Equally practical was the response made by a wealthy gentleman who has recently settled near Brindlington to the appeal of the parson to contribute something to the loan collection with which he hoped to second the efforts of the Minor Canon to stimulate an appreciation of good art in his parish. In charge of a traction-engine of large horse-power there was brought in a stone-mason's lorry to the door of the hall a full-size powerful group by Monsieur Rodin, representing an episode in the life of the most flagrantly humorous faun that ever grew, or half-grew, out of a rock under the rough-hewing chisel of the great French artist. At first one did not know that one was looking at a piece of sculpture--one seemed to be looking into a stone quarry. But gradually the idea revealed itself, and then one rather wished that it hadn't. The faun was not one of Nature's gentlemen: you could see that at once; but after a while, with good luck, you became aware of the fact that there was a nymph, or what looked like a nymph, scattered about the quarry--yes, you could see it quite distinctly from certain standpoints, and when you did you rather hoped that you had been mistaken. It was a masterpiece that “Group by M. Rodin.” It might have been taken for a freak of Nature herself--one of those fantastic rocks which are supposed to suggest the head of the first Napoleon or perhaps the Duke of Wellington wearing his cocked hat, or it may be a huge lizard or, if properly humped, a kneeling camel. But whatever it was, there stood the stone quarry brought to the very doors of the hall wherein were “loaned” all the objects of Art contributed by the less ambitious collectors of the neighbourhood, and within were six stalwart men preparing to rig up on a tripod of fifteen-feet ash poles each as thick as a stout tree, a tackle of chains and pulleys for shifting the thing from the truck to the rollers by which it was to be coaxed into the building. They did not get it beyond the porch. The tiled pavement crumbled beneath it like glass, and the caretaker of the building was doubtful about the stability of the floor within. In the porch it remained until the parson's wife, who had heard the noise of the traction-engine and felt sure that something was going on, arrived upon the scene. She took a glance at the landscape within the porch, and then ordered a dust-sheet.