A bell began to toll at intervals from somewhere far up the hillside. Some wandering cow wore this bell, but it sounded ghostly.
“Listen!” commanded Mary O’Rourke, standing beyond the fire where she could be seen and heard by all the candidates, at least, who were grouped in one place. “And especially you infants who this night appear before our solemn body for initiation into its ancient rites and mysteries. Listen!
“Before it grew dark we could all see right down there beyond the fording place in the brook, where the road crosses a ploughed field on the other side. Not a year ago, this farmer from whom Bell bought the milk, Mr. Sitz, was driving home just on the edge of the evening, with his son and his father-in-law, in a spring wagon. He drove a pair of young horses, and was giving them particular attention, so he says. But as they came up the hill toward the brook he saw a light moving down the road between them.
“In his opinion it was a lantern under a carriage. He saw the light flash back and forth, low above the ground, as though a horse’s legs were between the lantern and those approaching it.
“‘Here comes a carriage, Dad,’ said his son.
“‘It’s a top-buggy, Israel,’ declared the old gentleman on the other side of Mr. Sitz.
“The young horses sprang forward nervously as they reached the ford. The wagon splashed through the brook and out upon the hard road. The horses had crowded over to the left hand, and Mr. Sitz knew that he was not giving the coming carriage sufficient room to pass.
“But as he pulled his team back to the right hand side of the road he glanced ahead again and saw that the light had disappeared. Black as the night was he was confident there was no vehicle there—where he had expected to see one.
“‘What’s come o’ that carriage, Father?’ he asked the old man.
“‘Why—why it went by, didn’t it?’ returned his father-in-law.