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 "It has not been signalled for certain," was the reply of Williams.
"Eales told me the signal had not come when he left, and I am sure
it has not come since."

"Where can it be?" exclaimed the station-master. "I suppose some

of those monster excursion-trains are blocking up the line
somewhere."

A consolatory conclusion, quite doing away with uneasiness or

fear. The station-master promulgated the news that the train had not
been signalled from Hildon, together with his own suggestive idea of
the offending excursion-trains. He told Mr. Oswald Cray it had not
been signalled, and he told others: therefore the officials were
perfectly at their ease upon the point, whatever the assembled
crowed might be.

It was just five-and-twenty minutes past seven when Eales

returned. He had stayed longer than he intended, and he dashed
into his office head foremost, catching a glimpse of the crowd on the
platform, now quickly increasing.

"What do they want, that lot?" he cried to Williams. "Is anything

wrong?"

"They are waiting for the up-train. It's preciously behind time
tonight, and I suppose some of them are alarmed--have got friends
in it, maybe."

"What up-train?" asked Eales.

"The seven o'clock up-train to London." Eales stood confounded.

"Why, is that not come up? An accident must have happened."

"Not obliged to," coolly returned Williams. "It's kept back by the
excursion-trains, most likely."
 "There are no excursion-trains today between this and Hildon,"
quickly observed Eales.

"It has not got so far yet. It has not passed Hildon."

"It has passed Hildon," replied Eales. "It passed at its proper time,
and was signalled up."

Williams turned and stared at Eales with all his might. "Who says
it has been signalled up?"

"Who says it! Why, I say it. I got the signal as usual."

"Then how came you to tell me you hadn't had it?" asked
Williams.

"I never told you so."

"You did. You'll say black's white next. It was the only question I
asked you--whether the up-train had been signalled, and you replied
it had not been."

"You said the down-train: you never said the up."

"I meant the up. It's not likely I should ask whether the down-
train was signalled, when it wasn't near due! You have done a pretty
thing!"

How long they might have continued to dispute, one seeking to

lay the blame upon the other, it is impossible to say. But at that
moment the station-master came in again, and the mistake was
made known to him and to others. The train had left Hildon at its
proper time, and therefore the delay, whatever might be its cause,
lay very near to them--in the six miles of rail intervening between
Hallingham and Hildon; the train must be on some spot of it.
 That an accident of some nature had taken place, the most
sanguine could now only believe, and a whole shower of verbal
missives was hurled upon the two men, Eales and Williams, who did
nothing but retort on each other. Each firmly regarded the other as
being alone in fault; an impartial judge would have said they were
equally culpable. Extricating himself from the confusion, Mr. Oswald
Cray returned to Sara. She looked at him with questioning eyes, her
heart shrinking; that hubbub in the station had reawakened her
fears. He quietly placed her hand within his arm, and began to pace
as before.

"I find things do not look quite so well as we fancied"----

"There has been an accident!" she interrupted. "Do not hide it

from me, Oswald."

He lightly laid his other hand on hers, an assurance of his truth, "I
will hide nothing from you, my dearest," and the never-yet-used
term of endearment seemed to slip from him involuntarily, in the
moment's need that he should soothe her. "We have not heard that
there is any accident, for no tidings of any sort have come up; but
the train, it seems, did leave Hildon at its usual time, and something
must therefore have occurred to delay it."

A deep, sobbing sigh nearly broke from her, but she coughed it
down.

"Do not meet trouble half-way," he said in a lighter tone. "It does
not follow that an accident, in the popular sense of the term, must
have occurred, because the train is not up. The engine may have
broken down and be unable to come on, but the passengers may be
as safe and well as we are. There's no doubt the engine is disabled,
or it would have come on for assistance."

"Assistance for the wounded?" she quickly rejoined.

 "Assistance that may be wanted in anyway. The telegraph is at
work to stop all trains, and some of us are going down"----

It was the last collected word they were enabled to speak. The
news had spread in the town, and the affrighted people were
coming up in shoals. News, at the best, loses nothing in carrying,
and the delay was magnified into a dreadful accident, with half the
train killed. In the midst of it the guard of the missing train arrived,
flying up the line as if for his life, and carrying a lantern.

The engine had run off the line on to the bank, and turned over. A
few of the passengers were injured, but he thought not many; some
of them were coming on, the field way. It had occurred about
midway between the two stations, a little nearer to Hallingham than
to the other. An engine was wanted to bring on the train, and it
might be as well if a doctor or two went down.

This was the climax for the affrighted crowd, and those who had
relatives in the train seemed to well-nigh lose their senses. A scene
of inextricable confusion ensued. Some were restrained by force
from jumping on the line and setting off to the scene of accident;
some strove to get upon the carriage and engine about to start for
it. Order was restored with great difficulty, and the carriage and
engine rescued from the invaders, who then quitted the station, and
set off to run to the scene, through the same fields that, as the
guard said, passengers were advancing.

Two medical men, who had been hastily obtained, Mr. Oswald
Cray, and sundry officials of the line, took their seats in the carriage
to be conveyed to the spot. The engine had given its first puff, and
was snorting off, when a loud shout arrested it.

"Stop! stop! One single moment! Here's Dr. Davenal!"

His name, for those poor wounded ones, was a tower of strength-
-worth all the rest of the surgical skill in Hallingham--and he was
pulled into the carriage, having caught a glimpse of the white face of
his daughter outside the throng. Sara, terrified and bewildered,
wondering what she should do next, was suddenly pounced upon by
Miss Davenal.

"You naughty girl! What is it that you are doing here?"

"O Aunt Bettina, there has been an accident to the train! Caroline
and Mr. Cray are sure to be in it."

"Caroline and Mr. Cray are what?" cried out Miss Bettina.

"I fear they are in the train. There has been an accident between
here and Hildon. An engine has just gone down with assistance."

"I don't want to know about engines," returned Miss Davenal, who
had not understood one word in ten. "I ask what you do here alone?
Caroline and Mr. Cray can come home, I suppose, without your
waiting for them in this public manner. What would your papa say if
he saw you?"

"Papa has seen me," replied Sara. "Papa has just come up to the
station and is gone down with the engine."

"Gone down with what engine? What do you mean?"

Sara put her lips close to Miss Davenal's ear. "Papa's gone down
the line with some more gentlemen, to see about the wounded."

"Wounded!" shrieked Miss Bettina. "Has there been an accident?

Who's wounded? Caroline and Mr. Cray?"

"We don't know yet, aunt." And in the best way that she could,
Sara strove to make the case comprehensible to her aunt. Miss
Davenal understood at last, and was somewhat mollified.

"Sara, I am not very angry with you now. I might have stopped
myself. An accident to the train, and the doctors gone down! O
those dreadful railways!"

A little longer of suspense, and then the passengers began to

arrive. After the shock and fright, it had seemed safer to many of
them to walk the three miles of distance than to trust to the rail
again and another engine. The path fields were dry, and it was a
pleasant walk by moonlight. Miss Bettina, whose eyes were as quick
as her hearing was dull, was the first to recognise Mrs. Cray amidst
them.

Caroline burst into tears as they laid hold of her, and Sara's heart
began to sink. But the tears were only the effect of the fright and
excitement she had gone through. She could give no clear account
of the accident or what it had brought forth. All she knew was that
there was great banging and bumping of the carriage she was in,
but it was not overturned. Two other carriages were; and the engine
was lying on its side with all its steam coming out of it. She
scrambled up the bank in her terror, as did most of the passengers,
and came on with them.

"And Mark?" asked Sara, scarcely daring to put the question.

"Mark! He stayed to look after the wounded," was her reply. "He
said he thought there was nobody seriously hurt. At any rate, there
are no lives lost."

Sara's heart breathed a word of thankfulness. "Did you see Lady

Oswald?" she asked. "She went to Hildon this afternoon, and Mr.
Oswald Cray thought she must be in this train, returning."

"I did not see her," replied Mrs. Cray. "Lady Oswald in the train! I
thought she never travelled by rail."

"She did this afternoon. One of her carriage-horses is ill. How

thankful!--how thankful we must all be that it is no worse!"
concluded Sara Davenal.
 "Well, this is a fine ending to your wedding-jaunt!" exclaimed Miss
Bettina. "What about your luggage, Caroline? Is it safe?"

"As if we gave a thought to our luggage, Aunt Bettina! When

people's lives are at stake they can't think of their luggage."

"Nor care either, perhaps," sharply answered Miss Bettina, who,

for a wonder, had caught the words. "It may be lying soused in the
engine-water, for all you know!"

"I daresay it is," equably returned Caroline. "It was in the van next
the engine." But the full report had to come up yet; and the excited
crowd stopped on.

CHAPTER XIII.

PAIN.

Clear and distinct lay the lines of rail in the cold moonlight. It was
a straight bit of line there, without curve or bend, rise or incline; and
why the engine should have gone off the rails remained to be
proved. It was lying on its side, the steam escaping as from a
fizzing, hissing furnace; the luggage-van was overturned, and its
contents were scattered; and two carriages were overturned also: a
second-class, which had been next the van, a first-class which had
followed it.

But now, as good Providence willed it, in that second-class

carriage there had only been three passengers. The train was not a
crowded one, and people don't go close to the engine as a matter of
taste. Of these three passengers, two had thrown themselves flat on
the floor of the carriage between the seats, and escaped without
injury; the other had a broken arm and a bruised head, not of much
moment. The first-class carriage was more fully occupied, and
several of the passengers, though not fatally or even extensively,
were seriously hurt; and of the driver and stoker, the one had saved
himself by leaping from his engine, the other was flung to a
distance, and lay there as he fell.

Mark Cray, as you have heard, remained to tend the wounded.

The first face he distinguished in the moonlight, lying amidst the
débris of the overturned first-class carriage, was that of Lady
Oswald: and so completely astonished was he to see it, that he
thought either his eyes or the moon must be playing him false. He
and Caroline had been in a carriage almost at the back of the train,
consequently he had not seen her at the Hildon station: and he had
believed that Lady Oswald, of all persons, would have been the last
to attempt railway travelling, so much was she averse to rails and
trains in general. Groaning and moaning by her side was Parkins;
and Mr. Cray could doubt no longer.

With assistance, the passengers were extricated and laid upon the
bank. Their injuries were unequal; some, after the first shock, could
walk and talk, some could do neither; while the first grumbled and
complained of their bruises and abrasions, the last lay still, except
for groaning. The only perfectly quiet one was Lady Oswald: she lay
with her pale face upturned to the moonlight, her eyes closed. It
was natural perhaps that Mark Cray should turn his first attention to
her. A gentleman, one of the passengers, asked if she was dead.

"No," said Mark; "she has only fainted. Parkins, suppose you get
up and try if you can walk. I'm sure you can't be hurt if you are able
to make that noise. That engine appears not to be over steady. Take
care it does not raise itself again and come puffing off this way."
 Parkins, not detecting the ruse, started up with a shriek, and
stood rubbing herself all over. "I think I'm killed," she cried; "I don't
believe I have got a whole bone in me."

"I'll see by-and-by," said Mr. Cray. "Meanwhile come and help your
lady. I want her bonnet and cap untied."

Parkins limped to the spot stiffly with many groans, but

wonderfully well considering the belief she had just expressed. At
the same moment some one came up with water, procured from a
pond in the field, and the driver, who had just come to his legs,
brought a lamp. The lamp was held to Lady Oswald's face, and some
of the water poured into her mouth. Between the two she opened
her eyes.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Where am I!"

"She's all right," whispered Mr. Cray, his warm tone proving that
he had not previously felt so assured of the fact. "Has anybody got a
drop of brandy?" he called out to the passengers, who yet stayed at
the scene.

"Goodness me! where am I?" cried Lady Oswald, with a faint

shriek. "Parkins, is that you? What has happened? Didn't we get into
the railway carriage?"

"But we are out of it now, my lady," cried Parkins, sobbing. "There

has been an awful upset, my lady, and I don't know anything more,
except that it's a mercy we are alive."

"An upset!" repeated Lady Oswald, who appeared to have no

recollection whatever of the circumstances. "Is anybody hurt? Are
you hurt, Parkins?"

"Every bone in me is broke, my lady, if I may judge by the feel of

'em. This comes of them sheds."
 "Be quiet, Parkins," said Mr. Cray, who had succeeded in finding a
wicker-cased bottle containing some brandy-and-water. "Help me to
raise your lady a little."

Parkins contrived to give her help in spite of the damaged bones,

but the moment Lady Oswald was touched she shrieked out terribly.

"Let me alone! let me alone! Is that Mark Cray? How kind you are
to come to see after me, Mr. Cray? Did you come from Hallingham?"

"We were in the same train, Lady Oswald; I and Caroline. I am

very glad that it happened to be so."

"To be sure; I begin to remember: you were to return tonight. I--I

feel very faint."

Mark succeeded in getting her to drink some brandy-and-water,

but she positively refused to be touched, though she said she was in
no pain. He thought she was exhausted, the effect of the shock, and
left her to attend to other sufferers, who perhaps wanted his aid
more than Lady Oswald.

Then, after awhile, the carriage came up, bringing the help from
Hallingham. Mark Cray saw Dr. Davenal with the greatest pleasure,
and he took him at once towards Lady Oswald.

"Are many hurt?" inquired the doctor.

"Astonishingly few," was the reply; "and the hurts are of a very
minor character, I fancy. A broken arm is about the worst."

"And what of Lady Oswald?"

"I don't think she's hurt at all: she's suffering from the shock. A
little exhausted; but that's natural."
 "To a woman of her age such a shock is no light thing, Mark.
However, we must do the best we can for everybody."

"There has been enough groaning--if that's anything to judge by,"

said Mark; "groaning and complaining too."

"Glad to hear it," said the doctor. "When people can complain, the
damage is not very extensive."

"Parkins, for one, keeps protesting that every bone's broken. But
she ran out of the way pretty quickly when I told her the engine
might start up again."

The doctor smiled, and they came up to Lady Oswald. Oswald

Cray had found her out, and was sitting on the bank beside her. She
spoke just a word or two to him, but seemed, as Mr. Cray had said,
exhausted. Oswald Cray rose to resign his place to Dr. Davenal, and
he took his brother aside.

"Is she much hurt, Mark?"

"O no," replied Mark. "It has shaken her, of course; but she has
been talking as fast as I can."

He spoke with singular confidence. In the first place. Mark Cray

was naturally inclined to look on the bright side of things, to feel
confident himself in the absence of any palpable grounds for doing
so; in the second, he did not think it at all mattered what
information on the point was given to Oswald.

Reassured upon the score of Lady Oswald, Oswald quitted Mark,

and went amidst the wounded. Proud man though he was accused
of being, though he was, never was there a tenderer heart, a softer
hand, a gentler voice for the sick and suffering, than his. All the
patients appeared to have been attended to in some degree; and
they were in good hands now. Oswald halted by the side of the poor
stoker, a swarthy honest-faced man, who was moaning out his pain.
 "What, is it you, Bigg?" he said, recognising the man. "I did not
know you were back on this part of the line again."

"I on'y come on it yesterday, sir. It's just my luck."

"Where are you hurt?"

"I be scalded awful, sir. I never knew what pain was afore tonight.
All my lower limbs is"--

"Take care?" shouted Oswald to a stupid fellow who was running

along with a plank in his arms. "Can't you see there's a man lying
here? What are you about?"

"About my work," was the rough reply, spoken in an insolent tone.

It was one of the men just brought down, a workman from
Hallingham station, and Oswald knew him well.

"What is that, Wells?" he quietly asked.

Wells looked round now, surprised at being addressed by name.

He pretty nearly dropped his load in consternation when he
recognised Mr. Oswald Cray. Full as his hands were, he managed to
jerk his hat from his head.

"I beg your pardon, I'm sure, sir. I thought it was nothing but
some idler obstricting of me. One does get beset with idlers at these
times, asking one all sorts of questions. I shouldn't have answered
that way, sir, if I'd knowed it was you."

"Go on with your work; there's no time to talk. And don't blunder
along again without looking where you are going."

"One can't see well in the dark, sir."

"It's not dark; it is as light as it need be. Quite light enough for
you to see your way. Do you call that bright moon nothing?"
 "He'd ha' been right over my legs, but for you, sir," murmured
poor Bigg, the great drops of pain standing out on his brow, black
with his occupation. "I don't know how I be to bear this agony. That
cursed engine"----

"Hush, Bigg," interrupted Mr. Oswald Cray.

Bigg groaned his contrition. "Heaven forgive me! I know it ain't a

right word for me tonight."

"Heaven will help you to bear the pain if you will only let it," said
Oswald. "There has been worse pain to bear than even yours, my
poor fellow; though I know how hard it is for you now to think so."

"It may be my death-blow, sir. And what's to become o' my wife

and little uns? Who'll work for 'em?"

"No, no, Bigg. I hope it is not so bad as that. I do not think it is."

"If one might count by pain, sir"----

"Bigg, I can give you a little comfort on that score," interrupted

Oswald Cray. "A friend of mine was very dreadfully burnt, through
his bed-clothes catching fire. Awfully burnt: I don't like, even at this
distance of time, to think of it. The next day I heard of it, and went
to see him. I am not a very good one to witness physical pain, and I
remember how I dreaded to witness his, and the spectacle I did not
doubt he presented. He was a spectacle, poor fellow--but let that
pass. To my great astonishment he saluted me heartily as I went in.
'Holloa, old friend!' were his words, not only cheerfully but merrily
spoken. I found that he did not suffer pain: had not felt any from the
moment he was burnt. In my ignorance, I set that down as a most
favourable symptom, and felt sure he would get well shortly. When I
was leaving him, I met the doctor going in, and said how glad I was
to find his patient so well. 'Well!' he exclaimed, 'why, what do you
judge by!' And I said--by his feeling no pain. 'That's just it,' the
doctor observed: 'if he only felt pain there might be a chance for
him. I wish I could hear him roar out with it.' Now, Bigg," Mr. Oswald
Cray added, "I am no surgeon, but I infer that the same theory must
hold good in scalds as in burns: that your pain is as favourable a
symptom as his want of it was unfavourable. Do not rebel at your
pain again, my poor fellow; rather bear it like a man. Were I scalded
or burnt, I think I should be thankful for the pain."

"He was burnt worse, may be, nor me, that there gentleman,"
remarked Bigg, who had listened with interest.

"Ten times worse," replied Oswald. "Yes, I may say ten times
worse," he emphatically repeated. "Indeed, Bigg, I feel sure that
yours is but a very slight hurt, in comparison with what it might have
been: and I do not say this to you in the half-false light in which one
speaks to a child to soothe it, but as one truthful man would speak
to another."

"God bless you, sir. My heart was a-failing of me sadly. Did he die,
that there gentleman?"

"He died at a week's end: but there had been no hope of him from
the first; and there were also certain attendant circumstances in his
case, apart from the injury, remarkably unfavourable. In a short
while, Bigg, you'll be on your legs again, as good man as ever. I'll
ask Dr. Davenal to come and have a look at you."

The name of the far-famed surgeon carried assurance in itself, and

Bigg's face lighted up with eagerness. "Is Dr. Davenal here, sir?"

"Yes. I'll go and look for him."

"At the moment that Oswald spoke, Dr. Davenal had left Lady
Oswald and encountered Mr. Cray. The latter, whose spirits were
rather exalted that night, the effect probably of finding the injuries
around him so slight, when he had looked out for all the terrible
calamities that flesh is heir to, not to speak of death, stopped to
speak to him of Lady Oswald. And he spoke lightly.
 "Well? You don't find her hurt, doctor?"

"I'll tell you more about it tomorrow, Mark."

Dr. Davenal's tone was so very grave that Mark Cray stared. He
thought--Mark Cray almost thought that there was a shade of
reproof in it, meant for him.

"I am sure she has no serious hurt," he exclaimed.

"Well, Mark, I can say nothing positively yet. In the state she is,
and in this place, it is not easy to ascertain: but I fear she has."

"My goodness!" cried Mark, conscious that he was but the veriest
tyro beside that man of skill, of unerring practice, Richard Davenal,
and feeling very little at the moment. "What is the hurt, sir?" he
asked in a loud tone.

"Hold your tongue about it," said the doctor. "Time enough to
proclaim it abroad when the fact has been ascertained that there is
one."

Oswald Cray came up, having distinguished the doctor in the

moonlight.

"I wish you'd come and look at a poor fellow, Dr. Davenal, who
wants a word of cheering. A word of such from you, you know sends
the spirits up. You should have seen the man's face lighten when I
said you were here."

"Who is it?" asked the doctor, turning off with alacrity.

"Poor Bigg the fireman. You know him, I daresay. He is badly

scalded and bruised."

"Oh, his hurts are nothing," slightingly spoke Mark Cray. "He
seems one of those groaners who cry out at a touch of pain."
 "Mark," said the doctor, stopping, "allow me to tender you a word
of advice--do not fall into that, by some, professed to be entertained
idea, that nobody can, or ought, to feel pain; or, if they feel it, that
they ought not to show it. It is unnatural, untruthful; and to my
mind, particularly unbecoming in a medical man. Pain to some
natures is all but an impossibility to bear; it is all that can be
imagined of agony; it is as if every moment of its endurance were
that of death. The nervous organisation is so sensitively delicate,
that even a touch of pain, as you express it, which most people
would scarcely feel, would certainly not cry out over, is to them the
acutest suffering. As a surgeon and anatomist you ought to know
this."

"He's only a fireman," returned Mark. "Nobody expects those

rough fellows to be sensitive to pain."

"Let him be a fireman or a waterman, he will feel it as I describe,

be his frame thus sensitively organised," was the reply of Dr.
Davenal, spoken firmly, if not sternly. "What has a man's condition in
life to do with it? It won't change his physical nature. A duke,
sleeping on a bed of down, nurtured in refinement and luxury, may
be so constituted that pain will be a mere flea-bite to him; should he
be destined to endure the worst that's known to earth, he will, so to
say, hardly feel it: whereas this poor fireman, inured to hard usage,
to labour and privation, may be literally almost unable to bear it. For
my own part, when I have to witness this distressing sensibility to
pain, perhaps have to inflict it as a surgical necessity, I suffer half as
much as the patient does for I know what it is for him. Don't affect
to ridicule pain again, Mark."

Mark Cray looked vexed, annoyed. But every syllable that had
fallen from Dr. Davenal's lips had found its echo in the heart of
Oswald Cray. If there was one quality he admired beyond all else, it
was sincere open truthfulness: and to Oswald's mind there was an
affectation, a want of sincerity, in the mocking expressions, the
shallow opinions, so much in fashion in the present day. There had
been a hollow carelessness in Mark's tone when he ridiculed the
notion of the poor stoker's possessing a sensitiveness to pain, just as
if the man had no right to possess it.

"Well, Bigg, and so you must get tossed in this upset!" began the
doctor cheerily. "Oh! you'll do well, by the look of your face; we shall
soon have you on the engine again. Let's get a sight of this grand
damage. Who has got a lantern?"

It was a bad scald; a shocking scald; there was no question of it;

and there was much injury by bruises; but Dr. Davenal spoke the
simple truth when he assured the man that the hurts were not
dangerous.

"Keep up your heart, Bigg. In an hour's time you will be in the

Infirmary, properly attended to. You'll soon get over this."

"I dun know as I can live through the pain, sir," was the wailing
answer.

"Ay, it's bad. But when we have got the proper remedies on, you
won't feel it as you do now. Bigg, I once scalded my leg badly--at
least somebody did it for me--and I remember the pain to this day;
so, my poor fellow, I can tell what yours is."

"Mr. Cray said, sir, I oughtn't to feel no pain from a hurt like this,
he did. It sounded hard like, for the pain is awful."

"Mr. Cray knows you would be better if you tried not to feel the
pain--not to feel it so acutely. He is a doctor, you know, Bigg, and
sees worse hurts than yours every day of his life."

"I'd like to ask you, sir, when I shall be well--if you can tell me. I
have got a wife and children, sir; and she's sick just now, and can't
work for 'em."
 "We'll get you up again in three weeks," said Dr. Davenal cheerily,
as he hastened away to another sufferer, groaning at a distance.

The term seemed long to the man: almost to startle him: he was
thinking of his helpless wife and children.

"Three weeks!" he repeated with a moan. "Three weeks, and

nobody to help 'em, and me laid down incapable!"

"Think how much worse it might be, Bigg!" said Mr. Oswald Cray,
wishing to get the man to look at his misfortune in a more cheerful
spirit. "Suppose Dr. Davenal had said three months?"

"Then, as good he'd said, sir, as I should never be up again."

"Do you think so? I don't. It is a long while to be confined by

illness, three months, and to you it seems, no doubt, very long
indeed; but it is not so much out of a man's life. I knew one who
was ill for three years, and got up again. That would be worse,
Bigg."

"Ay, sir, it would be. I haven't got just my right thoughts tonight,
what with the pain that's racking me, and what with trouble about
my wife and little 'uns."

"Don't trouble about them, Bigg," was the considerate answer.

"They shall be taken care of until you can work for them again. If
the company don't do it, I will."

A short while longer of confusion, of hasty clearance of the line, of

soothing medical aid,--such aid as could be given in that
inconvenient spot, where there was only the open bare ground for
the sufferers to lie on, the moonlit sky to cover them,--and the
return to Hallingham was organised. The injured were lifted into the
carriages and placed as well as circumstances permitted. Lady
Oswald, who shrieked out much when they raised her, was laid at
full length on a pile of rugs collected from the first-class
compartments, and the engine started with its load, and steamed
gently onwards.

It appeared afterwards that the accident had been caused by the

snapping of some part of the machinery of the engine. It was a very
unusual occurrence, and could neither have been foreseen nor
prevented.

The expectant crowd had not dispersed when Hallingham was

reached. Nay, it had considerably increased. Even Miss Bettina
Davenal retained her post, and Sara and Caroline were with her.

The invalid train--it might surely be called one in a double sense--

came slowly into the station. The platform had been cleared; none
were allowed upon it to obstruct the removal of the sufferers from
the train to the conveyances that waited, in which they would be
transported to their homes, or to the infirmary, as the case might be.
But, if the platform was denied them, the excited watchers made up
for the discourtesy by blocking up the road and doors outside--a
motley group, picturesque enough in the fine moonlight night.

Dr. Davenal, Mr. Cray, and the other medical men were occupied in
superintending the removal of their patients, but Mr. Oswald Cray
found his way to Miss Davenal, and gave them the good news that
the injuries were comparatively slight. A train for London was on the
point of starting, and he was going by it. He contrived to obtain a
few words with Sara, and she went with him on to the platform.

"I wish I could have remained over tomorrow," he observed to her.

"I should like to see and hear how all these poor people get on."

"Are you sure you cannot remain?"

"I am sure that I ought not. You have heard me speak of Frank
Allister Sara?"
 "Often. The young Scotchman who was with you at Bracknell and
Street's for so many years."

"We were articled together. He has become very ill lately; and--
and the firm has not behaved quite well to him. I have no voice in
that part of its economy, or it should never have been."

"What did they do?" inquired Sara.

"He has not got on as I have. Still he held a tolerably fair post in
the house; but his health failed, and he had to absent himself. Mr.
Street found out how ill he was, came to the conclusion that he'd be
of no use to us again, and wrote him his dismissal. I thought it very
hard; and he--he"----

"Yes!" said Sara, eagerly interested.

"He found it harder than he could bear. It put the finishing stroke
to his illness, and I don't think he will rally. He has no relatives near,
few friends; so I see him all I can, and I gave him a faithful promise
to spend tomorrow with him. Time's up, and the guard's impatient, I
see."

"Does the guard know you are going?"

"Yes. Don't you see him looking round for me? Fare you well, Sara.
I may be down again in a day or two." He had taken her hands for a
moment in both his as he stood before her.

"I trust you will get safe to town?" she whispered.

"Ay, indeed! This night has proved to us that safety lies not with
ourselves. God bless you, my dearest!"

He crossed the platform and stepped into the carriage, which the
guard was holding open. The next moment the train was steaming
out of the station, Sara Davenal looking after it with a lingering look,
a heart at rest, as that sweet word of endearment rang its echoes on
her ear.
 CHAPTER XIV.

A WHIM OF LADY OSWALD'S.

The medical body, as a whole, is differently estimated by the

world. Some look down upon it, others look up to it; and their own
position in the scale of society has no bearing or bias on the views of
the estimators. It may be that a nobleman will bow to the worth and
value of the physician, will regard him as a benefactor of mankind,
exercising that calling of all others most important to the welfare of
humanity; while a man very far down in the world's social ladder will
despise the doctor wherever he sees him.

It is possible that each has in a degree cause for this, so far as he

judges by his own experience. The one may have been brought in
contact with that perfect surgeon--and there are many such--whose
peculiar gifts for the calling were bestowed upon him by the Divine
will; he with the lion's heart and woman's hand, whose success,
born of patience, courage, judgment, experience, has become by
God's blessing an assured fact. Men who have brought all the grand
discoveries of earthly science to their aid and help in their study of
the art; who have watched Nature day by day, and mastered her
intricacies; who have, in fact, attained to that perfection in skill
which induces the involuntary remark to break from us--We shall
never see his fellow! Before such a man as this, as I look upon it,
the world should bow. We have no benefactor like unto him. The
highest honours of the land should be open to him; all that we can
give of respect and admiration should be his.
 But there is a reverse side to the picture. There is the man who
has gone into the profession without aptitude for it, who has made it
his, although positively incapable of properly learning it and
exercising it. He may have acquired the right to use all the empty
distinguishing letters attaching to it, and tack them after his name
on all convenient occasions, inscribe them in staring characters on
his very door-posts--M.D., M.R.C.S.--as many more as there may be
to get; but, for all that, he is not capable of exercising the art. His
whole career is one terrible mistake. He kills more patients than he
cures; slaying them, drenching them to death, with that most pitiful
and fatal of all weapons--ignorance. It may not be his fault, in one
sense: he does his best: but he has embraced a calling for which
nature did not fit him. He goes on in his career, it is true, and his
poor patients suffer. More ignorant, of necessity, than he is--for in all
that relates to the healing art, we are, take us as a whole,
lamentably deficient--they can only blindly resign themselves to his
hands, and when they find that there's no restored health for them,
that they get worse rather than better, they blame the obstinacy of
the malady, not the treatment. Upon his own mind, meanwhile,
there rests an ever-perpetual sense of failure, irritating his temper,
rendering his treatment experimental and uncertain. Some cannot
see where the fault lies--have no conception that it is in their own
incapacity. And if a man does see it, what then? He must go on and
do his best; he must be a doctor always; it is his only means of
living, and he is too old to take to another trade. Rely upon it there
are more of these practitioners than the world suspects.

Such a man as the first was Dr. Davenal; such a man as the last
was Mark Cray. But that Mark was so Dr. Davenal suspected not.
Grave cases hitherto, during their short connection, had been
treated by the doctor, and for ordinary ailments Mark did well
enough. He could write a proper prescription when the liver was out
of order, or bring a child through the measles; he could treat old
ladies with fanciful ailments to the very acme of perfection. It is true
Dr. Davenal had been once or twice rather surprised by downright
wrong treatment on the part of Mark, but he had attributed it to
inexperience.

When other doctors could not cure, people flew to Dr. Davenal;
when there was a critical operation to be performed, involving life or
death, Dr. Davenal was prayed to undertake it. His practice
consequently was of wide extent; it was not confined to Hallingham
and its vicinity, but extended occasionally to the confines of the
county. It was not, therefore, surprising that on the morning
following the accident Dr. Davenal found himself called out at an
early hour to the country on a case of dangerous emergency. And
the illness was at Thorndyke.

He responded at once to the call. Never a prompter man than

Richard Davenal. Roger had learnt by example to be prompt also,
and was ready with his carriage as soon as his master. The
arrangements with regard to saving time were well organised at Dr.
Davenal's. The bell, communicating from the house down the side-
wall of the garden to the man's rooms near the stables was made
the means of conveying different orders. If rung once, Roger was
wanted indoors to receive his orders by word of mouth; if rung
twice--and on those occasions they were always sharp, imperative
peals--Roger knew that the carriage was wanted at once, with all the
speed that he could get it round.

The calm peaceful quiet of the Sabbath morn was lying on the
streets of Hallingham as the doctor was driven through them. The
shops were all shut; some of the private houses were not yet
opened--servants are apt to lie late on Sunday morning. As they
passed the town-hall and the market-place, so void of life then, the
church clocks struck eight, and the customary bells, giving token of
the future services of the day, broke forth in the clear air.

"Stop at the Abbey, Roger," said the doctor, as they neared it.
 The woman, Dorcas, was just opening the parlour shutters. She
came to the door when she saw the carriage drawing up to it.

"I want to see your master, Dorcas. I suppose he's up."

"He is up and out, sir," was her reply. "He has been gone about
five minutes."

This answer caused the doctor to pause. It should be explained

that when the train of sufferers arrived at the station the previous
night, Lady Oswald had elected to be accompanied to her home by
Mark Cray, not by Dr. Davenal. Whether she was actuated by pure
caprice; whether by a better motive--the belief that she was not hurt
so much as some other of the sufferers, and that Dr. Davenal's skill
would be more needed by them; or whether the recent sudden liking
she had taken for Mr. Cray swayed her then, could not be told; never
would be told. She seemed to be a little revived at the end of the
journey, and she chose that Mark Cray should go home with her. Dr.
Davenal had acquiesced, but he whispered a parting word to Mark.
"If there is an injury, I suspect it will be found in the ribs, Mark. Look
well to it. If you want me, I'm going on to the Infirmary, and shall be
at home afterwards."

But, as it appeared, the doctor had not been wanted. At any rate,
Mark Cray had not sent for him. And he had stopped now to hear, if
he could, Mark's report.

An upper window opened, and Mrs. Cray, completely enveloped in

a thick shawl, so that nothing could be seen of her but the tip of her
nose, leaned out.

"Good-morning, Uncle Richard."

"Good-morning, my dear. I am glad to see you again. Can you

come down for a minute?"
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