"Well, I do think, Master Charles Marston, that I am a very unfortunate man, and that my left shoulder is a very unfortunate shoulder, both being subject to suffer by encounters with highwaymen, whether Syrian or English, Mahommedan or Christian."
"Why, my dear sir--you don't mean to say you are wounded?" exclaimed Charles Marston.
"I do indeed," replied Mr. Winkworth, "and within one inch of the spot where I was wounded before. Luckily, it is lower down, and on the outside, so it is only in the flesh, I fancy; but I am not obliged to them, nevertheless. I was just stooping a little, forward to see what was going on, when the ball came crashing through the glass and into my shoulder."
Charles Marston was now, as may well be supposed, under a good deal of anxiety for his friend; but Mr. Winkworth would not consent to stop at the next inn longer than was necessary to ascertain that the bleeding was not great. Charles insisted upon putting on another pair of horses to the carriage to accelerate their progress, and in about two two hours and a half they reached the door of their hotel. There a surgeon was immediately sent for; and after what seemed to Charles a very long delay, the man of healing entered the room.
CHAPTER XIV.
Human life is a strange thing, consider it in what way we will. Strip it of all factitious adjuncts, and leave it bare and bald, as a mere lease for sixty or seventy years of sensations, feelings, thoughts, hopes, expectations, still it is strange--very strange; but man has made it stranger. Society has put so many clauses into the lease that the covenants are not always easily fulfilled, and the tenancy occasionally becomes troublesome.
I do not mean to say that this was altogether the case with worthy Mr. Winkworth. That he was rich was evident; that, notwithstanding his meagre body, stooping shoulders, and yellow face, he was strong and in good health, his capability of enduring long fatigue, and the rapidity with which he had recovered from his former wounds in Syria, proved sufficiently. But still he seemed very indifferent to life; and when the surgeon, as surgeons often will upon very slight occasions, thought fit to look grave and solemn while examining his wound, the old gentleman turned laughing to Charles Marston, and said, with a nod of his head--
"I'll remember you in my will.--My dear sir," he continued, addressing the surgeon, "do not look so serious. You cannot frighten me, I assure you. Life in its very best and palmiest state, with all its joys and pleasures unimpaired, is not so valuable a commodity in my eyes as to cost me two thoughts about losing it. There is no great chance of that, however, this time; and, even if there were, this old, crazy, worn-out body--of which, as of a house long in chancery, there is little more than the framework left--may just as well go down to mother earth to-day or to-morrow as after a few score more morrows, which will very soon be passed."
The ball, however, was soon extracted; and the old gentleman retired to bed, treating the whole matter somewhat lightly.
The next morning, when Charles Marston went to visit him, some degree of inflammation had naturally come on, rendering him rather irritable, of which he was conscious.