"I don't know," answered the post-boy. "Then how can you say whether he be dead or no?" demanded the innkeeper. "Fetch me a pint of half-and-half," said the dismounted post-boy, aside, to one of the "Royal Oak" people at his elbow. "We was just at this side of High Hixton," said his brother in the saddle, "when he knocked at the window with his stick, and I got a cove to hold the bridle, and I came round to the window to him. He had scarce any voice in him, and looked awful bad, and he said he thought he was a-dying. 'And how far on is the next inn?' he asked; and I told him the 'Royal Oak' was two miles; and he said, 'Drive like lightning, and I'll give you half a guinea a-piece'--I hope he's not gone dead--'if you get there in time.'" By this time their heads were in the carriage again. "Do you notice a sort of a little jerk in his foot, just the least thing in the world?" inquired the landlord, who had sent for the doctor. "It will be a fit, after all. If he's living, we'll fetch him into the 'ouse." The doctor's house was just round the corner of the road, where the clump of elms stands, little more than a hundred yards from the sign of the "Royal Oak." "Who is he?" inquired Mr. Truelock. "I don't know," answered the postilion. "What's his name?" "Don't know that, neither." "Why, it'll be on that box, won't it?" urged the innkeeper, pointing to the roof, where a portmanteau with a glazed cover was secured. "Nothing on that but 'R. A.,'" answered the man, who had examined it half an hour before, with the same object. "Royal Artillery, eh?" While they were thus conjecturing, the doctor arrived. He stepped into the chaise, felt the old man's hand, tried his pulse, and finally applied the stethoscope. "It is a nervous seizure. He is in a very exhausted state," said the doctor, stepping out again, and addressing Truelock. "You must get him into bed, and don't let his head down; take off his handkerchief, and open his shirt-collar--do you mind? I had best arrange him myself." So the forlorn old man, without a servant, without a name, is carried from the chaise, possibly to die in an inn. The Rev. Peter Sprott, the rector, passing that way a few minutes later, and hearing what had befallen, went up to the bed-room, where the old gentleman lay in a four-poster, still unconscious. "Here's a case," said the doctor to his clerical friend. "A nervous attack. He'd be all right in no time, but he's so low. I daresay he crossed the herring-pond to-day, and was ill; he's in such an exhausted state. I should not wonder if he sank; and here we are, without a clue to his name or people. No servant, no name on his trunk; and, certainly, it would be awkward if he died unrecognised, and without a word to apprise his relations." "Is there no letter in his pockets?" "Not one," Truelock says.