“That was not till this morning, doctor.  It is not an hour since I ate it.”

“This broth will be better for you, and I daresay you can manage another breakfast.  Sit down and take it, at once, while it is hot.  I am in no hurry.”

He gave an order in Russian to the soldier, who went out, and returned in a few minutes with a small wooden tub, filled with hot water.  By this time Charlie had finished the broth.  The doctor then bathed his head for some time in hot water, but was obliged to cut off some of his hair, in order to remove the bandage.  As he examined the wound, Charlie was astounded to hear him mutter to himself: 

“It is a mighty nate clip you have got, my boy; and, if your skull had not been a thick one, it is lying out there on the turf you would be.”

Charlie burst into a fit of laughter.

“So you are English, too,” he exclaimed, as he looked up into the surgeon’s face.

“At laste Irish, my boy,” the doctor said, as surprised as Charlie had been.  “To think we should have been talking Swedish to each other, instead of our native tongue.  And what is your name?  And what is it you are doing here, as a Swede, at all?”

“My name is Charles Carstairs.  I come from Lancashire, just on the borders of Westmoreland.  My father is a Jacobite, and so had to leave the country.  He went over to Sweden, and I, with some friends of his, got commissions.”

“Then our cases are pretty much alike,” the doctor said.  “I had gone through Dublin University, and had just passed as a surgeon, when King James landed.  It didn’t much matter to me who was king, but I thought it was a fine opportunity to study gunshot wounds, so I joined the royal army, and was at the battle of the Boyne.  I had plenty of work with wounds, early in the day, but when, after the Irish had fairly beat the Dutchman back all day, they made up their minds to march away at night, I had to lave my patients and be off too.  Then I was shut up in Limerick; and I was not idle there, as you may guess.  When at last the surrender came, I managed to slip away, having no fancy for going over with the regiments that were to enter the service of France.  I thought I could have gone back to Dublin, and that no one would trouble about me; but someone put them up to it, and I had to go without stopping to ask leave.  I landed at Bristol, and there, for a time, was nearly starving.

“I was well nigh my wits’ end as to what to do for a living, and had just spent my last shilling, when I met an English captain, who told me that across at Gottenburg there were a good many Irish and Scotchmen who had, like myself, been in trouble at home.  He gave me a passage across, and took me to the house of a man he knew.  Of course, it was no use my trying to doctor people, when they could not tell me what was the matter with them, and I worked at one thing and another, doing anything I could turn my hands to, for four or five months.  That is how I got