We thanked her politely, and she hurried us out of the front door as if we'd been chickens on a pansy bed.
(I did not know till after I had left the farm gate open, and the hens had got into the garden, that these feathered bipeds display a great partiality for the young buds of plants of the genus viola, to which they are extremely destructive.

I was told that by the gardener.

I looked it up in the gardening book afterwards to be sure he was right.
You do learn a lot of things in the country.) We went through the garden as far as the church, and then we rested a bit in the porch, and just looked into the basket to see what the 'snack' was.

It proved to be sausage rolls and queen cakes, and a Lent pie in a round tin dish, and some hard-boiled eggs, and some apples.

We all ate the apples at once, so as not to have to carry them about with us.