"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 n.o.ble deed doesn't make a life work: there's the boy's plodding on, learning, and doing as you're bid, and a hundred other things--the very foundation of a good useful life."

"'Tis such humdrum work," grumbled Oscar.

"And so is ours--n.o.ble art of healing, as it's sometimes called--eh, Mr.

Barlow?"

"Yes, it would be, if we weren't applying a salve to somebody's sore; and I suppose that's what almost all work amounts to--salving somebody's sore, easing the wheels of life somewhere," was that gentleman's reply.

"And the humdrum drudging of a schoolboy, in learning and unlearning, is but the easing the wheels of his ignorant brain."

Well, whether Oscar laid this new thought to heart or not, certain it is that he kept zealously to lessons and Mr. Fane, took kindly to Inna, and called her "a little brick," and all the many flattering names found in a boy's vocabulary. But his wound would not heal, for which the weather was blamed, and the constant friction he gave it, until his two doctors advised he should not race about so much; and so it came about that November was well on its way before the arm was well, and Inna saw that abyss of mystery, the Black Hole. Very like a lake, with an unfathomable hole in the centre--or said to be unfathomable, because it had been sounded by the villagers and no bottom found--over-spanned by a bridge, its water having some hidden outlet, and lying on the north side of Owl's Nest Park, among tangled bushes and faded herbage: such was Black Hole. It was on a sunless hazy afternoon when they paid their visit to the gloomy place. Oscar betook himself with boy-like zest to testing the depth of the so-called unfathomable hole with a long pole he used for leaping with, Inna watching him, and wondering the while whether the hole, with its darkly swirling waters, were bottomless, as it was said to be.

"Have a care," her companion had warned her. "Don't lean against the rails of the bridge; the old thing is as crazy as crazy."

But, like a girl, as he said afterwards, she must needs forget; and lo!

as he poked and fathomed as he had often done before and made no new discovery, a scream rang out, and he looked up to find Inna and the rail had both vanished.

"I told you so," said he, like a lad in a nightmare, his hair standing on end; and then in he sprang, with the forlorn hope of bringing her out. Ah! there was a dark story told of the victim once sucked in by that yawning mouth.

CHAPTER V.

INNA AT THE OWL'S NEST--MORE WRONG STEPS.

But that strong unseen Hand, so often stretched out in our great extremities, was stretched out now, although only for the saving of one little girl. It guided the boy to the spot where the poor little floundering bundle rose to the surface, helped him to play the hero, and to s.n.a.t.c.h her from those yawning watery jaws, that would fain have swallowed her--she was shudderingly near to her end, but after a time he grasped her tightly, and drew her to him.

At last he was landing after such a brief long struggle, his burden in his arms, on the dreary bank, little dreaming that any spectator was watching him play the man. Yet there were four--Madame Giche, her nieces, and Phil, her page; and all four came bearing down upon him, chair and all, as he laid Inna down among the rough gra.s.s a moment, to just take breath, shake himself, and then home, or the poor mite would die of cold. Her eyes were closed, and she looked very death-like, as it was.

"Take her to the house, to the Owl's Nest," came the command, with the tone of authority, from the depths of Madame Giche's black hood.

"I thought of taking her home," returned Oscar without ceremony.

"Yes, young people think a great many wrong thoughts; but if you take her to the house, you'll be glad in an hour's time you did an old woman's bidding," was the decisive reply.

Oscar caught up the insensible girl in his arms in moody silence; truth to tell, he would be glad to get her into something dry and warm; she certainly did look death-like.

"Do you know the short cut to the house?" inquired Madame Giche.

"Yes, thank you; I know."

"Can you carry her, or shall Phil help you?"

At this, he might have been the giant-killer in the old nursery tale, carrying poor little Jack, by the way he took up his burden, and struck away for the boundary of the park; a curt "No, thank you," ringing back over his shoulder in scant courtesy as he went.

Then Madame Giche's party turned and went homeward by a less direct road, because of her chair, and Black Hole was again deserted. Madame Giche, however, despatched Phil to run forward with her message to the servants, that the child was to be taken in and attended to; her nieces propelling her along at a brisk canter, because she wished to be herself early on the spot. So Phil and Oscar mounted the north terrace together.

Phil gave the alarm, the servants flocked out, and Long, Madame's own maid, took possession of Inna, and bore her away to her own little room, next to her mistress's bedchamber, on the first floor. Of course, Oscar loitered about outside, on the terrace, like a lad in a book, to wait for tidings; he was there when Madame arrived, and a.s.sisted her up the steps, he on one side, Phil on the other, because a trembling fit, brought on by the shock, was upon her. A frail little mite of a gentlewoman was she between the two st.u.r.dy lads, her nieces, like meek little handmaids, following behind them.

"Now, boy, if you're mad, I'm not. Come in and take off those wet garments, and put on some of Phil's." So she half commanded half persuaded him, still grasping his arm with her clinging fingers.

And for once the boy obeyed, and submitted to be so equipped, Phil taking him under his especial care and leading the way to his bedroom.

Anon, when he descended the stairs, longing for tidings of Inna, Phil grinning slily behind him at his second self, out stepped Long from somewhere, and told him the little lady had come out of her swoon, and they had given her something comforting, and tucked her up in bed.

"Madame Giche's compliments to Dr. Willett, and they would take good care of her till to-morrow." Then Phil appeared with a cup of steaming coffee, which Long made him drink before he left; then he set forth homeward.

Willett's Farm was more dreary that evening than ever before, with little cheery Inna away, if she had only known it. But she was sweetly sleeping all the evening, in a bed hastily wheeled in to keep company with Long's; and when, at midnight, she awoke to find herself there, Long bending over her, the fire-light rosy on the hearth, a shaded lamp somewhere behind her, you may be sure she felt like a story-book heroine, not herself. Still she was herself, and when she had taken some soup, been told that Oscar had gone home, and she was at the Owl's Nest, she fell asleep, and woke the next morning to breakfast in bed. After this she dressed herself, and went down to form the acquaintance of Madame Giche and her grand-nieces.

"And so you're none the worse for your wetting, my dear?" said her hostess, drawing her to her, and kissing her, after the little girl had gone up to her, as she sat by the log fire, and timidly said--

"Good morning, Madame Giche. Thank you for being so good to me."

The child a.s.sured her that she was none the worse, her rosy face testifying to the same.

"Then, dear, don't think about thanks. You are quite a pleasant surprise visitor to us--lonely people; to me and my two little shy nieces, who will be the better for having a little girl friend. Let me introduce you; they're on the very tip-toe of waiting."

Then the two wee maidens came round from behind their aged relative's chair, and were introduced as Olive and Sybil. Two dark-haired, brown-skinned damsels were they, in quaintly cut velvet frocks, with frillings of lace at throat and wrists.

"Now see, dear, it's pouring with rain. Do you think you could be happy as our guest to-day, or must I send you home in the carriage?"

questioned Madame Giche.

They were in what was called the tapestried chamber, a room lined with needlework, done by dead fingers of long ago: those of some of the ladies whose portraits Inna was to see by-and-by in the grand staircase, and the gallery running round the hall.

"I should like--what would you like me to do, ma'am?" faltered Inna.

"We should much like you to stay, dear," returned Madame Giche, still holding her hand.

"Then, thank you, I should like to stay."

So it was decided, and Olive and Sybil, the twin sisters, drew away their guest to look at pretty foreign ornaments, in profusion all about the room.

"All grand-auntie's own," as they told her, "which we brought from abroad. You see, this isn't our own home, but grand-auntie took it on lease from a gentleman we met abroad. Grand-auntie has lived abroad for years and years, ever since her heart was broken." So they chatted, and enlightened Inna.

This was in the afternoon, after they had lunched with Madame Giche in the tapestried room, and had wandered away up into the picture-gallery, to look at some of the pictures.

"There, that is grand-auntie; isn't it like? That was done abroad," said Sybil, who was the talker. Olive was sedate and somewhat silent.

There was no mistaking the sweet aged face peering down at them from the canvas, and Inna said so.

"And that is grand-auntie's son--he who broke her heart, you know. He disappointed her, went abroad, married, and died," whispered the child.

"Ah! whisper it," so she expressed it, "because it is all so sad.

Grand-auntie was never reconciled to him, you see, and so can never make it up in this world. He had a wife and a little boy, and grand-auntie has searched Europe over, she says, and can't find them."