It had been quite recently inflicted, and I doubted whether it had (as yet, at any rate) really killed him.

I did what I could with the linen and cold water which the gamekeeper's wife offered to me, and then my friend and I removed him carefully to my house in the cart.

I applied the necessary restoratives, and I had the pleasure of satisfying myself that the vital powers had revived.

He was perfectly unconscious, of course, but the action of the heart became distinctly perceptible, and I had hopes.
In a few days more I felt fairly sure of him.

Then the usual fever set in.