As the two children entered the church he took from the pocket of his doublet a small note-book, and added a line to an epitaph he had been trying to write, smiling to himself over Bobbie’s notion that it was a pity anybody died.
I lay me down at expectation’s door;
Weary and worn with age I crave no more. But
Christus Jesus meus est omnia.
—Will. Coke, 1690.
As he finished the verse, Dr. Harford, marvellously erect and active for his eighty-five years, crossed the churchyard and sat down beside him in the porch.
“I have come across a curious link with the past,” he said. “Chancing to be at Farmer Chadd’s just now where Meg is laid up, as you know, she gave me this ring which her husband had found yesterday when digging in the orchard. I fancy it must have dropped from Colonel Norton’s finger on the day of the duel, and have lain there unnoticed these five-and-forty years. The initials as you see are L. and N.”
“Ay,” said the antiquary, putting up his glass and scrutinising the letters carefully; “two L’s for Lionel and Lucy. It must have been his wife’s wedding-ring. And here is the posy
‘Till death us departe—
Nay not so deare harte—