Questions were asked anxiously and he answered them.That he was personally unafraid was comfortingly plain, and the mere sight of him was, on the whole, an unexplainable support.
"We heard said your lordship was going away," put in a stout mother with a heavy child on her arm, a slight testiness scarcely concealed by respectful good-manners.She was a matron with a temper, and that a Mount Dunstan should avoid responsibilities seemed highly credible.
"I shall stay where I am," Mount Dunstan answered.
"My place is here."
They believed him, Mount Dunstan though he was.It could not be said that they were fond of him, but gradually it had been borne in upon them that his word was to be relied on, though his manner was unalluring and they knew he was too poor to do his duty by them or his estate.As he walked away with the vicar, windows were opened, and in one or two untidy cottages a sudden flourishing of mops and brooms began.
There was dark trouble in Mount Dunstan's face.In the huts they had left two men stiff on their straw, and two women and a child in a state of collapse.Added to these were others stricken helpless.A number of workers in the hop gardens, on realising the danger threatening them, had gathered together bundles and children, and, leaving the harvest behind, had gone on the tramp again.Those who remained were the weaker or less cautious, or were held by some tie to those who were already ill of the fever.The village doctor was an old man who had spent his blameless life in bringing little cottagers into the world, attending their measles and whooping coughs, and their father's and grandfather's rheumatics.He had never faced a village crisis in the course of his seventy-five years, and was aghast and flurried with fright.His methods remained those of his youth, and were marked chiefly by a readiness to prescribe calomel in any emergency.A younger and stronger man was needed, as well as a man of more modern training.But even the most brilliant practitioner of the hour could not have provided shelter and nourishment, and without them his skill would have counted as nothing.For three weeks there had been no rain, which was a condition of the barometer not likely to last.
Already grey clouds were gathering and obscuring the blueness of the sky.
The vicar glanced upwards anxiously.
"When it comes," he said, "there will be a downpour, and a persistent one.""Yes," Mount Dunstan answered.
He had lain awake thinking throughout the night.How was a man to sleep! It was as Betty Vanderpoel had known it would be.He, who--beggar though he might be--was the lord of the land, was the man to face the strait of these poor workers on the land, as his own.Some action must be taken.What action? As he walked by his friend's side from the huts where the dead men lay it revealed itself that he saw his way.
They were going to the vicarage to consult a medical book, but on the way there they passed a part of the park where, through a break in the timber the huge, white, blind-faced house stood on view.Mount Dunstan laid his hand on Mr.
Penzance's shoulder and stopped him"Look there!" he said."THERE are weather-tight rooms enough."A startled expression showed itself on the vicar's face.
"For what?" he exclaimed"For a hospital," brusquely "I can give them one thing, at least--shelter.""It is a very remarkable thing to think of doing," Mr.
Penzance said.
"It is not so remarkable as that labourers on my land should die at my gate because I cannot give them decent roofs to cover them.There is a roof that will shield them from the weather.They shall be brought to the Mount."The vicar was silent a moment, and a flush of sympathy warmed his face.
"You are quite right, Fergus," he said, "entirely right.""Let us go to your study and plan how it shall be done,"Mount Dunstan said.
