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

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

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

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

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

"The sea! the sea! the open sea!

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

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

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

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

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

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

"To be a farmer is no bad berth," said sensible d.i.c.k.

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

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

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

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

"Well?" and Oscar waited to hear more.

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

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

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

"Why?" growled Oscar, not liking d.i.c.k's views of the case.

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

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

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

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

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

The girls smiled.

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

"Oh, come, Willett; little friend there could contradict that, I know,"

said d.i.c.k. "But we didn't come up here to discuss our wants and wishes.

Suppose we look about a bit, and see the sights. Look, Miss Inna, that jutting rock yonder, by the sea, is Swallow's Cliff, and behind it is a little bay;" and then he drew her away to look down the Ugly Leap. A dizzy height it was to gaze down from above, with a deep gorge at its foot, in which a stream of water gurgled, said by some to have a connection with Black Hole, the lad told her; over which Inna shuddered and turned away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Would anyone come to find them? they wondered.

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

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

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

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

Something terrible must have happened to Oscar.

CHAPTER VII.

OSCAR LOST--A FRUITLESS SEARCH.

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

"Oh, d.i.c.k! what shall we do?" cried the little girls, clinging to him.

He was a boy so strong, so brave--surely he could think of something.

Well, he did think of something, but that was after they had shouted "Oscar! Oscar!" till the storm itself seemed the name. This is what he thought of.