"But the man ran!"
"So did I—he could hardly think I was much hurt."
"I don't want to have such a fellow abroad in Pattaquasset," said the doctor. "But suppose we go back to the pleasant things. You must start the subject, Linden. Rousseau says a man can best describe the sweets of liberty from the inside of a prison—so, I suppose, you being shot at and laid on your back, can have no lack of theme."
Mr. Linden smiled—the smile of a most unfettered spirit.
"Liberty!" he said. "Yes, I have realized since I have lain here, that—
'My soul is free, as ambient air,'—
My sense of liberty comes from the possession—not the want."
"Prospective possession,"—said the doctor. "Unless indeed," he went on with a humorous play of the lips—"you mean that my orders to you to lie still, merely gave zest to your triumphant knowledge that you could get up if you had a mind. A riotous degree of self-will that I believe I do not possess. Was that what good Mrs. Derrick meant when she said she wondered how I had hindered you?"
"No," said Mr. Linden smiling—"she meant that she did not think you had."
"She didn't mean a thing of the kind! She spoke in pure wonder, and made me begin to wonder in my turn."