CHAPTER I

THE GRESHAMS OF GRESHAMSBURY

Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical
practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it
will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as
to the locality in which, and the neighbours among whom, our doctor
followed his profession.

There is a county in the west of England not so full of life, indeed,
nor so widely spoken of as some of its manufacturing leviathan brethren
in the north, but which is, nevertheless, very dear to those who know
it well. Its green pastures, its waving wheat, its deep and shady
and--let us add--dirty lanes, its paths and stiles, its tawny-coloured,
well-built rural churches, its avenues of beeches, and frequent Tudor
mansions, its constant county hunt, its social graces, and the general
air of clanship which pervades it, has made it to its own inhabitants a
favoured land of Goshen. It is purely agricultural; agricultural in
its produce, agricultural in its poor, and agricultural in its
pleasures. There are towns in it, of course; depots from whence are
brought seeds and groceries, ribbons and fire-shovels; in which markets
are held and county balls are carried on; which return members to
Parliament, generally--in spite of Reform Bills, past, present, and
coming--in accordance with the dictates of some neighbouring land
magnate; from whence emanate the country postmen, and where is located
the supply of post-horses necessary for county visitings. But these
towns add nothing to the importance of the county; dull, all but