When they reached the tavern, they found the doctor already there, and, going out of the house, they waited till he should have made his examination and be able to tell them its result. After some time he came, closing the door behind him and looking very grave.
"What's wrong with him, sir?" one of the men asked.
"Everything. He cannot live many hours."
There was a minute's silence, and then somebody said,
"Should not his missus be fetched?"
"Yes, poor woman, the sooner the better. Who will go?"
"I will, sir," and one of the oldest of the group started off immediately to the mill to get the necessary permission from his master.
"Now," said the doctor, "there's another thing. Who will take my horse and go into Cacouna and fetch Mr. Bayne out here? I do not mean to leave Clarkson myself at present."
Another volunteer was found, and the doctor, having scribbled a pencil note to Mr. Bayne, sent him off with it and went back into the house. There was already a change in his patient. An indefinable look had come over the hard, sunburnt face, and the voice was weaker. Why the doctor had sent for Mr. Bayne, whom for the moment he regarded not as a clergyman, but as a magistrate, he himself best knew. Clarkson had no idea of his having done so; nor had he yet heard plainly that his own fate was so certain or so near. But it was no part of the doctor's plan to leave him in ignorance. He went to the side of the settee where the dying man lay, and sitting down said,
"I have sent for your wife."