a, wheels grated on the gravel ...
all were gone! The butler shut the door, and John went to the library
fire.

There his mother found him. She saw that something was seriously the
matter. He was helped up to bed, and the doctor was sent for. A bad
attack of pleurisy. John was rolled up in an enormous mustard
plaster--mustard and cayenne pepper; it bit into the flesh. He roared
with pain; he was slightly delirious; he cursed those around him, using
blasphemous language.

For more than a week he suffered. He lay bent over, unable to
straighten himself, as if a nerve had been wound up too tightly in the
left side. He was fed on gruel and beef-tea, the room was kept very
warm; it was not until the twelfth day that he was taken out of bed.

"You have had a narrow escape," the doctor said to John, who, well
wrapped up, lay back, looking very weak and pale, before a blazing fire.
"It was very lucky I was sent for. Twenty-four hours later I would not
have answered for your life."

"I was delirious, was I not?"

"Yes, slightly; you cursed and swore fearfully at us when we rolled you
up in the mustard plaster.... Well, it was very hot, and must have burnt
you."

"Yes, it was; it has scarcely left a bit of skin on me. But did I use
very bad language? I suppose I could not help it.... I was delirious,
was I not?"

"Yes, slightly."

"Yes; but I remember, and if I remember right, I used very bad
language; and people when they are really delirious do not know what
they say. Is not that so, doctor?"

"If they are really delirious they do not remember, but you were only
slightly delirious ... you were maddened by the pain occasioned by the
pungency of the plaster."

"Yes; but do you think I knew what I was saying?"

"You must have known what you were saying, because you remember what you
said."

"But could I be held accountable for what I said?"

"Accountable.... Well, I hardly know what you mean. You were certainly
not in the full possession of your senses. Your mother (Mrs Norton) was
very much shocked, but I told her that you were not accountable for what
you said."

"Then I could not be held accountable, I did not know what I was
saying."

"I don't think you did exactly; people in a passion don't know what
they say!"

"Ah! yes, but we are answerable for sins committed in the heat of
passion: we should restrain our passion; we were wrong in the first
instance in giving way to passion.... But I was ill, it was