“I’ London—­till to-morrow.  Yo’ll do nowt o’ t’ soart, doctor.”

“We shall see.  To carry him half a mile to the farm, when you might carry him just across that bridge to the house, would be sheer murder.  I won’t see it done.  And if you do it, you’ll be indicted for manslaughter.  Now then—­why doesn’t that hurdle come along?” The speaker looked impatiently up the road; and, as he spoke, a couple of labourers appeared at the top of the hill, carrying a hurdle between them.

Dixon threw looks of mingled wrath and perplexity at the doctor, and the men.

“I tell yo’, doctor, it conno’ be done!  Muster Melrose’s orders mun be obeyed.  I have noa power to admit onybody to his house withoot his leave.  Yo’ knaw yoursel’,” he added in the doctor’s ear, “what Muster Melrose is.”

Undershaw muttered something—­expressing either wrath or scorn—­behind his moustache; then said aloud: 

“Never you mind, Dixon; I shall take the responsibility.  You let me alone.  Now, my boys, lend a hand with the hurdle, and give me some coats.”

Faversham’s leg had been already placed in a rough splint and his head bandaged.  They lifted him, quite unconscious, upon the hurdle, and made him as comfortable as they could.  The doctor anxiously felt his pulse, and directed the men to carry him, as carefully as possible, through a narrow gate in the high wall opposite which was standing open, across the private foot-bridge over the stream, and so to the Terrace whereon stood Threlfall Tower.  Impenetrably hidden as it was behind the wall and the trees, the old house was yet, in truth, barely sixty yards away.  Dixon followed, lamenting and protesting, but in vain.

“Hold your tongue, man!” said Undershaw at last, losing his temper.  “You disgrace your master.  It would be a public scandal to refuse to help a man in this plight!  If we get him alive through to-night, it will be a mercy.  I believe the cart’s been over him somewhere!” he added, with a frowning brow.

Dixon silenced, but by no means persuaded, followed the little procession, till it reached a side door of the Tower, opening on the terrace just beyond the bridge.  The door was shut, and it was not till the doctor had made several thunderous attacks upon it, beside sending men round to the other doors of the house, that Mrs. Dixon at last cautiously opened it.

Fresh remonstrance and refusal followed on the part both of husband and wife.  Fresh determination also on the part of the doctor, seconded by the threatening looks and words of Faversham’s bearers, stout Cumbria labourers, to whom the storming of the Tower was clearly a business they enjoyed.  At last the old couple, bitterly protesting, gave way, and the procession entered.

They found themselves in a long corridor, littered with a strange multitude of objects, scarcely distinguishable in the dim light shed by one unshuttered window through which some of the evening glow still penetrated.  Dixon and his wife whispered excitedly together; after which Dixon led the way through the corridor into the entrance hall—­which was equally encumbered—­and so to a door on the right.