Flint: His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes

by Maud Wilder Goodwin

CHAPTER III

OLD FRIENDS

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"It's an ower-come sooth

For age and youth,

And it brooks wi' nae denial,

That the oldest friends

Are the dearest friends,

And the new are just on trial."

Flint was glad enough on reaching the inn to creep into bed. In spite of his cross-country run he was chilled through. Little shivers ran down his back, and his hands and feet seemed separated by spaces of numbness from the warmth of his body. The brandy arrived, and he swallowed some eagerly; but it had little effect on his chilly apathy. The dinner-bell clanged below. Flint heard it, but he paid no heed to the summons. He had forgotten what it was to desire food. A blur before his eyes, and an iron band about his head, occupied his attention to the exclusion of the outside world.

By three o'clock the headache-fiend had entered into full possession, had perched itself in the centre of consciousness, and seemed to [Pg 36] Flint's excited nerves to be working its octopus claws in and out among the folds of his brain.

Waves of pain vibrated outward to his ears and eyes. He watched the shade against the blindless window flap to and fro. Each streak of light admitted, struck the sufferer like a blow. He got up, went to the washbasin and sopped a towel, which he bound about his head and lay down again—no relief. He could endure it no longer. He dropped his boots one after the other on the floor, till at length Marsden heard the signal of distress, came lumbering up the stairs, and thumped upon his door.

Flint bade him come in and state in the fewest possible words whether there was any doctor within reach.

"There was."

"How long would it take to fetch him?"