"It came on two days ago, and I thought I'd throw it off, as I have many an ache before," he said. "But it gained on me. Then this morning, with light, I began to wonder what I'd better do, for I felt some deep mischief had got hold upon me. I put on my clothes and thought to try and get down to Ruddyford, as the shortest road to people. But by good chance there came a boy picking hurts, and no doubt he reached you." They spoke together for five minutes. Then Daniel started for Bridgetstowe to get a doctor, and Sarah Jane attended to her father. She got him out of his clothes and into bed; she built a big wood fire that set the moisture glimmering on the walls of Gregory's hovel; she heated water and made him drink a stiff glass of hot spirits; and she set about a dish of broth, the ingredients of which Daniel had brought in the basket. Mr. Friend revived presently, but his pain was considerable and he found it difficult to breathe. "Give me some more brandy," he said. "It lifts up the strength. I did ought to have a plaster put upon my back without a doubt, for I mind a man up here being took just like this. And they put a fiery plaster on him and drawed the evil out." "There's nought but bread to make it of," said Sarah Jane. "Or else peat." His eyes brightened. "That's a good thought--a capital idea! Fetch a bit of the soft and make it red-hot in a saucepan, and 'twill be a very useful thing--better than mustard, very like." She did her best, and presently Mr. Friend, with a mass of hot peat pressed against his side in a piece of Sarah Jane's flannel petticoat, declared himself much easier. "'Tis life every way," he said. "This be a great discovery, and very like, if doctors come to know about it, 'twill go further than all they bird-witted engineers to set Amicombe Hill up again." He stuck to it that the peat was doing him immense good. He drank a little broth when Sarah Jane brought it to him. Then he wandered in his speech, and then for a time he kept silence. "Better for certain--better for certain now," he said at intervals. Presently he asked after his grandchild. "Must have him up here a lot next summer when the weather's good," he said. He seemed easier presently, and his daughter had leisure to think of herself. She loved him dearly, and, since marriage, the gentleness and simplicity of his character had more impressed her than formerly. Before, she had no experience by which to measure his virtues. Now, with a larger knowledge of men and life, she could appreciate the single-hearted Gregory, sympathize with him and perceive the pathos of his life and futile hope. She talked to him now very openly of her own secret tribulations and the difficulties of late forced upon her by her husband's master. "He's lifted Daniel up, father; and Daniel have thanked God ever since; but--but 'tis me he ought to thank." Then she proceeded, told her father of the scene at Kit's Steps, and asked him to help her.