Oswald Cray: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Dear Madam,--

"I grieve much to have to inform you that an accident has happened to your nephew Leopold. It being a half-holiday yesterday afternoon (granted, according to annual custom, on the auspicious occasion of Mrs. Keen's birthday), the young gentlemen had leave accorded them to go into the fields and gather blackberries. Engaged in this (hitherto deemed harmless) recreation, Leopold unfortunately met with a fall. In stretching up to reach a high branch, he lost his balance, and fell from the top of a bank. I fear he may have been pushed, but the boys appear not to be quite clear upon the point. At any rate, he fell in some way with his arm doubled under him, and on examination it proved to be broken.

"Deeply sorry as I am to be obliged to impart to you this sad news, I can yet qualify it in some degree by stating that it is a simple fracture. It was at once set, and the surgeon assures me it will do as well as possible. Mrs. Keen bids me say that she does not think Master Leopold has appeared very strong of late; I have remarked myself that he looks delicate. Master Davenal, I am happy to say, is quite well, and gives us every satisfaction in his studies, in which he takes great pleasure.

"With very kind remembrances from Mrs. Keen to yourself and Miss Sara Davenal, and best compliments from myself,--I remain, dear Madam, faithfully yours, John Keen.

"Miss Davenal."

Miss Bettina gave the letter to her niece in an excess of vexation "If that mischievous Dick was not at the bottom of it, I shall wonder!" she exclaimed. "He pushed him off in his roughness. He is rough."

Sara gathered in the words of the letter in silence, with strained eyes and a beating heart.

"I'd have every blackberry-tree in the land rooted up, if I had my will," proceeded Miss Bettina. "Boys are as venturesome as monkeys when their mouths are in question. They don't care for their clothes or how they get torn; they don't care for their shirtfronts or how they get stained; they fight, and quarrel, and climb, and scratch their hands and faces with the thorns, and all for greediness--that they may fill themselves with those rubbishing berries. And now they have caused this mischief! The boy's arm may be weak for life. Yes, if I had the power, I'd destroy every blackberry-tree that grows. I should think D. Keen will interdict 'blackberrying' for the future."

"I wonder how it happened?" said Sara, musingly.

"So do I," said Miss Bettina, in a tart tone. "One would think the bank was as high as a house. They'd climb up a house, boys would, if they thought they should find blackberries growing upon its roof. Ah, never shall I forget--it has this moment recurred to my mind--Leo's father coming home in a sorry plight when he was a boy. He went blackberrying. He went without anybody's knowledge, too, and was absent for hours, and we grew alarmed at home, as was natural, for he was but a little fellow of eight. I remember my dear mother feared he had fallen into some pond, but we children thought Johnny had gone after the wild-beast caravan, which had been in the town exhibiting two bears and an elephant. He arrived at home at dusk; and I'm sure he looked more fit to belong to a caravan than to a gentleman's house. His knees were out of his trousers, and his brown-holland blouse was in flounces, and his shirt-frill had three hanging rents in it, and his hair and face and hands were crimson with the stains, causing my mother to cry out with fear at the first sight of him. To crown all, he had filled his new straw hat with the blackberries, and the juice was dropping through the crown! John does not forget that exploit, I know, to this day. Your grandpapa gave him a sound whipping and sent him to bed supperless; not so much for the plight he had put himself into as for roaming out alone and frightening my dear mother. Johnny was ill for three days afterwards with stomach-ache, from the quantity he had devoured. He remembers blackberrying, I know; and I should think Mr. Leo will, after this."