The patient was not dead, but he was perfectly insensible. He breathed faintly, and every few minutes there was a rattling in the throat, resembling that which precedes immediate dissolution. The two doctors examined the wound together. The skull had been fractured by the blow, and there was a gash produced by the nail in the board. The face was extremely pale, and so altered as to be scarcely recognizable. The innkeeper's wife, Mrs. Simpson, was moistening the pale lips with brandy. When the Colonel and Captain Eureton had seen the patient, they had a talk with Dr. Bardly in another room. The Doctor's opinion was that there were chances of recovery, but not very strong chances. Though Philip Stanburne had enjoyed tolerably regular health in consequence of his temperate and simple way of living, he had by no means a robust constitution, and it was possible--it was even probable--that he would succumb; but he _might_ pull through. Dr. Bardly proposed to resign the case entirely to the Whittlecup doctor, as it would require constant attention, and the surgeon ought to be on the spot. CHAPTER XVII. ISAAC OGDEN AGAIN. As the lieutenant of the Grenadier Company, Mr. Isaac Ogden was appointed to do captain's work at Whittlecup in the place of Philip Stanburne. For many weeks Mr. Ogden had displayed a strength of resolution that astonished his most intimate friends. Without meanly taking refuge in the practice of total abstinence, he had kept strictly within the bounds of what in Shayton is considered moderation. The customs of the mess at Sootythorn were not likely to place him in the power of his old enemy again; for although the officers were not severely abstinent, their utmost conviviality scarcely extended beyond the daily habits of the very soberest of Shaytonians. Viewing the matter, therefore, from the standpoint of his personal experience, Dr. Bardly looked upon Ogden as now the most temperate of men. It is true that as a militia officer he could not follow a new rule of his about not entering inns, for the business of the regiment required him to visit a dozen inns every day, and to eat and sleep in one for a month together; and it is obvious that the other good rule about not drinking spirits at Twistle Farm could not be very advantageous to him just now, seeing that, although it was always in force, it was practically efficacious only during his residence under his own roof. It seems a pity that he did not legislate for himself anew, so as to meet his altered circumstances; but the labors of regimental duty appeared so onerous that extraordinary stimulation seemed necessary to meet this extraordinary fatigue, and it would have appeared imprudent to confine himself within rigidly fixed limits which necessity might compel him to transgress. So in point of fact Mr. Ogden was a free agent again.