'I envy you the novelty.' There was again the same faint
unmistakable antagonism in voice and attitude; and yet so deep
was the relief in talking to a fellow creature who hadn't the
least suspicion of anything unusual in his appearance that
Lawford was extremely disinclined to turn back. He made another
effort--for conversation with strangers had always been a
difficulty to him--and advanced towards the seat. 'You mustn't
please let me intrude upon you,' he said, 'but really I am very
interested in this queer old place. Perhaps you would tell me
something of its history?' He sat down. His companion moved
slowly to the other side of the broken gravestone.

'To tell you the truth,' he replied, picking his way as it were
from word to word, 'it's "history," as people call it, does not
interest me in the least. After all, it's not when a thing is,
but what it is, that much matters. What this is'--he glanced,
with head bent, across the shadowy stones, 'is pretty evident. Of
course, age has its charms.'

'And is this very old?'

'Oh yes, it's old right enough, as things go; but even age,
perhaps, is mainly an affair of the imagination. There's a
tombstone near that little old hawthorn, and there are two others
side by side under the wall, still even legibly late seventeenth
century. That's pretty good weathering.' He smiled faintly. 'Of
course, the church itself is centuries older, drenched with age.
But she's still sleep-walking while these old tombstones dream.
Glow-worms and crickets are not such bad bedfellows.'