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Page 26
Within eighteen or twenty minutes they were a good four miles from
Nuthill and nearing the gap in the high ridge through which one looked
out over the Sussex weald from Desdemona's cave. In another couple of
minutes the Master was on the ground beside Betty, and Punch, with the
nonchalance of his kind, was nosing the turf, as though to distract
attention from his hard breathing. The gallop had been mostly up-hill.
Betty was genuinely glad to welcome her visitors, for she had already
spent several hours in the chalky hollow where she now sat; the evening
air was cold, and Betty was in some pain. Clambering on the steep
Downside below Desdemona's cave, she had trodden on a loose piece of
chalk, her ankle had twisted as the chalk rolled, and Betty had fallen,
with a sharp cry of pain, quite unable to put her injured foot to the
ground. For a long while neither she nor Jan had thought of any way of
obtaining assistance.
"Then I thought of sending a message by Jan," said Betty, in explaining
matters to the Master, after she had been given a sip from his flask,
which brought some color back to her pale lips. "I told him again and
again to go home, waving my arm and trying hard to drive him off on the
way. But he would only go backward a few yards, and then return to me. I
had almost given it up when the thought came into my head that I ought
to have had pencil and paper, and been able to tie a note to his collar.
But I thought my handkerchief would do just as well, without any
writing. I was on the point of calling Jan to me again, so that I could
tie my handkerchief to his collar, when, quite suddenly, he also had a
brilliant idea. You could see it plainly in his face. He had suddenly
realized what I wanted. He gave one bark, blundered up against my
shoulder, tore my hair-net by the hurried lick he gave me, and was off
like the wind for Nuthill. It really was most odd the way the
inspiration came to him."
The Master nodded agreement. "It was extraordinarily intelligent for an
untrained pup of six months. I doubt if either his father or his mother
would have had wit enough for that at the same age. Very few dogs
would."
After another little sip of brandy Betty was lifted carefully into the
saddle and, Jan and the Master pacing beside him, Punch began the
homeward journey. Jan was quite sedate again now, but he had fussed
about a good deal, upon first arrival at the hollow, in his capacity as
guide and messenger. An hour later and Betty was comfortably settled on
the big couch beside the hall fire at Nuthill, and very shortly after
that Dr. Vaughan was in attendance, so that when tea came to be handed
round everybody's mind was at ease again. The doctor was for giving Jan
a share of his plum cake as a reward for meritorious conduct. But Betty
would have none of this.
"I'm surprised at you, Doctor," said Betty. "Bad habits and an impaired
digestion as a reward for heroism! Never! Extra meat, and an
extra-choice bone at supper-time, if you like; but no plum cake for my
Jan boy, if I know it."
But this sensible decision did not prevent Jan being made much of by the
whole household that evening; and partly by way of compliment, and in
part because Betty could not go to the stable, he was promoted to
grown-up privileges and allowed to take his supper in the porch that
night beside his father. Upon showing a casual inclination to
investigate his sire's supper-dish, he was firmly but good-humoredly put
into his place by the wolfhound. Upon the whole, Jan bore his new honors
well during this his first evening spent in a house. No doubt he
received useful hints from Finn. In any case, it was decided next
morning, by the Master's full consent, that from this time on, subject
to his proper behavior, Jan need not again be sent to his bench in the
stable.
XIV
WITH REFERENCE TO DICK VAUGHAN
One might search the English villages through without finding another
such medical practitioner as Dr. Vaughan, the man who dressed Betty
Murdoch's sprained ankle. For example, he was a Fellow of the Royal
Society, and the records of his original-research work won respectful
attention in at least four languages. When he inherited Upcroft (the
estate which flanks Nuthill to the eastward) and decided to establish
himself there, it certainly was not with any idea of playing the general
practitioner. But, as the event proved, he was given small choice. For
Sussex this district is curiously remote. It contains a few scattered
large houses, and outside these the population is made up of small
farmers and shepherds, very good fellows, most of them, but not at all
typical of home-county residents, and having more than a little in
common with the dalesmen of the north country. Their nearest resident
medical practitioner, before Dr. Vaughan came, was eight miles away, in
Lewes.
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