away, and he gradually acquiesced in his identity.  Then, little by little, the irrepressible gossip, jocularity, and ballad minstrelsy were heard again, his little eyes danced, and his waggish smiles glowed once more, ruddy as a setting sun, through the nectarian vapours of the punch-bowl.  The ghosts of Pell and Rogerson fled to their cold dismal shades, and little Tom Toole was his old self again for a month to come.

‘Your most obedient, gentlemen—­your most obedient,’ said Toole, bowing and taking their hands graciously in the hall—­’a darkish evening, gentlemen.’

‘And how does your patient, doctor?’ enquired Major O’Neil.

The doctor closed his eyes, and shook his head slowly, with a gentle shrug.

’He’s in a bad case, major.  There’s little to be said, and that little, Sir, not told in a moment,’ answered Toole, and took snuff.

‘How’s Sturk, Sir?’ repeated the silver spectacles, a little sternly.

’Well, Sir, he’s not dead; but, by your leave, had we not better go into the parlour, eh?—­’tis a little chill, and, as I said, ’tis not all told in a moment—­he’s not dead, though, that’s the sum of it—­you first, pray proceed, gentlemen.’

Dangerfield grimly took him at his word; but the polite major got up a little ceremonious tussle with Toole in the hall.  However, it was no more than a matter of half-a-dozen bows and waves of the hand, and ‘after you, Sir;’ and Toole entered, and after a general salutation in the style of Doctor Pell, he established himself upon the hearth-stone, with his back to the fire, as a legitimate oracle.

Toole was learned, as he loved to be among the laity on such occasions, and was in no undue haste to bring his narrative to a close.  But the gist of the matter was this—­Sturk was labouring under concussion of the brain, and two terrific fractures of the skull—­so long, and lying so near together, that he and Doctor Pell instantly saw ’twould be impracticable to apply the trepan, in fact that ’twould be certain and instantaneous death.  He was absolutely insensible, but his throat was not yet palsied, and he could swallow a spoonful of broth or sack whey from time to time.  But he was a dead man to all intents and purposes.  Inflammation might set in at any moment; at best he would soon begin to sink, and neither he nor Doctor Pell thought he had the smallest chance of awaking from his lethargy for one moment.  He might last two or three days, or even a week—­what did it signify?—­what was he better than a corpse already?  He could never hear, see, speak, or think again; and for any difference it could possibly make to poor Sturk, they might clap him in his grave and cover him up to-night.

Then the talk turned upon Nutter.  Every man had his theory or his conjecture but Dangerfield, who maintained a discreet reserve, much to the chagrin of the others, who thought, not without reason, that he knew more about the state of his affairs, and especially of his relations with Lord Castlemallard, than perhaps all the world beside.