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News from the Duchy By: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (1863-1944) |
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY. by A. T. Quiller Couch (Q). To My Friend AUSTIN M. PURVES of Philadelphia and Troy Town.
Contents. PART I.
PIPES IN ARCADY. OUR LADY OF GWITHIAN. PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS. THE MONT BAZILLAC. THE THREE NECKLACES. THE WREN. NOT HERE, O APOLLO. FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM. THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP. LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE THE CASK ASHORE.
PART II.
YE SEXES, GIVE EAR. FRENCHMAN'S CREEK. PART I.
PIPES IN ARCADY.
I hardly can bring myself to part with this story, it has been
such a private joy to me. Moreover, that I have lain awake in the
night to laugh over it is no guarantee of your being passably
amused. Yourselves, I dare say, have known what it is to awake in
irrepressible mirth from a dream which next morning proved to be flat
and unconvincing. Well, this my pet story has some of the qualities
of a dream; being absurd, for instance, and almost incredible, and
even a trifle inhuman. After all, I had better change my mind, and
tell you another But no; I will risk it, and you shall have it, just as it befel.
I had taken an afternoon's holiday to make a pilgrimage: my goal
being a small parish church that lies remote from the railway, five
good miles from the tiniest of country stations; my purpose to
inspect or say, rather, to contemplate a Norman porch, for which it
ought to be widely famous. (Here let me say that I have an unlearned
passion for Norman architecture to enjoy it merely, not to write
about it.) To carry me on my first stage I had taken a crawling local train
that dodged its way somehow between the regular expresses and the
"excursions" that invade our Delectable Duchy from June to October.
The season was high midsummer, the afternoon hot and drowsy with
scents of mown hay; and between the rattle of the fast trains it
seemed that we, native denizens of the Duchy, careless of
observation or applause, were executing a tour de force in that
fine indolence which has been charged as a fault against us. That we
halted at every station goes without saying. Few sidings however
inconsiderable or, as it might seem, fortuitous escaped the
flattery of our prolonged sojourn. We ambled, we paused, almost
we dallied with the butterflies lazily afloat over the meadow sweet
and cow parsley beside the line; we exchanged gossip with
station masters, and received the congratulations of signalmen on the
extraordinary spell of fine weather. It did not matter.
Three market women, a pedlar, and a local policeman made up with me
the train's complement of passengers. I gathered that their business
could wait; and as for mine well, a Norman porch is by this time
accustomed to waiting. I will not deny that in the end I dozed at intervals in my empty
smoking compartment; but wish to make it clear that I came on the
Vision (as I will call it) with eyes open, and that it left me
staring, wide awake as Macbeth. Let me describe the scene. To the left of the line as you travel
westward there lies a long grassy meadow on a gentle acclivity, set
with three or four umbrageous oaks and backed by a steep plantation
of oak saplings. At the foot of the meadow, close alongside the
line, runs a brook, which is met at the meadow's end by a second
brook which crosses under the permanent way through a culvert.
The united waters continue the course of the first brook, beside the
line, and maybe for half a mile farther; but, a few yards below their
junction, are partly dammed by the masonry of a bridge over which a
country lane crosses the railway; and this obstacle spreads them into
a pool some fifteen or twenty feet wide, overgrown with the leaves of
the arrow head, and fringed with water flags and the flowering rush. Now I seldom pass this spot without sparing a glance for it; first
because of the pool's still beauty, and secondly because many rabbits
infest the meadow below the coppice, and among them for two or three
years was a black fellow whom I took an idle delight in recognising... Continue reading book >>
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Fiction |
Literature |
Short stories |
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