“I have a garret and a library,” he said. “Winter quarters. We shall meet one day, and you’ll be surprised. I actually possess two dress suits. It’s a mad world.” He stopped abruptly to listen to the thrush. “This is better than the Carlton or Delmonico’s, anyhow!”
“What do you do?” I asked. “Go from village to village selling herbs?”
“That’s about it. Lord! Listen to that bird. I heard and saw a nightingale sing once in a shaw near Ewelme. I think a thrush is the better musician, though. Yes, I sell my herbs, all sorts and kinds. Drugs and ointments, very simple I assure you—Hemlock and Poppy to cure the toothache. Wood Sorrel—full of oxalic acid, you know, like Rhubarb—for fevers. Aconite for rheumatics—very popular medicine I make of that, sells like hot cakes in water meadow land, so does Agrimony for Fen ague. Tansy and Camomile for liver—excellent. Hellebore for blisters, and Cowslip pips for measles—I’m a regular quack, you see.”
“And it’s worth doing, is it?”
He leaned back, his pipe between his lips, a very contented man. “Worth doing!” he said. “Worth owning England, with all the wonderful mornings, and the clean air; worth waking up to the scent of Violets; worth lying on your back near a Bean field on a summer day; worth seeing the Bracken fronds uncurl; watching kingfishers; worth having the fields and hedgerows for a garden, full of flowers always—I should think so. I earn my bread, and I’m happy, far happier than most men. I can lend a hand at haymaking, at the harvest; at sheep-shearing, at the cider press, at hoeing, when I’m tired of my own company. I’ve worked the seines in the mackerel season on the South coast—do you know the bend of shore by Lyme and Charmouth? I’ve ploughed in the Lowlands, and found lost sheep in the Lake Country; caught moles for a living in Norfolk, and cut Hop-poles in Kent, and Heather in the Highlands.—And I’m not forty, and I’m never ill.”
THE WEALD OF KENT SHOWING THE COUNTRY LIKE A PATCHWORK QUILT.
“It sounds delightful.”
He rose to his feet and gave me his hand.
“We shall meet again,” he said laughing. “Perhaps in the conventional armour of starched shirts and inky black. For the present—to my work,” he pointed over his shoulder. “I’m building hen-coops for a widow. Hasta luego.”