LITMIR.BIZ

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cried Beck sharply, as he caught the mare’s bit with his left hand, standing firmly the while, but with his face drawn with pain. “If you do that she’ll crush the bones.”

      Isabel uttered a faint sob, and turned white, while Sir Cheltnam sprang from his horse and stepped close to her.

      “Don’t be frightened,” he whispered, giving additional pain now to the young sailor in the shape of that which was mental.

      Isabel paid no heed to him or his words, but stood gazing wildly at the brave young fellow whose hand was gripped as if in a vice by the powerful jaws, but who, beyond knitting his brows and turning pale, made no sign.

      “Here, Alison,” cried Mr Elthorne, “take the other side of the mare’s muzzle. She’ll crush his hand.”

      “No, no,” said the young man, quickly. “She’ll let go soon. Be quiet, all of you, or you’ll startle her.”

      The young man’s words were full of the authoritative tone of one accustomed to command in emergencies; but his voice shook a little at the last, for he was oppressed by a deadly feeling of sickness which he fought hard to resist, while the group closed round him, and there was a low buzz of excitement through which came the trampling of other horses, as the grooms led them round from the stable yard.

      Tom Beck felt that he could hold out no longer. He had tried and manfully to combat the physical pain at a time when the mental was agonising, for he had seen the young baronet approach Isabel and whisper to her, and he had felt that any increase of the terrible grip would mean a horrible mutilation, and the utter blasting of his career and his hopes. Despair was combining with the sensation of faintness; and with the scene around him growing dim and the excited voices beginning to sound muffled and strange, nature was rapidly conquering the education of a brave man who had been schooled to face danger unmoved; he turned his eyes wildly to where Isabel stood.

      But that look moved her to spring forward, lay her hand on the mare’s muzzle, and falter out vainly a few caressing words. Worse than vainly, for the mare lowered her head, and increased the sufferer’s agony.

      “Don’t,” he whispered hoarsely.

      “Dana, I shall have to shoot her,” cried Mr Elthorne hoarsely.

      Alison pressed forward, and passed his arm about his friend’s waist, for he saw that he was ready to fall, and the morning’s comedy was on the point of becoming tragic, when a loud neigh came from one of the horses being led around to the front, and Beck’s hand fell from the mare’s jaws, for she threw up her head and uttered a whinnying answer to the challenge of Mr Elthorne’s new hunter, The Don.

      “Ah!”

      It was more a groan than a sigh of relief from all around, while, tightening her rein, Dana cut the mare across the ears with all her might; and as the graceful animal bounded forward, she kept on lashing it furiously, making it curvet and plunge and snort, as it excited the other horses near.

      “Don’t! don’t! Dana,” cried her sister. “She’ll throw you.”

      “A vicious beast! – a vicious beast!” panted the girl, as she still plied her whip till Mr Elthorne caught her arm.

      Beck stood, half supported by Alison, watching Isabel being assisted into the breakfast-room by her aunt and Sir Cheltnam, till she disappeared, when he reeled slightly, but made an effort to recover himself.

      “Much hurt, old man?”

      “No,” he said hoarsely; “a nasty grip. Tell that girl not to beat the mare. It was not wise.”

      “Now, how is he?” cried Mr Elthorne, coming back. “Help him in. Send one of the grooms for the doctor.”

      “No, no, sir,” said Beck, with a faint laugh, as he held up the hand deeply indented by the mare’s teeth. “It’s nothing to mind. Shan’t be a one-armed Greenwich pensioner this time.”

      “Oh, my dear boy! my dear boy!” cried an excited voice, and Aunt Anne came rushing out of the window with a cup and saucer. “Here, drink this.”

      “Anne! Don’t be so foolish,” cried her brother. “He doesn’t want tea.”

      “But there’s brandy in it, Ralph,” protested the lady. “Drink it, my dear; it will do you good.”

      “Thanks,” said Beck, raising his injured hand to take the cup, but letting it fall again. “Not this time,” he said with a laugh, and taking the cup with his left he drained it. “That’s better, Mrs Barnett,” he said. “There, I’m very sorry, Mr Elthorne, I’ve made quite an upset.”

      “And I’m very glad, my boy,” replied his host. “What a horrible mishap!”

      “How is he?” cried Dana, cantering up with her sister.

      “Oh, it’s nothing – nothing at all.”

      “That’s right,” cried Saxa. “Oh, it will soon go off. Not so bad as a spill by a five-bar.”

      “Get a liqueur,” said Dana. “I say; it has made you look white. Worse disasters at sea, eh?”

      “Much,” said Beck, quietly; and then to himself, “Oh, how I do hate a horsey woman.”

      “I say,” cried Saxa; “this isn’t going to spoil our ride, is it, daddy?”

      “Oh, no, I hope not; but I will stay, my dears,” said Mr Elthorne.

      “What! and not try your new horse! I should like to have the saddle shifted, and put him through his paces myself,” said Saxa, looking at the noble hunter held by a groom.

      “No, no, my dear, not to-day,” said Mr Elthorne hastily. “Alison will go with you, girls, and – oh, there’s Burwood. Ask how Isabel is. Say it’s all right now, and the horses are waiting. She turned faint, I suppose. Beck, come in; you had better see the doctor.”

      “Nonsense, my dear sir. I’m all right. It isn’t my bridle hand. I shall not want a whip.”

      “Oh, no,” said Sir Cheltnam; “your mount wants no whip. Shall you venture?”

      “Of course,” said Beck, walking toward where a helper held his horse, just as Isabel came out, looking very pale.

      “Well, he has got some pluck in him, Al,” said Sir Cheltnam, “even if he is a parson’s son.”

      “Poor fellow! yes,” replied Alison.

      “Moral,” said Sir Cheltnam laughingly, to the Lydon girls, “never give lumps of sugar to a skittish mare.”

      Ten minutes later the little party were mounted and moved off, leaving Aunt Anne waving her lace handkerchief from the steps.

      Chapter Two.

      Nurse Elisia

      The roar of the big road sounded plainly, but it was far enough off for it to be subdued into a mellow hum, suggestive to the country sufferer lying in the narrow bed with its clean linen and neat blue checked hangings by the open window, of bees swarming, and a threshing machine at work in the farm beyond the park.

      And yet it was London, for the windows were coated with a sooty layer outside, and the sun shone as if Nature were afraid its beams would be too strong for Londoners’ eyes, to which it came as in an eclipse through smoked glass, and a murky haze full of germs and motes was interposed between the dwellers in the city and the blue sky above.

      The ward was long and clean, and every bed was occupied. The air was fairly fresh and pleasant, though dashed with the odour of antiseptics. But there was none of the faint medicinal effluvia of the sick wards, for this was surgical – the special empire of the celebrated Sir Denton Hayle, well known in his profession as the most skillful and daring operator this generation has seen. There were those who shrugged their shoulders and said he had murdered many a patient, and it was true that a percentage – thanks to his skill, a very small percentage – of his sufferers had died; but, on the other hand, he could point to those whom he had saved from an apparently inevitable early death, brought on by

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