They left the churchyard by a narrow lane that always climbed. They passed the village inn: a long, windswept building, so bare and so exposed to weather that even the tenure of the lichen on the tiles seemed precarious. Over the lintel a weathered board showed them the name of Ingleby in faded letters. Edwin pointed to it. “Yes,” said his father. “I suppose he is some remote cousin of yours. Everybody that is left in this village must be related to us in some degree; though I don’t suppose any of them would remember me. You see, I went to Axcombe when I was a good deal younger than you.” He smiled. “I am like a ghost returning to its old home. Like a ghost. . . .” And yet, to Edwin, the whole place seemed familiar. He was not in the least surprised when, opposite a windy farm-house, in front of which the dry blades of a dishevelled dracæna shivered as though protesting against its wintry exile, his father turned off to the left along a road that had once been gay with cottage gardens and trim buildings of stone, but was now suggestive of nothing but ruin and desolation. By one of these pathetic ruins his father paused. “This was your grandfather’s house, Eddie. It was here that I was born.” Now there remained only the ground-plan of a house, and the only sign of habitation in all the ruin was to be seen in the smoke-blackened stones of the chimney. The garden, indeed, lay beautiful in decay, for there, as everywhere in this deserted countryside, the golden ragwort had taken possession; but within the walls of the house only nettles shivered. “You’ll always find nettles in deserted human habitations. I don’t know why,” said Mr. Ingleby. “There is a rather unusual botanical curiosity to be found among the workings at Cold Harbour,” he went on, “the Roman Nettle. Urtica . . . Urtica. . . . My memory isn’t what it used to be. It has a bigger leaf than the ordinary nettle and a much more poisonous sting. It’s only found in places where the Romans have been.” Why, in the face of this harrowing desolation, should he be thinking of things like that? A ghost . . . with as little passion or feeling as a ghost: emotions so different from the passionate resentment that now filled Edwin’s heart. “Ah . . . here is the school. I suppose they couldn’t pull that down. I remember when it was newly built. It was there that I learnt my alphabet. . . .” In the whole of the lane the school was the only whole building. “If you come to the edge of the Batch you will see the valley bottom where I spent my childhood with your great-grandmother.”