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 ...