some as are fallen in altogether."

He indicated one or two graves where the mound had sunk, and
suggestive hollows were visible in the grass.

"First, it's the coffin that bu'sts in beneath the weight, then it's
the bones," he added, with that grim realism which is begotten of
familiarity.

Dormer Colville did not trouble to translate these general truths.
He suppressed a yawn as he contemplated the tottering headstones of
certain master-mariners and Trinity-pilots taking their long rest in
the immediate vicinity. The churchyard lay on the slope of rising
ground upon which the village of Farlingford straggled upward in one
long street. Farlingford had once been a town of some commercial
prosperity. Its story was the story of half a dozen ports on this
coast--a harbour silted up, a commerce absorbed by a more prosperous
neighbour nearer to the railway.

Below the churchyard was the wide street which took a turn eastward
at the gates and led straight down to the river-side. Farlingford
Quay--a little colony of warehouses and tarred huts--was separated
from Farlingford proper by a green, where the water glistened at
high tide. In olden days the Freemen of Farlingford had been
privileged to graze their horses on the green. In these later times
the lord of the manor pretended to certain rights over the
pasturage, which Farlingford, like one man, denied him.

"A mystery," repeated River Andrew, waiting very clearly for Mr.
Dormer Colville to translate the suggestive word to the French