“Your peaches are very fine this year,” said Jason to the Squire. “And it was a very good idea of yours to put netting over them. Thieves are afraid of touching netting. It’s like the Latin words at the beginning of a psalm. It makes fruit seem more than fruit⁠—something sacred, I mean.”

“You must make my gardener pick you some of the sacred fruit when you next explore my garden,” said Mr. Urquhart.

“You’ve put your garden-seats in such a very well-chosen place,” went on the poet, in an eager, propitiatory manner. “None of these country fools understand why your garden-seats are between the yew-hedges and the privet-hedges. They’ve no more idea of how garden-seats should be arranged⁠—I mean, with regard to shadows⁠—than a Sturminster goose has of the taste of Tangerine oranges.”