The question, unexpected as it was by myself, seemed to surprise Grewes infinitely more. The blood got up into two bright points in his cheeks. His brushes rattled against his palette. He looked round at the old vicar tremulously.
‘Doctor? Why, do you— What makes you think I— Oh! I am very well indeed; never better.’
He stopped, looking up into the sightless, kindly blue eyes that appeared to be as steadily gazing down into his. There was a moment’s silence. And then, if I ever saw real untrammelled joy spring into a human face, I saw it in his.
‘Do you really think so?’ he cried. ‘You think I— Well, sometimes lately I have thought myself that—’
Spelthorne’s voice grumbled out from behind the umbrella.
‘Now, my dear Grewes, have I not frequently told you that, though I am willing to lend you anything I have, I always expect—’
Grewes sprang to his feet.
‘It is his cadmium,’ he whispered, horrified. ‘I borrowed it, and never— How very annoying for him!’
‘Now there is a strange thing,’ said the Reverend musingly, as we trudged on our way together. ‘A man well on in a rapid decline, and neither knowing nor caring about it; as glad, indeed, to hear the thing confirmed as if some one had left him a legacy! A month, did you say? Then he may never go out of Windlecombe by the road.’
We made a long day’s round, taking meadow, riverside, wood, and downland in our walk, and reaching home again only when the lights were beginning to star the misty combe; for we had a special object in our journey. To the townsman it may well seem as fruitless a task to seek wild flowers in November, as to go ‘gathering nuts in May.’ Well, here is a list of what we found in one November day’s ramble about a single village in highland Sussex—fifty-seven distinct species, and of many we could have gathered, not single flowers, but whole handfuls, had we willed. Nor is the list an exhaustive one either for the district or the time of year. Bringing more eyesight, leisure, and diligence to the task, no doubt a fuller inventory could be made in any mild season.—