The Weathercock: Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias

by George Manville Fenn

Where Vane Spent the Night.

The squirrel and the squirrel only. There was not even a sound now. Vane could see the basket he had brought and the two pieces of the strong ash stick which he had broken over the fight with the second boy. The ground was trampled and the leaves kicked up, but no enemy was near, and he naturally began to investigate his damages.

“They haven’t killed me—not quite,” he said, half-aloud, as he winced in passing his hand over his left shoulder and breast; and then his eyes half-closed, a deathly feeling of sickness came over him and he nearly fainted with horror, for at the touch of his hand a severe pain shot through his shoulder, and he could feel that his breast and armpit was soaking wet.

Recovering from the shock of the horrible feeling he took out his handkerchief to act as a bandage, for he felt that he must be bleeding freely from one of the blows, and he knew enough from his uncle’s books about injured arteries to make him set his teeth and determine to try and stop that before he attempted to get to his feet and start for home.

His first effort was to unbutton his Norfolk jacket and find the injury which he felt sure must be a cut across the shoulder, but at the first touch of his hand he winced again, and the sick feeling came back with a faint sensation of horror, for there was a horrible grating sound which told of crushed bone and two edges grinding one upon the other.

Again he mastered his weakness and boldly thrust his hand into his breast, withdrew it, and burst out into a wild hysterical laugh as he gave a casual glance at his hand before passing it cautiously into his left breast-pocket and bringing out, bit by bit, the fragments of the bottle of preparation which the doctor had dispensed, and that it had been his mission to deliver that afternoon. For in the heat of the struggle, a blow of one of the sticks had crushed the bottle, saturating his breast and side with the medicament, and suggesting to his excited brain a horrible bleeding wound and broken bones.

“Oh, dear!” he groaned; and he laughed again, “how easy it is to deceive oneself;” and he busied himself, as he spoke, in picking out the remains of the bottle, and finally turned his pocket inside out and shook it clear.

“Don’t smell very nice,” he said with a sigh; “but I hope it’s good for bruises. Well, it’s of no use for me to go on now, so I may as well get back.”

He was kneeling now and feeling his arms and shoulders again, and then he cautiously touched his face and head. But there was no pain, no trace of injury in that direction, and he began softly passing his hands up and down his arms, and over his shoulders, wincing with agony at every touch, and feeling that he must get on at once if he meant to reach home, for a terrible stiffness was creeping over him, and when at last he rose to his feet, he had to support himself by the nearest tree, for his legs were bruised from hip to ankle, and refused to support his weight.

“It is of no good,” he said at last, after several efforts to go on, all of which brought on a sensation of faintness. “I can’t walk; what shall I do?”