“Doctor, shall I live to finish the bust?” said Henry, piteously.

“That and hundreds more, if you obey me.  The fact is, Mr. Cheetham, this young man is not hurt, but his nerves have received a severe shock; and the sooner he is out of this place the better.  Ah, there is my brougham at the gate.  Come, put him into it, and I’ll take him to the infirmary.”

“No,” said Little, “I won’t go there; my mother would hear of it.”

“Oh, then your mother is not to know?”

“Not for all the world!  She has had trouble enough.  I’ll just wash my face and buy a clean shirt, and she’ll never know what has happened.  It would kill her.  Oh, yes, it would kill her!”

The doctor eyed him with warm approval.  “You are a fine young fellow.  I’ll see you safe through this, and help you throw dust in your mother’s eyes.  If you go to her with that scratched face, we are lost.  Come, get into my carriage, and home with me.”

“Mayn’t I wash my face first?  And look at my shirt:  as black as a cinder.”

“Wash your face, by all means:  but you can button your coat over your shirt.”

The coat was soon brought, and so was a pail of water and a piece of yellow soap.  Little dashed his head and face into the bucket, and soon inked all the water.  The explosion had filled his hair with black dust, and grimed his face and neck like a sweep’s.  This ablution made him clean, but did not bring back his ruddy color.  He looked pale and scratched.

The men helped him officiously into the carriage, though he could have walked very well alone.

Henry asked leave to buy a clean shirt.  The doctor said he would lend him one at home.

While Henry was putting it on Dr. Amboyne ordered his dog-cart instead of his brougham, and mixed some medicines.  And soon Henry found himself seated in the dog-cart, with a warm cloak over him, and whisking over the stones of Hillsborough.

All this had been done so rapidly and unhesitatingly that Henry, injured and shaken as he was, had yielded passive obedience.  But now he began to demur a little.  “But where are we going, sir?” he asked.

“To change the air and the scene.  I’ll be frank with you—­you are man enough to bear the truth—­you have received a shock that will very likely bring on brain-fever, unless you get some sleep tonight.  But you would not sleep in Hillsborough.  You’d wake a dozen times in the night, trembling like an aspen leaf, and fancying you were blown up again.”

“Yes, but my mother, sir!  If I don’t go home at seven o’clock, she’ll find me out.”

“If you went crazy wouldn’t she find you out?  Come, my young friend, trust to my experience, and to the interest this attempt to murder you, and your narrow escape, have inspired in me.  When I have landed you in the Temple of Health, and just wasted a little advice on a pig-headed patient in the neighborhood (he is the squire of the place), I’ll drive back to Hillsborough, and tell your mother some story or other:  you and I will concoct that together as we go.”