"The Squire thinks that home's home," commented the gamekeeper. "And so it is; 'specially when one's sick."
True enough. The difficulty was, how to get Mr. Dalrymple there. But necessity, as we all know, is the true mother of invention: and by the help of a mattress, procured from the farmer's, with impromptu bearings attached to it made of "webbing," as Mr. Lee's buxom daughter called some particularly strong tape she happened to have by her, the means were organized. Some labourers, summoned by Mr. Lee, were pressed into the service; with Oscar Dalrymple, the farmer, and the gamekeeper. These started with their load. Robert, in a state of distraction, had flown off for medical assistance; Mr. Cleveland had volunteered to go forward and prepare Mrs. Dalrymple.
Mrs. Dalrymple, with her daughters and their guest, Mary Lynn, sat in one of the old-fashioned rooms of the Grange, they and dinner alike awaiting the return of the shooting-party. Old-fashioned as regarded its construction and its carved-oak panelling—dark as mahogany, but handsome withal—and opening into a larger and lighter drawing room. Mrs. Dalrymple, an agreeable woman of three or four and forty, had risen, and was bending over Miss Lynn's tambour-frame, telling her it was growing too dusk to see. Selina Dalrymple sat at the piano, trying a piece of new music, talking and laughing at the same time; and Alice, always more or less of an invalid, lay on her reclining sofa near the window.
"Here is Mr. Cleveland," cried Alice, seeing him pass. "I said he would be sure to come here to dinner, mamma."
Mrs. Dalrymple raised her head, and went, in her simple, hospitable fashion, to open the hall-door. He followed her back to the oak-parlour, and stood just within it.
"What a long day you have had!" she exclaimed. "I think you must all be tired. Where are the others?"
"They are behind," replied the clergyman. He had been determining to make light of the accident at first telling; quite a joke of it; to prevent alarm. "We have bagged such a quantity, Mrs. Dalrymple: and your husband has asked me to dinner: and is going to accommodate me with a coat as well. Oh, but, talking of bagging, and dinner, and coats, I hope you have plenty of hot water in the house; baths, and all the rest of it. One of us has hurt his leg, and we may want no end of hot water to bathe it."
"That is Charley, I know," said Selina. "He is always getting into some scrape. Look at what he did at Lee's last week."
"No; it is not Charley for once. Guess again."
"Is it Oscar?"