"Better send for a doctor, I suppose?" said Mrs. Purchase.
"I think, if we bathe the wound, we can tell better what's necessary. Will you—?"
"I reckon the job's more in your line. You've the look o' one able to nurse—yes, and you've the trick of it, I see," Mrs. Purchase went on, as Hester knelt, lifted the sufferer's head, and motioned to the boys to set down their basin of water beside her. "I'll clear the children out to the playground and keep 'em quiet. Call, if you want anything; I'll be close outside." The good lady shepherded them forth with brisk authority; not for nothing had she commanded a ship these thirty years. "But, Lord!" she muttered, "to think of me playing schoolmistress! What'll I do, I wonder, if these varmints of boys break ship and run home?"
She might have spared herself this anxiety. The children were all agog to see the drama out. Would Mr. Samuel recover? And, if not, what would be done to Tom Trevarthen? They discussed this in eager groups. If any of them had an impulse to run downhill and cry the news through the village, Mrs. Purchase's determined slamming and bolting of the playground gate restrained it—that, and perhaps a thought that by running with the news they would start the hue-and-cry after Tom.
Hester, having sponged away the blood, found that the cut on Mr. Sam's temple was nothing to need a doctor, but could be set right by cleansing and a few strips of plaster. Doubtless the fall had stunned him, and doubtless he must be in some pain. Yet when at length he groaned and opened his eyes she could not repress a suspicion (although she hated herself for it) that in some degree he had been shamming.
"Do not move, please," she commanded gently, snipping at the plaster with her scissors. "A couple of strips more, then a bandage, and you will soon be feeling better."
His eyes rolled and fixed themselves on her. "A ministering angel," he muttered. She caught the words, and turned her head aside with a flush of annoyance.
"You have an ugly bruise," she told him sharply. "I am going to put a cool compress on it. You had better close your eyes, or some of the water will be trickling into them."
He closed them obediently, but asked, "He has gone?"
"Yes."