For a minute or two he stood still, admiring the village green, in the centre of which was a cricket pitch in fairly good order. The church faced him with its low square tower of concrete. Bits of the concrete had fallen off, revealing the bricks beneath. “Not too much money here,” thought the young man. His eyes rested upon the cottages, mostly whitewashed, with heavy thatched roofs, very picturesque, and all of them more than a hundred years old. The general effect pleased. Perhaps the best house (barring the doctor’s) was The Chandos Arms, with a wide gravel sweep in front of it, and ample stable accommodation. A house of delightful rotundities—bow windows flanking a big hospitable door, dormer windows winking at you out of the thatch, and the thatch itself—a masterpiece of craftsmanship—not cut straight along the eaves but undulating in semicircles of generous diameter. Grimshaw guessed that it had been a prosperous inn during coaching-days, had suffered a decline in custom, and was now blooming in a sort of Indian summer by reason of the increased motor traffic. All the cottages stood back from the road that skirted the green, with small front gardens ablaze with old-fashioned flowers. From where he stood, looking to the left, he could see the trees in the park, and above them the chimneys of the Manor. If the lady of that Manor chose to stand upon her roof she could survey the village, and outwardly at least it must have gladdened her eye. Hard by the church, and beyond it, snuggled the Vicarage. In front of the inn spread a large horse-pond, a treasure-house of fresh-water infusoria. The face of any amateur microscopist would have brightened at the sight of it.

Grimshaw strolled on, crossing the pitch. A wide street led from the green into the grass country beyond, with cottages on both sides of it. No modern buildings offended the artistic sense. Grimshaw passed the post-office, the village store, the baker’s, and a cobbler’s. He could see no chapel. Nonconformity obviously went without a place of worship in Upworthy. Being Saturday afternoon, many children were playing in front of the cottages. Grimshaw stared at them with professional interest. They appeared to be clean, but not too robust. A few were rickety.

From a blacksmith’s forge came the cheery sound of hammer on anvil.

Grimshaw nodded to the smith and bade him “Good day.” The smith, nothing loath for a chat, paused in his work, observing critically:

“You be a stranger in these parts?”

“I am,” said Grimshaw.

“Ah-h-h! A sight o’ folks comes to our village, so pretty and peart it be.”

“Not much new building going on.”

“Well, no. My lady don’t hold wi’ improvements. New cottages be needed bad, too.”

“You’re a bit overcrowded, I take it?”

“That be God A’mighty’s truth. I ain’t one to complain, but ’tis a fact that Upworthy don’t march wi’ the times. Never did, I reckons. When the kids grows up they has to muck it like pigs in a sty. But I don’t tell all I knows.”

Grimshaw passed on. He shot a glance upwards at the windows of bedrooms that held too many children. It was a lovely sunny afternoon, but the upper windows were closed. At the back of each cottage were sties. The county was celebrated for its bacon. He could smell roses; and he could smell pigs. His steps quickened as he left the village behind him.

He was now—as Pawley had informed him—in the heart of the Chandos domain. Cattle browsed placidly in fields enclosed by hedgerows, not hedges, hedgerows beloved by pheasants in October and November. Quite close to the village lay a snipe-bog, which ought to have been drained. From a man at work on the road Grimshaw learnt that the snipe-bog harboured wild-fowl as well as snipe.

“’Tis as good a bit o’ rough shooting as I knows.”

“A lot of rabbits, eh?”

“Too many,” said the man. “A rare noosance they be.”

Grimshaw drew the inference. Here, at any rate, sport reigned supreme. He examined the cows. Unless his experience was at fault, some few were furnishing milk not fit for human consumption. The farmyards into which he stared confirmed this unhappy conclusion. Water lay close to the surface of a clayey soil, and in winter time must have oozed up everywhere. The ditches were not deep enough, and overgrown with rank vegetation. But he saw some handsome colts—prospective hunters—and brood mares. Of high farming there was no evidence whatever. The plough, for some occult reason, seemed to have been banished.

Grimshaw seated himself upon an ancient gate and lit his pipe.

“By their gates ye shall know them,” he murmured.

And then——

“Can I stick it?”

Sitting on the gate, his thoughts took a swallow’s flight into the past. He had been born in just such a parish, where Peter was robbed to pay Paul, where shift had degenerated into makeshift, where Compromise crowed lustily over Justice and Common Sense. And his father, the parson of the parish, had been a soured man, unable to cope with his environment. Fortunately for Grimshaw an uncle and godfather had sent him to Winchester, where he shone in the playing-fields rather than the class-rooms. After that he had been pitchforked into Medicine, simply because the uncle aforesaid happened to be a fairly prosperous physician.

And then his father had died——!

Up to the very day of the funeral—and how dismal it had been!—Henry Grimshaw had taken life very easily. Looking back, analytical of himself and the motives that had governed and misgoverned him, he could remember vividly how keen he had been to distinguish himself at cricket, partly because his father had no stomach for games or sport. Really, he had shirked Latin and Greek out of sheer contrariety, under the lash of a tongue that perhaps unduly exalted classical attainments. And because his sire had been something of an ascetic, he had decided to mortify parental ambitions rather than his own flesh.

In the same odd spirit of contrariety, he had scrapped cricket and football, concentrating all energies upon the study of his profession. The friends of his own age held out the lure of playing for the Gentlemen of England at Lord’s. Their insistence exasperated him. After his father’s death he found himself in possession of a few thousand pounds and a mother and sister on his hands. His uncle, something of a cynic, said to him:

“Harry, you have good looks and good manners. In my profession these count enormously. When I retire, which I intend to do, you can slide into a capital practice chiefly amongst aged handmaidens of the Lord.”

Having good manners, Harry said nothing, but he thought: “I’m bothered if I will.” And immediately afterwards, as luck would have it, he was captivated by Babbington-Raikes, the famous gynecologist, who had “enthused” him. Babbington-Raikes fought against diseases of women and children with the ardour and self-sacrifice of a paladin. He was amazing. Babbington-Raikes sent him to a God-forsaken parish in Essex and afterwards to Poplar.

In each place he had learnt much; in each place he had been “downed,” like his father before him, by the powers plenipotentiary of vested interests.

And now, apparently, he was “up against them” again.

He returned, after an absence of some hours, in time to dress for dinner. Pawley gave his visitor of his best, and, whilst the trim parlourmaid waited upon them, the talk lingered in the eighteenth century. Grimshaw showed appreciation of the furniture and silver, drawing out his host to describe his adventures as a collector before prices became prohibitive to a man of modest means. An agreeable hour passed swiftly. Then the maid removed the cloth, brought in coffee, and retired. The doctor placed on the well-polished mahogany an antique box well filled with excellent cigars.

“Help yourself,” said Pawley.

Grimshaw did so.

“You are amazingly comfortable,” he said abruptly. “Your house is a sort of sanctuary. To my notion it’s just right. No man could wish to spend the evening of his life in more delightful surroundings.”

Pawley nodded. Grimshaw hesitated a moment, glancing at his host. The whimsical face encouraged him to speak frankly.

“I am wondering,” he went on, “whether any design lurks behind your charming hospitality?”

Pawley laughed.

“Design? An appeal, you mean, to the flesh?”

“Well, yes. You encourage me to be candid.”

“I like that.”

“Thanks.”

“There is no design behind my hospitality, save the wish to make you heartily welcome here.”

“Thanks again. I have had a jolly letter from Brian Chandos.”

“Ah! His leave was up two days ago. Otherwise I should have asked him here to-night. To-morrow you will meet his mother and sister.”

“Another appeal——!”

Pawley eyed him more keenly. Grimshaw strayed down a by-path.

“Tell me about the mother.”

“Am I to be biographical?”

“Please.”

“She was the daughter of Lord Saltaire, a West Country magnate. He belonged to the vieille souche. He owned large estates heavily mortgaged. His daughters were educated at home by a governess who, I imagine, was not too highly paid. Probably she knew enough to cut the girls to the Saltaire pattern. All of them married well. The conclusion has been forced upon me that men like the late Henry Chandos fight shy of cleverness in a wife.”

“Am I to infer that Lady Selina is stupid?”

“Heavens—no. What do you call cleverness in a woman?”

Grimshaw considered this. He felt himself to be challenged, and wished to acquit himself adequately. But he had no answer pat to his lip. Indeed, he had never considered the cleverness of women as something to be differentiated from the cleverness of man. But he was quite sure that his own sister might be reckoned clever. And he thought of her as he replied:

“I should expect perception, sympathy, humour, adaptability, and a sound business instinct.”

Pawley chuckled.

“I hope you will find all that in your wife, Grimshaw. If you do, you won’t focus your affections on Chippendale furniture. To return to my lady—she has perception and sympathy up to a point, and unsound business instincts. I have her word for it that she never drew a cheque till she found herself a widow.”

Grimshaw meditated a moment or two before he said tentatively:

“I am rather sorry you mentioned our possible partnership to Lady Selina. From Brian’s letter he seems to take it for granted that the thing is cut and dried.”

“And it isn’t?”

“The pitch—I spent four hours on it—looks bumpy. By the way, who is your Sanitary Inspector?”

Pawley made a grimace.

“Um! An insanitary person, who doesn’t inspect.”

“Eats out of the hand of Authority.”

“An occasional luncheon.”

“Dines with the big farmers?”

“You seem to know our little ways.”

“I worked in Essex before I went to Poplar.”

“I’ll admit that you wouldn’t be idle here.”

“Idle? No. How much time should I have for research work?”

Pawley sighed, too well bred to express his disappointment. He had been a fool to suppose that a young man of Grimshaw’s distinction would care to kick against the pricks in an obscure village. Obviously Grimshaw had “nosed about” to some purpose. He had read the writing on the whitewashed walls. He might have wandered into the pretty churchyard and noticed an undue proportion of tiny graves! But to a fighter that might be an incentive, a provocation.

Possibly Grimshaw’s sharp ears caught the attenuated sigh. Pawley looked up to find keenly penetrative eyes on his.

“If, Dr. Pawley, if I tackle this job, what backing shall I have? Is Lady Selina likely to stand by?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“That means she won’t. Brian Chandos used to be a good sort. Will he help or hinder?”

Pawley answered evasively:

“Brian is devoted to his mother. And he’s dependent upon her.”

“All is said. What about the daughter?”

“You must form your own opinion. She and you together might influence Lady Selina. She loves being loved. Of course she thinks Upworthy a paradise.”

At this Grimshaw spoke for the first time with vehemence. It is likely that some instinct warned him that he was being driven, against his judgment, into a false position. Pawley’s honesty appealed to him. And he liked him at sight, feeling sorry for him as the victim of autocracy.

“Your Lady Selina is swathed in cotton wool. I behold your Sanitary Inspector bowing down in the house of Chandos. I behold doles instead of decent habitations, thatch and phthisis, whitewash and eyewash.”

Pawley took this outburst humorously.

“How gently you young fellows hit.”

“I beg your pardon. You know, doctor, I have an objection to those who swagger above me socially, but I hate still more the poor devils cringing below me. The fact that lots of my fellow-countrymen aren’t fit to associate with me makes me sick. There! that’s off my chest. Let me ask a last question. Who does the dirty work in Upworthy? Who is the son of a gun? I can see your Lady Selina handing out the smiles and ha’pence. Who gives the kicks?”

“Her bailiff. Honest John Gridley—bother him!”

Then they both laughed. Grimshaw promised to talk with the lady of the manor on the morrow. Beyond that he refused to pledge himself. Naturally the talk soon wandered into the professional channel. The elder man listened for the most part, interjecting a few questions, more and more sensible that youth might succeed where he had failed, sensible, also, that having, by the luck of things, found the right man, he was likely to lose him. They parted for the night excellent friends.