“A bell!” said Dick, sitting up. “Can we be, then, so near to Holywood?”
A little after, the bell clanged again, but this time somewhat nearer hand; and from that time forth, and still drawing nearer and nearer, it continued to sound brokenly abroad in the silence of the morning.
“Nay, what should this betoken?” said Dick, who was now broad awake.
“It is some one walking,” returned Matcham, “and the bell tolleth ever as he moves.”
“I see that well,” said Dick. “But wherefore? What maketh he in Tunstall Woods? Jack,” he added, “laugh at me an ye will, but I like not the hollow sound of it.”
“Nay,” said Matcham, with a shiver, “it hath a doleful note. And the day were not come——”
But just then the bell, quickening its pace, began to ring thick and hurried, and then it gave a signal hammering jangle, and was silent for a space.
“It is as though the bearer had run for a paternoster-while, and then leaped the river,” Dick observed.
“And now beginneth he again to pace soberly forward,” added Matcham.
“Nay,” returned Dick—“nay, not so soberly, Jack. ’Tis a man that walketh you right speedily. ’Tis a man in some fear of his life, or about some hurried business. See ye not how swift the beating draweth near?”