CHAPTER XIV.

CAPTAIN BUCKINGHAM VISITS ADRIAN. ANDREW AND MADGE MCCULL0CH ANDBILLY C0RLISS. CAPTAIN BUCKINGHAM'S NARRATIVE ENDS.

0ne day I left Pemberton's and took the road to Adrian. It sometimes was anafternoon in November. The church in Adrian stands on the edge of thegraveyard, in the middle of the village, and there I went aboutlooking for the McCulloch lot, and found it, and there was Madge'sstone. It's a flat grey stone. There's many more like it, set alongon rows. It seemed a neighbourly sort of place to rest in, if a manchose, after a roaming life. I stood there till the shadow came alongacross the churchyard from the church steeple. Then it grew dusk, andit seemed like now and then I heard a bell tolling. Aye, it was likea bell tolling. It seemed to me I could hear it. But there was no bell.

Then I came out and went to look for Andrew McCulloch's house. Itstands north of the Green, looking across the churchyard. I knockedat the door, then I backed off the step, when it opened, skinnykingthere must be a mistake about the date, and maybe inscriptions ongravestones was exaggerated; there was a girl in the doorway thatlooked and acted like Madge Pemberton complete. Moreover an oldseaman falling off the doorstep didn't seem to upset her balmycalmness. She says:

"What is it?"