"Oh, Mrs. Cross at the lodge took them. Mr. Fielding provided for 'em,
and he helped young Dick along too. He's been very good to them always.
He had young Jack trained, and now he's his chauffeur and making a very
good living. The worst of Jack is, he ain't over steady, got too much of
his father in him to please me. He's always after some girl--two or
three at a time sometimes. No harm in the lad, I daresay. But he's wild,
you know. Dick finds him rather a handful very often. Robin can't abide
him, which perhaps isn't much to be wondered at, seeing as it was mostly
Jack's fault that he is such a poor cripple. He was always sickly. It's
often the way with twins, you know. All the strength goes to one. But he
always had to do what Jack did as a little one, and Jack led him into all
sorts of mischief, till one day when they were about ten they went off
bird's-nesting along the cliffs High Shale Point way, and only Jack come
back late at night to say his brother had gone over the cliff. Dick tore
off with some of the chaps from the shore. It were dark and windy, and
they all said it was no use, but Dick insisted upon going down the face
of the cliff on a rope to find him. And find him at last he did on a
ledge about a hundred feet down. He was so badly hurt that he thought
he'd broke his back, and he didn't dare move him till morning, but just
stayed there with him all night long. Oh, it was a dreadful business." A
large tear splashed unchecked on to Mrs. Rickett's apron. "An ill-fated
family, as you might say. They got 'em up in the morning o' course, but
poor little Robin was very bad. He was on his back for nearly a year
after, and then, when he began to get about again, them humps came and he
grew crooked. Mr. Fielding were away at the time, hunting somewhere in
the wilds of Africa, and when he came home he were shocked to see the
lad. He had the very best doctors in the land to see him, but they all
said there was nothing to be done. The spine had got twisted, or
something of that nature, and he'd begun to have queer giddy fits too as
made 'em say the brain were affected, which it really weren't, miss, for