'Can you mount again?'
'I don't think I'll mind that. Perhaps I'd better sit down.' Then Peregrine Orme knew that Graham was hurt, and jumping off his own horse he gave up all hope of the hunt.
'Here, you fellow, come and hold these horses.' So invoked a boy who in following the sport had got as far as this ditch did as he was bid, and scrambled over. 'Sit down, Graham; there; I'm afraid you are hurt. Did he roll on you?' But Felix merely looked up into his face,—still smiling. He was now very pale, and for the moment could not speak. Peregrine came close to him, and gently attempted to raise the wounded limb; whereupon Graham shuddered, and shook his head.
'I fear it is broken,' said Peregrine. Graham nodded his head, and raised his left hand to his breast; and Peregrine then knew that something else was amiss also.
I don't know any feeling more disagreeable than that produced by being left alone in a field, when out hunting, with a man who has been very much hurt and who is incapable of riding or walking. The hurt man himself has the privilege of his infirmities and may remain quiescent; but you, as his only attendant, must do something. You must for the moment do all, and if you do wrong the whole responsibility lies on your shoulders. If you leave a wounded man on the damp ground, in the middle of winter, while you run away, five miles perhaps, to the next doctor, he may not improbably—as you then think—be dead before you come back. You don't know the way; you are heavy yourself, and your boots are very heavy. You must stay therefore; but as you are no doctor you don't in the least know what is the amount of the injury. In your great trouble you begin to roar for assistance; but the woods re-echo your words, and the distant sound of the huntsman's horn, as he summons his hounds at a check, only mocks your agony.
But Peregrine had a boy with him. 'Get upon that horse,' he said at last; 'ride round to Farmer Griggs, and tell them to send somebody here with a spring cart. He has got a spring cart I know;—and a mattress in it.'
'But I haint no gude at roiding like,' said the boy, looking with dismay at Orme's big horse.
'Then run; that will be better, for you can go throngh the wood. You know where Farmer Griggs lives. The first farm the other side of the Grange.'
'Ay, ay, I knows where Farmer Griggs lives well enough.'
'Run then; and if the cart is here in half an hour I'll give you a sovereign.'
Inspirited by the hopes of such wealth, golden wealth, wealth for a lifetime, the boy was quickly back over the fence, and Pere-
