Now that noon was past, the intense heat of the morning was tempered by a breeze. It was still hot and his footsteps raised little cyclones of dust which flew along the road before him, but the oppression in the air was gone, and walking had ceased to be a weariness. The mile which separated him from Coombe appeared no longer endless, yet so insistent were the demands of his inner man that when a town-going farmer hailed him with the usual offer of a "lift," he accepted the invitation with alacrity.
"Better," he murmured to himself, "the delights of rustic conversation with a good meal at the end thereof than lordly solitude and emptiness withal."
But contrary to expectation the rustic declined to converse. He was a melancholy-looking man with a long jaw and eyes so deep-set that the observer took them on faith, and a nose which alone would have been sufficient to identify him. Beyond the first request to "step up," he vouchsafed no word and, save for an inarticulate gurgle to his horse, seemed lost in an ageless calm. His gaze was fixed upon some indefinite portion of the horse's back and he drove leaning forward in an attitude of complete bodily and mental relaxation. If his guest wished conversation it was apparent that he must set it going himself.
"Very warm day!" said Callandar tentatively.
"So-so." The farmer slapped the reins over the horse's flank, jerked them abruptly and murmured a hoarse "Giddap!" It was his method of encouraging the onward motion of the animal.
"Is it always as warm as this hereabouts?"
"No. Sometimes we get it a little cooler 'bout Christmas."
The doctor flushed with annoyance and then laughed.
"You see," he explained, "I'm new to this part of the country. But I always thought you had it cooler up here."
The manner of the rustic grew more genial.