"I should not be wanted if the wool-shed were on fire.

Don't you hear Pepper say he wants me ?" "All right, then," said F----, actually turning over and proposing to go to sleep again.

But there was no more sleep for either of us that night.
Whilst I hastily put on my riding-habit, Pepper told me, through the window; an incoherent tale of some one being at the point of death, and wanting me to cure him, and the master to bring over pen and ink, to make a will, and dying speeches and cold shivers, all mixed up together in a tangle of words.

F---- took some minutes to understand that it was Fenwick, a gigantic Yorkshireman, who had been seized with what Pepper would call the "choleraics," and who, in spite of having swallowed all the mustard and rum and "pain-killer" left on the premises, grew worse and worse every moment.

"He's dying, safe enough," concluded Pepper, "but he's main anxious to see you, mum, and the master; and he wants a Bible brought to swear him, and he's powerful uneasy to make his will." I knew quite as little of medicine as my husband did of law, but of course we decided instantly that we ought both to go and see what could be done in any way to relieve either the body or mind of the sufferer.
We said to each other while we were hastily dressing, "How shall we ever catch the horses?
They have all been turned out, of course, as no one thought they would be wanted until Monday; and who knows where they have gone to ?--miles away, perhaps; and it's pitch dark." Judge, then, of our delighted surprise, when, on going out into the verandah, preparatory to starting off to look for our steeds, we found them standing at the gate, ready saddled and bridled.