They staggered along down the lane, climbing once over a tree which lay across the lane and far into the adjoining field.  Soon they were joined by more of the villagers, roused from their beds by rumours of terrible happenings.  The little, single-storey, ivy-covered inn was all lit up and the door held firmly open.  They passed through the narrow entrance and into the stone-flagged barroom, where the men laid down their stretcher.  As many of the villagers as could crowd in filled the passage.  Gerald sank into a chair.  The sudden absence of wind was almost disconcerting.  He felt himself once more in danger of fainting.  He was only vaguely conscious of drinking hot milk, poured from a jug by a red-faced and sympathetic woman.  Its restorative effect, however, was immediate and wonderful.  The mist cleared from before his eyes, his brain began to work.  Always in the background the horror and the shame were there, the shame which kept his hand pressed with unnatural strength upon the broken lock of that dressing-case.  He sat a little apart from the others and listened.  Above the confused murmur of voices he could hear the doctor’s comment and brief orders, as he rose to his feet after examining the unconscious man.

“An ordinary concussion,” he declared.  “I must get round and see the engine-driver now.  They have got him in a shed by the embankment.  I’ll call in again later on.  Let’s have one more look at you, young man.”

He glanced at the cut on Gerald’s forehead, noted the access of colour in his cheeks, and nodded.

“Born to be hanged, you were,” he pronounced.  “You’ve had a marvellous escape.  I’ll be in again presently.  No need to worry about your friend.  He looks as though he’d got a mighty constitution.  Light my lantern, Brown.  Two of you had better come with me to the shed.  It’s no night for a man to be wandering about alone.”

He departed, and many of the villagers with him.  The landlady sat down and began to weep.

“Such a night!  Such a night!” she exclaimed, wringing her hands.  “And there’s the doctor talks about putting the poor gentleman to bed!  Why, the roof’s off the back part of the house, and not a bedroom in the place but mine and John’s, and the rain coming in there in torrents.  Such a night!  It’s the judgment of the Lord upon us!  That’s what it is—­the judgment of the Lord!”

“Judgment of the fiddlesticks!” her husband growled.  “Can’t you light the fire, woman?  What’s the good of sitting there whining?”

“Light the fire,” she repeated bitterly, “and the chimney lying out in the road!  Do you want to suffocate us all, or is the beer still in your head?  It’s your evil doings, Richard Budden, and others like you, that have brought this upon us.  If Mr. Wembley would but come in and pray!”

Her husband scoffed.  He was dressed only in his shirt and trousers, his hair rough, his braces hanging down behind.