“Ah, good-morning, Tom. What a night! There, you try. Your eyes are young.”
He handed the telescope.
“It’s terrible, my lad,” he said. “There’s a barn out at Huggins’s laid quite flat, they say, and two straw-stacks regularly swept away.”
“The stacks, sir?” cried Tom, pausing, glass in hand.
“Well, not all at once, but the straw. They tell me it has been swept over the country for miles. I never remember such a storm here. I’ve seen them on the coast.”
“Why, the bar under the letters has bent right down, sir,” said Tom, after a minute’s examination. “I can’t see whether it’s broken.”
“Not likely to be, Tom,” said the Vicar; “it is of copper. See anything else broken?”
“One of the arms—the one with the E on it—is hanging right down.”
“Hah! Well, it must be mended. Did you hear the small bell in the night?”
“No,” said Tom.