Some time later the two boys returned in a state of great excitement. They claimed that they had found the young man asleep on the couch, and although they had tried to awaken him, and had “hollered and hollered right into his ear,” as Danny expressed it, he had not even stirred. The faces of the listeners grew grave as they heard this, and Janet, with a sudden sharp exclamation, turned and rushed up-stairs, to reappear in a moment with a medicine-case and her hat. Her training as a district nurse was now to be put to a real test. “I just believe that boy has been starved to death,” she ejaculated, her blue eyes luminous with sympathy, “for I could see by the look of him last night that he was in a bad way.”
Of course Nathalie would not let Janet go alone, and so the two girls and the boys again hurried up the mountain to the cabin, where they found the young man not dead, as Nathalie had vaguely feared, but in a state of unconsciousness. Under Janet’s able ministrations he was finally brought to, and after Nathalie had warmed some broth—Danny had made a fire in the open—it was gently fed to him by Janet. As Nathalie watched her, she opened her eyes in amazement at the girl’s deftness and gentleness in handling her charge, for this indeed was a new phase of her cousin’s character.
Won by the girls’ sympathy and interest, Philip de Brie—as that proved to be the young man’s name—said he had been wounded at the battle of Loos, and then wounded again and taken a prisoner at the battle of the Somme. After many months, under most harrowing circumstances, he had made his escape, and finally reached England, only to find that his mother had died in the meantime. “As I was alone,” there was a perceptible quiver in his voice,—“my father had died when I was a lad,—I decided to come over here.
“My father was an American,” he continued. “I was born in America, and, as I knew that I had a grandmother living here, now my only relative, I felt that I wanted to see her. But I found that she, too, had died,” the young man’s eyes saddened, “and, well, once up on these grand old mountains, somehow I wanted to stay, they seemed so restful after the nerve-shocked life of a battle-field and my prison experience. I found this old shack up here one day in wandering about, and, after finding its owner, hired it for the summer. You see, my arm was bayoneted by a German,” his mouth set in a hard line, “and was never properly treated in the German camp. Sometimes I fear I will lose it altogether. But you have been very kind to me—I shall get along now.” He attempted to rise, but Janet, forcing him back, insisted upon ripping open the sleeve covering the bayoneted arm, notwithstanding his protests, and here she found a condition that made her eyes grow very grave.
After cleaning the wound and applying what remedies she had on hand, she rebandaged the arm, which made the patient feel much better, he affirmed. After giving him a soothing draught, and fixing him as comfortably as she could with the meager bed-clothing in the cabin, so he could sleep, she and Nathalie withdrew outside.
Under the trees the two girls sat and discussed the situation with much perplexity, for Janet maintained that it was a serious case,—that the young man’s temperature was not only rising, but that his arm needed a surgeon’s care. But what were they to do? And the girls’ eyes grew tragically grave as they realized that the young man was an object of much solicitude, alone and ill in a strange country, and evidently without any means.
It was finally decided that they take turns in caring for him, with the help of Danny, who was not only sympathetically interested, but who was quite a handy man in many ways. He said he had learned to care for Sheila, and for the old woman whom he called his nurse, who had cared for them, and who was not only very aged, but miserably ill for some time before she died.
But the next morning, unfortunately,—Janet and Danny had remained during the night,—the patient’s condition was worse and Janet, with tears in her eyes, besought Nathalie to go to the village and see if she could get help.
As the girl hurried down the trail her mind was active. Oh, she did hate to make the young man a public charge, as he looked so refined, and had such a noble, winning way with him. And he was a soldier, too; yes, a “Son of Liberty,” as she confided to Tony, who was by her side. For had he not been fighting in France to give liberty to the world? “Why, there isn’t anything too good for him,” lamented the girl, “and yet there he is up there alone, perhaps at the point of death for want of proper care.” And yet where was she to get the money to call a physician, and where could she find one, were perplexing questions.
As these thoughts ran rapidly through the girl’s brain, sometimes spoken aloud in her stress, inspired perhaps by Tony’s unspoken sympathy, as he gently patted her hand, she caught her breath quickly, and a bright flash illumined her eyes.