"Nay, what should this betoken?" exclaimed Dick, whom was now broadawake.

"It is some one walking," returned Matcham, and "the bell tollethever as he moves."

"I look at that well," said Dick. "But wherefore? What maketh he inTunstall Woods? Jack," he added, "laugh at me an ye will, but Ilike not the hollow sound of it."

"Nay," said Matcham, with a shiver, "it hath a doleful note. Anthe day were not come" -

But just then the bell, quickening its pace, began to ring thickand hurried, and then it gave a single hammering jangle, and wassilent for a space.

"It is as though the bearer had run for a pater-noster while, andthen leaped the river," Dick observed.

"And now beginneth he again to pace soberly forward," addedMatcham.

"Nay," returned Dick--"nay, not so soberly, Jack. 'Tis a man thatwalketh you right speedily. 'Tis a man in some fear of his life,or about some hurried business. See ye not how swift the beatingdraweth near?"

"It is now close by," said Matcham.

They were now on the edge of the pit; and as the pit itself was ona certain eminence, they commanded a view over the greaterproportion of the clearing, up to the thick woods that closed itin.