Chalfont Saint Giles

The low graves are all grown over with forget-me-not, and a rich-green grass links each with each. Old family vaults, some within railings, stand here and there, crumbling, moss-eaten, with the ivy growing up them and diagonally across the top projecting slab. And over the vaults lean the great lilac bushes with their heart-shaped leaves and their purple and white blossom. A wall of ivy shuts off the darkness of the elm-wood and the larches.

Walk quietly along the mossy paths; the stones of the humble dead are hidden behind the blue mantle of their forget-me-nots; and before one grave so hidden a widow kneels, with head bowed, and the crape falling over her shoulders.

The bells for evening church are ringing, and the people come gravely and with red, sun-burnt faces through the gates in the wall.

Pass on; this is the church-porch, and within the bell-ringers, men of the village in their Sunday clothes, pull their bob-major on the red and white grip of the bell-ropes, that fly up, and then fall snakily. They stand there given wholly to the rhythm and swing of their traditional movements.

And the people pass between them into the church; but we are too sad and too reverent to enter.