“I believe you are right!” Elinor said, with a sigh of relief. “It is too high to have touched any fatal spot! But a doctor must be fetched instantly!”
“Oh, fudge! It’s nothing!” Nicky said, trying to shake them off.
“Be still, Master Nicky, will you?” said Mrs. Barrow. “Likely you have the ball lodged in you! But who fired at you? Sakes alive, what is the world acoming to? Barrow, don’t stand there gawping! Fetch some of Mr. Eustace’s brandy to me straight, man! Oh, dear, what a hem setout this is, to be sure!”
Elinor, meanwhile, had snatched Barrow’s candle from him and had hurried into the bookroom. She came back with one of the tablecloths she had been mending in her hand, and began to tear it into serviceable strips. Nicky was looking very faint and had his eyes closed, but he revived when Barrow forced some brandy down his throat, choked, coughed, and again said that it was only a scratch. Elinor ordered Barrow to support him upstairs to the spare bedroom, and followed anxiously in their wake carrying the torn cloth and the brandy bottle. By the time Nicky had been laid upon the bed Mrs. Barrow had fetched a bowl of water and was ready to bathe his wound. She and Elinor stanched the bleeding and bound the shoulder as tightly as they could. The patient smiled sweetly up at them and murmured, “What a rout you do make! I shall be as right as a trivet by morning.”
“Great boast, small roast!” grunted Barrow, covering him with the quilt. “I’d best ride for the doctor, no question. But who shot you, Master Nicky? Don’t tell me that plaguey Frenchy was in the house again, because I double-bolted every door, and so I’ll swear to, sure as check!”
“I don’t know if it was he or another,” Nicky replied, shifting uneasily on his pillows. “I didn’t mean to tell you, but he came in by a secret stair that goes down the bakehouse chimney. I found it this morning.”
Mrs. Barrow gave a scream and dropped the strip of linen she was rolling into a bandage.
“Do-adone, Martha!” said Barrow, happy to be able to take a lofty tone with her. “Master Nicky’s gammoning you. That old stair’s been shut this many a year!”
“Well, it has not,” said Nicky, nettled to find that Barrow knew of his discovery. “And I’m not gammoning you! I was in that room where the entrance to it is and I saw this fellow come out of the cupboard.”
Mrs. Barrow sat down plump upon the nearest chair and expressed her conviction that she was unlikely ever to recover from the shock her nerves had sustained,