Lord Stranleigh Abroad by Robert Barr (best free novels .TXT) 📖

slipped from his horse, making an ineffectual attempt to fasten the bridle rein to a rail of the fence that surrounded the habitation. The horse began placidly to crop the grass, so he let it go at that, and advancing to the front door, knocked.

Presently the door was opened by an elderly woman of benign appearance, who nevertheless regarded him with some suspicion. She stood holding the door, without speaking, seemingly waiting for her unexpected visitor to proclaim his mission.

"Is this the house of Stanley Armstrong?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Is he at home? I have a letter of introduction to him."

"No; he is not at home."

"Do you expect him soon?"

"He is in Chicago," answered the woman.

"In Chicago?" echoed Stranleigh. "We must have passed one another on the road. I was in Chicago myself, but it seems months ago; in fact, I can hardly believe such a place exists." The young man smiled a little grimly, but there was no relaxation of the serious expression with which the woman had greeted him.

"What was your business with my husband?"

"No business at all; rather the reverse. Pleasure, it might be called. I expected to do a little shooting and fishing. A friend in New York kindly gave me a letter of introduction to Mr. Armstrong, who, he said, would possibly accompany me."

"Won't you come inside?" was her reluctant invitation. "I don't think you told me your name."

"My name is Stranleigh, madam. I hope you will excuse my persistence, but the truth is I have been slightly hurt, and if, as I surmise, it is inconvenient to accept me as a lodger, I should be deeply indebted for permission to remain here while I put a bandage on the wound. I must return at once to Bleachers, where I suppose I can find a physician more or less competent."

"Hurt?" cried the woman in amazement, "and I've been keeping you standing there at the door. Why didn't you tell me at once?"

"Oh, I think it's no great matter, and the pain is not as keen as I might have expected. Still, I like to be on the safe side, and must return after I have rested for a few minutes."

"I'm very sorry to hear of your accident," said Mrs. Armstrong, with concern. "Sit down in that rocking-chair until I call my daughter."

The unexpected beauty of the young woman who entered brought an expression of mild surprise to Stranleigh's face. In spite of her homely costume, a less appreciative person than his lordship must have been struck by Miss Armstrong's charm, and her air of intelligent refinement.

"This is Mr. Stranleigh, who has met with an accident," said Mrs. Armstrong to her daughter.

"Merely a trifle," Stranleigh hastened to say, "but I find I cannot raise my left arm."

"Is it broken?" asked the girl, with some anxiety.

"I don't think so; I fancy the trouble is in the shoulder. A rifle bullet has passed through it."

"A rifle bullet?" echoed the girl, in a voice of alarm. "How did that happen? But--never mind telling me now. The main thing is to attend to the wound. Let me help you off with your coat."

Stranleigh stood up.

"No exertion, please," commanded the girl. "Bring some warm water and a sponge," she continued, turning to her mother.

She removed Stranleigh's coat with a dexterity that aroused his admiration. The elder woman returned with dressings and sponge, which she placed on a chair. Stranleigh's white shirt was stained with blood, and to this Miss Armstrong applied the warm water.

"I must sacrifice your linen," she said calmly. "Please sit down again."

In a few moments his shoulder was bare; not the shoulder of an athlete, but nevertheless of a young man in perfect health. The girl's soft fingers pressed it gently.

"I shall have to hurt you a little," she said.

Stranleigh smiled.

"It is all for my good, as they say to little boys before whipping them."

The girl smiled back at him.

"Yes; but I cannot add the complementary fiction that it hurts me more than it does you. There! Did you feel that?"

"Not more than usual."

"There are no bones broken, which is a good thing. After all, it is a simple case, Mr. Stranleigh. You must remain quiet for a few days, and allow me to put this arm in a sling. I ought to send you off to bed, but if you promise not to exert yourself, you may sit out on the verandah where it is cool, and where the view may interest you."

"You are very kind, Miss Armstrong, but I cannot stay. I must return to Bleachers."

"I shall not allow you to go back," she said with decision.

Stranleigh laughed.

"In a long and comparatively useless life I have never contradicted a lady, but on this occasion I must insist on having my own way."

"I quite understand your reason, Mr. Stranleigh, though it is very uncomplimentary to me. It is simply an instance of man's distrust of a woman when it comes to serious work. Like most men, you would be content to accept me as a nurse, but not as a physician. There are two doctors in Bleachers, and you are anxious to get under the care of one of them. No--please don't trouble to deny it. You are not to blame. You are merely a victim of the universal conceit of man."

"Ah, it is you who are not complimentary now! You must think me a very commonplace individual."

She had thrown the coat over his shoulders, after having washed and dressed the wound. The bullet had been considerate enough to pass right through, making all probing unnecessary. With a safety-pin she attached his shirt sleeve to his shirt front.

"That will do," she said, "until I prepare a regular sling. And now come out to the verandah. No; don't carry the chair. There are several on the platform. Don't try to be polite, and remember I have already ordered you to avoid exertion."

He followed her to the broad piazza, and sat down, drawing a deep breath of admiration. Immediately in front ran a broad, clear stream of water; swift, deep, transparent.

"An ideal trout stream," he said to himself.

A wide vista of rolling green fields stretched away to a range of foothills, overtopped in the far distance by snow mountains.

"By Jove!" he cried. "This is splendid. I have seen nothing like it out of Switzerland."

"Talking of Switzerland," said Miss Armstrong, seating herself opposite him, "have you ever been at Thun?"

"Oh, yes."

"You stopped at the _Thunerhof_, I suppose?"

"I don't remember what it was called, but it was the largest hotel in the place, I believe."

"That would be the _Thunerhof_," she said. "I went to a much more modest inn, the _Falken_, and the stream that runs in front of it reminded me of this, and made me quite lonesome for the ranch. Of course, you had the river opposite you at the _Thunerhof_, but there the river is half a dozen times as wide as the branch that runs past the _Falken_. I used to sit out on the terrace watching that stream, murmuring to its accompaniment 'Home, sweet Home.'"

"You are by way of being a traveller, then?"

"Not a traveller, Mr. Stranleigh," said the girl, laughing a little, "but a dabbler. I took dabs of travel, like my little visit to Thun. For more than a year I lived in Lausanne, studying my profession, and during that time I made brief excursions here and there."

"Your profession," asked Stranleigh, with evident astonishment.

"Yes; can't you guess what it is, and why I am relating this bit of personal history on such very short acquaintance?"

The girl's smile was beautiful.

"Don't you know Europe?" she added.

"I ought to; I'm a native."

"Then you are aware that Lausanne is a centre of medical teaching and medical practice. I am a doctor, Mr. Stranleigh. Had your wound been really serious, which it is not, and you had come under the care of either physician in Bleachers, he would have sent for me, if he knew I were at home."

"What you have said interests me very much, Miss Armstrong, or should I say Doctor Armstrong?"

"I will answer to either designation, Mr. Stranleigh, but I should qualify the latter by adding that I am not a practising physician. 'Professor,' perhaps, would be the more accurate title. I am a member of the faculty in an eastern college of medicine, but by and by I hope to give up teaching, and devote myself entirely to research work. It is my ambition to become the American Madame Curie."

"A laudable ambition, Professor, and I hope you will succeed. Do you mind if I tell you how completely wrong you are in your diagnosis of the subject now before you?"

"In my surgical diagnosis I am not wrong. Your wound will be cured in a very few days."

"Oh, I am not impugning your medical skill. I knew the moment you spoke about your work that you were an expert. It is your diagnosis of me that is all astray. I have no such disbelief in the capacity of woman as you credit me with. I have no desire to place myself under the ministrations of either of those doctors in Bleachers. My desire for the metropolitan delights of that scattered town is of the most commonplace nature. I must buy for myself an outfit of clothes. I possess nothing in the way of raiment except what I am wearing, and part of that you've cut up with your scissors."

"Surely you never came all this distance without being well provided in that respect?"

"No; I had ample supplies, and I brought them with me safely to a point within sight of this house. In fact, I came hither like a sheik of the desert, at the head of a caravan, only the animals were mules instead of camels. All went well until we came to the edge of the forest, but the moment I emerged a shot rang out, and it seemed to me I was stung by a gigantic bee, as invisible as the shooter. The guide said there was a band of robbers intent on plunder, and he and the escort acted as escorts usually do in such circumstances. They unloaded the mules with most admirable celerity, and then made off much faster than they came. I never knew a body of men so unanimous in action. They would make a splendid board of directors in a commercial company that wished to get its work accomplished without undue discussion."

The girl had risen to her feet.

"And your baggage?" she asked.

"I suppose it is in the hands of the brigands by this time. I left it scattered along the trail."

"But, Mr. Stranleigh, what you say is incredible. There are no brigands, thieves or road agents in this district."

"The wound that you dressed so skilfully is my witness, and a witness whose testimony cannot be impugned on cross-examination."

"There is a mistake somewhere. Why, just think of it; the most energetic bandit would starve in this locality! There is no traffic. If your belongings were scattered along the trail, they are there yet."

"Then why shoot the belonger of those belongings?"

"That's just what I must discover. Excuse