He had begun life as a surgeon, and was well skilled in the science.

He cautiously unbuttoned the closely-fitting coat.
"Stop! let me alone! let me alone!--will you ?" growled Bressant, speaking thickly and disjointedly, like one just recovering from a fainting-fit, but with unmistakable signs of ill-temper.
"Thank God! you're alive, my boy," said the professor, too much relieved to notice the tone.

"Cornelia, my dear, run to the house, and get Michael and the wheelbarrow .-- Any bones broken, do you think ?" he continued, carefully pursuing his investigations the while.
"No, nothing! can't you let me lie here alone ?" was the sulky reply.
But, as the other's hand happened to press lightly in the vicinity of the chest, Bressant drew a quick, gasping breath, and could not control a spasm of pain.
"Don't touch there--it's where the shaft struck me," said he, in a voice that was no more than a whisper, but as sullen as if he had been the victim of some unpardonable wrong.

There was a trace of mortification in it, too, such as might have been caused by detection in a disgraceful act.
"Never saw any thing like this in him, before," said the professor to himself.

"Badly injured, too, I'm afraid: collar-bone broken, at any rate.