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 II is a short cut which leads from my house to the church, and therefore, of course, to the rectory, which stands, as rectories often do, close to the church. The path — it can only be used by those who walk — leads past the garden and through a wood to the high road. It was on this path, a quarter of a mile or so from the road, that I met Canon Beresford, about ten days after my interview with Lalage in the pigsty. Certain wood pigeons of low morality had been attacking our gooseberry bushes. My mother, instigated by the gardener, demanded their destruction, and so I went out with a gun. I shot two of the worst offenders. The gardener discovered half digested fruit in the dead bodies, so I am sure that I got the right birds and did not unjustly execute the innocent. Then I met the Canon. He displayed no interest whatever in the destruction of the wood pigeons, although his garden must have suffered quite as much as ours. I remarked that it was nearly luncheon time and asked him to return with me and share the meal. He was distraught and nervous, but he managed to quote Horace by way of reply: "Destrictus ensis cui super impia Cervice pendet, non Siculae dapes. . . ." The Canon's fondness for Horace accounts, I suppose, for the name he gave his daughter. His habit of quoting is troublesome to me, because I cannot always translate what he says. But he has a feeling for my infirmity and a tactful way of saving my self-respect. "If you had a heavy, two-handed sword hanging over your head by a hair," he explained, "you would be thinking about something else besides luncheon." "What has the Archdeacon been doing?" I asked. The Archdeacon is a man with a thirst for information about church affairs, and he collects what he wants by means of questions printed...