"Carry her at once to Verner's Pride--with all speed. And some of
you"--turning to the servants of the house--"hasten on, and get water
heated and blankets hot. Get hot bricks--get anything and everything
likely to be required. How did she get in?"

He appeared to speak the words more in the light of a wailing regret,
than as a question. It was a question that none present appeared able to
answer. The crowd was increasing rapidly. One of them suggested that
Broom the gamekeeper's cottage was nearer than Verner's Pride.

"But there will be neither hot water nor blankets there," returned
Frederick Massingbird.

"The house is the best. Make haste! don't let grass grow under your
feet."

"A moment," interposed a gentleman who now came hastily up, as they were
raising the body. "Lay her down again."

They obeyed him eagerly, and fell a little back that he might have space
to bend over her. It was the doctor of the neighbourhood, resident at
Deerham. He was a fine man in figure, dark and florid in face, but a
more impassive countenance could not well be seen, and he had the
peculiarity of rarely looking a person in the face. If a patient's eyes
were mixed on Dr. West's, Dr. West's were invariably fixed upon
something else. A clever man in his profession, holding an Edinburgh
degree, and practising as a general practitioner. He was brother to the
present Mrs. Verner; consequently, uncle to the two young Massingbirds.

"Has anybody got a match?" he asked.