Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV LLANGASTANAU
O good old man; how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world. (As You Like It.) On a dreary day in October I had to visit one of the remote villages high up in the moorland district. The wind howled, and the rain beat down pitilessly, as my Welsh-car jolted me, and swayed me to Llangastanaul Rectory, where I had been invited to spend the night. I was by no means sure of comfortable quarters, for I had never seen my host: his invitation came through my chief. But the alternative course, a long drive in the early morning to the parish school, was still less attractive, and I made up my mind to take college port, or buttermilk, as the case might be. When the car turned off the bleak road into a sheltered drive leading up to a solid-looking house, with gleams of light in the windows, and smoke issuing from several chimneys, my spirits rose: and when I saw the neat-handed Phyllis at the door, and behind her a scholarly, yet sociable face beaming over a well-lined waistcoat, I felt that I was in for a good thing: thelot had fallen unto me in a fair ground. There was no Mrs. Rector there is much to be said for celibacy of the clergy and we made our way to a library with a bright leaping fire of logs, and the most admirable furniture that a library can have, two arm chairs, a long table, and three walls full of books. As for seats other than the arm chairs, one remembers the remark of was it not the visitor to Charles Lamb
all the seats were booked. On each chair was a pile of volumes taken down from the shelves, and not replaced: so free and careless is the celibate life. But Phyllis Jones eyed them scornfully as she passed, and during dinner they were all
put back where Phyllis thought they would fit in. Even …
