ne to sleep
with a wind like that but a man who has been bred and born at sea,
or on the South Downs.

Lilian and I were talking over our new winter dresses, when there
come a knock at the side door, not nigh so loud as some of the
noises the wind made, but not being used to it, uncle sat up, wide
awake, and said, 'Hark!' In a minute it come again, and then I went
to the door and opened it a bit. There was some one outside who
began to speak as soon as he saw the light, but I could not hear
what he said for the roaring of the wind, and the cracking of the
trees outside.

'Shut that door!' uncle shouted from the parlour. 'Let the dog in,
whatever he is, and let him tell his tale this side the oak.'

So I let him in and shut the door after him, and I had better have
shut to the lid of my own coffin after me.

Him that I let in was dripping wet, and all spent with fighting the
wind on these Downs, where it is like a lion roaring for its prey,
and will go nigh to kill you, if you fight it long enough. He leaned
against the wall and said--

'I have lost my way, and I have had a nasty fall. I think there is
something wrong with my arm--hollow--slip--light--hospitality beg
your pardon, I'm sure,' and with that he fainted dead off on the
cocoanut matting at my feet.

Uncle came out when I screamed, and we got the stranger in and put
him on the big couch by the fire. Uncle was nursing up with one of
his bad attacks of bronchitis, the same thing that carried him off
in the end, and the first thing he said when he'd felt the poor
chap's arm down was--

'This is a bad break. Which of you girls will go and wake one of the
waggoners to fetch Doctor from Felscombe?'

'I will,' I said.

But before I went I got out the port wine and the brandy, and bade
Lilian rub his hands a bit, and be sure she didn't let him see her
looking frightened when he come to.

Why did I do that? Because the Lord made me to be a fool--giving him
her pretty face to be the first thing he looked at when he come to
after that long, dreary spell on the Downs, and that black journey
into the strange place where people go to when they faint.

But everything that there was of me ached to be of some use to him.
So I went, and once outside the door it seemed easier to take Brown
Bess and go myself to Felscombe than to rouse the waggoners, who
were but sleepy and slow-headed at the best of times. So I saddled
Brown Bess myself and started.

It was but