The Project Gutenberg eBook, News from the Duchy, by Sir Arthur Thomas
Quiller-Couch

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Title: News from the Duchy

Author: Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Release Date: June 13, 2006 [eBook #18577]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEWS FROM THE DUCHY***

E-text prepared by Lionel Sear

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 hi