"Hale, did you say?" he heard Grinsell ask. "Ay, hale as you an' me, an' like to last another twenty year, rot him."
"But the gout takes him, you said--nodosa podagra, as my friend Ovid would say?"
"Ay, but I've knowed a man live forty year win the gout. And he dunna believe in doctor's dosin'; he goes to Buxton to drink the weeters when he bin madded wi' the pain, an' comes back sound fur six month."
"Restored to his dear neighbours and friends--caris propinquis----"
"Hang me, but I wish you'd speak plain English an' not pepper yer talk win outlandish jabber."
"Patience, Job; why, man, you belie your name. Come, you must humour an old friend; that's what comes of education, you see; my head is stuffed with odds and ends that annoy my friends, while you can't read, nor write, nor cipher beyond keeping your score. Lucky Job!"
Desmond turned away. The two men's conversation was none of his business; and he suspected from the stranger's manner that he had been drinking freely. He had stepped barely a dozen paces when he heard the voice again break into song. He halted and wheeled about; the tune was catching, and now he distinguished some of the words--
Says Billy Morris, Masulipatam,
To Governor Pitt: "D'ye know who I am.
D'ye know who I am, I AM, I AM?
Sir William Norris, Masulipatam."
Says Governor Pitt, Fort George Madras;
"I know what you are----"
Again the song broke off; the singer addressed a question to Grinsell. Desmond waited a moment; he felt an odd eagerness to know what Governor Pitt was; but hearing now only the drone of talking, he once more turned his face homewards. His curiosity was livelier than ever as to the identity of this newcomer, who addressed the landlord as he might his own familiar friend. And what had the stranger to do with Sir Willoughby Stokes? For it was Sir Willoughby that suffered from the gout; he it was that went every autumn and spring to Buxton; he was away at this present time, but would shortly return to receive his Michaelmas rents. The stranger had not the air of a husbandman; but there was a vacant farm on the estate; perhaps he had come to offer himself as a tenant. And why did he wear that half-glove upon his right hand? Finger-stalls, wrist-straps, even mittens were common enough, useful, and necessary at times; but the stranger's glove was not a mitten, and it had no fellow for the left hand. Perhaps, thought Desmond, it was a freak of the wearer's, like his red feather and his vivid neckcloth. Desmond, as he walked on, found himself hoping that the visitor at the Four Alls would remain for a day or two.
After passing through the sleeping hamlet of Woods-eaves, he struck into a road on his left hand. Twenty minutes' steady plodding uphill brought him in sight of his home, a large, ancient, rambling grange house lying back from the road. It was now nearly ten o'clock, an hour when the household was usually abed; but the door of Wilcote Grange stood open, and a guarded candle in the hall threw a faint yellow light upon the path. The gravel crunched under Desmond's boots, and, as if summoned by the sound, a tall figure crossed the hall and stood in the entrance. At the sight Desmond's mouth set hard; his hands clenched, his breath came more quickly as he went forward.