ith a healthy person, nature did all the rest, and
Master Rayburn laughed good-humouredly to himself as he found that he
got all the credit.

"Nature doesn't mind," he used to say to one or other of the lads.
"There's no vanity there, my boys; but I'm not half so clever as they
think."

But let that be as it may, Master Rayburn mended Dummy Rugg when he fell
from top to bottom of the steep slope leading down into the lead-mine,
getting thereby very much broken, the worst injury being a crack in his
skull. He "cobbled up," as he called it, a number of other injuries
which happened to the men by pieces of rock falling upon them, slips of
the steel picks, chops from axes, and cuts from scythes and
reaping-hooks, the misfortunes of the men who toiled in the woods and
fields.

If a regular physician or surgeon had come there, the people would have
laughed at him, so great was their faith in Master Rayburn, who did his
best for the people, and never asked for payment. In fact, his patients
never thought of offering it to him in money, but they were not
ungrateful, all the same. Indeed, he used to protest against the
numbers of presents he was always receiving, the women bringing him pats
of butter, little mugs of cream, and the best of their apples and
potatoes; and their husbands never killed a pig without taking something
to Master Rayburn for the kind actions which he had performed.

It fell out then, as quite a matter of course, that he went on treating
Ralph Darley for the little hole in his arm, beneath the shoulder joint,
and that he also dressed and bandaged Mark Eden's thigh, so that the
injuries went on healing rapidly.

It was known, too, at the Cliff Castle and the Black Tor that he was
treating both, but the Edens never mentioned the Darleys, nor the
Darleys the Edens, the amateur surgeon saying nothing at either place;
and the wounds got better day by day.

"I wish I could heal the old sore as easily," the old man said to
himself; "but that wants a bigger doctor than I."

Master Rayburn believed in the old saw, that a still tongue maketh a
wise head, and he waited.

But in the meantime Ralph had told his father everything about his
encounter, and waited afterwards to hear what his father said. In due
time he did say something, but it was not to the effect that Mark Eden
had behaved very gallantly in helping his son, and _vice versa_, that
his son had shown a fine spirit in forgetting family enmity,