My eyes were half-closed and I saw things rather dimly, particularly one pot on the window-sill, which, instead of being red and regular pot-shaped, seemed to be rounder and light-coloured, and to have a couple of eyes, and grinning white teeth. There were no leaves above it nor scarlet blossoms, but a straw hat upside-down, with fuzzy hair standing up out of it; and the eyes kept on staring at me till it seemed to be Shock! Then it grew dark and I must have fallen asleep, wondering what that boy could have to do with my accident.
Perhaps I came to again—I don’t know; for it may have been a dream that the old gentleman came softly back and dabbed my head gently with a towel, and that the towel was stained with blood.
Of course it was a dream that I was out in the East with my father, who was not hurt in the skirmish, but it was I who received the wound, which bled a good deal; and somehow I seemed to have been hurt in the shoulder, which ached and felt strained and wrenched. But all became blank again and I lay some time asleep.
When I opened my eyes again I found that I was being hurt a good deal by the doctor, who was seeing to my injuries. Old Brownsmith and Ike were both in the room, and I could see Shock peeping round the big arbor vitae outside the window to see what was going on.
The doctor was holding a glass to my lips, while Old Brownsmith raised me up.
“Drink that, my boy,” said the doctor. “That’s the way!—capital! isn’t it?”
I shuddered and looked up at him reproachfully, for the stuff he had given me to drink tasted like a mixture of soap and smelling-salts; and I said so.
“Good description of the volatile alkali, my lad,” he said, laughing. “There!—you’ll soon be all right. I’ve strapped up your wound.”
“My wound, sir!” I said, wonderingly.
“To be sure; didn’t you know that you had a cut upon your forehead?”