The Squire was reaching port from the sideboard.—"Eh?" he said, not quite understanding.
"Those places an expression of religious emotion!" Terry cried, throwing up his hands. "Of course, what's happened was a perfectly natural result! Commit such an outrage on the æsthetic sense as that and—and no fence is safe! If I'd seen those Chapels first I'd as soon have bought a volcano as that land! They ought to have been mentioned by the vendors—flagrant suppressio veri—deliberate concealment of a material fact—an action ought to lie—by Jove, I've a good mind to take advice about it!—--"
"I beg your pardon?" said the puzzled Squire.
A very few questions served to enlighten him. His mouth twitched as he filled his harebrained visitor's glass.
"Well," he said, "I don't quite follow your processes, but your result seems all right. If you mean there's some connection between the Chapels and your fences being pulled down, I dare say you're not very far wrong. The places of worship do settle a good many things indirectly here. But our own Establishment's been called a branch of the Civil Service, so I don't see how we can complain if some of their activities are a little secular too."
"'A little secular!'" echoed Terry. "Pulling down fences 'a little secular!' ... Now I'm anxious not to go to extreme lengths——"
"Eh?" said the Squire rather quickly. He gave Terry a longish look.... "Do you know Wales?" he asked politely.
"I do not. But I've not heard that it's outside the Law. I was going to say, that I don't want to issue summonses if it can be avoided——"
Thereupon the Squire, who was inclined to like this half-mystical zany of a guest, gave him the same advice he had given to Edward Garden.
"Oh, avoid it if you possibly can!" he said good-humouredly. "There's nothing these people won't do for you if you go the right way about it, but it must be the right way. A new neighbour of yours seems to be getting along with them quite successfully, a man called Garden. Quite an opportunist, I should say—takes things just as he finds them—settles every question strictly on its merits and has a good deal of audacity up his sleeve for use at the right moment, I don't doubt. Can't you take a leaf out of his book?"