“What of that?” said the other testily.
“Only that ’tis kindly of you. We’re a bit lonesome, I own, though we make the best of it.”
“Never heard such nonsense! Doctoring is my trade, Mr. Gaunt, not riding up and down the country doing good works. I leave those and the credit of ’em to the Parson. I’m no poacher. I’ve a bothersome case two miles further on, and this is my shortest cut.”
Gaunt knew that there was no short cut in this direction, except to the empty moor. He knew that the doctor lengthened his round each day to halt for a word at the gate, and to learn if his services were needed. “Which farm are you bound for, then?” he asked, with gentle banter.
“Which farm? Good day, Mr. Gaunt, good day. I’m too busy a man to answer idle questions.”
Gaunt went slowly up to the house, feeling more at peace with this world of heat and toil, and martyrdom. The doctor’s boast had not been idly made, for instinct was apt to lead him right. He had been right in thinking that they needed physic here at Ghyll. It was no physic carried in his pocket, to be taken three times a day and put on the shelf after a dose or two had been swallowed; it was the medicine carried by all men who have faced life in the open, that of forward hope and a call to look up to the hill-tops rather than down to the misty valleys.
“The doctor has ridden by again,” said Reuben, as he stepped into the living-room to find dinner waiting for him. “I had a talk with him.”
“Ay, ’tis his way,” answered the widow. “If aught happens, like to ye or me, he’ll not ride by. He’ll walk in, Reuben, same as ye did when Peggy war ta’en wi’ th’ fever. Men are terrible folk for pranks, an’ so I allus said. Now, ye’ll sit down, an’ eat what I set before ye. A roast o’ mutton, Reuben, done to a turn. It’s fool’s policy to keep your body underfed at these times.”
Of all the details that hampered Widow Mathewson and Gaunt, none pressed on them more heavily than this need to sit at meat together. The reek of the hot joint, the loss of appetite engendered by the long, persistent drought, made such a meal seem loathsome. Each ate for the other’s sake, and maybe the meat, for that reason, helped them to go forward.
“Niver smoked so mich i’ my life,” said the widow, reaching up for her pipe after dinner. “I’ve no knowledge o’ the lad that first brought ’baccy into Garth, but he did a service to us weak, human-folk. Fill up your mug, Reuben, and come and sit i’ th’ front o’ th’ fire, an’ talk to a body, like. I’m fair clemmed wi’ weariness.”