A Big Temptation Part 4

The funicular was off!

Then came faint, m.u.f.fled cries of terror: a swish through the air as the two pa.s.sengers came sliding down: a louder shriek: and, lastly, a thud on the hall floor that made the hearts of the waiting group of boys stand quite still for a second or two.

At their feet was a huddled heap of blue frock and white pinafore, over which trailed a wisp of long fair hair. The heap was perfectly still, perfectly silent.

"Is she--is she----?" Mark's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and refused to finish the question when, tearing down the staircase, he reached the hall, his face livid under the red hair. Oliver was stooping over the senseless little figure, touching with frightened fingers now the little face, then the still small hands.

"Fetch Euphemia, quick!" the boy said hoa.r.s.ely.

Like an arrow Johnny fled through the green baize door, and then, with an alarmed cry, old Euphemia ran into the hall.

"Oh, my pretty, my pretty!" Trembling like a leaf and ghastly white, the old woman crouched down to gently feel each little limb. And as she did so the boys covered their eyes to hide the sight.

"Did anyone of ye push her down? How was it, tell me true?"

"No, no; oh! n.o.body pushed her! She fell all the way down the banisters!" several of the boys spoke together.

"We were playing at the funicular, and she lost her balance!" The last words were sobbed out by Mark.

"Playing at the--what?" gasped Euphemia, in horror. "Boy!"--she clutched Oliver's shoulder--"flee to the White House and fetch Doctor George. Say it's life or death. The master's away for a long round on the hills at the farms. Tell them that. Go!"

"But, Euphemia--Uncle George would refuse to come inside our door!"

stammered Oliver.

"Do as I bid ye, boy, and quick! Say to Dr. George these words from old Euphemia: 'The Lord do unto you and yours as ye do unto us in this sore need!' He will heed that message, if he's got a heart, not a stone, in him!"

With a shuddering groan, Oliver ran out into the pelting rain, bare-headed, on to the other end of Allonby Edge, where stood the White House with the red lamp, the home of the other Doctor Carew, the brother who had not spoken to Oliver's Father for three years.

As he raced along, with a heart beating in terror at what he had left behind on the hall-floor, there flitted through the boy's brain the old wondering curiosity as to what made the doctor-brothers such bitter enemies.

In the dining-room of the White House a group of children were staring idly out of the window, watching the village ducks, the only creatures really enjoying the deluge of rain on that wet Sat.u.r.day.

The table was spread for early dinner, and the appetising sniffs stealing up from the kitchen reminded the other Carews that they were hungry.

"Oh, do look!" Gwen nudged Tony excitedly. "There's a boy with nothing on his head tearing along in the rain! He will fall over those wobbling ducks if he doesn't look out!"

"I do believe he is making for our house!" slowly said Tony, as he stared out eagerly.

"There's somebody taken suddenly ill, that's it! He's coming for Pater!"

observed Traffy, a bright little urchin who had just stepped out of petticoats into a sailor suit and Latin.

"Oh, oh! it's one of the Carew boys from Tile House, and he is coming in here!" Trissy, the youngest, whispered, in an awestruck voice, and she shrank back from the window. The four Carews of the White House had brooded to the full as much as the young folk of the Tile House over the estrangement between their Fathers, though they had never dared to ask their parents any questions about the matter.

All the children knew this much, that old Grandpapa had been Doctor Mark Carew of Allonby Edge, and when he died his two sons succeeded to his practice as partners. In time the young doctors married, and the elder children remembered dimly that the Tile House and the White House had been like one home with two roofs.

Then came the mysterious quarrel that froze up that "good and joyful thing, dwelling together in unity." It was all so sad and heart-breaking that n.o.body ever ventured to question the two brothers thus living apart in enmity. The more you love anyone, the more terrible a thing it is to quarrel with that person.

So the breach had gone on widening with the years, and the little Carews had grown out of all knowledge of each other, especially as they bicycled every day to different schools in the county town. It was only in church indeed that they kept up any sort of acquaintance with each other's looks.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Yes, it's one of the other Carews," Tony said gravely. "And Father's in the surgery: he drove up five minutes ago. What can be the matter? That boy is tearing at the surgery bell. Listen!"

With their hearts in their mouths the Carews tip-toed along the pa.s.sage leading to the surgery-door, which was shut fast. There seemed to be a dreadful silence in the house. Mother was upstairs with the fretful baby of the family, and there was n.o.body to run to.

Behind the close-shut surgery-door a strange scene was going on. Sitting well back in his consulting-chair, his hands spread out, finger to finger, thumb to thumb, Doctor George was gazing sternly in silence at an eager little speaker.

"Oh, do come; do, Uncle George! Our Clary is killed, and Father's away on his rounds among the hill-farms!"

Oliver's teeth chattered in his head, and his little knees knocked together as he stood with the rain-drops falling from his bare head on to his little shoulders.

"Did your Mother send you here for me?" Doctor George asked harshly.

"No; oh, no! We dared not tell Mother! Clary fell from the top of the Tile House to the hall floor, and she's all white and still. And Euphemia lifted her arm, and it fell double!"

Dr. George suddenly sat up straight.

"Is it broken or is it a sprain?" he asked peremptorily.

"I--I don't know. I think she's killed!" answered the boy brokenly.

Oliver was nearly fainting from sheer fright, as Dr. George could see for himself.

"Come along, boy," he said sharply, and he gathered together two or three necessaries from the surgery-table while he spoke.

Presently two figures plunged out into the pouring rain.

"Father's gone with the other Carew! What can be the matter? Perhaps Uncle John's killed, and they're going to make it up!" whispered the girls.

"You are sillies!" scornfully said Tony. "How can people make it up if they're dead?"

Ah, how, Tony? The time for that has gone by, indeed, boy!

Of the two figures that fled through the rain, the doctor reached the Tile House first. In a trice he pushed aside Euphemia and he was kneeling beside the motionless little figure; and, presently, when he had gently probed the little form and lifted one limb after another, he groaned under his breath. This little, tender, fair-headed thing, with the face that reminded him so startlingly of his dead Mother, was sorely injured; perhaps fatally so. As yet, he knew not.

Without a word, he cautiously lifted the unconscious Clary in his strong arms, and signed to Euphemia to lead the way.

Then the door of the room he entered with his burden was shut, and the Carew boys huddled close together, a miserable group. What if they had killed the little, tender sisterling who was their queen and idol?

And Mother upstairs in her sick-room knew nothing as yet, while Father, away on his long hill-round, was equally ignorant. It seemed to make things so much more terrible to the little boys that they alone should know.

"Come away, beside the fire, dearies." Mary Jane beckoned them into the kitchen, and the wretched boys crept round the ruddy blaze, which seemed, somehow, like a friend, and they stretched out their cold hands to its warmth as they waited, too frightened to wonder aloud what was being done in that room where Euphemia and Uncle George were shut up with Clary.

When Mother's bell rang their hearts jumped into their mouths.

"No! none of you boys are going up!" said Mary Jane firmly. "Euphemia, she said as 'twas as much as my place was worth if I let the mistress know o' this before the doctor comes home. So I'll carry up her dinner-tray and keep my tongue atween my teeth, and you boys must bide quiet as quiet till we see!"