinner and the road leading thereto, so once more they were on their backward way, and parting company.“Good-bye, mademoiselle!” cried Dick, as Inna stood at Oscar’s side, after she had kissed Jenny, and the two had vowed a girls’ eternal friendship. Then away went the donkey and cart, and our young people hastened home, just in time for dinner. A meal silent as breakfast was dinner, so far as they were concerned, for Mr. Barlow and the doctor kept a learned conversation high above their heads all the time—so Oscar said; and after it was over the boy vanished, nobody knew where. As for Inna, she roamed in the orchard all the afternoon in a dream of beauty, eating rosy apples, followed by tea—she and Mr. Barlow alone—she making[p45]the toast and managing the urn: a living proof of what can be done by trying, so the surgeon told her. Then he and the doctor went out, and Inna crept out to the kitchen, to wonder with Mrs. Grant where Oscar was, and what was keeping him.“No good, Miss Inna; that boy’ll go to the dogs if somebody don’t take him in hand. You try, dearie, what you can do with him,” said the housekeeper.“I!” cried astonished Inna. She try what she could do with a big boy like Oscar!“But hark! that’s the fire-bell; there must be a fire somewhere,” said Mrs. Grant, and out she went, with her apron over her head, to listen at the back gates.Inna, with no apron over her head, stole out to keep her company.“Oh my!” said Mrs. Grant to shivering Inna. “I wish Master Oscar was at home. I’m thinking he’s a finger in the pie.”Ah! there was the fire, sure enough; it was a flare and a flame against the darkening sky.“What’s alight?” inquired Mrs. Grant of a man who went hurrying by.[p46]“Poor Jackson’s little farm; they say ’tis going like tinder, and he’s half crazed,” came back to them as the man ran on.“Oh dear! that boy, what he’ll have to answer for!” cried the housekeeper.“But we’re not sure ’tis his work,” said sensible Inna.“No, dear; but there’s seldom any mischief going that he don’t help in the brewing of.”Inna was silent, watching the red glare of the fire mounting heavenwards.[Back toContents][p47]CHAPTER IV.OSCAR’S BURNT ARM—BLACK HOLE.“Yousee, 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[p48]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[p49]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 youhave——”“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’tyou?”[p50]“Yes, Ithink——”“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[p51]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[p52]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 house-[p53]keeper, 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[p54]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.[p55]“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’tyou 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[p56]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.[p57]“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, learn-[p58]ing, 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,[p59]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 night-[p60]mare, 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.[Back toContents]

[Back toContents]

“Well, little friend, and where do you hail from?”

The speaker was a merry-faced, brown-eyed boy of eleven, with curly brown hair—just the school-boy all over.

He had leaped into a railway carriage with cricket-bat, fishing-rod, and a knowing-looking little hamper, which he deposited on the seat beside him; then away went the snorting steam horse, train, people, and all, and out came this abrupt question. “Little friend” was a mite of a girl of nine, dressed in a homely blue serge frock and jacket, with blue velvet hat to match: a shy little midge of a grey-eyed maiden, with sunny brown curls twining about her forehead[p10]and rippling down upon her shoulders, nestling in one corner of the carriage—the sole occupant thereof until this merry questioner came to keep her company.

“I don’t quite know what you mean,” was the little girl’s reply—a sweet, refined way of speaking had she, and her eyes sparkled with shy merriment, although there was a startled look in them too.

“Well, where do you come from, my dear mademoiselle?” and now the merry speaker made a courtly bow.

“From London—but I’m not French, you know,” was the retort, with the demurest of demure smiles.

“No—just so; and where are you going?” One could but answer him, his questions came with such winning grace of manner.

“To Cherton—to uncle—to Mr. Jonathan Willett’s.”

“Cherton! why, that’s not far from my happy destination. I get out only one station before you.”

“Little friend” smiled her demure little smile again, as if she was glad to hear it.

[p11]“So you’re going to Mr. Willett’s—Dr. Willett he’s generally called, being a physician,” continued the boy, after glancing from the window a second or two, as if to note how fast the landscape was rushing past the train, or the train past the landscape.

“Yes; do you know him?” inquired the silvery tongue of the other.

“Oh yes; I know him!”—a short assent, comically spoken.

“I don’t,” sighed the little girl, as if the thought oppressed her.

“Then you’d like to know what he’s like,” spoke the boy, using the word like twice for want of another.

“Yes—only—only would it be nice to talk about a person—one’s uncle, one doesn’t know,be——”she did not like to say behind his back, but the faltering little tongue stuck fast, and the small sensitive face of the child looked a little confused.

“Ah! behind his back,” spoke the boy readily. “Well, perhaps not; but you’ll know him soon enough, I’m quite sure, and all about Peggy, too. Peggy is the best of the couple,” he added.

[p12]“Do you mean Mrs. Grant, my uncle’s housekeeper?”

“Yes, that very lady—only, you see, I like to call her Peggy.”

“Yes,” returned the child, supposing she ought to say something.

“’Tis a farm, you know—jolly old place. Do you know that?”

“Yes—that is, I know ’tis a farm; mamma told me that. But I didn’t know ’twas jolly; mamma said ’twas very pretty, and home-like, and nice.”

“Ah, yes! just a lady’s view of the place,” nodded the boy approvingly. “The farm is the best part of it all, and so you’ll saywhen——”

“Perhaps we’ll not talk about it,” broke in “little friend” timidly.

“Well, you are a precise little lady not to talk about a farm, your uncle’s farm, behind its back,” laughed the boy.

“It’s mamma’s uncle,” corrected the little maiden.

“Ah, yes! and your great uncle. Well, I thought he was an old fogey to be your uncle—I beg your pardon—oldgentlemanI mean.” He[p13]laughed and made a low bow, but his cheeks took a rosier tint at that real slip of his tongue.

“Well, suppose we talk about ourselves; that wouldn’t be behind our own backs, would it?”

“Oh no!” came with a pretty jingle of laughter.

“Do you know my name? Dick.”

“I thought so,” replied the little girl.

“You did!—why?”

“You look like a Dick.”

“Well, that’s just like a girl’s bosh—but still, you’re right: I am Dick Gregory, son of George Gregory, surgeon, living at Lakely, next station to Cherton, where you get out, you know.”

The girl nodded.

“Now, mademoiselle, what may your name be?” he asked, as the train carried them into the station with a whiz.

“Inna Weston.”

“Inna: is that short for anything?”

“Yes—for Peninnah: papa’s mother’s name is Peninnah; and so, andso——”

“And so your father chose to let you play grandmother to yourself in the matter of names?”

[p14]“Yes,” a little ripple of a word full of laughter—her companion was so funny.

“Now guess what’s in this hamper?” was Dick’s next proposition; “that’s safe ground, you know, to guess over a hamper when the owner bids you,” he added, by way of encouragement.

“A kitten.” The train was carrying them on again, without any intruder to cut off the thread of their talk, except the guard, who put his head in at the window, and beamed a smile on Inna, as her caretaker; then he shut the door, and locked them in, and here was the train tearing on again.

“Well, now, you are a good guesser for a girl,” said Dick.

“I didn’t guess: I knew it. I heard her mew,” smiled Inna.

“Ah! Miss Inna is a little pitcher, pussy; she has sharp ears,” said pussy’s master, peering and speaking through the hamper.

“Me—e—e—w!” came like a prolonged protest against all the hurry-scurry and noise, so confusing to a kitten shut up in a hamper, not knowing why nor whither she was travelling.

[p15]“Now, who am I taking her to? guess that; and if you guess right, I should say you’re a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and of gipsy origin”—so the merry boy challenged her.

“To your sister.”

“Right!” laughed Dick.

“But I’m not a seventh daughter—I’m only daughter to mamma, and so was mamma before me; and I’m not a gipsy.” Inna’s face was brimming over with shy merriment.

“Well, you ought to be, for you’re a clever guesser of dark secrets,” returned the boy. “Yes: I’m taking pussy home to my sister. Her name is—now, what is her name?”

Inna shook her head.

“Something pretty I should say, but I don’t know what.”

“Oh! you’re not much of a witch after all,” said Dick. “No, it isn’t anything pretty—it’s Jane.”

Inna smiled, and looked wise.

“Well, what is it, Miss Inna? Out with it!” cried Dick, watching her changeful little face.

“Mamma says, when one has an ugly name one must try to live a life to make it beautiful.”

[p16]“Hum! Well, that isn’t bad. And when one has a beautiful name—like Dick, for instance,” said he waggishly, “what then?”

“Then the name should help the life, and the life the name—so mamma said when I asked her.”

“Well, your mother must be good,” said Dick to this.

“Yes, she is.” Wistful lights were stealing into Inna’s eyes, and Dick had a suspicion that there were tears in them.

“I’m not blest with one,” spoke he, carelessly to all seeming.

“With no mother?” inquired his companion gently.

“I’m sort of foster-child to Meggy, our cook and housekeeper—ours is Meggy, you know, and yours is Peggy, at Willett’s Farm.”

“Yes,” smiled Inna, “yes.” She had tided over that tenderness of spirit caused by speaking of her mother.

The train was steaming into a station again, but no passenger intruded; only the guard peeped in, as caretaker, to see if she was safe, as Dick remarked, when they were moving on again.

[p17]“Has he got you under his wing?” asked he.

“The guard has me under his care; ma—mamma asked him to see me safe.” The wistfulness was coming into her eyes again.

“So she has a mother; I thought perhaps she hadn’t,” thought Dick. Aloud he said bluffly, “’Tis well to be a girl, to have all made smooth for one. Now here am I, come all the way from Wenley, turned out of school because of the measles, and never a creature as much as to say, ‘Have you got a ticket, or money to buy one?’”

“Oh, but they’d not let you come without a ticket,” smiled Inna.

“I mean our chums at school, and father at home. Of course my father knew I was all right about money, because he’d just sent my quarter’s allowance.”

“And have they got the measles at your school?”

“Yes: are you afraid of me? Infection, you know.”

“Afraid? oh no!”

“Well, if you caught it you’d be all right, your uncle being a doctor. A doctor at a farm[p18]—queer, isn’t it, now?” So Dick went skimming from subject to subject, very like a swallow skimming over the surface of water after flies and gnats.

“Yes,” Inna could but confess it was—very guardedly, though, lest they might verge upon gossip again.

“But Peggy’s the farmer; your uncle has enough to do to look after his patients. He’s a clever fo—man—so clever that some say he’s got medicine on the brain.”

Inna’s lips were sealed conscientiously; but out of the brief silence that followed she put the safequestion—

“What colour’s your kitten?”

“White. Wouldn’t you like to take a peep at her?” and good-natured Dick held the hamper so that she might catch a glimpse of the small four-legged traveller.

“She’s a beauty!”—such was Inna’s opinion of her.

“And, according to you, she ought to have a beautiful name. But what of my sister Jane? I call her Jenny, and Jin; and that reminds me of the other gin with a g, you know; and that[p19]carries me on to trap, and trapper. I sometimes call her Trapper. That sounds quite romantic, and carries one away into North American Indian story life. Have you ever read any North American Indian stories—about Indians, and scalps, and all that?”

“No,” was the decisive, though smiling, reply.

Ah! they were steaming into a station again.

“Lakely at last, and this is my station!” cried Dick, gathering his belongings together, so as to be ready to leap out when the train stopped, while a porter went shouting up and down the platform, “Lakely! Lakely!”

“Well, good-bye, little friend; mind, Cherton comes next, then ’twill be your turn to turn out.” He wrung her hand, and was out on the platform in a twinkle, loaded like a bee, happy as a boy.

“I say, Miss Inna, I should like you to come over to our place to see Jenny, or Trapper. I shall ask the doctor to give you a lift over in his gig,” he put his head back into the carriage to say.

Now he was scudding away down the platform, and claiming a trunk and portmanteau from a medley of luggage, had it set aside by the[p20]porter, who seemed to know him; this done, he darted back again, smiled in at the carriage window, where that sweet girlish face still watched him, and then vanished.

[Back toContents]

“Cherton! Cherton! Cherton!”

Inna sprang from the corner of her lonely carriage, and stepped out upon the platform, helped by the kindly guard.

“Now, my dear, what’s to be done? There’s nobody here waiting for you, as I see,” said the man, looking up and down the small platform, where she seemed to be the only arrival—she and her neat little trunk, which a porter brought and set down at her feet.

“No, they don’t know I’m coming,” returned the child, with a sober shake of her head.

“Where for, miss?” inquired the porter, as the guard looked at him.

“My—Mr. Willett’s, at Willett’s Farm,” said Inna, in a sort of startled importance at having to speak for herself.

“Do you know the way?” asked the man.

[p22]“No; but I should if you told me—Imean——”

“Yes, miss; I know what you mean,” replied the porter, noting her childish confusion. “I’ll see to her, and send her safely,” he promised the busy guard, and took her small gloved hand in his, and led her away out into the open road by the station, stretching away among fields, all bathed in crimson and golden sunshine.

“Now, miss,” said he, pointing with his finger, “you go along this road and turn to your right, and along a lane, turn to your right, and along another; don’t turn to your left at all; then turn to your right again, and there you are at Willett’s Farm. Do you understand?” he asked kindly, bending down to something like her height, so as to get her view of the way.

“Yes, thank you; I must keep to the right all the way, and turn three times—but I don’t think I quite know what a farm is like,” confessed she bravely.

“Oh, miss, that’s easy; there isn’t another house before you reach the farm—the village is above Willett’s Farm.”

“Thank you; then I’ll think I’ll go now.”

[p23]“You’ll not lose yourself? I’d go with you, but I expect another train in almost directly, and there isn’t a soul about here that I could send. And about your box, miss: will you send for it?”

“Yes, I’ll send for it; and—and I don’t think I shall lose myself.”

“Then good evening, miss.” The porter touched his hat, and she bade him “good evening” in return; then the child went wandering down the road from the station—a blue dot in the evening sunshine.

Well, she took her three turnings to the right, and they brought her to the farm, lying not far up the last lane; the farm-buildings—barn, stable, and a whole clump of outbuildings—lying back from the road a little, and all lit up by the last rays of sunset. The house looked out upon the lane, where the shadows were gathering fast, under the many-tinted elm trees overshadowing it. Three spotlessly white steps led up to the front door, a strip of green turf lying each side, enclosed by green iron railings, and shut in by a little green gate. A quaint old house it was, with many crooks, corners,[p24]and gables, and small lattice diamond-paned windows, through one of which gleamed the ruddy glow of a fire. Ah! the air was crisp, the sun well-nigh gone, the evening creeping on. Inna sighed, and, tripping through the little green gate, mounted the three white steps, and, by dint of straining, reached up, and knocked with the knocker almost as loudly as a timid mouse. But it brought an answer, in the shape of a middle-aged woman, in a brown stuff gown, white apron and cap, dainty frillings of lace encircling her face. A sober face it was, yet kindly, peering down in astonishment at our small heroine, standing silent there among the deepening shadows in the crisp chilly air.

“Well, dearie, what is it?” she questioned, as the child opened her lips to speak, and said nothing.

“I’m Inna: please may I come in and tell you all about it?” asked the silvery tongue then.

“Yes, of course—that is, if you have anything to tell;” and with this the woman made way for the little girl to pass her, and shut the door.

“This way,” she said; and that was to the kitchen.

[p25]Such a clean, cheery, comfortable place, with its wood fire filling it with ruddy glow and warmth, which was like a silent welcome.

“Now, who’s ill and wants a doctor? Sick folks’ messengers shouldn’t lag,” said the woman, scanning her visitor as they both stood in the firelight glow.

“Oh, nobody is ill; and I only—I mean—I don’t know where to begin,” was the bewildering answer.

“Well, of course you know what brought you,” suggested the other.

“Oh, the train brought me; and I’ve come to stay here.”

“You have?” asked the woman.

“Yes; because Uncle Jonathan gave mamma a home once, when she was a little girl; and she said he would me, if she sent me.”

“And who are you? and who’s your mamma?”

“I’m Inna; and mamma is Uncle Jonathan’s niece.”

“You aren’t Miss Mercy’s daughter?” said the woman.

“Yes, I’m Miss Mercy’s daughter; and now,[p26]please, may I sit down?” asked the little tired voice.

“Yes, poor little unwelcome lamb; I’ll not be the one to deny that to Miss Mercy’s daughter. Come here;” and she set her own cushioned rocking-chair forward on the hearth. “But where is Miss Mercy? and why did she send you here?”

“Mamma is gone abroad with papa. Some people are afraid he’s dying; and”—Inna’s heart was full—“I’ve a letter in my pocket for Uncle Jonathan, to tell him all about it.”

“Well, well, this will be news for master—unwelcome news, I’m thinking,” muttered the woman as to herself, but speaking aloud.

“Do you mean I shan’t be welcome?” asked a strained little voice from the rocking-chair.

“Well, dearie, welcome or not, here you are, and here you must stay for to-night, at any rate. You see, Dr. Willett has one child on his hands already, and he’s a handful. I doubt if he’ll want another. But then, we must all have what we don’t want sometimes—eh, miss?”

To this Inna sighed a troubled little “Yes.”

Then Mrs. Grant—for she it was—bethought[p27]her to help her off with her jacket and hat, and inquired had she any belongings at the station? Yes, she had a trunk there; and an unknown Will—at least, unknown to Inna—was despatched for it.

“But maybe you’d like some tea?” suggested the housekeeper.

“Yes, I should, please,” the little lady assured her, folding her jacket neatly, as she had been taught.

“Well, they’re just having tea in the dining-room. Come along.”

No use for Inna to shrink or shiver, for Mrs. Grant was leading the way to those unknown tea-drinkers of whom she was to form one; the fire-light from the kitchen showing them the way along a passage. Then a door was opened, and the small shiverer thrust in, not unkindly, with thewords—

“A little lady come for a bit and a sup with you, sir.”

Then the door closed, and she was in another fire-lit room. A lamp, too, burnt on a table in front of a wood fire, on which was laid a quaint old-fashioned tea equipage, with a hissing urn,[p28]and all complete. On the hearth knelt a lad, making toast; and by his side, leaning against the mantelpiece, was a tall man—red-haired, with streaks of grey in that of both head and closely-clipped beard. He had keen grey eyes, which seemed to scan Inna through; a small mouse-like figure by the door, afraid to advance.

“Oscar, where are your manners?” asked the gentleman, “to treat a lady in this way, when she’s thrust upon you?”

Thrust: here was another word which seemed to say she was not welcome.

“I beg your pardon,” lisped the child, thinking she ought to speak.

“No, no; a lady is very like a king—she never does wrong or needs pardon; ’tis this great lout of a boy here that is the aggressor.”

Whereupon the somewhat awkward, shy lad on the hearth laid down knife and toasting-fork, and came towards her.

“Well, whoever you are, will you please sit here?” said he, setting her a chair by the table, and taking another himself behind the urn.

“With a lady in the room, you’ll never do that,” said the gentleman, spying comically at[p29]him from where he still stood on the hearth, as the boy began to brew the tea.

“Oh no, thank you; I couldn’t manage the urn,” said Inna.

“I thought not,” growled Oscar, a big, handsome, fair-haired boy of eleven, with grey-blue eyes. “And now, here I am without a cup for you.”

Inna had not taken the seat he offered her by the table, but had glided round to the gentleman on the hearth. Oscar made a bolt from the room to fetch a cup and saucer.

“Won’t you say you will like to have me here, Uncle—Uncle Jonathan?” she asked hesitatingly. Such a mite she was, glancing up at the tall red-haired gentleman turning grey, such blushes coming and going in her cheeks.

“My dear little lady, I think you’re just the one element wanting in our male community: a little girl in our midst will save us from settling down into the savages we’re fast becoming,” replied the gentleman, glancing down in an amused way at her from his superior height.

“Well, isn’t that welcome enough?” he asked, still with that comical smile, as Inna gave a[p30]puzzled glance at him, as if not quite comprehending his high talk, and fumbling in her dress pocket.

“I have a letter that will tell you all about me—why I’ve come, you know,” said she.

“Ah yes, Dr. Willett’s letter,” he remarked, taking the missive from her and balancing it between his finger and thumb. Just then Oscar came back with a rush.

“I know all about you, and who you are,” said he, putting down the cup and saucer he had brought with a clatter. “You’re a sort of half-cousin of mine, and a great-niece of Uncle Jonathan’s,” he blurted out.

“Well, since you know so much, suppose you come here and enlighten your new half-cousin as to who I am. She has mistaken me for her uncle—and naturally too, since you, as host for the time being, were rude enough not to introduce us.”

At this reproach Oscar left his tea-making, and approached the two: Inna with burning cheeks, at her mistake about this unknown gentleman, not her uncle.

“Well, this is Mr. Barlow—Dr. Barlow, some[p31]people call him, but he’s no such thing; he’s a surgeon, and the one who plays David to Uncle Jonathan—you understand?” questioned the boy, with humour sparkling in his blue-grey eyes.

“Yes,” nodded Inna shyly; “his very dear friend, you mean.”

“Yes, that’s about the figure,” was the response, while the two bowed with ceremony.

“And now, I am—tell Mr. Barlow who I am, please,” pleaded the small maiden.

“Well, this is Miss Inna Weston, the daughter of a certain Mercy Willett, niece of Jonathan Willett, Doctor, who lived here years ago, before my time. Now, old man, come to tea.” With this, the boy slapped the other on the arm with pleasant familiarity, and went back to his tea-making.

Mr. Barlow led Inna to her seat, and saw her comfortable there, taking his own chair beside her, while Oscar sat with his back to the fire—like a cat on a frosty night, Mr. Barlow told him. Inna wondered where her uncle was, but asked no questions as yet—only munched away at her toast in her dainty way, and sipped her tea,[p32]trying hard to feel that she was at home. As for Oscar, he made such sloppy work with the urn, that Mr. Barlow had to say presently—

“Don’t make a sea of the table, boy. You see what incapable creatures we are, Miss Inna. I never could make tea, and your own eyes tell you what Oscar can do.”

“I suppose Uncle Jonathan makes tea when he is here,” was Inna’s reply.

At which the two gentlemen looked comically at each other.

“Well, I can’t say I ever saw the doctor come down from the clouds enough for that,” observed Mr. Barlow dryly; “but I hope his little great-niece—am I right in the pedigree, Oscar?—will set us to rights, and bring in the age of civilisation for us.”

Inna could but laugh a tinkling laugh at this, and asked timidly, “Do you live here, Mr. Barlow?”

“No, dear; but I’m here morning, noon, and night. My head-quarters are at Mrs. Tussell’s, whose name ought to be, now, guess what?”

People must suppose she had an aptitude for[p33]guessing, Inna thought, and asked with rosy cheeks was it “Fussy”?

“Just the word; only you mustn’t tell her so,” was the reply; at which Inna shook her head, and said she could not be so rude. Then came the sound of the doctor’s gig outside the house, a step and a voice in the passage.

“He’ll not come in here, dear,” Mr. Barlow told Inna, seeing her start and change colour; “he’ll have a cup of tea in his den, as we call it,” at which Oscar nodded, and said, “And a good name too!”

Tea over, Mr. Barlow rose, and said “Good-bye for to-night, Miss Inna; David is going to Jonathan,” patted her head, and was gone.

“Is his real name David?” she asked shyly of this cousin she had no idea of finding at Uncle Jonathan’s; nor had her mamma either, she decided in her own mind.

“No; William—Billy Barlow they call him in the village, only I didn’t say so just now,” returned Oscar drily.

“Mind your lessons, Master Oscar,” said Mrs. Grant, when she came in to fetch the tea equipage.

[p34]“Fudge!” was the boy’s response, he and Inna established on the hearth, roasting chestnuts; and they were still there when Dr. Willett surprised them by a footfall close behind them.

Up sprang Inna, like a startled daisy.

“So you’re Mercy’s little daughter?” said he, by way of greeting.

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“Soyou’re Mercy’s little daughter?” said the doctor, by way of greeting.

“Yes,” faltered Inna; but she put her hand in his; this Uncle Jonathan, with whom she had come to live, was all she had in England now, except Oscar and Mr. Barlow, who was nobody as yet. The doctor pressed her small hand in his big strong one. Tall—taller than his friend David—was he, with dark hair and beard—at least, they had been dark, but were fast turning grey; his eyes were dark, piercing, and observant, full of fire; still, a kindly face, a kindly manner had he.

“Well, little woman, I’ve read your mother’s letter. I never intended to be troubled with any more children after Oscar fell to my lot; but for your mother’s sake, and her mother’s[p36]before her, I can’t shut my door against you. So now stay, and see if you can’t open another door on your own account.” This is what he said, still holding her hand in his.

“Do you know what door I mean?” he asked, as the child darted an upward glance at him.

“Yes,” she nodded, “yes.” She could not say more, her heart was thumping so, but her small twining fingers in the doctor’s palm told him a great deal.

He patted her on the head, and let her go; he did not kiss her. Inna wished he had when, later on, she was in bed, thinking of the many to-morrows she was to spend in this new uncle’s house. Her chamber was up in one of the gables of the quaint old house; the windows overlooked the garden and the home orchard, where, in the former, Michaelmas daisies and sunflowers flaunted in the sunshine when she looked out the next morning, and apples, rosy and golden, were waiting to be gathered in the latter. Birds were twittering and peeping at her through the ivy-wreathed window; away in the stubble fields, under the hills, sheep were straying, all in a glory of golden light; while rooks cawed[p37]and clamoured in the many-coloured elms by the house and garden, and all sweet morning freshness was everywhere. You may be sure she soon dressed, and tripped down the old-fashioned staircase—a dainty midge, in blue serge frock and white-bibbed apron. Below, she found Mary, the servant under the housekeeper, laying breakfast in the dining-room; and while the child stood shyly aloof by a window, in came Mrs. Grant with the urn, and her master behind her. Inna stepped forward, but her uncle took no notice of her; he only passed on to his seat at the table, took up his letters and newspaper, and, as it were, thus stepped into a world of his own. Oscar stole in like a thief, and began his usual tea-making—placing a cup by his uncle’s plate, upon which he laid slices of ham, carved as best he could; Inna, at a nod from him, cutting a piece of bread to keep company with the ham; while Mrs. Grant gave sundry nods, which the boy understood and returned, then she retired from the scene. Not a word was spoken during breakfast-time. Oscar helped himself and Inna to what the table afforded—ham, eggs, rolls, honey, golden butter—all so sweet and clean and homely.

[p38]Before the young people had finished, the doctor rose and went tramping out.

“Good morning,” said he at the door, breaking the spell of silence. Inna, rising, wished to spring toward him, but he was gone.

“There, he’s safe till two o’clock,” sighed Oscar.

“Safe?” said Inna.

“Yes; booked with his patients, you know. Some say he has patients on the brain. I wish them joy of him.”

“Don’t—don’t you like him?” she inquired falteringly.

“Do you?” asked the other, helping himself to an egg.

“I ought.”

“Ought! I can’t bear that word ought: ’tis dinned into my ears morning, noon, and night. Now, I tell you what we’ll do: we’ll fling ‘ought’ to the winds, and go a nutting expedition this morning.”

In came Mrs. Grant.

“Well, Master Oscar, I should hope you’d go down to Mr. Fane’s for lessons to-day,” said she.

[p39]“I can’t; I’ve a prior engagement,” said he, as loftily as a mouth full of bread and butter and egg could utter it.

“And what’s that, may I ask?”

“I’ve made a promise to a lady to go elsewhere.”

“Oh, Oscar! never mind me; you ought to do your lessons, you know.”

“I thought we flung that horrid word to the winds just now. There’s no ought in the case; I had a holiday yesterday, and I mean to to-day. I mean to take Inna to Black Hole, and round through the woods, on a nutting expedition—so there!”

This last to Mrs. Grant.

“Very well, Master Oscar; I shall have to set the doctor on to you again. I hope, Miss Inna, you’ll be a good little influence with him and teach him to obey his uncle.”

Oscar laughed, pushed back his plate, and left the table. “Now, Inna, run and put on your hat and jacket, and we’ll be off,” said he to the little girl.

“Go, dear,” said the housekeeper, as the child hesitated. “I suppose he means all right for[p40]this once, but he must take the consequence;” and away went Inna for hat and jacket, wondering if it was right to go.

When she came down, Oscar showed her a packet of sandwiches in the nutting basket, which Mrs. Grant had cut for them to eat if they were hungry.

“She isn’t a bad sort; her bark is worse than her bite,” said Oscar of her, when the two were well on their way.

On and on—over stubble fields they went, till by-and-by they were taking a short cut through a carriage drive in Owl’s Nest Park, as Oscar informed Inna. It was a pretty bowery walk, overarched with beeches and elms in all their autumn glory, and full of the clamour of rooks. Here they met an old lady in a wheel-chair, pushed by a page-boy—such a sweet sad-faced old lady was the occupant of the chair, with shining grey curls peeping out from beneath her black satin hood. She was wrapped in some sort of fur-lined cloak; and by her side walked two little dark-faced, shy-looking girls of seven, quaintly dressed in rich black velvet, very like two wee maidens stepped out of some old picture,[p41]and each wearing a hood similar to that worn by their aged companion.

[p40a]“A DONKEY AND CART CAME DRIVING UP.”

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“This is Madame Giche—spelt G-i-c-h-e—and her two grand-nieces; a queer party, all of them,” said Oscar, still leading on. “This isn’t her place: she can’t live at her own place, they say, all about some trouble she’s had; and so she took the Owl’s Nest of Sir Hubert Larch, who never lives there, on lease.”

“Are we intruding here?” inquired Inna.

“Oh, no; there is a right of way: that is, madame gives it, and people take it. Come on.”

He had the grace to raise his hat to the party as they passed them by, and anon they were out of the park, and on a well-worn road. Here the sound of wheels greeted them, and a donkey and cart came driving up—Dick Gregory charioteer, and a girl of about Inna’s age seated in the bed of the cart behind him.

“Why, little friend,” cried the boy, recognising Inna, “this is a happy meeting!” and down he sprang, and seized her hand with a boyish grip.

“How d’ye do, Willett?” this to Oscar, who returned the salutation.

[p42]“Now you must be introduced to Trapper. Here, Trapper,” said Dick, turning to the donkey-cart.

“Don’t be silly, Dick,” cried the pretty little maiden. “You know I’m not Trapper: at least, only to you, who call me Gin and then Trap and Trapper. My name is Jenny;” and down she sprang to Inna’s side.

“And I am Inna.”

“Yes; Dick has told me your name.”

“And how is your kitten?” Inna liked the pretty, free, fair-haired, fair-faced girl.

“Oh, first-rate, thank you, isn’t she, Dick?” said she, appealing to her brother, who was just settling with Oscar.

“Oh yes! We’ll just manage a morning of it in the woods; you can show your cousin Black Hole another time. Isn’t what?” he questioned of his sister.

“Isn’t Snowdrop first-rate?”

“Rather,” returned he, with a nod at Inna, which made her blush and laugh.

“I’m glad she’s well. And so you call her Snowdrop?”

“Yes; and what do you think of our donkey?[p43]We call him Rameses: that’s Dick’s choice of a name.”

“He’s a beautiful creature,” returned Inna, stroking the animal’s wise old head.

“Yes,” replied Dick, “I’m a lover of old names, so I thought I’d go back to the Pharaohs. Not a bad idea, was it? though no compliment, I daresay, to the old fogies.”

“No,” laughed Oscar; “but never mind about compliments for dead and gone fogies.”

“And what of the fogies of this generation?” inquired ready Dick.

“The same—never mind.”

“But come, we must make hay while the sun shines. In with you, you two girls, into the cart,” said Dick, which they did, Jenny helping Inna. Then up sprang the charioteer, Oscar beside him; crack went the whip, and off they drove like the wind.

That nutting expedition was like a fairy dream to London-reared Inna; the lads showed her a squirrel or two, a dormouse not yet gone to its winter snooze, in its mossy bed-chamber. A snake wriggled past them, which made her shudder; frogs and toads leaped here and there[p44]in dark places. Then, oh, the whir and whisper of the autumn wind among the trees! the lights and shadows! Oh, for the magic hand of her artist father to make them hers for ever in a picture for her bedroom! But the delight of a morning’s nutting must come to an end—so did theirs; the sandwiches demolished—share and share, as Oscar put it—they bethought themselves of dinner and the road leading thereto, so once more they were on their backward way, and parting company.

“Good-bye, mademoiselle!” cried Dick, as Inna stood at Oscar’s side, after she had kissed Jenny, and the two had vowed a girls’ eternal friendship. Then away went the donkey and cart, and our young people hastened home, just in time for dinner. A meal silent as breakfast was dinner, so far as they were concerned, for Mr. Barlow and the doctor kept a learned conversation high above their heads all the time—so Oscar said; and after it was over the boy vanished, nobody knew where. As for Inna, she roamed in the orchard all the afternoon in a dream of beauty, eating rosy apples, followed by tea—she and Mr. Barlow alone—she making[p45]the toast and managing the urn: a living proof of what can be done by trying, so the surgeon told her. Then he and the doctor went out, and Inna crept out to the kitchen, to wonder with Mrs. Grant where Oscar was, and what was keeping him.

“No good, Miss Inna; that boy’ll go to the dogs if somebody don’t take him in hand. You try, dearie, what you can do with him,” said the housekeeper.

“I!” cried astonished Inna. She try what she could do with a big boy like Oscar!

“But hark! that’s the fire-bell; there must be a fire somewhere,” said Mrs. Grant, and out she went, with her apron over her head, to listen at the back gates.

Inna, with no apron over her head, stole out to keep her company.

“Oh my!” said Mrs. Grant to shivering Inna. “I wish Master Oscar was at home. I’m thinking he’s a finger in the pie.”

Ah! there was the fire, sure enough; it was a flare and a flame against the darkening sky.

“What’s alight?” inquired Mrs. Grant of a man who went hurrying by.

[p46]“Poor Jackson’s little farm; they say ’tis going like tinder, and he’s half crazed,” came back to them as the man ran on.

“Oh dear! that boy, what he’ll have to answer for!” cried the housekeeper.

“But we’re not sure ’tis his work,” said sensible Inna.

“No, dear; but there’s seldom any mischief going that he don’t help in the brewing of.”

Inna was silent, watching the red glare of the fire mounting heavenwards.

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“Yousee, 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[p48]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[p49]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 youhave——”

“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’tyou?”

[p50]“Yes, Ithink——”

“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[p51]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[p52]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 house-[p53]keeper, 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[p54]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.

[p55]“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’tyou 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[p56]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.

[p57]“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, learn-[p58]ing, 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,[p59]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 night-[p60]mare, 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.

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