"Yes, sir, and this is my master. We were coming to fetch you when the gig tipped over."
"Your master ought to know better than to bring a gig out in such weather," said the doctor in a grumbling tone, as he dismounted and picked his way round to where Tyler was lying.
"This is an awkward place to examine him properly," said he, after feeling the man's pulse; but Eric noticed that the doctor spoke in an altered tone, and he had turned pale while feeling his pulse.
He looked at Eric, and then at the broken chaise.
"How can we get him home quickly?" he said in a puzzled tone.
"Couldn't we carry him if I took this gate down?" said Eric, pointing to one that had been well-nigh torn from its post by the recent gale.
Fortunately a man from the neighbouring farm came in sight the next moment, and Eric shouted to him to come to their assistance.
"Why, it be the landlord of The Magpie, surely," said the man, "and he be dead too. Who did see him die?" he asked suspiciously, looking from Eric to the doctor.
"Come, help us to move him; we may lose the chance of doing anything for him, if he stays here any longer," said the doctor, without replying to the man's question.
And thus commanded, he helped Eric take down the gate, and then, when a bed of their coats had been spread on it, the injured man was carefully lifted up, and the doctor prepared to take his share in carrying him home. But before they had gone many steps, another man appeared, who took the doctor's place, and so he mounted his horse and rode forward to prepare Mrs. Tyler for the return of her husband.