The grave was close to the wall, and just beside it Grif sat down, with his book on the grass near him. The hot sun made him sleepy and comfortable and not inclined to begin reading, so he remained for a while thinking of the Batts, and of Billy’s room, which he had not yet been taken to see, though he had gone to the house a good many times; and presently he heard the thin, creaking, rather battered voice of the wall:―― In the old grey stone wall grow daisies, White and gold, With green trembling leaves like feathers And roots that hold Firmly between the grey crumbling stones. In the old grey stone wall grow thistles, Purple and strong, And the ivy clings there and dark mosses Creep along The battered ancient stones. Here out of the wind and in the sunshine I find a nook; Pleasant to lie here in simple idleness, Or with a book Sit, leaning my back against the stones. While overhead the sky is blue, And at my feet the grass is green, And a bee crawls on the thistle, And a lark sings, unseen. And quietly the spider spins his web Between the stones, and waits for foolish flies; And a cock crows in the distance, and a dog barks, And when the wind passes, when the wind shakes it and awakens it, The old elm-tree sighs. Grif opened his Bible and after some trouble found the Book of Tobit. He read it carefully, but with a good deal of disappointment, for, though it was like them, it did not seem to him nearly so interesting as the stories in the _Arabian Nights_. The genni that fled from Tobias into “the utmost parts of Egypt” was evidently not so powerful as those which King Solomon had sealed up in brazen jars and thrown into the ocean; nor was the magic which Tobias used very exciting. He only burned the heart and liver of a fish, and it was just the smell that the genni didn’t like. Perhaps it was a herring, Grif thought, for he himself detested the smell of herrings. Moreover, Tobias’s dog, which he had imagined as playing a principal part in the adventure, was just mentioned and no more. Grif believed he could make up a better story out of his own head, and one more like the picture.