“I am all right here, or should be if I could have some more broth,” he said, with a wistful look at the empty cup in Nell’s hand.
But she shook her head with a decided air. “To over-feed starved things is to kill them outright, so if you want to get better you must just trust yourself to me.”
“Sorry to give you so much trouble,” he murmured weakly.
“Oh, tending sick things isn’t trouble. I just love nursing, only I haven’t had any one to nurse since father died, except a dog or a horse now and then. This is such a lone house, you see, and there are no people here to want helping. I should be just perfectly happy to have you here to take care of till you are well, only granfer will hate it so, that he won’t be even common pleasant to you, I’m afraid.”
“Never mind; I must risk the unpleasantness, as I can’t get any further. It is beginning to rain, too, so it is a mercy I reached shelter when I did,” Dick said drowsily, for a pleasant feeling of languor was stealing over him.
“Rain? So it does. I must get you on the settle somehow, and then go out and bring in Pip—that is our dog, you know. He’s a big, savage creature at ordinary times, but he got fighting last night, and is so dreadfully mauled that there ain’t much life left in him. Now, put your arms round my neck, and I will pull you up.”
Wrapping her thin muscular arms about the stranger, Nell succeeded in getting him on to his feet, and, supporting him as best she could, got him across the floor, dumping him unceremoniously on to a long low settle, which stood beside the great open fireplace. Then she went out for the dog, for by this time the rain was coming down heavily.
The creature must have been a considerable weight, but she staggered into the house with it, laid it tenderly down by the side of the fire opposite to Dick, and ministered to its wants with as much affection as if it had been a child.
The man on the settle watched her in silence, marvelling at the womanly tenderness, which was in such sharp contrast to her appearance; then presently, growing more drowsy, he fell asleep.
Once or twice he was conscious of being roused, and made to swallow something, but the disturbance seemed only like a part of his dreams, and it was hours before he was fully awake again.