“Bless you, no, he’s a regular sap, as steady as old time.”
“I wonder if he is the son of the doctor whom Medlicott talks of.”
“No; his father is alive. He is a colonel, living near their place. The other two are the doctor’s sons; their mother came into the property after his death. Their Maximus was in college at first, and between ourselves, he was a bit of a snob, who couldn’t bear to recollect it.”
“Not your friend?”
“No, indeed. The eldest one, who has left these two years, and is at Christchurch.”
“I am sure the one who came down here was a gentleman.”
“So they are, all three of them,” said Cecil, who had never found his brother so ready to hear anything about his Eton life, since in general accounts of the world, from which he was debarred, so jarred on his feelings that he silenced it with apparent indifference, contempt, or petulance. Now, however, Cecil, with his heart full of the Brownlows, could not say more of them than Fordham was willing to hear; nay, he even found an amused listener to some of his good stories of courageous pranks.
Fordham was not yet up the next morning when there was a knock at his door, and the doctor came in, answering his eager question with—
“Yes, he has got through this night, but another up in that place would be fatal. We must get them down to Leukerbad.”
“Over that long precipitous path?”