"Look what you've gone and done," said Busby, reproachfully, displaying the yolk in the cup. Thereupon he received instructions which even he could follow; and at length the mess was down, stinging with the sexton's notion of a teaspoonful of whisky. This second accident was even happier than the first; there was instant agitation in every vein. And now Busby could hear without stooping. "When did you find me?" "That fare to be an hour ago, I suppose. Ah, but I thought as how you looked bad! Soon as ever I see you, I say to myself, 'The reverend's found what beat him at last,' I say; 'he do look wunnerful bad,' I say. And you see, I was right." There was the tiniest gleam in the great bright eyes. "You were partly right," said Carlton, "and partly wrong. I'm not done with yet, Busby. So then you lit the fire for me?" "That wasn't wholly out." "Ah!" "That soon burnt up. Then I went and got another kettle." The great eyes flashed suspicion. "And told everybody you saw, I suppose!" "I should be very sorry," said the sexton, significantly. "No, I come an' went by the lane, an' took wunnerful care that nobody set eyes on I. I thought as how you might fare to like a cup o' tea, an' that was a rare mess you'd made o' _your_ kettle." "You've done well," whispered Carlton. "You've saved my--saved my cold from getting worse. You shall never regret it, Busby; only don't you tell anybody I've had one--do you hear? Don't you tell a single soul that you found me in bed!" "No fear," chuckled the sexton. "I should be very sorry to tell anybody I'd found you at all. They might hear o' that somewhere else!" Carlton lay still with thought and purpose; and death itself could not have given the lower part of his face a harsher cast; but the hot eyes were fixed upon the fading diamonds of the window over the table. At last he spoke--and it was a pity there was but the sexton to hear the firm tones of so faint a voice. "Find my keys, Busby. I'm going to give you a sovereign----" "A what?" "The first of several if you do what I want!" Not much later the sexton was hobbling towards Lakenhall, for the first time in many years; and the sick man lay greatly doubting whether he should ever see him again. His weakness was terrible now. The excitement of conversation had provoked a relapse as grave as it was inevitable in one so weak. The flickering lamp was only fed by the stimulus of suspense, the glow of the fire, and the man's own indomitable will. The latter, however, never failed him for a moment. "I _will_ pull through," he would mutter at his worst. "I will--I will . . . Oh, is he never, never . . ." He came at last--with corn-flour, meat-extract, a bottle of port, and such other requisites as had entered the sick man's head under the spur of his overdose of ardent spirits. And, simple and inadequate as they were, these things spelt the first syllable of recovery.