"I think," said John with remarkable good sense, "that the instinct of man is to preserve life when he is calm. When a man is fighting with another he is hot and tries to kill his enemy; when the fight is over, the natural instinct returns."
"The only thing worth knowing in such cases is the precise point at which the fight may be said to be over. I once knew a young surgeon in India who thought he had killed a cobra and proceeded to extract the fangs in order to examine the poison. Unfortunately the snake was not quite dead; he bit the surgeon in the finger and the poor fellow died in thirty-five minutes."
"Dreadful!" said John. "But you do not think this poor fellow could do anything very dangerous now—do you?"
"Oh, dear me, no!" returned the squire. "I was only stating a case to prove that one is sometimes justified in going quite to the end of a fight. No indeed! He will not be dangerous for some time, if he ever is again. But, as I was saying, he must have been ill some time. Delirium never comes on in this way, so soon—"
Some one knocked at the door. It was Holmes, who came to say that the physician, Doctor Longstreet, had arrived.
"Oh—it is Doctor Longstreet is it?" said the squire. "Ask him to come up."
CHAPTER XXI.
Doctor Longstreet was not the freethinking physician of Billingsfield. The latter was out when Mr. Juxon's groom went in search of him, and the man had driven on to the town, six miles away. The doctor was an old man with a bright eye, a deeply furrowed forehead, a bald head and clean shaved face. He walked as though his frame were set together with springs and there was a curious snapping quickness in his speech. He seemed full of vitality and bore his years with a jaunty air of merriment which inspired confidence, for he seemed perpetually laughing at the ills of the flesh and ready to make other people laugh at them too. But his bright eyes had a penetrating look and though he judged quickly he generally was right in his opinion. He entered the room briskly, not knowing that the sick man was there.
"Now, Mr. Juxon," he said cheerfully, "I am with you." He had the habit of announcing his presence in this fashion, as though his brisk and active personality were likely to be overlooked. A moment later he caught sight of the bed. "Dear me," he added in a lower voice, "I did not know our patient was here."
He went to Walter Goddard's side, looked at him attentively, felt his pulse, and his forehead, glanced at the bandages the squire had roughly put upon his throat and hand, drew up the sheet again beneath his chin and turned sharply round.