“More shame for you to say so,” cried North. “They’re your moral patients. You ought to improve them.”
“Yes,” said the curate drily.
“The squire was sober enough, though, to tell me that his brother had had a nasty accident—was going to the meet yesterday, when his horse bolted with him, and somehow raced off into Red Cliff Wood, where Tom was only able to check him right up at the top there, where the beast threw him and he fell crashing down from the top of the cliff to the bottom.”
“Into the stream?” said the curate quietly.
“No; I didn’t hear anything about the stream,” said the doctor. “I went up and found him swearing at one of the maids because she was putting a poultice on his right eye too hot. Then he began to swear at me for not coming sooner. That raised my dander, and I told him I’d give him a dose that would keep him in bed for a month if he wasn’t civil.”
“Yes?”
“Well, then he cooled down and sent the maid away.”
“Yes?”
“And I went to work. He has had one of the most curious falls I ever met with in practice. His eyes are closed up—beautiful pair of black eyes; lip cut; right canine tooth in upper jaw broken short off; several contusions on the lower jaw; rib broken; and the skin off his knuckles.—Been doing anything to your bees?”
“Bees? What, this time of year? No. Why?”