The young man opened his eyes and smiled bravely.

“Yes, there’s Thursa,” he said simply.

Pearl kept the fire burning in the kitchen—­the doctor might need hot water.  She remembered that he had needed sheets too, and carbolic acid, when he had operated on her father the winter before.

Arthur did not speak much as the night wore on, and Pearl began to grow drowsy in spite of all her efforts.  She brought the old dog into the granary with her for company.  The wind rattled the mud chinking in the walls and drove showers of dust and gravel against the little window.  She had put the lantern behind the fanning mill, so that its light would not shine in Arthur’s eyes, and in the semi-darkness, she and old Nap waited and listened.  The dog soon laid his head upon her knee and slept, and Pearl was left alone to watch.  Surely the doctor would come soon...it was a good thing she had the dog...he was so warm beside her, and...

She sprang up guiltily.  Had she been asleep...what if he had passed while she slept...she grew cold at the thought.

“Did he pass, Nap?” she whispered to the dog, almost crying.  “Oh Nap, did we let him go past?”

Nap yawned widely and flicked one ear, which was his way of telling Pearl not to distress herself.  Nobody had passed.

Pearl’s eyes were heavy with sleep.

“This is not the time to sleep,” she said, yawning and shivering.  Arthur’s wash-basin stood on the floor beside the bed, where she had been bathing his face.  She put more water into it.

“Now then,” she said, “once for his mother, once for his father, a big long one for Thursa,” holding her head so long below the water that it felt numb, when she took it out.  “I can’t do one for each of the boys,” she shivered, “I’ll lump the boys, here’s a big one for them.”

“There now,” her teeth chattered as she wiped her hair on Arthur’s towel, “that ought to help some.”

Arthur opened his eyes and looked anxiously around him.  Pearl was beside him at once.

“Pearl,” he said, “what is wrong with me?  What terrible pain is this that has me in its clutches?” The strength had gone out of the man, he could no longer battle with it.

Pearl hesitated.  It is not well to tell sick people your gravest fears.  “Still Arthur is English, and the English are gritty,” Pearl thought to herself.

“Arthur,” she said, “I think you have appendicitis.”

Arthur lay motionless for a few moments.  He knew what that was.

“But that requires an operation,” he said at length, “a very skilful one.”

“It does,” Pearl replied, “and that’s what you’ll get as soon as Dr. Clay gets here, I’m thinking.”

Arthur turned his face into his pillow.  An operation for appendicitis, here, in this place, and by that young man, no older than himself perhaps?  He knew that at home, it was only undertaken by the oldest and best surgeons in the hospitals.