People, therefore, were
willing to wait, and take his return ultimately for granted.
At three o'clock the good Vicar, standing at his hall door, looking
across the lake towards the noble fells that rise, steep and furrowed,
from that beautiful mere, saw two men approaching across the green, in
a straight line, from a boat that was moored at the water's edge. They
were carrying between them something which, though not very large,
seemed ponderous.
"Ye'll ken this, sir," said one of the boatmen as they set down,
almost at his feet, a small church bell, such as in old-fashioned
chimes yields the treble notes.
"This won't be less nor five stean. I ween it's fra' the church
steeple yon."
"What! one of our church bells?" ejaculated the Vicar--for a moment
lost in horrible amazement. "Oh, no!--_no_, that can't possibly be!
Where did you find it?"
He had found the boat, in the morning, moored about fifty yards from
her moorings where he had left it the night before, and could not
think how that came to pass; and now, as he and his partner were about
to take their oars, they discovered this bell in the bottom of the
boat, under a bit of canvas, also the sexton's pick and
spade--"tom-spey'ad," they termed that peculiar, broad-bladed
implement.
"Very extraordinary! We must try whether there is a bell missing from
the tower," said the Vicar, getting into a fuss. "Has Crooke come back
yet? Does anyone know where he is?"
The sexton had not yet turned up.
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