But let that be as it may, Master Rayburn mended Dummy Rugg when he fell from top to bottom of the steep slope leading down into the lead-mine, getting thereby very much broken, the worst injury being a crack in his skull. He “cobbled up,” as he called it, a number of other injuries which happened to the men by pieces of rock falling upon them, slips of the steel picks, chops from axes, and cuts from scythes and reaping-hooks, the misfortunes of the men who toiled in the woods and fields.
If a regular physician or surgeon had come there, the people would have laughed at him, so great was their faith in Master Rayburn, who did his best for the people, and never asked for payment. In fact, his patients never thought of offering it to him in money, but they were not ungrateful, all the same. Indeed, he used to protest against the numbers of presents he was always receiving, the women bringing him pats of butter, little mugs of cream, and the best of their apples and potatoes; and their husbands never killed a pig without taking something to Master Rayburn for the kind actions which he had performed.
It fell out then, as quite a matter of course, that he went on treating Ralph Darley for the little hole in his arm, beneath the shoulder joint, and that he also dressed and bandaged Mark Eden’s thigh, so that the injuries went on healing rapidly.
It was known, too, at the Cliff Castle and the Black Tor that he was treating both, but the Edens never mentioned the Darleys, nor the Darleys the Edens, the amateur surgeon saying nothing at either place; and the wounds got better day by day.
“I wish I could heal the old sore as easily,” the old man said to himself; “but that wants a bigger doctor than I.”
Master Rayburn believed in the old saw, that a still tongue maketh a wise head, and he waited.
But in the meantime Ralph had told his father everything about his encounter, and waited afterwards to hear what his father said. In due time he did say something, but it was not to the effect that Mark Eden had behaved very gallantly in helping his son, and vice versa, that his son had shown a fine spirit in forgetting family enmity, and fighting against a common enemy. He only frowned, and said, “Humph!”
He said something more, though upon another occasion, when, in obedience to Master Rayburn’s orders, Ralph was keeping quiet at home, and sitting in his father’s room, reading, and thinking about Mark Eden, determining, too, that he would ask Master Rayburn how the lad was the next time he came, for though family pride and old teachings had kept him quiet, he had hoped that his doctor would volunteer the information which had not come.
Sir Morton was poring over an old tome which dealt with alchemy and the transmutation of metals, in which the learned writer gravely gave his opinion about baser metals being turned into gold, all of which Sir Morton Darley thought would be very satisfactory, as he could not succeed in finding a profitable lead-mine on his estate, and had not been any more successful than his forefathers in taking possession of that belonging to the Edens.
He had just come to the way of thinking that he would begin to buy ordinary lead and turn it into gold, when Ralph said suddenly: