Succeeding at last in his endeavours to raise the young person, and to place her in a reclining position, John looked around him for help. It was plain that she had fainted, and it was necessary that some means should be adopted for her restoration. But there was no help at hand: the grotto was, as we have said, in a distant as well as secluded part of the pleasure-grounds; and the company were, as Tincroft knew, now gathering together into the hall of the Manor House for the parting cup and their host's hearty farewell.
There was no one near the grotto, therefore, and had there been, John Tincroft would, naturally enough, considering his inbred shyness, have shrunk from exposing himself to probable jokes, if not to unjust suspicion, by his merely accidental proximity to, and discovery of, the fainting damsel.
Driven then to his own unaided resources, John bethought him of untying the bonnet strings, which evidently impeded the free circulation of blood in the swollen veins. So far, good. Then the clumsy fingers, trembling a little at their unaccustomed task, loosened a kerchief which was fastened round the unconscious girl's neck with a gaudy brooch. These operations seemed to give some little relief, for a gentle sigh was heard; still the eyes remained half closed, and there was no further sign of returning animation.
"What shall I do next?" muttered John, in perplexity. "I have heard that cutting the stay laces—but that will never do. Ah! I have it," he said, as a sudden thought seized him, and in less time than it takes to tell, he had dived under the low archway into the cool retreat, and as speedily reappeared, bearing in his hand a half-tumbler of the precious hoard from Richard Grigson's locker. Filling it up with cold water, he moistened the lips of the poor girl with the liquid, and then, by slow degrees, insinuated the edge of the tumbler between them, himself trembling the while still more violently, as though he were perpetrating an awful crime.
"If Tom or anybody were to find me at this sort of work, I should never hear the last of it," he murmured.
But for all his craven fears, he did not desist in his endeavours till a half-choking, gurgling sound in the poor girl's throat warned him that it was time to withdraw the tumbler from her lips, and to devise some other method, if he could, for calling back the lost senses. Happily for the clumsy nurse, before he could proceed to further extremities, the damsel began to breathe more freely; then the closed eyes opened, and, finally, an outbreak of hysterical cries and a flood of tears proclaimed that the long fainting fit was over.
"Oh! Where am I? What has been happening?" asked Sarah, wildly, when she found herself half-reclining against the wall of the hermitage, and half-supported by the arm of a stranger.
John Tincroft briefly explained that he had accidentally found her on the floor of the grotto, and in what state; and that he had, as far as lay in his power, enacted the part of the Good Samaritan. He did not think it necessary to add that he had heard the previous conversation of the two cousins.
It was very kind of him, then, the maiden said, and she was afraid she had given him a great deal of trouble.
"A great pleasure to be of any use to you, I am sure," stammered John, scarcely knowing what he said, and whether he ought not now to draw in the arm and shoulder against which the patient was yet leaning.