“W-what has – happened?”
Jacoba bent a little nearer to him.
“You were hurt, my Lord,” she told him softly, “but now you are getting well and will soon be on your feet again.”
She was not certain if the Earl understood her.
And after what seemed a long time he said,
“I-it was – the – poachers.”
“Yes, the poachers, my Lord,” Jacoba replied. “But they have gone away and there are two men protecting the river to prevent any more coming.”
She thought that the Earl understood.
He closed his eyes and did not speak again.
*
Jacoba went out in the afternoon just as Doctor Faulkner had told her to do and Angus took her place in the bedroom.
She went into the garden, which was just below The Castle and g gate at the end of it led onto a stretch of level ground just above the beach.
There
