innie and her brother stood at the brink of the well, and gazed with straining eyes into its depths.
“which of us should go down?” said minnie.
“you need not have asked such a question; you know that you are not strong enough to draw me up; and i doubt,” added tom, passing his hand along the rope—“i doubt if this is strong enough to bear me.”
minnie drew one step backwards. “if it should break with me!” she murmured.
“you should have thought of that before,” was tom’s only reply.
[141]“tom, at all risks i must go—i could not sleep to-night with this horrible doubt on my mind, and you will not let me call others to help. i trust that the almighty will take care of me, for my only hope is in him. help me to get into the bucket; and, oh! be very careful, dear tom—you do not know how much frightened i am.”
“hold the rope firmly,” said her brother; “and here, take this long stick to feel about in the water when you are down.” tom was extremely anxious to have his own mind relieved, or, heartless as he was, he could hardly have consented to let his young sister run this risk. but there was nothing that the selfish boy dreaded so much as that his share in johnny’s wanderings should be known, if his fearful suspicion were true, and the poor child had indeed perished through his folly.
minnie shook with terror as the bucket began to descend; every moment she fancied the rope giving way, and that she should be[142] plunged into the water below. the strange damp smell, the dim light, the peculiar sound of her own voice in that hollow confined place, all added to her feeling of fear.
down the well.
“stop, tom,” she cried, as the bucket touched the water. tom looked down, and could perceive some one below; but, all indistinct and dim, he could not have recognized that it was his sister.
[143]“can you find anything?” he whispered, kneeling down, after fixing the wheel, and leaning over with his hands resting on the brink. he heard a little splashing in the water, and waited for the answer of minnie with great anxiety. “can you find anything there?” he repeated.
“no.” oh, the relief brought by that one little word!
“have you searched well?” said tom; “have you searched to the bottom?”
“quite to the bottom; there is nothing but water—heaven be praised,” said the hollow voice from below. “now draw me up again; but softly, very softly. oh, how thankful i shall be if i ever reach the top!”
there was not another word spoken by either brother or sister, while tom, with painful exertion, turned the handle of the wheel, and first minnie’s clinging hands, and then her frightened face, appeared above the level of the well.
tom helped her to the side, which she[144] could not have reached by herself, and then falling on her knees, the poor little girl returned her fervent thanks to heaven, at once for johnny’s deliverance from the well and her own.
“now let us return,” said tom; “there is no use in remaining here. it is growing quite dark, and beginning to rain. we can continue our search in the morning.”
“but if poor little johnny should be somewhere in this wood, only think what he would suffer left out all night. it would kill him with fright, if not with the weather. remember, tom, that no one else is likely to have looked for him here; a place which he could never have reached by himself.”
tom muttered something between his teeth, which, perhaps, it was as well that minnie did not hear; but he certainly looked around him more carefully.
minnie had wandered a few steps from her brother, and was slowly walking round the greensward surrounding the well—a[145] clear space which was almost inclosed by the wood, only open on the side by which they had approached it, and from which two dark narrow paths, scarce wide enough to permit two persons to pass each other, led into the depths of the forest. on a sudden she stopped, stooped down, then eagerly cried out, “oh, look what i have here!—he must be near!—he must be near!” tom hastened to the spot, and beheld in minnie’s hand a little dusty shoe, with its strap and round black button, which both felt certain had belonged to the lost child.
“well, he could not walk far without his shoe,” observed tom. “i daresay that he is near enough to hear me. halloo, johnny!” he shouted, “halloo!” there was no reply but the echo.
“he must have gone down one of those little paths,” said minnie; “we had better search one of them at once.”
“better search both of them, as there are two of us,” said tom; “if we took but one,[146] we should be sure to choose the wrong one.”
poor minnie gave a woful look at the dark walks; however tempting they might, have looked when nuts were on the boughs, and the sunbeams struggled through their green shade, to the eye of the little girl they looked anything but tempting now, when approaching night was wrapping them in deepest gloom.
“why, you are not afraid!” cried tom, with his rude coarse laugh; for now that he was relieved from his fear that the child was actually dead, the thought of what he might be suffering weighed little upon his mind.
“if it be right for me to go alone, i will go,” faltered minnie, “whether i am afraid or not.”
tom laughed again, but he had little cause to laugh at words that expressed more true courage than all the idle vaunts that he had ever uttered. he might have remembered that his sister had just ventured[147] upon what an older and wiser companion than himself would never have suffered her to have attempted. but having no fear of a night walk in a lonely wood himself, he now, as was ever the case with him, had no consideration for the feelings of another.
the brother and sister parted in the darkness and rain; minnie, trembling half with fear and half with cold, went cautiously along the gloomy way. every few steps she paused, and softly called, “johnny!” but her listening ear caught no sound but the pattering of the rain. many, many times she stopped, and almost resolved to go back, when the thought of her little rosy-cheeked friend, out in the darkness and rain, frightened, cold, and wet, encouraged her to pursue her journey. for more than an hour the young girl wandered on, when at last the wood came to an end, and she found herself alone on a dark wide heath, dotted over here and there by furze-bushes.
“johnny!” once more she cried, almost[148] in despair, a sickening feeling of disappointment coming over her heart. weary and sad, she could have sat down and cried. she saw, a little on her left hand, one lonely light, which appeared to proceed from some cottage. here at least she might beg for shelter, and towards it she slowly walked. the light shone steady and bright from a little window; and before she ventured to knock at the door, minnie wingfield cautiously peeped in.
an aged man sat with his back to the window, and a large book open on the table before him, the very sight of which gave hope and confidence to minnie. his wife, in her arm-chair, was listening opposite—a mild, calm expression in her venerable face; and in the corner crouched poor silly sally, her brow no longer bound with her chaplet of wild flowers; she had wreathed it round the lost johnny, whom, with a delight which repaid all her fears, minnie beheld slumbering in the arms of the idiot!
[149]
found.
it was this poor helpless creature who had found the little boy clinging in terror to the bough! there was still a woman’s instinct left in her breast, an instinct of tenderness towards a child. terrified at first to behold the dreaded sally, it was only the necessity of his case that made poor johnny suffer her to touch him; but kindness soon finds its way to the heart—she fondled him, stroked his curly locks, decked him out with[150] her favourite flowers, and then carried him away, through the still greenwood, to her own little home on the common, pleased as a child that has found a new toy. strange that the life which had been endangered by the thoughtlessness of a companion, should be guarded by the tenderness of one bereft of reason.
minnie wingfield soon entered the cottage, and was received with christian hospitality. she was placed by the fire, her dress dried, and food placed before her; and her mind was relieved by hearing that a messenger had been sent to her village to bear tidings to mrs. bright that her johnny was safe and under shelter. what a joyful end to all minnie’s anxieties; how sweet the reward of all the painful efforts that she had made!
