"But it hurts," said Miss Marty, wincing, with a catch of her breath. "I fear I must have run a thorn into it." "A thorn?" The Doctor seized the professional opportunity, lifted her bodily off the slope, and lowered her to the beach. "There, now, if you will sit absolutely still . . . for one minute. I command you! Yes, as I suspected--a gorse-prickle!" He ran to his haversack, and, returning with a pair of tweezers, took the hurt foot between both hands. "Pray remain still . . . for one moment. There--it is out!" He held up the prickle triumphantly between the tweezers. "You have heard, Miss Marty, of the slave Andrew Something-or-other and the lion? Though it couldn't have been Andrew really, because there are no lions in Scotland--except, I believe, on their shield. He was hiding for some reason in a cave, and a lion came along, and--well, it doesn't seem complimentary even if you turn a lion into a lioness, but it came into my head and seemed all right to start with." "When I was a governess," said Miss Marty, "I used often to set it for dictation. I had, I remember, the same difficulty you experience with the name of the hero." "Did you?" the Doctor exclaimed, delightedly. "That _is_ a coincidence, isn't it? I sometimes think that when two minds are, as one might say, attuned--" "They are making a most dreadful noise," said Miss Marty, with a glance across the river. "Did I hear you say that you were victorious to-night?" "Completely." "The Major is a wonderful man." "Wonderful! As I was saying, when two minds are, as one might say, attuned--" "He succeeds in everything he touches." "It is a rare talent." "I sometimes wonder how, with his greatness--for he cannot but be conscious of it--he endures the restrictions of our narrow sphere. I mean," Miss Marty went on, as the Doctor lifted his eyebrows in some surprise, "the petty business of a country town such as ours." "Oh," said the Doctor. "Ah, to be sure! . . . I supposed for a moment that you were referring to the--er--terrestrial globe." He sighed. Miss Marty sighed likewise. Across in the covert of the woods someone had begun to beat a tattoo on the drum. Presently a cornet joined in, shattering the echoes with wild ululations. "Those fellows will be sorry if Sir Felix catches them," observed the Doctor, anxiously. "I can't think what Hymen's about, to allow it. The noise comes from right under the home-park, too." "You depreciate the Major!" Miss Marty tapped her bare foot impatiently on the pebbles; but, recollecting herself, drew it back with a blush. "I do not," answered the Doctor, hotly. "I merely say that he is allowing his men yonder to get out of hand." "Perhaps _you_ had better go, and, as the poet puts it, 'ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm,'" she suggested, with gentle sarcasm.