Page 61 of The Cornish Inheritance

Bloody Trefusis. Probably he’d been rubbing his hands and hoping Nat had met with a fatal accident. Well, he nearly had done.

“Fell off my horse,” Nat managed through gritted teeth.

Casworan huffed a sharp breath. “What? You fell off a horse? How’d’you do that then? The boy that used to gallop bareback along the beach when we was lads?”

“Saddle slipped. I think the girth must have broken. She was in the mood for shying. A bird startled her, something must have broken, and the saddle came right off with me. I couldn’t save myself. I rolled into a bloody gully about five hundred yards from here.”

“Thassa long way to’ve walked in the state you’re in. Here, let me get your coat off and take a look at your arm. I’ll do your left sleeve first, to make it easier on you.”

Nat gritted his teeth yet again as Casworan helped him extricate his left arm from his snug-fitting coat. It made getting his injured right arm out a lot easier, as his friend had said, but nevertheless, it had him swearing, and not under his breath. A relief not to have to watch his language.

Casworan chuckled. “Where’d’you learn to swear like that then?”

Nat managed a weak grin. “You’d think my troopers, wouldn’t you? But no, I learnt most of that at Harrow.”

Casworan’s strong hands gently lifted Nat’s right arm, feeling along it no doubt in search of broken bones. Nat screwed his eyes shut and stayed silent as fiery pain shot through his shoulder, although his breathing came fast and furious.

“Nothing’s broken, I don’t think,” Casworan said, his hands still on Nat’s arm. “My guess is what you’ve got here is a dislocated shoulder. I’ve seen a lot of them in this line of work. That’s what’s paining you so much.” He paused. “He needs putting back in, an’ that’ll take most of the pain away.”

Nat opened his eyes. “It will? Can you do it?”

Casworan shifted as though uncomfortable. “Like I said, I’ve done it a fair few times for miners what’ve been injured. But to do it for you, for Sir Hugh’s grandson…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It do hurt something bad while it’s bein’ done.”

“I don’t care. Do it. Who else is going to? Doctor Rescorla is miles away in Penzance and will have to be sent for. I have to get back to Roskilly somehow. I won’t do that with my shoulder the way it is. You do it, Gryff.”

Casworan released his gentle hold on Nat’s arm and went over to a wall cupboard behind the desk. Opening it, he took out a bottle of brandy. “You’ll need some of this first, then.”

He poured a generous glass and brought it back to Nat, then took a swig himself from out of the bottle. “Gotta boost my confidence for treating the gentry.”

Nat knocked back the brandy in one long gulp, feeling it leave a pleasant trail of fire down his throat. He held out the glass. “Another.”

When he’d done the same with the second glass, and Casworan had also taken another fortifying slug from the bottle, he nodded to his friend. “Best get it over with. Ignore me if I shout stop. I won’t mean it.”

Casworan came around to Nat’s right side and picked up his arm. “I’m going to just turn him gently so he should slide back into his socket. Try and relax your muscles as that makes it easier to slide him back in. Breathe deeply, look at that clock over there and tell me what time it be. I gotta get back to dinner tonight or my wife’s goin’ to be right cross with me. She don’t like it if the dinner gets spoiled.”

Nat looked at the clock, Casworan turned his arm, the bones shifted, pain shot through Nat, and the joint clicked back into place. For a moment all he could do was concentrate on breathing, aware of the pounding of his heart and the throbbing in his head. Then the pain began to subside, down well below the level it had been at before. It still hurt, but the worst of it had gone.

He looked up at Casworan. “You missed your calling. You should’ve been a surgeon.”

Casworan grinned and shook his head. “Not for the likes of us miners’ boys. I only got the job here because you taught me to read’n’write’n’reckon.”

Nat managed a grin in return. “I’m very glad you have this job, or where would I be now? Leaning against the door while some lazy appointee of Trefusis was at home pleasing his wife by not being late for dinner. You can tell your wife it was my fault, and that I’ll be sending over a big joint of beef she can cook for you and your family come Sunday. I owe you and her my heartfelt thanks.”

“You don’t need to do that, Nat. You don’t owe me nothing. Like I said, I wouldn’t be here were it not for you. I’d be stuck down that mine with my back all bent and twisted on account of me bein’ so gurt big.” He chuckled.

Nat leaned back in his chair while Casworan busied himself making a sling out of a scarf he found hanging on the coat stand. “Gotta keep it supported. Once you done this to your shoulder, it can happen again, easy as sneeze.” He tied the scarf in a knot at the back of Nat’s neck. “Now, we’d best locate that useless search party and let ’em know you’re found safe, if not quite sound.”