Page:Tales of the long bow.pdf/105

 "My name is Enoch B. Oates, and I'm pretty well known in Michigan, but I've bought a little place near here; I've looked about this little planet and I've come to think the safest and brightest place for a man with a few dollars is the place of a squire in your fine old feudal landscape. So the sooner I'm introduced to the more mellow medival buildings the better."

In Hilary Pierce the astonishment had given place to an ardour bordering on ecstasy.

"Medival 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