"Oh, no!" answered the surgeon. "Their trials are put off till the next assizes. The case of your acquaintance, Mr. Dudley, was just coming on. I should have stayed to hear it if I had had time; but as I promised to be over here by eleven I hurried away, otherwise I would have brought you all the news."
He spoke in the most commonplace tone in the world; and Edgar at that moment hated him mortally; but he said not another word, and kept his eyes shut almost all the time that his surgeon remained, as if he were inclined to go to sleep again. As soon as the man of healing was gone, however, he sprang up in his bed, hurried on his clothes, and without even waiting to wash himself or brush his hair, surprised the good woman of the house by appearing in the kitchen of the farm.
"La, sir!" she exclaimed, "I am glad to see you up again. I hope you're better."
"Oh! yes, quite well now, thank you, Mrs. Grange," replied the young gentleman, with a swimming head and a feeling of faint weakness in all his limbs. "I am going out to take a ride, if your husband will lend me a horse."
"That he will, I am sure, sir," answered the farmer's wife; and running to the window of the kitchen, she screamed out into the yard, "Grange! Grange! here is Mr. Adelon quite well again, and wants you to lend him your nag to take a ride."
"Certainly, wife," answered the farmer, coming out of a barn on the opposite side of the court. "When will he like him?"
"Directly," answered Edgar Adelon, eagerly, and speaking over the good woman's shoulder; "it will refresh me and do me good."
"He shall be up in a minute, then, sir," answered the farmer. "I am glad to see you well again. I'll just take some of the hair off his heels, and comb out his mane a bit----"
But Edgar did not stay to hear more, and hurrying back into the room to which he had been first taken, sought for his hat, which he found sadly battered and soiled. Without waiting even to brush off the dirt, he proceeded at once to cut short the farmer's unnecessary preparations, and mounting the horse, as soon as he could obtain it, rode away at a quick trot towards the county town. He knew not what he sought; he had no definite object in going; but he felt that he had been deceived, that he had been kept in idleness, while the fate of his friend was in jeopardy, and his impatience increased every moment till the farmer's nag was pushed into an unwonted gallop. He slackened his pace a little, it is true, as he entered the town, but still rode very fast to an inn close by the courts, and ringing the bell furiously, gave his horse to the hostler.
In a few moments he was pushing his way through the crowd in the entrance, and the next instant he caught sight of Dudley, standing with his arms crossed upon his chest, and his eyes fixed upon the jury-box. His brow was calm, but very stern; there was no fear in his fine eyes, but they were grave, even to sadness. On the opposite side were the jury, with their foreman leaning a little forward; and at the same instant a voice, coming from just below the bench, demanded, in a loud tone, "How say you, gentlemen of the jury; Guilty, or not guilty?"