"Let's have candles here, Aunt Rachel!" cried the doctor, indulging his importance, in all the joy of liberation from restraint. "It is as dark as--oh! here they come, eh? Hark! there's horses' feet in the park! They're coming back from the Rest.--Bless my soul! I forgot all about the murder and the assassin! Hope they don't bring him here, slashed all to pieces by the soldiers; work enough on hand for one surgeon.--Only a simple fracture, after all! Hold the splints here, Jingleum. Don't be distressed, sir; won't hurt you more than I can possibly help." With these words, the surgeon proceeded to tie up the fractured limb, the painter having recovered so far as to be able to wince and groan to the heart's content of the practitioner. Before the operation was concluded, Captain Loring came puffing and blowing into the room, and being instantly assailed by the doctor's friends with anxious questions concerning the result of the late assault upon the Traveller's Rest, answered in his usual hurried and broken manner,-- "Bird flown, adzooks--beat retreat in time,--struck colours, crossed the river; young Brooks and a posse after him; will have him before morning,--we will, by the lord! But, adzooks, here's my young painter that's to paint me that picture. Hark ye, Harman What-d'-ye-call-it, my boy," he exclaimed, taking a seat on the bed-side, and speaking with rough hospitality; "glad to see your eyes open. Mean to treat you as well as if you were my son Tom. How do you feel now, hark ye, my lad? What the plague sent you tumbling down the rocks, hah? A mighty stupid trick, that, adzooks! How d'e do?" The young man's wits were not yet clear enough to comprehend the question, or to digest a reply. He merely turned his eyes, with a wild and ghastly stare, upon the interrogator, and then rolled them vacantly from one individual of the company to another. He sighed heavily, and mumbled a little, as the doctor proceeded to secure the splints, but made no resistance. "I don't like that stare," cried the Captain; "he looks as wild out of the eyes as a squeezed frog; and that's no good sign. I remember me, Tom Loring stared the same way, when the doctor was fishing for the bullet among his ribs. He'll never live to paint me that picture! He'll die, doctor, won't he?" "Can't venture to say, Captain," replied Merribody; "a very critical situation, sir, a very critical situation. But I never despair, sir; for while there's life there's hope. My preceptor, the late celebrated Dr. Bones, of Bucks county, used to tell his patients, 'he never despaired till he heard the joiners screwing up the coffin.' A very good rule, that, sir! We'll hope, sir, we'll hope. Pulse very full and vigorous--will take a little more blood, and remain a few hours to watch him." "Stay all night," said the Captain; "won't let you go, sir."