"They were sharp ones," answered Norries, "and not few; for I had just staggered up, and was calling some few stout hearts around me, when the cavalry dashed in amongst us. One cut at me, and gashed my cheek, and another brought me down with a blow over the head. They passed on, thinking me dead; and so I should have been very soon if that brave fellow, Oldkirk, had not dragged me away, and hiding me and himself in a dry ditch, bound up my wounds and stanched the blood. There has been many a man ennobled for a worse deed; but he will have his reward here or hereafter. The people here are very kind to me, too. I saved their little property for them one time, by the few scraps of law I ever learned, and they are grateful: it is a marvel, as this world goes. I have a surgeon from a distant town, and I drink his drugs, and let him probe my wounds, and let him torture me as much as he will; not that I have any faith in him, but because it pleases the good people, who think that something is being done to serve me. I need no surgeon, Mr. Adelon, but nature and a strong constitution. Surgeons and lawyers, the craft is much the same; the one tortures and destroys the body, the other the mind--both rascally trades enough! But let us think of other things. You have been seeking me--why?" "I thought Oldkirk had told you," replied Edgar. "I gave him all the needful particulars last night." "He told me something of it," answered Norries, "but not the whole. Besides, I forget. Lying here in this gloomy sickness, my thoughts wander over many things, like the dove of the deluge, finding no place to rest upon. Let me hear the business from your own lips."