He took a short-cut across the fields, but, characteristically, stopped to scratch the face of a cow, and to brush away the flies that kept buzzing round her eyes and settling at the corners of them. The cow lowered her head till it was well within Grif’s reach, and then stood perfectly still, breathing her sweet breath into his face, while he rubbed all round her eyes where the flies tormented her. Solemn, motionless as one of those extraordinary wooden beasts of Noah’s Arks, she probably would have been pleased to pass a good portion of the afternoon in the enjoyment of this novel and delightful sensation, but Grif, having scratched for several minutes, moved on. The cow followed him as far as the next stile, where she stood, her head stretched over the bars. A low moo brought the tender-hearted Grif back again, but he couldn’t scratch the cow forever, and, giving her a last pat on her wet soft nose, he turned and ran across the field and on to the church. He opened the door with his big iron key, and went up to the reading-desk for the Bible. It was a large book, and a brown powder from its calf back came off on his jacket as he carried it under his arm. He brought it out into the sunlit churchyard and looked about for a comfortable corner. He wandered among the graves, most of them marked by head-stones stained green by time and weather, some with their lettering almost indecipherable, and some lying prone on the grass. He read the names and the dates, now and then having to kneel down and pull away a creeper that had half hidden an inscription:―― Our Life a Vapour Our days do quickly pass Fade as a flower And wither as the grass. It seemed odd to Grif to think that many of these people who lay here had lived more than a hundred years ago――some of them a great deal more. It made the world appear very old, and gave him a curious impression of dabbling in past times. Here lieth the Body of Henry Tisdale Who was present at the Action off Cape Trafalgar October 1805. In the midst of it all he remembered Billy Tremaine, and began to search for _his_ grave, looking among the newer stones. Yet, when he found it, it was rather an old one, and there were several names on it, the one he sought for being the last:――William Batt Tremaine, aged fourteen years. There was no text, merely at the top of the stone an engraved crest, with a Latin motto which he could not make out. All the other people buried in this grave had been old, and it seemed to Grif rather sad that a boy should have to lie here among men and women, not one of whom but had attained his allotted span of three score years and ten.