mazement. His face
looked ashen.

"Suthin's tollin' the bell!" he gasped. "The bell's a-tollin' an' _I
ain't there_!"

A new element of mystery and terror sprang to life.

"The sax'on's here!" whispered one and another. But nobody stirred, for
nobody would lose count. Twenty-three! the dead was young. Twenty-four!
and so it marched and marched, to thirty and thirty-five. They looked
about them, taking a swift inventory of familiar faces, and more than
one man felt a tightening about his heart, at thought of the women-folk
at home. The record climbed to middle-age, and tolled majestically
beyond it, like a life ripening to victorious close. Sixty! seventy!
eighty-one!

"It ain't Pa'son True!" whispered an awe-struck voice.

Then on it beat, to the completed century.

The women of Tiverton, in afterwards weighing the immobility of their
public representatives under this mysterious clangor, dwelt upon the
fact with scorn.

"Well, I should think you was smart!" cried sundry of them in turn. "Set
there like a bump on a log, an' wonder what's the matter! Never heard of
anything so numb in all my born days. If I was a man, I guess I'd see!"

It was Brad Freeman who broke the spell, with a sudden thought and
cry,--

"By thunder! maybe's suthin's afire!"

He leaped to his feet, and with long, loping strides made his way up
the hill to Tiverton church. The men, in one excited, surging rabble,
followed him. The women were before them. They, too, had heard the
tolling for the unknown dead, and had climbed a quicker way, leaving
fire and cradle behind. At the very moment when they were pressing, men
and women, to the open church door, the last lingering clang had ceased,
the bell lay humming itself to rest, and Nicholas Oldfield strode out
and faced them. By this time, factions had broken up, and each woman
instinctively sought her husband's side, assuring herself of protection
against the unresting things of the spirit. Young Nick's Hattie found
her lawful ally, with the rest.

"My soul!" said she in a whisper, "it's father!"

Nicholas touched her arm in warning, and stood silent. He felt that the
waters were troubled, as he had known them to be once or twice in his
boyhood.

"He's got his mad up," remarked Young Nick to himself. "Stan' from
under!"

Nicholas strode through the crowd, and it separated to let him pass.
There was about him at that moment an amazing physical energy, apparent
even in the dark. He se