CHAPTER IX.

"There now, my good woman, you have hugged the boy enough," said Mr. Woodyard; "you have kissed my hand, and the young man's; and the next thing is to put the child to bed, and keep him there for the next three days. I will see that he is taken care of; but mind you don't give him any of your neighbours' hens, or hares, or partridges; not because he or his stomach would care a straw whether they were stolen or not; but because he must not eat animal food, however it is come by."

"Mayn't I take him up to my own people?" asked the woman, with an anxious look.

"Why! you lawless baggage, would you kill the child?" exclaimed the surgeon, fiercely. "I tell you that he has been tossed by a bull, had a severe shock to his whole system, has got his shoulder dislocated, requires perfect quiet and careful attendance, cool food, and an equable temperature, to prevent inflammation; and you talk of taking him up to a set of jolly beggars, in rotten tents, to sleep upon the ground, drink gin, and be stuffed with stolen poultry. You must be mad to think of such a thing; or not his mother at all; which I have a notion is the case, for he's as white as you are dingy."

The woman looked at him gravely for a moment, and shook her head with a gesture of deep feeling, saying, as she laid her hand upon her heart, "It matters little what you think; I feel that I am his mother. But will the gentlefolks let him bide here?"

"Here come some of them, and they can answer for themselves," answered the surgeon, pointing to the cottage window, before which General Tracy and his eldest niece were passing, on their way to the door.

"Well, Doctor, what is the state of the case?" asked the old officer, as he came in; "how is the poor boy?"

"A dislocated shoulder and a good shake," replied the surgeon, abruptly; "only a proper punishment for a mite like that trying to frighten a bull from goring an obstinate old man, who will go through a field where an animal known to be vicious is roaming at large. I hope, with all my heart, that some of your bones are broken."

"Your hopes are vain, Doctor," said Walter Tracy: "all my bones are as sound as ever they were: only a little soreness of my back, where the cursed beast struck me."

"Ay, you will have lumbar abscess," said the surgeon; "and a good thing too. But the imp must be put to bed. Here is his yellow-faced mother wants to carry him off to her filthy tents, where he would be dead in three days."

"That must not be," said General Tracy. "So you are his mother, my good woman. I am glad you have come down, for I want to speak with you."

"Let the boy be put to bed first, before you begin gossiping," cried Mr. Woodyard; "you can say all you have to say after. Here, young man, take his things off; though there is not much to take. His trousers and shoes are all that is needful; for as to a shirt, there is none to dispose of."

"Well, what of that?" cried the gipsey woman, sharply. "I suppose you had not a shirt on when you were born."

"No, indeed," answered Mr. Woodyard, gravely. "What you say is very true. Naked we came into the world, and naked shall we go out of it; so that it does not much matter whether we have shirts on while we are here or not. Nevertheless, I will send him up something of the kind from our school in the village; for I have somehow a notion, perhaps erroneous, that he will be more comfortable when he has got some clean calico about him."

"I don't think it," replied his mother; "he never had such a thing in his life."

"Well, we'll try it, at all events," returned Mr. Woodyard. "But now let us have quiet, and obey orders."

The boy was accordingly undressed, and placed in the gardener's bed; and then, while the surgeon looked him all over, to ascertain that there was no other injury, General Tracy took the gipsey woman to the door of the cottage, and spoke to her for several minutes in a low tone. His words brought the tears into her eyes, and the nature of them may be derived from her reply.

"God bless you, gentleman," she said. "I dare say, to be rich, and well brought up, and sleep in houses, and all that, is very nice when one is accustomed to it, and better than our way of doing; but for my