Casual Slaughters

It had been one of those singing days when spring is turning into summer, and lifting every muddy lane and ragged hedge into radiance. All day the sun had shone with approval upon Bishop’s Pecheford; all day the village, as quiet and uneventful as its name, had basked in warmth and virtue.
The members of the Parochial Church Council straggled into the dingy schoolroom; as they crossed the threshold they were glorified in the red searchlight of sunset that slanted through the west window and ...