A powerful-looking man, hatless, and wrapped in a great ulster, moved towards them.
“How many are there of you?” he asked, as he bent over Mr. Dunster.
“Only we two,” Gerald replied. “Is my friend badly hurt?”
“Concussion,” the doctor announced. “We’ll take him to the village. What about you, young man? Your face is bleeding, I see.”
“Just a cut,” Gerald faltered; “nothing else.”
“Lucky chap,” the doctor remarked. “Let’s get him to shelter of some sort. Come along. There’s an inn at the corner of the lane there.”
They all staggered along, Gerald still clutching the dressing-case, and supported on the other side by an excited and somewhat incoherent villager.
“Such a storm as never was,” the latter volunteered. “The telegraph wires are all down for miles and miles. There won’t be no trains running along this line come many a week, and as for trees—why, it’s as though some one had been playing ninepins in Squire Fellowes’s park. When the morning do come, for sure there will be things to be seen. This way, sir. Be careful of the gate.”
They staggered along down the lane, climbing once over a tree which lay across the lane and far into the adjoining field. Soon they were joined by more of the villagers, roused from their beds by rumours of terrible happenings. The little, single-storey, ivy-covered inn was all lit up and the door held firmly open. They passed through the narrow entrance and into the stone-flagged barroom, where the men laid down their stretcher. As many of the villagers as could crowd in filled the passage. Gerald sank into a chair. The sudden absence of wind was almost disconcerting. He felt himself once more in danger of fainting. He was only vaguely conscious of drinking hot milk, poured from a jug by a red-faced and sympathetic woman. Its restorative effect, however, was immediate and wonderful. The mist cleared from before his eyes, his brain began to work. Always in the background the horror and the shame were there, the shame which kept his hand pressed with unnatural strength upon the broken lock of that dressing-case. He sat a little apart from the others and listened. Above the confused murmur of voices he could hear the doctor’s comment and brief orders, as he rose to his feet after examining the unconscious man.
“An ordinary concussion,” he declared. “I must get round and see the engine-driver now. They have got him in a shed by the embankment. I’ll call in again later on. Let’s have one more look at you, young man.”