‘They…set out upon the long trudge back to Bradmouth.’
Then she led the way across the passage to a little room that in the monastic days had served as a cell, but now was dedicated to the use of Mr. Gillingwater whenever his wife considered him too tipsy to be allowed to share the marital chamber.
Here Joan was lying on a truckle bed, in a half-fainting condition, while near her, waving a lighted candle to and fro over her prostrate form, stood Mr. Gillingwater, a long, thin-faced man, with a weak mouth, who evidently had taken advantage of the general confusion to help himself to the gin bottle.
“Poor dear! poor dear! ain’t it sad to see her dead?” he said, in maudlin tones, dropping the hot grease from the candle upon the face of the defenceless Joan; “and she, what she looks, a real lady. Oh! ain’t it sad to see her dead?” And he wept aloud.
“Get out, you drunken sot, will you!” exclaimed his wife, with savage energy. “Do you want to set the place on fire?” And, snatching the candle from Mr. Gillingwater’s hand, she pushed him through the open door so vigorously that he fell in a heap in the passage. Then she turned to Dr. Childs, and said, “I beg your pardon, sir; but there’s only one way to deal with him when he’s on the drink.”
The doctor smiled, and began to examine Joan’s shoulder.
“It is nothing serious,” he said, when he had washed the wound, “unless the rust from the spike should give some trouble in the healing. Had it been lower down, it would have been another matter, for the lung might have been pierced. As it is, with a little antiseptic ointment and a sleeping draught, I think that your niece will be in a fair way to recovery by to-morrow morning, if she has not caught cold on that damp grass.”
“However did she come by this, sir?” asked Mrs. Gillingwater.
“I understand that Captain Graves climbed the tower to get some young jackdaws. He fell, and she tried to catch him in her arms, but of course was knocked backwards.”
“She always was a good plucked one, was Joan,” said Mrs. Gillingwater, with a certain reluctant pride. “Well, if no harm comes of it, she has brought us a bit of custom this time anyhow, and when we want it bad enough. The Captain is likely to be laid up here some weeks, ain’t he, sir?”