leasure
in smashing anything. So would you if your only pleasure was in cruising
about to find some new Cannibal Islands, and you had to stick on this
muddy little rockery in a sort of rustic pond. When I remember how I've
cut down a mile and a half of green poisonous jungle with an old cutlass
half as sharp as this; and then remember I must stop here and chop this
matchwood, because of some confounded old bargain scribbled in a family
Bible, why, I--"

He swung up the heavy steel again; and this time sundered the wall of
wood from top to bottom at one stroke.

"I feel like that," he said laughing, but furiously flinging the sword
some yards down the path, "and now let's go up to the house; you must
have some dinner."

The semicircle of lawn in front of the house was varied by three
circular garden beds, one of red tulips, a second of yellow tulips, and
the third of some white, waxen-looking blossoms that the visitors
did not know and presumed to be exotic. A heavy, hairy and rather
sullen-looking gardener was hanging up a heavy coil of garden hose. The
corners of the expiring sunset which seemed to cling about the corners
of the house gave glimpses here and there of the colours of remoter
flowerbeds; and in a treeless space on one side of the house opening
upon the river stood a tall brass tripod on which was tilted a big brass
telescope. Just outside the steps of the porch stood a little painted
green garden table, as if someone had just had tea there. The entrance
was flanked with two of those half-featured lumps of stone with holes
for eyes that are said to be South Sea idols; and on the brown oak beam
across the doorway were some confused carvings that looked almost as
barbaric.

As they passed indoors, the little cleric hopped suddenly on to the
table, and standing on it peered unaffectedly through his spectacles at
the mouldings in the oak. Admiral Pendragon looked very much astonished,
though not particularly annoyed; while Fanshaw was so amused with what
looked like a performing pigmy on his little stand, that he could not
control his laughter. But Father Brown was not likely to notice either
the laughter or the astonishment.

He was gazing at three carved symbols, which, though very worn and
obscure, seemed still to convey some sense to him. The first seemed to
be the outline of some tower or other building, crowned with what looked
like curly-pointed ribbons. The second was clearer: an old Elizabethan