"Ralph! that you?" came from a short distance in his rear.

"Yes, yes, quick!" cried the lad faintly; and he staggered on now, to find himself a minute later in his father's arms.

"Why, Ralph, boy, what does this mean? I have half-a-dozen men out hunting for you."

"I'll--I'll tell you presently," panted the lad, who was bathed in sweat. "Draw your sword, and be on your guard. Some one has been following me this last half-hour."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Be on your guard."

"Not fancy, is it, my boy?" said Sir Morton, rather doubtfully.

There was a sharp rustling sound, and a foot kicked a stone, as its owner was evidently retreating fast.

"Humph! Then some one has been following you.--Hallo, there! stop!"

"Hoi! hillo!" came from a distance in answer.

"Quick!" said Sir Morton. "This way, man. Found--found!"

The cliffs echoed the words, and Sir Morton took the lad's arm and pressed it firmly--fortunately the left.

"I beg your pardon, Ralph. I thought you were scared by the darkness of the wood. Some one was after you; but it would be folly to try and catch him in this gloomy place. Why, what's the matter, boy? you are reeling about. Feel faint?"

"Yes," panted the lad heavily. "I have been fighting--wounded. Help me, please."

Sir Morton Darley pa.s.sed his arm under his son's, and helped him quickly along; a whistle brought Nick Garth and another man to his side; and the former carried the lad right up the slope to the entrance of the castle, where a little rest and refreshment recovered the sufferer sufficiently to enable him to relate why he had brought back no fish, a task he had hardly ended, when Master Rayburn entered to dress his second patient's arm.

"We must put an end to such alarms as this, Master Rayburn," said Sir Morton angrily.

"Ay; and the sooner the better," cried that gentleman, as he carefully re-bandaged the lad's hurt.--"I wonder," he said to himself, "whether Ralph has told him how he obtained his wound? Is this the beginning of the end?"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

WHAT SIR MORTON SAID.

Master Rayburn, the old scholar, angler, and, in a small way, naturalist, had no pretensions to being either physician or surgeon; but there was neither within a day's journey, and in the course of a long career, he had found out that in ordinary cases nature herself is the great curer of ills. He had noticed how animals, if suffering from injuries, would keep the place clean with their tongues, and curl up and rest till the wounds healed; that if they suffered from over-eating they would starve themselves till they grew better; that at certain times of the year they would, if carnivorous creatures, eat gra.s.s, or, if herbivorous, find a place where the rock-salt which lay amongst the gypsum was laid bare, and lick it; and that even the birds looked out for lime at egg-laying time to form sh.e.l.l, and swallowed plenty of tiny stones to help their digestion.

He was his own doctor when he was unwell, which, with his healthy, abstemious, open-air life, was not often; and by degrees the people for miles round found out that he made decoctions of herbs--camomile and dandelion, foxglove, rue, and agrimony, which had virtues of their own.

He it was who cured Dan Rugg of that affection which made the joints of his toes and fingers grow stiff, by making him sit for an hour a day, holding hands and feet in the warm water which gushed out of one part of the cliff to run into the river, and coated sticks and stones with a hard stony sh.e.l.l, not unlike the fur found in an old tin kettle.

He knew that if a man broke a leg, arm, or rib, and the bones were laid carefully in their places, and bandaged so that they could not move, nature would make bony matter ooze from the broken ends and gradually harden, forming a k.n.o.b, perhaps, at the joining, but making the place grow up stronger than ever; and it took no great amount of gumption to grasp the fact that what was good for a cut finger was equally good for arm, head, leg, or thigh; that is to say, to wash the bleeding wound clean, lay the cut edges together, and sew and bandage them so that they kept in place. With a healthy person, nature did all the rest, and Master Rayburn laughed good-humouredly to himself as he found that he got all the credit.

"Nature doesn't mind," he used to say to one or other of the lads.

"There's no vanity there, my boys; but I'm not half so clever as they think."

But let that be as it may, Master Rayburn mended Dummy Rugg when he fell from top to bottom of the steep slope leading down into the lead-mine, getting thereby very much broken, the worst injury being a crack in his skull. He "cobbled up," as he called it, a number of other injuries which happened to the men by pieces of rock falling upon them, slips of the steel picks, chops from axes, and cuts from scythes and reaping-hooks, the misfortunes of the men who toiled in the woods and fields.

If a regular physician or surgeon had come there, the people would have laughed at him, so great was their faith in Master Rayburn, who did his best for the people, and never asked for payment. In fact, his patients never thought of offering it to him in money, but they were not ungrateful, all the same. Indeed, he used to protest against the numbers of presents he was always receiving, the women bringing him pats of b.u.t.ter, little mugs of cream, and the best of their apples and potatoes; and their husbands never killed a pig without taking something to Master Rayburn for the kind actions which he had performed.

It fell out then, as quite a matter of course, that he went on treating Ralph Darley for the little hole in his arm, beneath the shoulder joint, and that he also dressed and bandaged Mark Eden's thigh, so that the injuries went on healing rapidly.

It was known, too, at the Cliff Castle and the Black Tor that he was treating both, but the Edens never mentioned the Darleys, nor the Darleys the Edens, the amateur surgeon saying nothing at either place; and the wounds got better day by day.

"I wish I could heal the old sore as easily," the old man said to himself; "but that wants a bigger doctor than I."

Master Rayburn believed in the old saw, that a still tongue maketh a wise head, and he waited.

But in the meantime Ralph had told his father everything about his encounter, and waited afterwards to hear what his father said. In due time he did say something, but it was not to the effect that Mark Eden had behaved very gallantly in helping his son, and _vice versa_, that his son had shown a fine spirit in forgetting family enmity, and fighting against a common enemy. He only frowned, and said, "Humph!"

He said something more, though upon another occasion, when, in obedience to Master Rayburn's orders, Ralph was keeping quiet at home, and sitting in his father's room, reading, and thinking about Mark Eden, determining, too, that he would ask Master Rayburn how the lad was the next time he came, for though family pride and old teachings had kept him quiet, he had hoped that his doctor would volunteer the information which had not come.

Sir Morton was poring over an old tome which dealt with alchemy and the trans.m.u.tation of metals, in which the learned writer gravely gave his opinion about baser metals being turned into gold, all of which Sir Morton Darley thought would be very satisfactory, as he could not succeed in finding a profitable lead-mine on his estate, and had not been any more successful than his forefathers in taking possession of that belonging to the Edens.

He had just come to the way of thinking that he would begin to buy ordinary lead and turn it into gold, when Ralph said suddenly:

"I say, father, why do we want to be at enmity with the Edens?"

Sir Morton looked up at his son, and then down at his book, as if expecting to find an answer to the question there. Then he coughed to clear his voice, cleared it, and coughed again, which was perfectly unnecessary. But still the answer did not come. Finally, he replied:

"Well, you see, my boy, we always have been at enmity with them."

"Yes, I know, ever since my great, great, ever so great, grandfather's time."

"Exactly Ralph. That's it, my boy."

"But what was the beginning of it?"

"The beginning of it--er--the--er--commencement of it--er--the family feud. Well--er--it was something in the way of oppression, as I have told you before. A great injury inflicted by the Edens upon the Darleys. But it will not do your arm any good to be fidgeting about that. I want it to heal. That can be healed; but our family feud never can."

"Why not, father?"

"Why not? Oh, because it is contrary to nature, boy. What a question, when you are suffering now from the way in which the deadly hatred of the Edens comes out! Are you not wounded by a scion of the vile house?"

"Yes, father; but then young Eden is suffering too in the same way, and I think he got the worst of it."

"I'm glad of it, Ralph. I think you behaved very bravely."

"What; in fighting the robbers?"

"I did not mean that. I meant in defending yourself," said Sir Morton austerely. "There, that will do: I want to go on studying this book."

But Ralph was fidgety from the state of his wound, and went on again.

"Couldn't the old trouble be settled by law?"