“No, no,” said Peter, shaking his head, “I have them under lock and key in the driving-box; there's no one opens that but myself.” Daly turned away with a muttered execration at the miser's suspicions, and then, fixing his eyes steadily on Sandy's face, he gave a short and significant nod. The servant instinctively looked after the doctor; then, slowly moving across the floor, the nod was repeated, and Sandy, wheeling round, made three strides, and, catching the old man round the body with his remaining arm, carried him out of the room with the same indifference to his struggles or his cries as a nurse would bestow on a misbehaving urchin. [Illustration: 108] When Sandy deposited his burden beside the pony-carriage, old Peter's passion had reached its climax, and assuredly, if the will could have prompted the act, he would have stamped as roundly as he swore. “It's an awfu' thing,” observed Sandy, quaintly, “to see an auld carle, wi' his twa legs in the grave, blaspheming that gate; but come awa', tak' your gimcracks, and let's get back again, or, by the saul of my body, I 'll pit you in the fountain!” Reasoning on that excellent principle of analogy, that what had happened might happen again even in a worse form, old Hickman unlocked the box and delivered into Sandy's hands a black leather case, bearing as many signs of long years and service as his own. “Let me walk I let me walk!” cried he, in a supplicating tone. “Av you ca' it walking,” said Sandy, grimly; “but it's mair, far mair, like the step o' a goose than a Christian man.” What success might have attended Peter's request it is difficult to say, for at this moment the noise of a horse was heard galloping up the avenue, and, immediately after, Mulville, the surgeon sent for by Mr. Daly, entered the courtyard. Without deigning a look towards Hickman, or paying even the slightest attention to his urgent demands for the restoration of his pocket-case, Sandy seized Mulville by the arm and hurried him away to the house. The newly arrived doctor was an army surgeon, and proceeded, with all the readiness experience had taught him, to examine Forester's wound; while Sandy, to save time, opened old Hickman's case on the bed, and arranged the instruments. “Look here, Mr. Daly,” said the doctor, as he drew some lint from the antiquated leather pocket,--“look here, and see how our old friend practises the art of medicine.” He took up, as he spoke, a roll of paper, and held it towards Daly: it was a packet of bill stamps of various value, for old Peter could never suffer himself to be taken short, and was always provided with the ready means of transacting money affairs with his patients. “Here's my d----d old bond,” said Daly, laughing, as he drew forth a much-crumpled and time-discolored parchment; “I'd venture to say the man would deserve well of his country who would throw this confounded pocket-book, and its whole contents, into that fire.”