ore desolate than usual. The slate roofs of
the cottages were still wet with the rain that had fallen in the night,
and a cold wind moaned in the yew-trees. There were only a few
snowdrops out, and for once the sexton was not to be seen, but a heap
of earth at the far corner of the churchyard showed a newly-dug grave.
Jane had got through her first slice of turnip when she was startled by
the sound of the bell in the church behind her.

One! It went with a harsh clang.

She looked round, but the bell had stopped. She was beginning to think
she had imagined it when the bell clanged again. Then another moment's
pause and another clang. Jane thought she had never heard anything so
queer, when she suddenly remembered what it was. Of course, it was
tolling for a funeral. It had tolled three already. Lull said it
tolled one for every year of the dead person's life.

Four--five--six--went the bell.

"That might be our wee Honeybird," Jane said to herself, and remembered
the slap she had given Honeybird that morning.

Seven--eight.

The sound grew more and more melancholy to her ears. Each clang of the
bell died away like a moan.

Nine.

"Mebby it's some person's only child," she thought.

Ten--eleven.

"It'd be the awful thing to be dead," she muttered, and shivered at the
thought of being buried this weather with nothing on but a white
nightgown.

Twelve--thirteen--tolled the bell.

"It'd be awfuller to be goin' to Mick's feeneral," she said. The
thought made her heart sick.

She jumped up to go home--she could come back when more snowdrops were
out--but she caught sight of a long black line, slowly climbing up to
the church by the road from town. The sight of a funeral always
depressed Jane, but there was something specially gloomy about this
one. The wet road looked so cold, the sky so grey, and the black
hearse and six mourning carriages came heavily along, as though they
were weighed down by grief.

Jane began to say her prayers. It was an awful world God had made, and
He might let one of them die if she didn't pray hard to Him.

The bell went on tolling. It had got past twenty by the time her
prayer was said. The funeral was so near that she could see the
mourners behind the hearse. There were six tall men in black; two of
them walked in front of the others. They were the chief mourners.
Perhaps it was their sister who was in the hearse. The bell tolled oft
till it was past thirty;