"Ferdy, Ferdy!" his mother exclaimed, scarcely knowing that she spoke; "Ferdy dear, come quick, come, Ferdy."
But Chrissie caught her, and buried her own terror-stricken face in her mother's skirts.
"Mamma, mamma," she moaned, "don't look like that. Mamma, don't you see? Ferdy's killed. That's Ferdy where papa is. Don't go, oh don't go, mamma! Mamma, I can't bear it. Hide me, hide my eyes."
And at this frantic appeal from the poor little half-maddened sister, Mrs. Ross's strength and sense came back to her as if by magic. She unclasped Chrissie's clutching hands gently but firmly.
"Run upstairs and call Flowers. Tell her to lay a mattress on the floor of the oriel room at once; it is such a little way upstairs; and tell Burt to bring some brandy at once—brandy and water. Tell Burt first."
Chrissie was gone in an instant. Ferdy couldn't be dead, she thought, if mamma wanted brandy for him. But when the mother, nerved by love, flew along the drive to the spot where her husband and the coachman were still bending over what still was, or had been, her Ferdy, she could scarcely keep back a scream of anguish. For a moment she was sure that Chrissie's first words were true—he was killed.
"Walter, Walter, tell me quick," she gasped. "Is he—is he alive?"
Mr. Ross looked up, his own face so deadly pale, his lips so drawn and quivering, that a rush of pity for him came over her.
"I—I don't know. I can't tell. What do you—think, Merton?" he said, in a strange dazed voice. "He has not moved, but we thought he was breathing at first."
The coachman lifted his usually ruddy face; it seemed all streaked, red and white in patches.