“Come right down on his head, poor lad,” he said; “but you’ll do your best for him, doctor: don’t you let him slip through your fingers.”
The doctor smiled grimly, and soon after drew up at the door in the garden wall, and hurried through to the bothy where John Grange had been carried and lay perfectly insensible, with Mrs Mostyn, a dignified elderly widow lady, who had hurried out as soon as she had heard of the accident, bathing his head, and who now anxiously waited till the doctor’s examination was at an end.
“Well, doctor,” said Mrs Mostyn eagerly, “don’t keep me in suspense.”
“I must,” he replied gravely. “It will be some time before I can say anything definite. I feared fractured skull, but there are no bones broken.”
“Thank heaven!” said Mrs Mostyn piously. “Such a frank, promising young man—such an admirable florist. Then he is not going to be very bad?”
“I cannot tell yet. He is perfectly insensible, and in all probability he will suffer from the concussion to the brain, and spinal injury be the result.”
“Oh, doctor, I would have given anything sooner than this terrible accident should have occurred. Pray forgive me—would you like assistance?”
“Yes: of a good nurse. If complications arise, I will suggest the sending for some eminent man.”
Many hours elapsed before John Grange opened his eyes from what seemed to be a deep sleep; and then he only muttered incoherently, and old Tummus’s plump, elderly wife, who was famed in the district for her nursing qualities, sat by the bedside and shed tears as she held his hand.