"Why—where?" he began. He didn't even know he had been hurt—not till afterward when the pain and suffering set in.
"Easy—easy there," said little Doctor Fisher.
"Great Scott!" The young man who had pronounced him dead crammed those hands of his deeper yet in their pockets and gave a whistle.
"Oh, Larry," said Miss Taylor gently, bending over him.
"What is it?" Larry tried to move, and felt a strong hand laid on him just where it made any motion impossible. Beside, a great wave of pain swept him suddenly into such astonishment as well as suffering that all he could do was to shut his eyes and let his head sink back.
"Now, then!" Doctor Fisher glanced up to the coach-load. "All of you get down," he said curtly, and before the women quite knew how, the pretty gowns and hats and parasols were all descending, a gay, fluttering bevy all chattering together.
"Miss Mary, I'll trouble you to hop up there," and a dozen hands helped her into position on the coach. "Now, then, Mr. Dyce, and you"; he nodded over to Harry Delafield, the little doctor did, then rapidly picked out two more men. "Up with you, please," and quicker than it takes to tell it all, they were in position, and Larry had been lifted gently into their laps, his head on Miss Taylor's arm.
"Ugh!" Betty Cameron gave a worse shiver than before. "How Mary Taylor can!" she exclaimed, with a grimace. "Oh, dear me! I'm as faint as I can be, just to think of it. I should die outright to be up there with him."
"Well, we've got to walk home, I suppose," observed one of the other girls disconsolately, who, now that Larry could really speak, thought it quite time to turn attention to her own discomfort, and she thrust out her dainty shoe.
The boys, when they saw that Larry was really alive, stopped howling, especially as each and all had felt the glare of the eyes back of Doctor Fisher's big spectacles. And they set off on a run by the side of the coach, and as far ahead of that vehicle as possible, as Mac handled the ribbons with his best style, trying to drive as gently as possible for the patient.