WHEN Bertie found himself clasped in his mother’s arms, and felt her warm tears upon his face, and heard her soft voice whispering tender, caressing words in his ear, he felt as if he had just awoke from a long bewildering dream, and such was the confusion of his mind that he clung to her more in terror than in joy; and his agitation was promptly checked by Dr. Lighton, who administered a soothing draught, which sent the child off into a sound sleep long before he had unravelled the tangle of his own ideas. This gave other people time to consider what steps had better be taken for the preservation of needful repose of body and mind after the double shock.
The child had been a good deal bruised and shaken by the fall, and his right arm was severely sprained, although not broken, as the good farmer had believed, Dr. Lighton attended to these injuries without rousing him from the torpid condition induced by opiates, and left with the injunction that he was to be kept perfectly quiet in a darkened room, and not encouraged to talk, or to do anything, in fact, but sleep.
And by a little dexterous management on the part of those about him, this health-restoring sleep was made to extend for more than four-and-twenty hours. When the child roused up, a little food was given to him by Mrs. Pritchard, nothing that could excite him was spoken, no face that might perplex him showed itself, and he dropped back into slumber almost at once.
But upon the evening of the day following the accident, Bertie woke up, his mind quite clear, and his brain alive with all sorts of new ideas and impressions. Mrs. Pritchard was sitting at work beside him.
“Where is papa?” he asked.
The good woman looked up at the sound of his voice and approached the bedside. She saw that the little boy’s eyes were open and that he looked calm and collected.
“The Squire is at his dinner; do you want to see him?”
“Yes, please,” answered Bertie whose eyes were very bright and shone with a strange sort of exultation. “I have something very particular I want to tell him.”
The message did not take long to deliver to the Squire, and in a very few moments he was standing at the child’s bedside.
“Papa,” said Bertie, taking one of the strong man’s hands in his and holding it tightly, “I am going to be always your little Bertie; but my real name is Ronald Damer, and my mother’s name is Winifred Damer, and we have a house in London, No. 10 Grantham Square. When grandpapa died we went away to France; but I think it is mother’s house still, and perhaps she is there now. If you write, I am sure she will get the letter. Somebody there will know where she is.”