Dr. Pawley’s house was situate on the village green, opposite to the church and to the left of the inn, The Chandos Arms. It presented a Georgian exterior to the architectural eye, and the front door boasted a pediment which resurrected Queen Anne. Red brick glowed rosily, diffusing an air of hospitality. One might know that the cellarage was excellent, that the larder was well stocked, and that the parlour probably was panelled in oak. Behind the house a walled-in garden sloped upwards to a small temple crowning a mound, which might have served as a tumulus. In this temple, upon fine summer mornings, the doctor breakfasted, consuming leisurely bacon of his own curing and eggs freshly laid. Between herbaceous borders his eyes could wander to his house, where he had lived so pleasantly during thirty years. Often he wondered whether his successor would live as pleasantly. And the conjecture troubled a kindly man, introspective and analytical, distrusting the laudator temporis acti, but fully alive to the fact that the England he knew and loved was changing profoundly. He confessed that the eighteenth century was to his taste, as a period of consummate craftsmanship. Slowly he had collected eighteenth century furniture and porcelain and silver. Pope was his favourite poet. Everything in the house was English. Old-fashioned flowers bloomed in his garden and in his heart. And yet, in odd antithesis, he dealt honestly with the present and the future. He had considered the future when the necessity of taking a partner forced itself disagreeably upon his attention. Had he consulted his own inclinations, he might have selected a colleague of middle age, more or less satisfied with existing conditions. Such a colleague would have been accepted by Lady Selina and the villagers as the real right thing in doctors. To seek out a young up-to-date man adumbrated possible disaster to peace of mind. At any rate, it salved a somewhat sensitive conscience to reflect that another might do what he had left undone. At the same time he was whimsically conscious that he had done his best according to lights which glimmered none too brightly when he perused the leading medical journals. Balm descended upon a perturbed spirit when high authorities in his profession flatly contradicted each other in and out of print. He had seen, not without satisfaction, astounding theories spin centrifugally out of sight. Tremendous assumptions had vanished in thin air. If he halted, out of breath and sometimes out of pocket, behind the leaders, he could reflect agreeably upon their divagations, conscious that he had stuck religiously to the well-worn thoroughfare.

Of late, with failing health and energies, he had asked himself whether he was doomed to attend the funeral of his own experience. Such an interment made him shiver, as if an iconoclast were dancing a jig upon his grave. At such times he wondered pathetically what might have been had he taken arms against the lady of the manor after the death of her husband. To work with her, to persuade her where persuasion was possible, to accept resignedly conditions which he could not approve, had proved difficult. Country doctors throughout that part of England were constrained to compromise, although they might detest the word. Parsons were in just the same boat. Goodrich, for example, after a good dinner, might acclaim reforms which he was quite incapable of bringing about. He, too, wandered in a vicious circle of impotent imaginings, walled in by consequence and circumstance. Each man, perhaps, criticised the other, but not too harshly. Both agreed that matters in the village might be worse. Lady Selina spread the voluminous draperies of private charity over insanitary cottages and low wages. Humanly speaking, nothing would change her methods. Wise men made the best of them.

Grimshaw arrived in Upworthy some few days after the midsummer bun-feast. Pawley asked him for a week-end, met him at the station, installed him in a comfortable room, and, after luncheon, accepted with gratitude the young man’s suggestion that he should “nose round” by himself during the afternoon. Pawley was taken with his appearance, because vitality exuded from him. He had expected to see signs of overwork, hollow cheeks, a jaded look. And at luncheon he touched lightly upon this. To his surprise, Grimshaw spoke with entire frankness.

“My trouble was mental. I found myself up against vested interests, a hopeless fight. I hostilised authority. And, at heart, I’m an open-air man. I’m fed up with the slums.”

“I quite understand.”

“Yes; my ease of mind was menaced. And without that, where are you? In a pea-soup fog.” He laughed boyishly, and added: “I say, how good your mutton is!”

Presently he took the road without any directions or warnings from Pawley.