knew how; just to stanch the flow of blood, until we could get a doctor.
Then I gave him a little weak brandy and water, which he drank with the
greatest eagerness, and made sign to me for more of it. But not knowing
how far it was right to give cordial under the circumstances, I handed
him unmixed water that time; thinking that he was too far gone to
perceive the difference. But herein I wrong Tom Faggus; for he shook his
head and frowned at me. Even at the door of death, he would not drink
what Adam drank, by whom came death into the world. So I gave him a
little more eau-de-vie, and he took it most submissively.

After that he seemed better, and a little colour came into his cheeks;
and he looked at Winnie and knew her; and would have her nose in his
clammy hand, though I thought it not good for either of them. With the
stay of my arm he sat upright, and faintly looked about him; as if at
the end of a violent dream, too much for his power of mind. Then he
managed to whisper, "Is Winnie hurt?"

"As sound as a roach," I answered. "Then so am I," said he: "put me upon
her back, John; she and I die together."

Surprised as I was at this fatalism (for so it appeared to me), of which
he had often shown symptoms before (but I took them for mere levity),
now I knew not what to do; for it seemed to me a murderous thing to set
such a man on horseback; where he must surely bleed to death, even if he
could keep the saddle. But he told me, with many breaks and pauses,
that unless I obeyed his orders, he would tear off all my bandages, and
accept no further aid from me.

While I was yet hesitating, a storm of horse at full gallop went by,
tearing, swearing, bearing away all the country before them. Only a
little pollard hedge kept us from their blood-shot eyes. "Now is the
time," said my cousin Tom, so far as I could make out his words; "on
their heels, I am safe, John, if I have only Winnie under me. Winnie and
I die together."

Seeing this strong bent of his mind, stronger than any pains of death,
I even did what his feeble eyes sometimes implored, and sometimes
commanded. With a strong sash, from his own hot neck, bound and twisted,
tight as wax, around his damaged waist, I set him upon Winnie's back,
and placed his trembling feet in stirrups, with a band from one to
another, under the good mare's body; so that no swerve could throw him
out: and then I said, "Lean forward, Tom; it will stop your hurt from
bleeding." He l