“Well, sir, he’s senseless, and his face terribly battered, but he’s alive.”
He brought up the other little girl and Jenny, but as for Inna and Oscar—
“Better signal to our chaps out yonder to run in with the boat; ’twill be easier for the young gentleman to get him off that way,” shouted the man to Dick, watching from above, and made signs to his comrades to row in with the boat.
While this was being done Dick hurried away with Jenny and the twins to put Rameses into the cart, if the poor brute was to be found, and drive home without delay.
“Yes, sir, quick home is the word for them, for they’re wet, and cold, and frightened, poor dears!” said one of the men, who had children of his own.
So they left Oscar and Inna to the boatmen’s [p137] kindly care, and hurried away to look for Rameses. The dear old creature hailed them with such a prolonged braying, standing beside the cart, as if he knew they ought to be going. Dick put him in and drove home briskly, dropping the twins at the Owl’s Nest, where no ill tidings had as yet found its way. But they met Dr. Willett and Mr. Barlow well on the road, with the gig and some sort of stretcher-bed, hastily made, for someone had handed on the news to the farm; therefore Dick was thankful to meet the two doctors, as he could direct them to the spot where the boat was likely to land.
Poor, poor Oscar! he moaned sadly when the boatmen moved him; he was alive to pain, if to naught besides.
“Softly! softly!” so they whispered, handling him as if he had been a baby; but Inna’s heart ached, hearing him groan and moan, as she stepped into the boat, and nestled beside him, and more, taking his head in her lap; and so they moved off over the darkening seas.
Oscar had fallen into silent insensibility again when they landed. Then followed another [p138] moaning time of pain; they laid him on the stretcher-bed, and put him and it into the gig, as the doctor had arranged beforehand. Inna crept in beside him, the doctor after that, with his legs tucked up as best he could; then away they drove, as briskly as the state of the poor sufferer allowed, leaving Mr. Barlow to come after on foot. Mr. Gregory was at the farm when they arrived there; heavy tidings had been reported to him—whether it was Dick or Oscar killed, report did not know, but it fancied it was both; and two, if not more, of the little girls were drowned—that was the story report had told about the little party.
The first thing to be done was to hurry Dick and Jenny off to bed, and to put Oscar into his. Such a getting upstairs of sighs and moans was it, and of aching hearts, suffering over it all. Inna broke down at last, and sobbed as if her heart would break, when there was nothing more for her to bear or do, and Mary took charge of her, to see her to bed, Mrs. Grant and the doctors taking Oscar into their keeping. Well, there was no use in mincing matters—the boy’s face was much beaten and battered by the fall; [p139] it would show the scars for some time to come—perhaps for ever: concussion of the brain, a fractured leg; even Mrs. Grant’s heart grew sick, hearing the doctors enumerate the evils that had befallen him.