as a warning in an adventure that befell me later on. So I gave up
reading and stepped out into the street. It was a poor street at best,
though once, no doubt, it had been finer. Now, there were not two hundred
souls in Moonfleet, and yet the houses that held them straggled sadly
over half a mile, lying at intervals along either side of the road.
Nothing was ever made new in the village; if a house wanted repair badly,
it was pulled down, and so there were toothless gaps in the street, and
overrun gardens with broken-down walls, and many of the houses that yet
stood looked as though they could stand but little longer.

The sun had set; indeed, it was already so dusk that the lower or
sea-end of the street was lost from sight. There was a little fog or
smoke-wreath in the air, with an odour of burning weeds, and that first
frosty feeling of the autumn that makes us think of glowing fires and
the comfort of long winter evenings to come. All was very still, but I
could hear the tapping of a hammer farther down the street, and walked
to see what was doing, for we had no trades in Moonfleet save that of
fishing. It was Ratsey the sexton at work in a shed which opened on the
street, lettering a tombstone with a mallet and graver. He had been
mason before he became fisherman, and was handy with his tools; so that
if anyone wanted a headstone set up in the churchyard, he went to Ratsey
to get it done. I lent over the half-door and watched him a minute,
chipping away with the graver in a bad light from a lantern; then he
looked up, and seeing me, said:

'Here, John, if you have nothing to do, come in and hold the lantern for
me, 'tis but a half-hour's job to get all finished.'

Ratsey was always kind to me, and had lent me a chisel many a time to
make boats, so I stepped in and held the lantern watching him chink out
the bits of Portland stone with a graver, and blinking the while when
they came too near my eyes. The inscription stood complete, but he was
putting the finishing touches to a little sea-piece carved at the top of
the stone, which showed a schooner boarding a cutter. I thought it fine
work at the time, but know now that it was rough enough; indeed, you may
see it for yourself in Moonfleet churchyard to this day, and read the
inscription too, though it is yellow with lichen, and not so plain as it
was that night. This is how it runs:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF DAVID BLOCK

Aged 15, who was killed by a shot fired f