It was a wet evening in June, and a steady downrush of rain purred on the tiled roofs of the old town and set the broad eaves and high-peaked gables dripping. A summer sweetness breathed in the gardens where the fallen petals of rhododendrons lay like flame upon the green grass. The roses were weighed down with dew, and each leaf diamonded with a glimmering tear. In Lombard Street the tall cypresses stood like solemn monks cowled and coped against the rain.

The downpour had lessened a little, and Jack Murchison, flattening his nose against the nursery window, saw a country cart driven by a man in a white mackintosh swing into Lombard Street from the silver, rain-drenched sheen of St. Antonia’s trees. The man’s big white body streamed with wet, his face shining out like a drenched peony under the brim of his hat, that dripped like the flooded gutter of a house. Tremulous rain-drops fell rhythmically from the big man’s nose, and the apron that covered his legs was full of puddles.

The country cart drew up outside the doctor’s house, and Master Jack saw the big man in the white mackintosh climb out laboriously, the cart tilting under his weight. He threw the leather apron over the horse’s loins, and swung the water out of his hat, disclosing to the boy above a round bald patch about the size of a saucer.

The bell rang, a good, rattling, honest peal that told of a straightforward and unaffected fist. Jack heard Mary’s rather nasal treble answering the big man’s vigorous bass. The white mackintosh was doffed and hung considerately on the handle of the bell. There was much wiping of boots, while the man Gage appeared at the side gate in the garden wall, and came forward to hold the farmer’s horse.

“Sorry to bother you, doctor, on such a beast of an evening.”

“Come in, Mr. Carrington.”

“You remember me, sir?”

“I don’t forget many faces. Come into my study.”

The doffing of the white mackintosh had uncovered a robust and rather corpulent, thick-set figure in rough tweed jacket and breeches and box-cloth leggings. The farmer had one of those typically solid English faces, fresh-colored though deeply wrinkled, and chastening its good humor with an alert, world-wise watchfulness in the rather deep-set eyes. Mr. Carrington was considered rather a masterful man by his friends, a man who could laugh while his wits were at work bettering a bargain. He was one of the most prominent farmers in the neighborhood, and one of the few who confessed to making money despite the times.

“My trap’s waiting outside, doctor. I want you to come back with me right away to Goldspur Farm.”

Mr. Carrington was sitting on the extreme edge of a chair, and wiping the rain from his face with a silk handkerchief.

“Anything much the matter?”

“Well, doctor, you know I have taken to growing a lot of ground-fruit, and I’ve had about fifty pickers down from town this year.”

Murchison nodded.

“They’re camped out in two tin shanties and a couple of tents down at Goldspur Farm. East-enders, all of them; and you never quite know, doctor, what an East-ender carries. Well, to be frank, I’m worried about some of ’em.”

Mr. Carrington sat squarely in his chair, and tapped the floor with the soles of his boots. He looked thoughtful, and the corners of his big, good-tempered mouth had a melancholy droop.

“There’s one woman in particular, doctor, and her youngster, who seem bad. Sick and sweating; won’t take food; they just lie there in the straw like logs. My foreman didn’t tell me anything about it till this afternoon, but when I’d seen the woman I had the horse put in, and came straight here.”

Murchison glanced at his watch, and then crossed the room and rang the bell.

“Can you have me driven back?” he asked.

“Certainly, doctor.”

“Good. Ah, Mary, will you ask your mistress to have dinner postponed till eight. And tell Gage to take these letters to the post. Now, Mr. Carrington, my mackintosh and I are at your service.”

“You’ll need it, doctor, and an old hat.”

A slender vein of gold gashed the dull west as they left the outskirts of the town behind. As the rent in the sky broadened, long rays of light came down the valley, making the woods and meadows a glory of shimmering green, and firing the rain pools so that they shone like brass. The farmer took the private road that ran through Ulverstone Park, a rolling wilderness of beeches and Scotch firs, whose green “rides” plunged into the glimmering rain-splashed umbrage of tall trees. Here were tangled banks of purpling heather, and great stretches of sweet woodland turf. Old yews brooded in the deeps of the domain, solemn and still, most ancient and wise of trees.

“Get up, Molly,” and Mr. Carrington shook a raindrop from his nose, and flicked the brown mare with the whip. “Clearing a little. Sorry for the people who cut their hay yesterday.”

“Somewhat damp. How is the fruit doing?”

“Oh, pretty fair, pretty fair, as far as our strawberries are concerned. The finest year, doctor, is when you have a first-class crop and your neighbors can only put up rubbish. It’s no good every one being in tip-top form. I’ve got rid of tons, and at no dirt price, either.”

Mr. Carrington’s British face beamed slyly above his angelic white mackintosh. It was a face in which stolid satisfaction and stolid woe were easily interchanged, for the heavy lines thereof could be twisted into either expression.

Murchison was listening to the hoarse rattle of the clearing shower beating upon a myriad leaves. The gold band in the west was broadening into a canopy of splendor. Had Mr. Carrington been educated up to more pushing and aggressive methods of making money, he would have seen in that sky nothing but a magnificent background for some silhouetted sky-sign shouting “Try Our Jam.”

“And these pickers of yours, how long have they been with you?”

The lines in the farmer’s face rearranged themselves abruptly.

“Poor devils............