Dick did get better, however, and, as soon as he was fit, was taken down to Newlyn. Every care and attention were given him with the hope of proving that the doctors were mistaken. But, alas! in vain. It was a long, expensive illness. The little home, so full of comfort and happiness, the pride of Peet's heart—full, as it was too, of Dick's strange and beautiful things, relics of his voyages—all had to go: sold to meet the bills of the doctors, and to buy things which were needed for the invalid. Brought to a very low ebb by this terrible affliction, and not knowing where all the money was to come from to pay the demands made upon him—too proud to ask help from even his own brother—Peet resolved to go back to work again. He applied to his old master, Lord Lynwood; there being no vacancies at Lynwood, however, the Earl wrote to his aunt, Lady Coke, whose head gardener had died but a short time before, and who, he knew, was looking out for a capable man to replace him.
Such a berth as he found at the Moat House Peet might have searched the world in vain to discover. Lady Coke's sympathy was at once roused on hearing of his sorrows, and from her he accepted kindnesses which would have been an offence from anybody else.
(Continued on page [110].)
"Dick lying insensible upon the floor."
"One at a time, they found themselves pinioned."