‘I think he’s dying,’ answered Eustacie tragically. ‘He has bled, and bled, and bled!’
The lady put down her candle and came to the settle. ‘That sounds very bad, certainly, but perhaps it is not desperate after all,’ she said. ‘Shall we see where he is hurt?’
‘Nye said I was not to touch him,’ replied Eustacie doubtfully.
‘Oh, he’s a friend of Nye’s, is he?’ said the lady.
‘
No – at least, yes, in a way he is. He is my cousin, but you must not ask me anything about him, and you must not tell anyone that you have ever seen him!’
‘Very well, I won’t,’ said the lady imperturbably.
At that moment the landlord came into the coffee-room from the back of the house, followed by a little man with a wizened, leathery face and thin legs. When he saw the tall woman, Nye looked very much discomfited, and said in his deep, rough voice: ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am: you’ve been disturbed. It’s nothing – naught but a lad I know who’s been getting into trouble through a bit of poaching.’
‘Of course, he would be poaching in the middle of February,’ agreed the lady. ‘You had better get him to bed and take a look at his hurt.’
‘It’s what I’m going to do, ma’am,’ returned Nye in a grim voice. ‘Take his legs, Clem!’
Eustacie watched the two men carefully lift her cousin from the settle and begin to carry him upstairs, and turned her attention to the tall woman, who was regarding her with a kind of amused interest. ‘I dare say it seems very odd to you,’ she said austerely, ‘but you should not have come downstairs.’
‘I know,’ apologized the lady, ‘but pray don’t tell me to go to bed again, for I couldn’t sleep a wink with an adventure going on under my nose! Let me present myself to you: I’m one Sarah Thane, a creature of no importance at all, travelling to London with my brother, whom you may hear snoring upstairs.’
‘Oh!’ said Eustacie. ‘Of course, if you quite understand that this is a very secret affair –’
‘Oh, I do!’ said Miss Thane earnestly.
‘But I must warn you that there is a great deal of danger.’
‘Nothing could be better!’ declared Miss Thane. ‘You must know that I have hitherto led the most humdrum existence.’
‘Do you, too, like adventure?’ asked Eustacie, looking her over with a more lenient eye.
‘My dear ma’am, I have been looking for adventure all my life!’
‘Well,’ said Eustacie darkly, ‘this is an adventure of the most romantic, and it is certain that my cousin Trist – that people will come to search for me. You must promise not to betray me, and in particular not my cousin Ludovic, who is not permitted to set foot in England, you understand.’
‘No power on earth shall wring a syllable from me,’ Miss Thane assured her.
‘Then perhaps I will let you help me to conceal my cousin Ludovic,’ said Eustacie handsomely. ‘Only I think it will be better if I do not tell you anything at all until I have spoken with him, because I do not know him very well, and perhaps he would prefer that you should know nothing.’
‘Oh no, don’t tell me anything!’ said Miss Thane. ‘I feel it would almost spoil it for me if you explained it. You’re not eloping with your cousin, by any chance?’
‘But, of course, I am not eloping with him! Voyons, how could I elope with him when I have only just met him? It would be quite absurd!’
‘Oh, if you have only just met him, I suppose it would,’ agreed Miss Thane regretfully. ‘It is a pity, for I have often thought that I should like to assist an elopement. However, one can’t have everything. You know, I feel very strongly that we ought to see what can be done for that wound of his. Not that I wish to interfere, of course.’
‘You are entirely right,’ said Eustacie. ‘I shall immediately go up to him. You may come with me if you like.’
‘Thank you,’ said Miss Thane meekly.
Joseph Nye had carried Ludovic to a little bedchamber at the back of the house and laid him upon his side on the chintz-hung bed. The tapster was kindling a fire in the grate, and Nye had just taken off Ludovic’s coat and laid bare his shoulder when the two women came into the room.
Eustacie shuddered at the sight of the ugly wound, still sluggishly bleeding, but Miss Thane went up to the bed and watched what Nye was about. In spite of their size, his hands were deft enough. Miss Thane nodded, as though satisfied and said: ‘Can you get the bullet out, do you think?’
‘Ay, but I’ll want water and bandages. Clem! leave that and fetch me a bowl and all the linen you can find!’
‘You had better bring some brandy as well,’ added Miss Thane, taking the bellows out of the tapster’s hands and beginning to ply them.