For a few weeks, indeed, after the day that I had surprised Elzevir and
Ratsey, I kept away from the church, fearing to meet them there again;
but a little later resumed my visits, and saw no more of them. Now, my
favourite seat in the churchyard was the flat top of a raised stone tomb,
which stands on the south-east of the church. I have heard Mr. Glennie
call it an altar-tomb, and in its day it had been a fine monument, being
carved round with festoons of fruit and flowers; but had suffered so much
from the weather, that I never was able to read the lettering on it, or
to find out who had been buried beneath. Here I chose most to sit, not
only because it had a flat and convenient top, but because it was
screened from the wind by a thick clump of yew-trees. These yews had
once, I think, completely surrounded it, but had either died or been cut
down on the south side, so that anyone sitting on the grave-top was snug
from the weather, and yet possessed a fine prospect over the sea. On the
other three sides, the yews grew close and thick, embowering the tomb
like the high back of a fireside chair; and many times in autumn I have
seen the stone slab crimson with the fallen waxy berries, and taken some
home to my aunt, who liked to taste them with a glass of sloe-gin after
her Sunday dinner. Others beside me, no doubt, found this tomb a
comfortable seat and look-out; for there was quite a path worn to it on
the south side, though all the times I had visited it I had never seen
anyone there.

So it came about that on a certain afternoon in the beginning of
February, in the year 1758, I was sitting on this tomb looking out to
sea. Though it was so early in the year, the air was soft and warm as a
May day, and so still that I could hear the drumming of turnips that
Gaffer George was flinging into a cart on the hillside, near half a mile
away. Ever since the floods of which I have spoken, the weather had been