"Well, I'll maintain it was a tumble; and I'll thank you to keep my name out of it too," said Stevens.
"I wouldn't get you into the same trouble, not on any account," Mrs. Holdfast answered gratefully.
Getting John up-stairs was no easy task. He was too dizzy and dazed to stand without support, and he seemed not to understand what was said. The right arm would hardly endure a touch, but it appeared to be only bruised and strained, not broken. Stevens was very much averse to a doctor being called, and Sarah hoped it might not be needful. She bathed and bound up the injured arm and the cut forehead, and John showed signs of amendment. When he was in bed, and Sarah began feeding him with spoonfuls of tea, Stevens being gone, he looked almost comfortable.
"Things might be worse," he murmured, with an attempt at a smile.
"Yes; they might have managed to kill you outright," Sarah said sternly. The sternness was for others. She was very tender towards John. "Do you think you can tell me how it happened?" she asked.
John had little to tell. He had had occasion to go round by a certain lonely lane, to leave a message for somebody; and he supposed his going to have been known. Two or three men, perhaps more, had set upon him suddenly, in the dusk and loneliness, had ducked him in the pond, and otherwise maltreated him. He believed that they had left him on the road beside the pond, more or less unconscious. Stevens had found him there, when he was beginning to regain his sense, and had given him a helping arm home.
"And that's about all," John said.
"You didn't see the faces of the men?"
"No, not a glimpse. They were too sharp, and the cut blinded me."
"And they call themselves men!" she said again. "Men! Brutes, I say! John, I'll never forgive them!"