He was a gay, good-looking fellow, with the cheerfullest of humours, and on the best of terms with every man, woman and child, over all the country-side. Moreover he was an excellent shot, a fearless rider, good company at table, an acceptable and much-sought-after guest,--whenever circumstances and cases permitted of temporary release from duties with which no social engagements were ever allowed to interfere. Marrying and settling down were for the years to come. As his father's assistant he had proved his capabilities. And when the old man died, Wulf stepped up into the vacant saddle and filled it with perfect acceptation to all concerned. His ready sympathy, and his particular interest in and devotion to everyone who claimed his services, endeared him to his patients. They vowed that the sight of him did them as much good as his medicines, but he made them take the medicines all the same. He had also lately been appointed Deputy-Coroner for the district, in order, in case of need, to relieve Dr Tamplin--old Tom Tamplin who lived at Aldersley, ten miles away. So that matters were prospering with him all round. All men spoke well of him, and the women still better. A practitioner from the outside, with a London degree and much assurance, had indeed hung out his large new brass plate in the village about a year before, and lived on there in hope which showed no sign of fulfilment. For everyone knew and liked Wulf Dale, and Dr Newman, M.B., clever though he might be and full worthy of his London degree, was still an outsider and an unknown quantity, and the way of the medical outsider in a country district is apt to be as hard as the way of the transgressor. So Elinor Baynard, for the sake of her bodily comfort and her own and her mother's worldly ambitions, married Pasley Carew and became Mistress of Croome, and learned all too soon that it is possible to pay too high a price even for bodily comfort and the realisation of worldly ambition. Worldly ambition may, indeed, be made to appear successfully attained, to the outside world; but bodily comfort, being dependent more or less on peace of mind, is not to be secured when heart and mind are sorely exercised and bruised. Jealous Jade Rumour even went the length of whispering that it was not heart and mind alone that had on occasion suffered bruising in this case. For Carew was notoriously quick-tempered and easily upset--and notoriously many other things also. His grooms and boys knew the feel of his hunting-crop better than his reasons for using it at times--though doubtless occasion was not lacking. As to his language!--it was said that the very horses in his stables lashed out when he began, as though they believed that, by much kicking, curses might be pulverised in mid-air and rendered innocuous.