The next day, the last of the visiting patients to whom my forenoons were devoted had just quitted me, when I was summoned in haste to attend the steward of a Sir Philip Derval not residing at his family seat, which was about five miles from L----.

It was rarely indeed that persons so far from the town, when of no higher rank than this applicant, asked my services.
But it was my principle to go wherever I was summoned; my profession was not gain, it was healing, to which gain was the incident, not the essential.

This case the messenger reported as urgent.

I went on horseback, and rode fast; but swiftly as I cantered through the village that skirted the approach to Sir Philip Derval's park, the evident care bestowed on the accommodation of the cottagers forcibly struck me.

I felt that I was on the lands of a rich, intelligent, and beneficent proprietor.