an ower-come sooth
For age and youth,
And it brooks wi' nae denial,
That the oldest friends
Are the dearest friends,
And the new are just on trial."

Flint was glad enough on reaching the inn to creep into bed. In spite
of his cross-country run he was chilled through. Little shivers ran
down his back, and his hands and feet seemed separated by spaces of
numbness from the warmth of his body. The brandy arrived, and he
swallowed some eagerly; but it had little effect on his chilly apathy.
The dinner-bell clanged below. Flint heard it, but he paid no heed to
the summons. He had forgotten what it was to desire food. A blur
before his eyes, and an iron band about his head, occupied his
attention to the exclusion of the outside world.

By three o'clock the headache-fiend had entered into full possession,
had perched itself in the centre of consciousness, and seemed to
Flint's excited nerves to be working its octopus claws in and out
among the folds of his brain.

Waves of pain vibrated outward to his ears and eyes. He watched the
shade against the blindless window flap to and fro. Each streak of
light admitted, struck the sufferer like a blow. He got up, went to
the washbasin and sopped a towel, which he bound about his head and
lay down again--no relief. He could endure it no longer. He dropped
his boots one after the other on the floor, till at length Marsden
heard the signal of distress, came lumbering up the stairs, and
thumped upon his door.

Flint bade him come in and state in the fewest possible words whether
there was any doctor within reach.

"There was."

"How long would it take to fetch him?"

"About half an hour."

"Let it be done."

Again Flint sank into a sort of stupor, from which he was awakened by
a knock, and the entrance of a nervous, little wiry gentleman whose
clothes of rusty black had the effect of having been purchased in a
fit of absence of mind.

The sufferer roused himself as the physician came in.

"The doctor?"

"Yes."

"My name is Flint, and I sent for you to give me a dose of morphine."

"My name, sir, is Cricket, and I'm damned if I do any such thing."

"Why did they send for you then?"

"They sent for me to see what I thought you needed--not to take your
orders for a drug. I am not an apothecary."

"More's the pity!" returned Flint, flouncing across to the in