"Why doesn't he live at it himself, then?"
"He hasn't been home for years and years. He's governor of a place called San Benito in the West Indies. He left England after his only son died, and he has never been back since. I should think Chagmouth people have almost forgotten him. The Glyn Williams are everything there now, or think they are at any rate."
"That I can very easily believe," said Merle, with a glance at Gwen, who, apportioned by Miss Crompton to dance with Aubrey, was circling round without deigning to bestow a single word upon her unwelcome partner.
To Mavis and Merle, Chagmouth, where so far they had only spent a single day, had become the very hub of the universe. They wanted to see its quaint streets again, and to revisit the beach and to explore the woods. More than anything they wished to renew their brief acquaintance with Bevis. His personality had attracted them, and his romantic story appealed to their imaginations. They ventured to say something about him to Uncle David.
"Bevis? Oh, he's a fine lad!" replied Dr. Tremayne. "He's rather out of his element on the farm, but there seems nothing else open to him at present. I wish I could see him doing something better. He'd make a splendid doctor. The way he has picked up dispensing is simply wonderful. I can trust him to make up prescriptions now, and it's the greatest help. He loves pottering about the surgery. It's far more in his line than hedging or ploughing. But he doesn't spare himself on the land; I'll say that for the lad. By the by, are you two coming with me to Chagmouth to-morrow? I believe the sea air did Mavis good. She's losing that transparent look, and getting a tinge of colour in her cheeks."
"I haven't had a cold since I came to Durracombe," boasted Mavis.
"Touch wood or you'll be catching one to-morrow," put in Merle hastily. "Uncle David, we'd go to Chagmouth every day if you'd take us."
"Oh, I dare say! And what would happen to your lessons, Miss Lazybones?" twinkled the doctor. "One holiday a week is quite enough for you."
The girls were growing to love Uncle David. He was so kind, and genial, and pleasant, and had always some little joke or funny story for them. Half of the pleasure of the day at Chagmouth would be the drive there and back in his company. There was a broad restfulness about him that was like a mental tonic. It was as if he had learnt the secret of outliving all unnecessary cares and worries, and could radiate his peaceful atmosphere into the auras of others. Perhaps it was this quality of unconscious healing that gave him such skill and favour as a physician. Certainly patients would begin to brighten up when he merely stepped into the sickroom. "The dear old doctor", as he was generally called, was a figure in the country-side, and a source of moral as well as physical good in his practice.
It was with absolutely beaming faces that the girls set out with him in the little yellow Deemster car the following Saturday morning. They started earlier than the week before, for there were several visits to be paid at farms or cottages on the way, all of which took considerable time, but by exceeding the speed limit on level stretches of road the doctor reached Chagmouth at noon, to find the usual crowd of patients waiting at his rooms. Judging that he would be boxed up in the surgery for more than an hour, and that they would therefore have ample leisure for a stroll before lunch, the Ramsays decided to explore some of the fields that lay round Grimbal's Farm, and selected a path that seemed to lead in the direction of the cliffs and the sea. They looked about for Bevis in the stackyard, but he was nowhere to be seen. Probably he was working on the land, or possibly he might even be at sea, for Mr. Penruddock was part owner of a trawler, and as much fisherman as farmer.