Jack did as he was bid, and felt it necessary to avail himself of the rude strength of which Miss Stangrove boasted. Without any great loss of time he found himself on a couch in the spare room, where, with the aid of Mr. and Mrs. Stangrove, he was turned into an interesting invalid, with his arm bound up, pending the arrival of Dr. Bateman.
Part of the evening was spent by the household in his bedroom, and a very pleasant evening it was. Mrs. Stangrove was gravely happy, but inclined to be tearful when recurring to the dear children. Maud and her brother took the humorous side of the adventure, and Jack laughed till his arm ached at Maud’s description of the appearance of the younger bushranger as he turned out in part of Jack’s raiment, and the remainder as left by a travelling agent for an orphan asylum.
“‘All’s well that ends well,’” said Stangrove. “I shall not have the same anxious feeling every time the dogs bark now. It might easily have been worse; and, taking them as bushrangers, a decenter lot of fellows I never wish to meet.”
Dr. Bateman came next morning, having fortunately looked in at the ‘Mailman’s Arms’ on his way in from a back block, whither he had been called to set a stockman’s leg, broken only the week before. Hearing of the casualty awaiting him at Juandah, he came on best pace, making running with his wiry iron-legged mustang from the start. The doctor, who had in a general way to minister to the indispositions and accidents of the population of a district about a hundred and fifty miles long and a hundred broad, required to possess the constitutional qualities of his favourite mare. Most of them he did possess, thinking as little of a ride of a hundred miles in a day and a half as she did of carrying him.
“So you managed to get hit, Mr. Redgrave?” quoth he, in a loud cheery voice, bustling in after breakfast. “Infernal scoundrels—never knew such a gang. Never in my life. Worst lot that have taken the bush since old Donohoe’s time.”
“But, doctor,” protested two or three voices in a breath, “you surely mistake—they——”
“What I say I stick to,” interrupted the doctor, with a twinkle in his shrewd gray eye. “Worst gang I ever knew—for a medical man. Why, you are, my dear sir, the only wounded man in the whole district. I’m ashamed of them—the country’s going to destruction. No energy among the natives.”
“Oh, that’s it,” said Stangrove; “I was going to stand up for my friend, the enemy—Mr. Redcap and his merry men; but from your point of view they did behave disgracefully; not a patch upon Morgan, or the Clarkes, or even the virtuous and politically celebrated Frank Gardiner. What do you think of your patient, doctor?”
“That he is in very good quarters. Pulse marks quicker time to-day than yesterday. Slight touch of fever, only natural; arm inflamed and painful. A week’s quiet, not a day less, will set him right. Would have been a very pretty case had bullet perforated the humerus. As it is, merely amounts to laceration of muscles, minor vessels, and nerves.”
“You’ll stay to-night, doctor, of course?” asked Stangrove.