We swung into the prettiest open space imaginable, close to a glassy lake, and found the fourteenth-century church, with its yews and leaning stones, before us. I went silently in at Nasmith's heels. The flooring was the perfect plush of English grass; the roof of the nave was living boughs. For a single huge ash-tree had rooted itself there generations ago, and grown much larger round than our four arms could span, and lifted its spread of leaves nearer heaven than the level of the walls. Ivy hung on the chancel arch, and many bright-colored wildflowers, whose seeds had lodged in the crevices and in the blank windows, filled the whole enclosure, bay after bay, with a riot of color and fragrance. Soft green daylight everywhere caressed the eye. The chancel roof, of exquisitely groined limestone, was still unfallen, though it had a rift or two; and on either side, where the monks' stalls must have stood a dozen deep, there were crumbling tombs, with effigies in alabaster. I went directly up one step to a plain small brass over against the piscina, and pushed the weeds aside. Nasmith knew I should not be able to decipher the inscription, on which the rain of three hundred summers had been sifted in. Leaning his head against one of the piers, a good distance down, he looked over at me, and began to recite, in an agreeable monotone: "'Here lieth Ralph, thirteen years old, heir while he lived to Orrinleigh and Gaynes; whom do thou, O Lord! receive among the innocent. For Time still tries The truth from lies, And God makes open what the world doth blind.