This led to an acrimonious discussion on “Christian Missions,” all leaning forward in their chairs and filling and lighting their pipes with feverish haste; the Druid and David pessimist, the Rector optimist, the Squire benevolent, for, as he remarked, if the missionaries don’t do much good, they don’t have much of a time out there; and he waved a comprehensive hand over the earth beyond Wales. Harry and I pulled out of the stream, and filled up a whisky and soda to last till peace should be declared. And Harry told me of his strange life up in the hill-country, where the joy of living atoned for the loss of Oxford society. The Rector was the finest old chap in the world; the Squire was a rattling good sort, and gave him a free hand; some of the quarrymen were first-rate fellows; of course they wanted a lot of looking after, and an Englishman would have a rough time of it, but he himself was a Welshman, and he knew their little ways. Then there was fishing, and there was shooting, and he was always fit. And so on, till the war of words ended, and the Druid came for his whisky, and sat down by my side. “You seem to have some remarkable parishioners, Mr. Morgan,” I remarked with deference; “but I gather that you get the better of them.” He was much flattered. He admitted that he was too many for them. When he first came there, he confessed it was uphill work, but he had learned by ex-pee-ri-ence, and he prolonged the word to indicate the time required for his complete education. It was in the autumn, after he came to Llanfair, that a young man came to him one Saturday evening, and asked him (in Welsh) “to cry the nuts in church next morning.” “Well, of course, I did not like to let him know that I did not understand, and I asked a few questions about it; in the end I found that his mother had an orchard full of nut-trees, and the nuts were ripe, and I was to give out after the Second Lesson that an-ny one that took them, you know, would be prosecuted by law.” “With the Banns of Marriage? And what did you do, Mr. Morgan?” He smiled in a superior manner. “I told him it wass no use for me to cry the nuts to the people that were in church; they would not touch his nuts; it wass the people outside that wanted to be told.” What an admirable doctrine! and what simplification of sermons it would produce if generally promulgated. But most congregations prefer to “Compound for sins they are inclined to” in the manner indicated by Butler. “I suppose the population is scattered in your parish?” I rashly remarked. The Druid seized his opportunity, and drew up his chair nearer to me.