e custom in Endelstow and other parishes in the
neighbourhood. At every death the sex and age of the deceased were
announced by a system of changes. Three times three strokes signified
that the departed one was a man; three times two, a woman; twice
three, a boy; twice two, a girl. The regular continuity of the tolling
suggested that it was the resumption rather than the beginning of a
knell--the opening portion of which Stephen had not been near enough to
hear.

The momentary anxiety he had felt with regard to his parents passed
away. He had left them in perfect health, and had any serious illness
seized either, a communication would have reached him ere this. At the
same time, since his way homeward lay under the churchyard yews, he
resolved to look into the belfry in passing by, and speak a word to
Martin Cannister, who would be there.

Stephen reached the brow of the hill, and felt inclined to renounce his
idea. His mood was such that talking to any person to whom he could not
unburden himself would be wearisome. However, before he could put any
inclination into effect, the young man saw from amid the trees a bright
light shining, the rays from which radiated like needles through the
sad plumy foliage of the yews. Its direction was from the centre of the
churchyard.

Stephen mechanically went forward. Never could there be a greater
contrast between two places of like purpose than between this graveyard
and that of the further village. Here the grass was carefully tended,
and formed virtually a part of the manor-house lawn; flowers and shrubs
being planted indiscriminately over both, whilst the few graves visible
were mathematically exact in shape and smoothness, appearing in the
daytime like chins newly shaven. There was no wall, the division between
God's Acre and Lord Luxellian's being marked only by a few square
stones set at equidistant points. Among those persons who have romantic
sentiments on the subject of their last dwelling-place, probably the
greater number would have chosen such a spot as this in preference to
any other: a few would have fancied a constraint in its trim neatness,
and would have preferred the wild hill-top of the neighbouring site,
with Nature in her most negligent attire.

The light in the churchyard he next discovered to have its source in a
point very near the ground, and Stephen imagined it might come from a
lantern in the interior of a partly-dug grave. But a nearer approach
sho