The best medicine that physician ever compounded could not have done me half so much good as her words and her look. "I am very little hurt indeed, Bessy," I answered. "A little blood makes a great show, and it all comes from my arm, which will be well, I dare say, in a couple of days."
"Only your arm, only your arm," she said. "Oh, Richard, do not deceive me."
"I do not indeed," I answered; "it is only my arm. Ask Mr. Wheatley."
"But you are so pale," she continued; "you may bleed to death. Henry, get a horse directly, and gallop over to Jerusalem, tell Doctor Christy to come here without a moment's delay. Say, Sir Richard Conway is badly wounded. Come to your room, Richard; I can stop the blood--I think, I hope. I am somewhat of a surgeon amongst the servants," she added, with a faint smile. "Come this way, for all the boys are in the hall."
And she led me by a small staircase, which, passing at the back of her own room into which there was a door from the landing, opened by another door upon the main corridor.
I was soon in my own room, and seated in the arm chair, with Mr. Byles, Mr. Wheatley, Zed, and Bessy around me. Nothing could persuade the beautiful girl to go. In spite of all we could say, she would see the wound herself, and treat it after her fashion, which, I must say, she did with considerable skill. My coat was taken off, the sleeves stripped up, and though I could see her give a shudder when the blood spouted forth, on the bandage being removed, she did not lose her firmness for a moment.
"Now tie it round tight again, tie it round tight again," she cried to Mr. Wheatley who had unfastened the bandage to remove my coat. "Zed, run into my room, and get two or three handkerchiefs. Juno will give them to you."
"Plenty of handkerchiefs here, Miss Bessy," said Zed, handing her some from my portmanteau; and, taking one of them, she folded it several times. Then placing it on the wound, she bound another tightly over, so as to act as a compress, and watched in deep silence for a minute or two to see if it would have the effect she wished. The blood oozed through after a time, but very slowly; and, with a sigh, as if of relief, she said,--
"That will do, Richard. It will not bleed much or long now; but you must sit quite quiet till the surgeon comes."