The bell stopped tolling, and we listened for the sound which would tell us the sex and age of the departed.
“One!” Then silence.
That meant a man. Ellen Armathwaite’s baby girl it could not be. Then the bell began again, and we counted. It tolled on up to twenty—thirty—forty: we could not think who it could be.
“Surely not Farmer Catterall!” said my Aunt Kezia, “I have often felt afraid of an apoplexy for him.”
But the bell went on past sixty, and we knew it was not Farmer Catterall.
“Is it never going to stop?” said Flora, when it had passed eighty.
My Aunt Kezia went to the door, and calling Sam, bade him go out and inquire. Still the bell tolled on. It stopped just as Sam came in, at ninety-six.
“Who is it, Sam?—one of the old bedesmen?”
“Nay, Mrs Kezia; puir soul, ’tis just the auld Vicar!”
“Mr Digby!” we all cried together.