unlucky Oscar—senseless, in a pool of his own blood. A blow on the left side of his head had, to all appearance, felled him on the spot. The wound had split the scalp. Whether it had also split the skull was more than I was surgeon enough to be able to say. I had gathered some experience of how to deal with wounded men, when I served the sacred cause of Freedom with my glorious Pratolungo. Cold water, vinegar, and linen for bandages—these were all in the house; and these I called for. Gootheridge found the key of the door flung aside in a corner of the room. He got the water and the vinegar, while I ran up-stairs to Oscar's bedroom, and provided myself with some of his handkerchiefs. In a few minutes, I had a cold water bandage over the wound, and was bathing his face in vinegar and water. He was still insensible; but he lived. Reverend Finch—not of the slightest help to anybody—assumed the duty of feeling Oscar's pulse. He did it as if, under the circumstances, this was the one meritorious action that could be performed. He looked as if nobody could feel a pulse but himself. "Most fortunate," he said, counting the slow, faint throbbing at the poor fellow's wrist—"most fortunate that I was at home. What would you have done without me?"
The next necessity was, of course, to send for the doctor, and to get help, in the meantime, to carry Oscar up-stairs to his bed.
Gootheridge volunteered to borrow a horse, and to ride off for the doctor. We arranged that he was to send his wife and his wife's brother to help me. This settled, the one last embarrassment left to deal with, was the embarrassment of Mr. Finch. Now that we were free from all fear of encountering bad characters in the house, the boom-boom of the little man's big voice went on unintermittingly, like a machine at work in the neighborhood. I had another of my inspirations—sitting on the floor with Oscar's head on my lap. I gave my reverend companion something to do. "Look about the room!" I said. "See if the packing-case with the gold and silver plates is here or not."
Mr. Finch did not quite relish being treated like an ordinary mortal, and being told what he was to do.
"Compose yourself, Madame Pratolungo," he said. "No hysterical activity, if you please. This business is in My hands. Quite needless, ma'am, to tell Me to look for the packing-case."
"Quite needless," I agreed. "I know beforehand the packing-case is gone."
That answer instantly set him fussing about the room. Not a sign of the case was to be seen.
All doubt in my mind was at an end now. The two ruffians lounging against the wall had justified, horribly justified, my worst suspicions of them.
On the arrival of Mrs. Gootheridge and her brother, we carried him up to his room. We laid him on the bed, with his neck-tie off, and his throat free, and the air blowing over him from the open window. He showed no sign yet of coming to his senses. But still the pulse went faintly on. No change was discernible for the worse.
It was useless to hope for the doctor's arrival, before another hour at least. I felt the necessity of getting back at once to the rectory, so as to be able to tell Lucilla (with all needful preparation) the melancholy truth. Otherwise, the news of what had happened would get abroad in the village, and might come to her ears, in the worst possible way, through one of the servants. To my infinite relief, Mr. Finch, when I rose to go, excused himself from accompanying me. He had discovered that it was his duty, as rector, to give the earliest information of the outrage at Browndown to the legal authorities. He went his way to the nearest magistrate. And I went mine—leaving Oscar under the care of Mrs. Gootheridge and her brother—back to the house. Mr. Finch's last words at parting reminded me, once more, that we had one thing at least to be thankful for under the circumstances—sad as they otherwise were.
"Most fortunate, Madame Pratolungo, that I was at home. What would you have done without me?"
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH
Events at the Bedside
I AM, if you will be so good as to remember, constitutionally French—and, therefore, constitutionally averse to distressing myself, if I can possibly help it. For this reason, I really cannot summon courage to describe what passed between my blind Lucilla and me when I returned to our pretty sitting-room. She made me cry at the time; and she would make me (and perhaps you) cry again now, if I wrote the little melancholy story of what this tender young creature suffered when I told her my miserable news. I won't write it; I am dead against tears. They affect the nose; and my nose is my best feature. Let us use our eyes, my fair friends, to conquer, not to cry.
Be it enough to say, that when I went back to Browndown, Lucilla went with me.
I now observed her, for the first time, to be jealous of the eyes of us happy people who could see. The instant she entered, she insisted on being near enough to the bed, to hear us, or to touch us, as we waited on the injured man. This was at once followed by her taking the place occupied by Mrs. Gootheridge at the bed-head, and herself bathing Oscar's face and forehead. She was even jealous of me, when she discovered that I was moistening the bandages on the wound. I irritated her into boldly kissing the poor insensible face in our presence! The landlady of the Cross Hands was one of my sort: she took cheerful views of things. "Sweet on him—eh, ma'am?" she whispered in my ear; "we shall have a wedding in Dimchurch." In presence of these kissings and whisperings, Mrs. Gootheridge's brother, as the only man present, began to look very uncomfortable. This worthy creature belonged to that large and respectable order of Englishmen, who don't know what to do with their hands, or how to get out of a room. I took pity on him—he was, I assure you, a fine man. "Smoke your pipe, sir, in the garden," I said. "We will call to you from the window, if we want you up here." Mrs. Gootheridge's brother cast on me one look of unutterable gratitude—and escaped, as if he had been let out of a trap.
At last, the doctor came.
His first words were an indescribable relief to us. The skull of our poor Oscar was not injured. There was concussion of the brain, and there was a scalp-wound—inflicted evidently with a blunt instrument. As to the wound, I had done all that was necessary in the doctor's absence. As to the injury to the brain, time and care would put everything right again. "Make your minds easy, ladies," said this angel of a man. "There is no reason for feeling the slightest alarm about him."
He came to his senses—that is to say, he opened his eyes and looked vacantly about him—between four and five hours after the time when we had found him on the floor of the workshop.
His mind, poor fellow, was still all astray. He recognized nobody. He imitated the action of writing with his finger; and said very earnestly, over and over again, "Go home, Jicks; go home, go home!" fancying himself (as I suppose), lying helpless on the floor, and sending the child back to us to give the alarm. Later in the night he fell asleep. All through the next day, he still wandered in his mind when he spoke. It was not till the day after, that he began feebly to recover his reason. The first person he recognized was Lucilla. She was engaged at the moment in brushing his beautiful chestnut hair. To her unutterable joy, he patted her hand, and murmured her name.
She bent over him; and, under cover of the hair-brush, whispered something in his ear which made the young fellow's pale face flush, and his dull eyes brighten with pleasure. A day or two afterwards, she owned to me that she had said, "Get well, for my sake." She was not in the least ashamed of having spoken to that plain purpose. On the contrary, she triumphed in it. "Leave him to me," said Lucilla, in the most positive manner. "I mean first to cure him. And then I mean to be his wife."
In a week more, he was in complete possession of his faculties—but still wretchedly weak, and only gaining ground very slowly after the shock that he had suffered.
He was now able to tell us, by a little at a time, of what had happened in the workshop.
After Mrs. Gootheridge and her daughter had quitted the house at their usual hour, he had gone up to his room; had remained there some little time; and had then gone downstairs again. On approaching the workshop, he heard voices talking in whispers in the room. The idea instantly occurred to him that something was wrong. He softly tried the door, and found it locked—the robbers having no doubt taken that precaution, to prevent