Publisher's Synopsis
'I would rather be an angel than God!'The voice of the speaker sounded clearly through the hawthorn tree. The young man andthe young girl who sat together on the low tombstone looked at each other. They hadheard the voices of the two children talking, but had not noticed what they said; it was thesentiment, not the sound, which roused their attention.The girl put her finger to her lips to impress silence, and the man nodded; they sat as still asmice whilst the two children went on talking.* * * * *The scene would have gladdened a painter's heart. An old churchyard. The church low andsquare-towered, with long mullioned windows, the yellow-grey stone roughened by ageand tender-hued with lichens. Round it clustered many tombstones tilted in alldirections. Behind the church a line of gnarled and twisted yews.The churchyard was full of fine trees. On one side a magnificent cedar; on the other a greatcopper beech. Here and there among the tombs and headstones many beautifulblossoming trees rose from the long green grass. The laburnum glowed in the Juneafternoon sunlight; the lilac, the hawthorn and the clustering meadowsweet which fringedthe edge of the lazy stream mingled their heavy sweetness in sleepy fragrance. The yellowgrey crumbling walls were green in places with wrinkled harts-tongues, and were toppedwith sweet-williams and spreading house-leek and stone-crop and wild-flowers whosedelicious sweetness made for the drowsy repose of perfect summer.
