“Mediæval buildings! Architectural styles!� he cried enthusiastically. “You’ve come to the right shop, Mr. Oates. I’ll show you an ancient building, a sacred building, in an architectural style of such sublime antiquity that you’ll want to cart it all away to Michigan, as they tried to do with Glastonbury Abbey. You shall be privileged to see one historic institution before you die or before all history is forgotten.�
He was walking towards the corner of the little kitchen-garden attached to the inn, waving his arms with wild gestures of encouragement; and the American was following him with the same stiff politeness, looking weirdly like an automaton.
“Look on our architectural style before it perishes,� cried Pierce dramatically, pointing to the pig-sty, which looked a rather ramshackle affair of leaning and broken boards hung loosely together, though in practice it was practical enough. “This, the most unmistakably mellow of all mediæval buildings, may soon be only a memory. But when this edifice falls England will fall, and the world will shake with the shock of doom.�
The American had what he himself might have described as a poker face; it was impossible to discover whether his utterances indicated the extreme of innocence or of irony.
“And would you say,� he asked, “that this monument exemplifies the mediæval or Gothic architectural school?�
“I should hardly call it strictly Perpendicular,� answered Pierce, “but there is no doubt that it is Early English.�
“You would say it is antique, anyhow?� observed Mr. Oates.
“I have every reason to believe,� affirmed Pierce solemnly, “that Gurth the Swineherd made use of this identical building. I have no doubt it is in fact far older. The best authorities believe that the Prodigal Son stayed here for some time, and the pigs—those noble and much maligned animals—gave him such excellent advice that he returned to his family. And now, Mr. Oates, they say that all that magnificent heritage is to be swept away. But it shall not be. We shall not so easily submit to all the vandals and vulgar tyrants who would thus tear down our temples and our holy places. The pig-sty shall rise again in a magnificent resurrection—larger pig-stys, loftier pig-stys, shall yet cover the land; the towers and domes and spires of statelier and more ideal pig-stys, in the most striking architectural styles, shall again declare the victory of the holy hog over his unholy oppressors.�
“And meanwhile,� said Colonel Crane drily, “I think Mr. Oates had much better begin with the church down by the river. Very fine Norman foundations and traces of the Roman brick. The vicar understands his church, too, and would give Mr. Oates rather more reliable information than you do.�
A little while later, when Mr. Oates had passed on his way, the Colonel curtly reproved his young friend.