“ALL well so far,” replied Ellis, in answer to my look of inquiry; “the bleeding has ceased, and he is fast recovering consciousness. Where is the room? We must get him into bed at once.”
When we had placed him in the bed Oaklands lay for a short space with his eyelids closed, uttering a low groan at intervals; at length the quiet appeared in some measure to restore him, and, slowly opening his eyes, he gazed languidly around, asking in a low voice, “Where am I?”
“Let me beg you not to speak, Mr. Oaklands,” said Ellis; “your safety depends upon your keeping silence; you are at the cottage of your friend Fairlegh.”
As he heard these words Harry perceived me standing near the bed, and smiled faintly in token of recognition; then, making a sign for me to stoop down to him, he whispered, “My father—you must break this to him—go, Frank”.
“This instant,” replied I, and I turned to leave the room, beckoning to Ellis, as I did so, to follow me. “Tell me the truth,” exclaimed I, as he closed the door behind him, “will he live or die?”
“It is too early in the business to pronounce a decided opinion,” was the answer; “nor can I venture as yet to do so; everything depends upon the course the ball may have taken, and that, as soon as the other surgeon arrives, we must endeavour to ascertain; all I can say at present is, that I have seen worse cases recover. There is one thing,” he added, “which may be a satisfaction for you to know—if you had not brought me, or some one in my profession, to the ground, he would have bled to death where he fell; no one but a surgeon could have stopped that bleeding.”
“If we had been too late I should never have forgiven myself, and we very nearly were so,” returned I. “I cannot understand how it was.”
“I can explain it,” said Archer, who now joined us. “You left me up at the village, you remember, Fairlegh, when you started to fetch Mr. Ellis; well, just as I was leaving it to return to the Hall, a boy ran past me at the top of his speed, and began knocking at one of the cottage doors hard by; surprised to see any one about at so early an hour in the morning, I inquired what was the matter. 'Master's just had word brought him that some gem'men is a going to fight a jewel at five o'clock, and I be come to call the constable, for master to give him a warrant to take 'em hup.' 'And who is your master?' questioned I. 'Justice Bumbleby,' was the answer. This was enough for me; I made the best of my way to the Hall, woke Oaklands, who was sleeping as calmly as a child, poor fellow! and he immediately sent his own groom, the lad who went with us to the field, to inform Wilford and his second of what I had heard, and to propose that the meeting should take place a quarter of an hour earlier than the time originally agreed on, to which they willingly consented.”
“This then,” thought I, “is the reason why Coleman's scheme failed, and Cumberland arrived too late;—well, one good thing is, it will clearly prove that neither Archer nor Oaklands connived at the intended interruption.”
The deep, the agonising grief of Sir John Oaklands, on receiving from my lips the account of his son's danger, was most painful to witness, and I was obliged to yield to his desire to return with me to the cottage, although Ellis had strictly forbidden his being allowed to see Harry, lest the excitement should prove injurious to the patient in the precarious state in which he lay. On my return I found the surgeon of the neighbourhood, Mr. (or as he was more commonly styled Dr.) Probehurt, had arrived, and that they were endeavouring to extract the ball, which, after a long and painful operation, they succeeded in doing. From the marks on the coat and waistcoat, it appeared that Wilford had aimed straight for the heart; but his deadly intentions had been providentially frustrated by the accident of Oaklands having a half-crown piece in a small pocket in his waist-coat, against which the ball had struck, and, glancing off, passed between two of the ribs, finally lodging amongst the muscles immediately under the shoulder-blade. The great effusion of blood had been occasioned by its having divided one of the smaller arteries, which Ellis had succeeded in securing on the spot. The wound was, therefore, a very severe one; but it was impossible to pronounce upon the exact amount of danger at present, as the course which the ball had taken trenched closely on so many important organs, that time alone could show the extent of the injury sustained. With this opinion, in which (strange to say) both doctors agreed, we were fain to content ourselves, and we passed the rest of the day in alternately watching by the wounded man and attempting to comfort and support Sir John, whom we had the greatest difficulty in keeping out of Harry's room, till Ellis asked him abruptly “whether he wanted to murder his son?” after which nothing short of force could have induced him to enter it. One of his first acts, having consulted with Dr. Probehurt, who graciously approved of the measure, was to enter into an arrangement with Ellis, to induce him to remain constantly with Harry till his health should be perfectly re-established, if, indeed, that happy event was ever destined to occur. As Sir John's liberality was unbounded, and Ellis's professional prospects rather hazy—his practice at Harley End being chiefly confined to the very poor, who went on the advice gratis system, and expected to have medicine given them into the bargain—the negotiation was soon concluded to the satisfaction of both parties.