Think of this old town, its venerable dwellings--each by itself suggesting a romance. Hear the cooing and lazy flapping of pigeons, making continual holiday round the massive chimneys. Observe, without seeming to observe, the mayor's pretty daughter sitting at the open oriel window of the Guild-hall, merrily singing over her needle-work, and wondering if her bright ribbon has a good effect on passers below. Heed the jingle of a harpsichord in the rector's parlour. Be pleased to remember that the year is 1790--not 1860. Take a glass of stinging ale at "The Knight of Armour" hostelry--and own you enjoy it. Take another, creaming good-naturedly up under your lip, and confess you like it better than its predecessor. See the High Sheriff's carriage pass through the excited town, drawn by four enormous black horses, and having three Bacchic footmen hanging on behind. Do all this, and then you'll have a faint notion of Holmnook, its un-English picturesqueness, its placid joy, and experience of pomp. Who is the gentleman emerging from the mansion on the causeway, in this year 1790--with white peruke and long pig-tail, snuff-coloured coat and velvet collar, tight dark nether garments, silk stockings, and shoes with buckles, volumes of white shirt-frill rising up under his chin? As he taps his shoes on his doorstep you can see he is proud of his leg, a pleasant pride, whether one has reason for it or not! Seventy years of age, staid, decorous, and thoroughly versed in the social proprieties of the old world, now gone clean from us, like chivalry or chartism, Dr. Kemp was an important personage in Holmnook and its vicinity. An _éclat_ was his that a country doctor does not usually possess. For he was of gentle blood, being a cadet of an old and wealthy family on the other side of the country, the representative of which hailed him "cousin," and treated him with the intimacy of kinship--the kinship of 1790. Michael Kemp's youth had been spent away from Holmnook. Doubtless so polite and dignified a gentleman had once aimed at a brighter lot than a rural physician's. Doubtless he had a history, but he kept it to himself. He had never married! The rumour went that he had been disappointed--had undertaken the conquest of a high-born lady, who gave another ending to the game; and having conquered him, went off to conquer others. Ladies could do such things in the last century--when men had hearts. Anyhow, Michael Kemp, M.D., was an old bachelor, of spotless honour, and a reputation that scandal never dared to trifle with. A lady, much respected by the simple inhabitants of Holmsnook, kept his house.