She was stiff and sore, and her wet clothing clung to her limbs, a little steam arising from them in the sun’s warming rays.
CHAPTER VI.
SWEET BELLS OUT OF TUNE.
Scarcely had the echo of Eva’s footsteps died away as she fled from Stony Ledge, the old home farm, in disgrace and exile, ere it was discovered that Gran’ther Groves had fallen down in one of the fits to which he was subject.
Dan, the chore boy, who had just come in with a startled face, having heard of the tragedy from the returning party in the hay wagon, grew as pale as ashes when the twins quickly drew him aside and whispered some eager warnings in his ear.
He whispered back hoarsely, with starting eyes:
“Mum’s the word, I promise you, for I ain’t going to put my own neck in the halter! But ’twan’t my fault that things went wrong. I done jest what you paid me for—went to old Doctor Binks’ office, near midnight, and tole him to go to little Eva at once, ’cause she was ’most strangling with a croupy cold, and might choke to death if he didn’t go to her right away. But the ole fool was drunk as a biled owl, on one of them dretful sprees he takes now and then, and says he to me, says he, ‘Dan, I’m sick as the devil! I’m too sick to git into my buggy, but I’ll send my assistant right off to see the poor little thing.’ So I come away in a hurry, for I promised to go with the boys to take ole Jimison’s gate offen the hinges, and turn his cows into Ludington’s pasture, and a few other things! But, darn it all, I never thunk about young Doctor Ludington assisting of ole Binks, or I’d knowed that he could not come to Stony Ledge without an all-fired racket!”
“Well, it has happened, and all three of us will get into an awful mess if our part in it ever comes to light. Indeed, we daren’t tell the truth about it, although a hundred questions may be asked us at the inquest to-morrow. The secret is between us three, for Doctor Binks, being drunk, may not remember anything, and, if he does, we can deny it. So remember that you know nothing at all, and be as dumb as an oyster,” said Patty.
The frightened Dan had just assured them that he would carry the secret to the grave, when Miss Tabby sharply called to him that he must go and fetch Doctor Binks in a hurry to his suffering master.
Patty quickly arose to the occasion.