"Is there ever a chirugeon upon the place?" asked Sir Charles in his most dulcet tones. "If not, I fear that Captain Laramore will very shortly make his last voyage." "Egad! that will never do!" cried the Colonel, dropping upon his knees beside the wounded man. "A bad thrust! Charles, thou art the very devil!" "Shall I ride for the doctor?" cried Mr. Peyton. "No. Anthony Nash is at the house. Run, lad, and fetch him. He is surgeon as well as divine." Mr. Peyton disappeared; and presently there stood in the midst of the group gathered about the unconscious captain, a man clad in a clerical dress and of a very dignified and scholarly demeanor. "Ha, gentlemen!" he said gravely, looking with bright, dark eyes from one to the other. "This is a sorry business. Shirts, drawn rapiers, trampled turf, Sir William bleeding, Captain Laramore senseless upon the ground! His Excellency the Governor; Major Carrington, the Surveyor-General; Colonel Verney, the lieutenant of the shire;—scandalous, gentlemen!" "And Anthony Nash who would give his chance of a mitre to have been one of us," cried the Governor. "Ha! Anthony! dost remember the fight behind Paul’s, three to one,—and the baggage that brought it about?" The divine, on his knees beside Laramore, looked up with a twinkle in his eye from his work of tying laced handkerchiefs into bandages. "That was in the dark ages, your Excellency. My memory goeth not back so far. Ha! that is better! He is coming to himself. It is not so bad after all." Laramore groaned, opened his eyes, and struggled into a sitting posture. "Blast me! but I am properly spitted. Sir Charles Carew, my compliments to you. You are a man after my own heart. Ha, your Excellency! I find myself in good company. Dr. Anthony Nash, I shall have you out! You have torn the handkerchief Mistress Lettice Verney gave me." The Doctor laughed. "You must be got to the house at once, and to bed, where Mistress Lettice, who is as skillful in healing as in making wounds, shall help me to properly dress this one." Laramore staggered to his feet. "Give me an arm, Doctor; and Peyton, clap my periwig upon my head, will you? and fetch me my sword from where I see it, adorning yonder bough. Sir Charles Carew, I am your humble servant. Damme! it’s no disgrace to be worsted by the best sword at Whitehall." And the gallant captain, supported by the clergyman and Mr. Peyton, reeled off the ground; the remainder of the party waiting only to assume doublets and wigs before following him to the house. Two hours later Sir Charles Carew rose from the supper-table, and leaving the gentlemen at wine, passed into the great room, and came softly up to Patricia, sitting at the spinet. "My heart was not there," he said, answering her smile and lifted brows. "I am come in search of it."