Then he turned to Carew and knelt down to examine into his injuries.
"No need," said the broken man. "Curse it all! Get a gate. My back's gone. I've no legs,"—and the others, having found their roundabout ways, came flocking up, while the dogs still nosed eagerly up and down the road but got no satisfaction.
Young Job plied his whip and his tongue and carried them away. His father looked at Carew, then at the Doctor, who nodded, and the old man turned and hurried away to get what long experience of such matters told him was needed.
"Take a pull at this, Carew," said the Doctor, handing him a flask. And as he drank deeply, as though to deaden the pain or the thought of it, Dale beckoned to one of the group which stood a little aloof lest the broken man should take their anxiety for morbid curiosity.
"Barclay, will you ride on and break it to Mrs. Carew?"
"Is it bad?"
"Yes, his back's broken."
"Good God!" and he stumbled off to his horse, and with a word to the rest, mounted and rode away.
Old Job came back in a minute or two with a hurdle he had rooted up from the sheep-fold, and they lifted the Master on to it and carried him slowly and heavily home.
II