Two Robins rang the night-bell, I was just thinking of going to
bed. Naturally enough, I did not believe a word of his story about
'a dead man who had come to life again.' However, I put on my hat,
armed myself with one or two bottles of restorative medicine, and
ran to the Inn, expecting to find nothing more remarkable, when I
got there, than a patient in a fit.

My surprise at finding that the man had spoken the literal truth
was almost, if not quite, equalled by my astonishment at finding
myself face to face with Arthur Holliday as soon as I entered the
bedroom. It was no time then for giving or seeking explanations.
We just shook hands amazedly; and then I ordered everybody but
Arthur out of the room, and hurried to the man on the bed.

The kitchen fire had not been long out. There was plenty of hot
water in the boiler, and plenty of flannel to be had. With these,
with my medicines, and with such help as Arthur could render under
my direction, I dragged the man, literally, out of the jaws of
death. In less than an hour from the time when I had been called
in, he was alive and talking in the bed on which he had been laid
out to wait for the Coroner's inquest.

You will naturally ask me, what had been the matter with him; and I
might treat you, in reply, to a long theory, plentifully sprinkled
with, what the children call, hard words. I prefer telling you
that, in this case, cause and effect could not be satisfactorily
joined together by any theory whatever. There are mysteries in
life, and the condition of it, which human science has not fathomed
yet; and I candidly confess to you, that, in bringing that man back
to existence, I was, morally speaking, groping haphazard in the