Emilie Searchfield

“ Something prompted the boy to stretch out his hand toward his uncle, and he took it with such a warm grasp.
“Uncle, I’ll be a farmer; I’ve intended to tell you so for days—only——”
“Well, never mind, we understand each other now; and let me say this much, Oscar: the humdrum farm-life, as I’ve heard you call it behind my back”—Dr. Willett smiled somewhat sadly—“won’t be so humdrum as you think, if you make of it a life work—a something to be handled nobly, and made the most of. A tinker’s life could be hardly humdrum with that end in view.” ”

“ They never tired of roaming the terraces, where the peacocks eyed them askance, and spread out their beautiful tails at them as in proud disdain—those walking flowers of girls, who seemed to vie with them and their plumage in their pretty bright spring dresses.
Glorious weather had followed Oscar’s disappearance. It was May now, and the other little girls were out in the park, gathering daisies, and having a romp with Carlo, who would often come self-invited when Inna was there. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ But the girls looked down the Ugly Leap with awe, Oscar, with his scarred forehead, looking down with the rest. A wonderfully clear view they had of the sea and the Swallow’s Cliff.
“I say,” cried Dick, the happy thought striking him as he gazed, “couldn’t we take the girls over as far as the cliffs and the sea? They’ve never been there, you know, Willett, and ’twouldn’t be too far, if we took old Rameses and the cart.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ I’m not sure I shouldn’t have screamed myself; and boys are but mortal, the same as doctors,” remarked Mr. Barlow.
“But not nearly so wise,” interrupted Jenny again.
“Nor yet so talkative as young ladies; and if present company will excuse me, I should like some of them to be quiet,” said Oscar.
“Well, my boy, after the scream——” prompted Mr. Barlow.
“Well, if I did scream, after that there was a silence and the full stop, for I fell to the bottom; and when I came to my senses I was jolting along in a caravan—such jolting, and I full of pain and dizziness. ”

“ It brought her good news—her father and mother were to come home early next summer, and she had thought when parted from them that they would not return for three years.
“Madame Giche,” said she, after she had wiped away the happy tears which would come, dancing into the tapestried room, almost like one of the twins, “papa and mamma are coming home next summer.”
“Indeed, dear: that won’t be long to wait,” returned the kindly old lady; and Inna, remembering the long, long years of waiting she had known, nestled to her side and kissed her. ”

“ Quite little musical parties did the aged lady have, now and then, of an evening, in the gloaming, the four children, with lights at the piano, trilling in their bird-like voices some little snatch of a juvenile song, duet, trio, and [p101] sometimes a quartette, their nimble fingers wandering among the keys the while in a tangle of melody. But of all the four, their aged listener loved best to hear Inna sing: her voice was so plaintive, so expressive. ”

“ And the girls were not rescued.
“Oh, Dick! the water is lifting us off our feet,” wailed Jenny.
[p132]
“Do you think he’s dead?” cried Inna, still holding the affrighted twins in her embrace.
“Jenny, you know how to climb almost like a boy; help Inna to land on the ledge: there’s room,” cried Dick in desperation, peering down in awe at Oscar, lying so still on his narrow resting-place. “Then between you tug up the twins, and I’ll go down to the shore yonder and get help and a rope, and come down to you.” ”

“ An ugly shadow of some monster beast looming upon them from out that vast whirling waste of snow. This was when hope was very low in their hearts; it seemed that it was an hour or two since Dick [p89] had left them, and no help had come—nothing; and they had pictured themselves two little maidens, stiff, stark, dead, and cold, found by someone, at some time, up there all alone. Now here was this apparition bearing down upon them. They shrieked and clung to each other; they could not move; they had no boy to fight for them. Fight! Why, it was dear old Carlo from the farm. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She had missed her rightful sphere.”
“Yes, dear; it’s not so much what we are, or where we are, but what we’re doing, that makes a life of usefulness and fulness,” said Madame Giche, when the ditty came to an end.
“Yes; in filling others’ lives we fill our own. Is that what you mean, Madame Giche?” inquired Inna, leaving the piano, and coming to kneel on the hearth. ”

“ Willett’s face, which Inna, watching, thought very like that on her father’s face when he kissed her “Good-bye,” before she came down to the farm.
“Missed you, Master Oscar! yes, we’re all missed, even when ’tis a boy we’re keeping the farm for,” was Mrs. Grant’s unlooked-for remark.
“Very silly of Mrs. Grant, to bring up that question of the farm on the first night of the boy’s return,” observed the doctor, when he and his friend were sipping their coffee together, the young folk gone to bed, the budget of Oscar’s adventures to be opened on the morrow. ”

“ Well, winter was over at last, and March on its blustering way; the lambs in the fields, the colts in their paddock, and young exultant life everywhere. It was holiday time with Inna, for Miss Gordon was away with that invalid somebody again. Dick Gregory was still running wild in his happy banishment from school; [p76] Jenny, alias Trapper, was running wild with him whenever she could persuade the dear old lady who played the part of governess to her to forego her tales of ill-learnt lessons. ”

“ Grant that there were to be no seaside pranks or dangerous doings.
“No; no one shall come to a watery grave or an untimely end, if I can help it—I promise that:” these were Dick’s last words to the housekeeper, giving Rameses the touch which set him off with a bolt. So now he bade the little girls to pick up shells, look out for mermaids, and disport themselves in harmless lady-like fashion, while he and Oscar went here and there, scaled heights, and took a glance seaward from the height of the Swallow’s Cliff. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When Inna came home from the Owl’s Nest in the evening, a drizzling rain had come on. Oscar was absent somewhere with Dick Gregory, the two gentlemen still out; so after tea the little girl sat down with her knitting somewhat [p71] drearily by Mrs. Grant’s side, with tears not far from her eyes, because her cousin would persist in taking these sudden and backward steps.
“I know he’s to be a farmer, but there, even farmers mustn’t be blockheads of dunces, as Oscar’ll be if he don’t alter,” said Mrs. Grant.
“To be a farmer?” inquired Inna. ”

“ 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 Dick 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The girls smiled.
“Oh yes,” grumbled Oscar, “well enough for you to laugh. You girls never have to [p83] choose or wish—you always have all you want.”
“Oh, come, Willett; little friend there could contradict that, I know,” said Dick. “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. ”

“ Yes, Miss Inna, give and take; it’s that as smooths life’s rough places. Master Oscar has nothing to give his uncle for all he’s doing for him, but his will—letting go that foolish nonsense about the sea. He ought to give up the sea and take to the farm—that would be his giving and taking ”

“ She has never been able to find the wife nor the son.”
“’Tis sad,” sighed Inna; “because she might have been so fond of the son.”
“Papa’s portrait is at Wyvern Court—that’s grand-auntie’s own place, you know. Grand-auntie says we shall be twin heiresses by-and-by.”
[p69]
“And your papa is—” here Inna flushed at her inquisitive question.
“Dead; and mamma too,” said grave-browed Olive.
“Do you like living at the farm with your uncle?” inquired sprightly Sybil.
“Yes; only I haven’t been there long—and—and a grand-uncle isn’t like a grand-auntie,” said Inna. ”

“ Grant stood on the steps at the front door to watch them off. Dick touched up old Rameses, and drove along the lane with a flourish. Picking up the midges at the Owl’s Nest gates, with many injunctions from Rance to take good care of her charges, they made the best of their way [p124] onward, not exactly as the crow flies, but taking all the short cuts adventurous wheels could roll over: the more jolts and bumps the more the merriment; Jenny driving, the boys on foot. ”

“ They knew he was thinking of the shepherd lad and the Ugly Leap.
“Still, something must be done,” urged Dick; 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.
[p85]
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 Dick; “to be hampered with other people’s lives is a great responsibility. ”