About the time the flag was run up on the tower at Stornham Court a carter, driving whistling on the road near the deserted cottage, was hailed by a man who was walking slowly a few yards ahead of him.  The carter thought that he was a tramp, as his clothes were plainly in bad case, which seeing, his answer was an unceremonious grunt, and it certainly did not occur to him to touch his forehead.  A minute later, however, he “got a start,” as he related afterwards.  The tramp was a gentleman whose riding costume was torn and muddied, and who looked “gashly,” though he spoke with the manner and authority which Binns, the carter, recognised as that of one of the “gentry” addressing a day-labourer.

“How far is it from here to Medham?” he inquired.

“Medham be about four mile, sir,” was the answer.  “I be carryin’ these ’taters there to market.”

“I want to get there.  I have met with an accident.  My horse took fright at a pheasant starting up rocketting under his nose.  He threw me into a hedge and bolted.  I’m badly enough bruised to want to reach a town and see a doctor.  Can you give me a lift?”

“That I will, sir, ready enough,” making room on the seat beside him.  “You be bruised bad, sir,” he said sympathetically, as his passenger climbed to his place, with a twisted face and uttering blasphemies under his breath.

“Damned badly,” he answered.  “No bones broken, however.”

“That cut on your cheek and neck’ll need plasterin’, sir.”

“That’s a scratch.  Thorn bush,” curtly.

Sympathy was plainly not welcome.  In fact Binns was soon of the opinion that here was an ugly customer, gentleman or no gentleman.  A jolting cart was, however, not the best place for a man who seemed sore from head to foot, and done for out and out.  He sat and ground his teeth, as he clung to the rough seat in the attempt to steady himself.  He became more and more “gashly,” and a certain awful light in his eyes alarmed the carter by leaping up at every jolt.  Binns was glad when he left him at Medham Arms, and felt he had earned the half-sovereign handed to him.

Four days Anstruthers lay in bed in a room at the Inn.  No one saw him but the man who brought him food.  He did not send for a doctor, because he did not wish to see one.  He sent for such remedies as were needed by a man who had been bruised by a fall from his horse.  He made no remark which could be considered explanatory, after he had said irritably that a man was a fool to go loitering along on a nervous brute who needed watching.  Whatsoever happened was his own damned fault.

Through hours of day and night he lay staring at the whitewashed beams or the blue roses on the wall paper.  They were long hours, and filled with things not pleasant enough to dwell on in detail.  Physical misery which made a man writhe at times was not the worst part of them.  There were a thousand things less endurable.  More than once he foamed at the mouth, and recognised that he gibbered like a madman.