'I rise earlier than any one else in the village,' he once boasted.

'It is a fair consequence that I know more and wish to do less with my knowledge.' The Doctor was a connoisseur of sunrises, and loved a good theatrical effect to usher in the day.

He had a theory of dew, by which he could predict the weather.

Indeed, most things served him to that end: the sound of the bells from all the neighbouring villages, the smell of the forest, the visits and the behaviour of both birds and fishes, the look of the plants in his garden, the disposition of cloud, the colour of the light, and last, although not least, the arsenal of meteorological instruments in a louvre-boarded hutch upon the lawn.

Ever since he had settled at Gretz, he had been growing more and more into the local meteorologist, the unpaid champion of the local climate.