“I mun get up to-morrow,” he remarked, apparently addressing no one in particular.

“If you do you’ll make an end of yourself, my friend,” returned the Doctor decidedly.  “You stay where you are, and go on with your gruel and poultices—­by-the-bye you needn’t make those poultices quite so thick, Mrs. Tyrer—­and I’ll come and see you on Wednesday.  You mustn’t think of getting up.  If you go out in this east wind, it will be the death of you.  Really you people are mad about your Club Day—­you should have seen old Robert Wainwright, when I told him just now that it would be quite impossible for him to go out.”

“He’s not goin’ to walk!” cried husband and wife together, their faces lighting up much as Mrs. Wainwright’s had done.

“He’d be very much astonished if he were to try,” said Doctor Craddock; “he can’t so much as put his foot to the ground.”

[Illustration:  The owdest member “I mun get up to-morrow,” he remarked]

“Coom,” said Mrs. Tyrer, looking encouragingly at her spouse, “that’s one thing as should mak’ thee feel a bit ‘appier.  He were takkin’ on terrible, ye know,” she explained, “thinkin’ Robert ‘ud be crowin’ ower him at not bein’ able to walk.  He’s allus agate o’ saucin our mester is yon—­he reckons he’s th’ owdest member o’ th’ Club, an’ my ‘usband he’s turned seventy, an’ he’s walked fifty-two times.  Ah, fifty-two times it were last Club Day, weren’t it, Martin?”

“It were,” agreed Martin, endorsing the statement with a nod; “but Robert, he says he’s walked fifty-two times, too, an’ he’s seventy-one last Lady-day, an’ so he reckons he’s th’ owdest member, an’ he’s ever an’ allus throwin’ it i’ my face.”

“Eh, sich a to-do as he mak’s about it you’d never believe,” put in the wife, “he’ll never let our Gaffer tak’ a bit o’ credit to hissel’—­eh, it’s terrible how he goes on!  I b’lieve if he were fair deein’ he’d get up an’ walk sooner nor let poor Martin ha’ th’ satisfaction o’ sayin’ he’d walked once oftener nor him.  An’ th’ folks has getten to laugh at ’em both, an’ to set ’em on, one agin th’ t’other.  At th’ dinner yonder, at th’ Thornleigh Arms, soombry ’ll allus get up an’ call for th’ ‘ealth o’ th’ owdest member, an’ then th’ two owd lads ‘ull get agate o’ bargin’ one another, an’ Upton folks ‘ull be backin’ up Martin, an’ th’ Thornleigh folks ’ull be backin’ up Robert, an’ they mak’ sich a din, they say as nobry can hear theirsel’s speak.”

The Doctor laughed loud and long.  “Well, it must be a drawn battle this year,” he said; “certainly Wainwright will not be able to go to the Club meeting unless he hops on one leg.”

With a cheery nod he withdrew, chuckling all the way downstairs; Mrs. Tyrer duly escorted him to the door, and then climbed slowly up again, every step creaking beneath her weight.  When she entered the sick room she found her husband drumming on the sheets with his fingers, and staring in front of him with a somewhat peculiar expression.