"We have not purchased it, sir; we have just squatted there. My friend was taken so bad that we could go no further. We were trying, doctor, to make our way down south."
"Your friend, whoever he is, did a very foolish thing to bring a young lady like yourself on such a long journey. You are not a pair of runaway lovers, are you?"
"No, indeed," Lucy said, flushing scarlet; "we have no idea of such a thing. I was living alone, and the house was attacked by bushwhackers, the band of a villain named Mullens."
"Oh! I saw all about that in the Nashville paper this morning. They were attacked by a band of Confederate plunderers, it said."
"They were attacked by one man," the girl replied. "They were on the point of murdering me when he arrived. He shot Mullens and four of his band and the rest made off, but he got this wound. And as I knew the villains would return again and burn the house and kill me, I and my old nurse determined to go southward to join my friends in Georgia."
"Well, you can tell me more about it as we go," the doctor said. "I will order my buggy round to the door, and drive you back. I will take my instruments and things with me. It is no business of mine whether a sick man is a Confederate or a Federal; all my business is to heal them."
"Thank you very much, doctor. While the horse is being put in I will go down and tell the negro boy with me to go straight on with a basket of things I have been buying."
"Where is he now?" the doctor asked.
"I think he is sitting down outside the door, sir."
"Then you needn't go down," the doctor said. "He can jump up behind and go with us. He will get there all the quicker."