However, the
season's past. You fish?"
"No."
"Pity again. I hear Alva is full of trout. Why not try sailing?
Nothing oxygenates the lungs like a sail, and your friends the
fishermen would be delighted to have you as super-cargo. They are
always full of your stories to them, and your picking their brains for
old legends and adventures."
"They are noble fellows, and I want no better company; but,
unfortunately, I am always sea-sick."
"Ah! wholesome, but unpleasant: you are fond of gardening?"
"Very; but stooping makes my head swim."
"True, and I don't want you to stoop. I hope to see you soon as erect
as a Guardsman. Why not try walks?"
"Abominable bores--lonely, aimless--"
"Well, perhaps you're right. I never knew but three men who took long
constitutionals on principle, and two of them were cracked. But why
not try a companion; and persuade that curate, who needs just the same
medicine as you, to accompany you? I don't know a more gentleman-like,
agreeable, well-informed man than he is."
"Thank you. I can choose my acquaintances for myself."
"You touchy ass!" said Thurnall to himself. "If we were in the blessed
state of nature now, wouldn't I give you ten minutes' double thonging,
and then set you to work, as the runaway nigger did his master, Bird
o' freedom Sawin, till you'd learnt a thing or two." But blandly still
he went on.
"Try the dumb-bells then. Nothing like them for opening your chest.
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