"Because, mother, they had a turn that way."
"Thanks be to Above for leaving your cunning in you, my dear," said the baffled woman, with sincere admiration. "And Lord be thanked, if you're not hurt bad, that they haven't spoilt his handsome face," she added.
In the bedroom, he let her partially undress him, refusing all doctor's aid, and commanding her to make no noise about him. and then he lay down and shut his eyes, for the pain was terrible—galloped him and threw him with a shock—and galloped him and threw him again, whenever his thoughts got free for a moment from the dizzy aching.
"My dear," she whispered, "I'm going to get a little brandy."
She hastened away upon this mission.
He was in the same posture when she returned with bottle and glass.
She poured out some, and made much of it as a specific, and of the great things brandy would do; but he motioned his hand from it feebly, till she reproached him tenderly as perverse and unkind.
"Now, my dearest boy, for my sake—only for my sake. Will you? Yes, you will, my Robert!"
"No brandy, mother."
"Only one small thimbleful?"