“One day he was sent for to a farm-house, to see some one, and said he would make up the physic, and they could send a boy for it. He made it up, and set it in the surgery properly addressed. The boy came when he was just gone into a neighbour’s, and the servant sent the lad into the surgery to wait for him. When he came home, soon after, the servant said the boy had bolted out of the house as if his head was on fire, and gone away without the medicine. Frank was a little astonished; but on looking round the surgery, he soon perceived the cause. The lad, with a lad’s curiosity, had been looking into things; and, amongst others, had opened a cupboard-door where hung a skeleton. He had evidently had such a fright, that he did not stop to shut the door again, or the door of the surgery, or of the house after him. The medicine had to be sent. “A day or two after, as Frank was riding towards the farm to see his patient again, in a deep, narrow lane, he met the boy coming towards him. Now, he thought, I shall hear all about it. But he was mistaken; for the moment the lad recognised the tall, slender figure of the young doctor, he scrambled up the lofty bank, like a cat or a monkey, and bolted through the hedge into the field above. “‘Hillo, hillo, there, boy!’ cried Frank, ‘I want to speak to you.’ “‘Nay, nay,’ cried the boy, ‘I’ll na come near thee. I knaw thee, I knaw thee! though thou’s got thy claiths on. I seed thee i’ th’ cupboard!’” After a hearty laugh of the whole company, Thorsby said, “Well, take my word for it, the man who tells such stories, and enjoys them, is no despairing swain.” “Not a bit of it,” said George Woodburn. One fine May morning that spring, the sun was shining over the dewy landscape as genially as it used to shine before the dark days fell on Woodburn Grange. The larks were caroling as high and inspiringly in the blue air. The young corn was growing as greenly, and the weeders were in the midst of it with their spuds, rooting up the thistles, and with their hands pulling the bright yellow charlock out of it. From tree to tree rung the notes of the thrush and blackbird, and the cuckoo shouted her musical, quaint monotone from the new amber-coloured foliage of the spreading oak. The brooks rippled and tinkled so sweetly down the shadowy glens to the river, and the river glid along as fair and as peacefully as if it had never seen a winter or a crime. There was a glow of flowers along the luxuriant hedge-row banks. There was a golden fire of flowers all over the pastures, and a spirit of tranquil joy lay over all the scene, the outward image of the peace and joy which had once more returned to that pleasant neighbourhood.