o go
to the churchyard, because being on a little rise, there was the best
view of the sea to be had from it; and on a fine day you could watch the
French privateers creeping along the cliffs under the Snout, and lying in
wait for an Indiaman or up-channel trader. There were at Moonfleet few
boys of my own age, and none that I cared to make my companion; so I was
given to muse alone, and did so for the most part in the open air, all
the more because my aunt did not like to see an idle boy, with muddy
boots, about her house.

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 b