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“Well,” concluded Rivers, “I guess, when all’s said and done, we might as well take the clock, an’ bell, too. When a man makes a fair offer, it’s no more ‘n civil to close with it. Ye can’t rightly heave it back ag’in.”

“My argyment is,” put in Ebenezer Tolman, who knew how to lay dollar by dollar, “if he’s willin’ to do one thing for the town, he’s willin’ to do another. S’pose he offered us a new brick meetin’-house–or a fancy gate to the cemet’ry! Or s’pose he had it in mind to fill in that low land, so ‘t we could bury there! Why, he could bring the town right up! Or, take it t’other way round; he could put every dollar he’s got into Sudleigh.”

Nicholas Oldfield groaned, but in the stress of voices no one heard him. He slipped about from one group to another, and always the sentiment was the same. A few smiled at Old War-Wool Eaton, who desired so urgently to be remembered, when no one was likely to forget him; but all agreed that it was, at the worst, a harmless and natural folly.

“Let him be remembered,” said one, with a large impartiality. “‘T won’t do us no hurt, an’ we shall have the clock an’ bell.”

Just as the meeting was called to order, Nicholas Oldfield stole away, and no one missed him. The proceedings began with some animated discussion, all tending one way. Cupidity had entered into the public soul, and everybody professed himself willing to take the clock, lest, by refusing, some golden future should be marred. Let Old Eaton have his way, if thereby they might beguile him into paving theirs. Let the town grow. Talk was very full and free; but when the moment came for taking a vote, an unexpected sound broke roundly on the air. It was the bell of the old church. One! it tolled. Each man looked at his neighbor. Had death entered the village, and they unaware? Two! three! it went solemnly on, the mellow cadence scarcely dying before another stroke renewed it. The sexton was Simeon Pease, a little red-headed man, a hunchback, abnormally strong. Suddenly he rose in amazement. 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 womenfolk 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 awestruck 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.