transparent
wave. Gradually gently it crept up to the place where Vernon lay; and
the little ripples fell over him wonderingly, with the low murmur of
their musical laughter, and blurred and dimmed the vivid splashes and
crimson streaks upon the white stone on which his head had fallen, and
washed away some of the purple bells and green sprigs of heather round
which his fingers were closed in the grasp of death, and played softly
with his fair hair as it rose, and fell, and floated on their
undulations like a leaf of golden-colored weed, until they themselves
were faintly discolored by his blood. And then, tired with their new
plaything, they passed on, until the swelling of the water was just
strong enough to move rudely the boy's light weight, and in a few
moments more would have tossed it up and down with every careless wave
among the boulders of the glen. And then it was that Montagu's
horror-stricken gaze had identified the object at which they had been
gazing. In strange foreboding silence they urged on the boat, while Eric
at the prow seemed wild with the one intense impulse to verify his
horrible suspicion. The suspicion grew and grew:--it _was_ a boy lying
in the water;--it was Vernon;--he was motionless;--he must have fallen
there from the cliff.

Eric could endure the suspense no longer. The instant that the boat
grated on the shingle, he sprang into the water, and rushed to the spot
where his brother's body lay. With a burst of passionate affection, he
flung himself on his knees beside it, and took the cold hand in his
own--the little rigid hand in which the green blades of grass, and fern,
and heath, so tightly clutched, were unconscious of the tale they told.

"Oh Verny, Verny, darling Verny, speak to me!" he cried in anguish, as
he tenderly lifted up the body, and marked how little blood had flowed.
But the child's head fell back heavily, and his arms hung motionless
beside him, and with a shriek, Eric suddenly caught the look of dead
fixity in his blue open eyes.

The others had come up. "O God, save my brother, save him, save him from
death," cried Eric, "I cannot live without him. Oh God! Oh God! Look!
look!" he continued, "he has fallen from the cliff with his head on this
cursed stone," pointing to the block of quartz, still red with
blood-stained hair; "but we must get a doctor. He is not dead! no, no,
no, he _cannot_ be dead. Take him quickly, and let us row home. Oh God!
why did I ever leave hi