ng in a bitterly cold room, with the
fire gone out, and the spark of his life not very far from following it.
Mr. Mordacks was gone for the day upon business, after leaving strict
orders that a good fire must be kept, and many other things attended to.
But the chimney took to smoking, and the patient to coughing, and the
landlady opened the window wide, and the fire took flight into the upper
air. Sir Duncan hated nothing more than any fuss about himself. He
had sent a man to Scarborough for a little chest of clothes, for his
saddle-kit was exhausted; and having promised Mordacks that he would not
quit the house, he had nothing to do except to meditate and shiver.

Gil Beilby's wife Nell, coming up to take orders for dinner, "got a
dreadful turn" from what she saw, and ran down exclaiming that the very
best customer that ever drew their latch was dead. Without waiting to
think, the landlord sent a most urgent message for Dr. Stirbacks.
That learned man happened to be round the corner, although he lived at
Bempton; he met the messenger, cast to the winds all sense of wrong, and
rushed to the succor of humanity.

That night, when the general factor returned, with the hunger excited
by feeding the hungry, he was met at the door by Dr. Stirbacks, saying,
"Hush, my good sir," before he had time to think of speaking. "You!"
cried Mr. Mordacks, having met this gentleman when Rickon Goold was near
his last. "You! Then it must be bad indeed!"

"It is bad, and it must have been all over, sir, but for my being
providentially at the cheese shop. I say nothing to wound any
gentleman's feelings who thinks that he understands everything; but our
poor patient, with the very best meaning, no doubt, has been all but
murdered."

"Dr. Stirbacks, you have got him now, and of course you will make the
best of him. Don't let him slip through your fingers, doctor; he is much
too good for that."

"He shall not slip through my fingers," said the little doctor, with
a twinkle of self-preservation. "I have got him, sir, and I shall keep
him, sir; and you ought to have put him in my hands long ago."

The sequel of this needs no detail. Dr. Stirbacks came three times a
day; and without any disrespect to the profession, it must be admitted
that he earned his fees. For Sir Duncan's case was a very strange one,
and beyond the best wisdom of the laity. If that chill had struck upon
him when his spirit was as usual, he might have cast it off, and go