As it chanced, Decimus Saxon had found time to ascend the church tower for the purpose of watching us through his glass and seeing how we fared. Noting that there was something amiss, he had hurried down for a skilled chirurgeon, whom he brought out to us under an escort of scythesmen. I was still kneeling by my senseless friend, doing what an ignorant man might to assist him, when the party arrived and helped me to bear him into the cottage, out of the glare of the sun. The minutes were as hours while the man of physic with a grave face examined and probed the wound.
‘It will scarce prove fatal,’ he said at last, and I could have embraced him for the words. ‘The blade has glanced on a rib, though the lung is slightly torn. We shall hear him back with us to the town.’
‘You hear what he says,’ said Saxon kindly. ‘He is a man whose opinion is of weight—
“A skilful leach is better far,
Than half a hundred men of war.”
Cheer up, man! You are as white as though it were your blood and not his which was drained away. Where is Derrick?’
‘Drowned in the marshes,’ I answered.
‘’Tis well! It will save us six feet of good hemp. But our position here is somewhat exposed, since the Royal Horse might make a dash at us. Who is this little maid who sits so white and still in the corner.’
‘’Tis the guardian of the house. Her granny has left her here.’
‘You had better come with us. There may be rough work here ere all is over.’
‘Nay, I must wait for granny,’ she answered, with the tears running down her cheeks.