noon
The fallen stones , quaintly carved with angel and griffin , are going slowly back year by year , helped by the rain and hindered by the frost , slowly back through the sod to the generations of human hands that held and hewed them , and fell to dust below them hundreds of years ago . The spirit returns to the God who gave it , and the stone to the hand that fashioned it . The adjoining monastery had been turned into a dwelling-house , without altering it externally , and it was here that Lord Newhaven loved to pass the summer months . Into its one long upper passage all the many rooms opened , up white stone steps through arched doors , rooms which had once been monks ' dormitories , abbots ' cells , where Lady Newhaven and her guests now crimped their hair and slept under down quilts till noon . It was this long passage , with its interminable row of low latticed windows , that Lord Newhaven was turning into a depository for the old English weapons which he was slowly collecting . He was standing now gazing lovingly at them , drawing one finger slowly along an inlaid arquebus , when a yell from the garden made him turn and look out . It was not a yell of anguish , and Lord Newhaven remained at the window leaning on his elbows and watching at his ease the little scene which was taking place below him .