"Directly she was comfortable I was sent back to tell the Master, and he himself drove off to fetch the doctor; and by-and-bye they came back together and the doctor did what he could for her and went off home to fill up the birth certificate. It wasn't for some time afterwards," said Uncle Jonah, "that we learned why we had to carry her all that way. Can you guess why it was?" Uncle Jonah asked; but I had no notion. "Why," he said, "the Master's farm was in two parishes--Arringly and Thangmer--but only a little tiny corner where the barn stood was in Thangmer. All the rest was in Arringly, and so he had her carried to the barn so that the child should be registered as born in Thangmer parish and not be on the Arringly rates. 'For,' as he said, 'we don't want more pauper children than we can help in Arringly.' That's the sort of man he was; looked ahead and took everything into account." Uncle Jonah told also of his own experiences in driving large flocks of sheep or lambs to distant markets in the country when he was a lad; and how they had to work out the route beforehand with great care so as to have as few turnpike gates to pass through as possible. I asked him how much they had to pay for lambs to go through. "Fippence a score," he said. We did not break up till after midnight. To me the evening harvest of song seemed to be rather notable; but the Director knew better. Sussex is not a distinguished singing country, he explained. Somerset is the happiest hunting-ground. There they sing sweetest and have the best songs. By the time a good song reaches Sussex it is debased. Sussex has no style. But Somerset is full of style. This, surely, is very odd, and the Director offers no theories to explain it. He would like to, but he cannot; he is not a sociologist, he says, or an ethnologist, or a psychologist; he is merely a collector and preserver of the best old English songs that he has the fortune to hear. Well, I would rather be that than an "ist" of any calibre. I consider him to have done and to be doing one of the finest things any Englishman has ever done: a piece of the most exquisite patriotism; and I am proud to be of assistance in the cause. CHAPTER XIX IN WHICH INADVERTENTLY I BECOME A PUBLIC CHARACTER AND, ALSO INADVERTENTLY, GIVE AN OPPORTUNIST AN IDEA Mr. Furley overtaking me recently on my way into London asked if I should be in the neighbourhood of Parliament Square about a quarter to three. "Be there if you can," he said. As it happened I was lunching at Queen Anne's Gate, and so I did pass through the square at the time named, glanced at our legislators--or at men who wished to look like our legislators and be taken for them, and, as far as I was concerned, succeeded--entering the House, and so went on to Chelsea, whither I was bound, by the Embankment.