I was so absorbed in anxiety for Chesterton that Brown's strange manner made no great impression on me at the time. The first man, who had been merely stunned by the blow from the but-end of the gun, was now beginning to revive, and I begged Brown to get something to secure him with.
"I don't think, sir," said Mrs Nutt who had recovered her terror sufficiently to offer her assistance, and whose coarse red hands, having removed Chesterton's neck-kerchief, and loosened his shirt-collar, now showed in strong contrast with his fair skin, but had nevertheless all a woman's sensibility about them—"I don't think but what the poor young gentleman has life in him—I am sure I can feel his heart beat."
"Oh yes, oh yes, Mrs Nutt—he cannot be dead—send for a surgeon! Hawthorne, why don't you send for a surgeon?"
"There's none nigher than Oxford," said Mrs Nutt.
"I'll go for un," said the girl. "I ben't afear'd;" and she turned pale and shook like a leaf; but the spirit was willing, and she persisted she was ready to go. However it turned out that there was a labourer's cottage about a quarter of a mile off, and she was finally dispatched there for assistance.
Few people know the ready humanity which exists among the lower orders: the man must have run all the way to Oxford, for he returned in little more than half an hour, before the surgeon could dress and mount his horse.
However, Chesterton was evidently still living; and when the surgeon did arrive he gave some hopes of his recovery. The weight of the blow had been in some degree broken by the gun which poor Harry had raised in his hand, and this only could have saved the skull from fracture.
Of course we had soon plenty of volunteers who were ready to be useful in any way; and when at last the police had made their appearance, and removed both the living and the dead, and Chesterton had been laid in Brown's room, and the surgeon, having applied the usual remedies, had composedly accepted Mrs Nutt's offer to make up a bed for him, and betaken himself thereto, as if such events were to him matters of everyday occurrence—I suppose they were—it struck me, for the first time, that there was a remarkable contrast between Brown's hurried manner and disturbed countenance now, compared with his perfect coolness and self-possession while the danger seemed most imminent, which even Chesterton's dangerous state did not sufficiently account for.
"How lucky it was, Brown," said I, "my gun had a load of duck-shot in it! Don't you remember I was going to have fired it off? And that you should have laid your hand upon it in the kitchen! I looked for it as we came by, but could not see it."
"I'll tell you what, Hawthorne: I almost wish I had not seen it: I should not have had a man's life to answer for."