The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-11
TALES OF TEN TRAVELLERS.
 THE GHOST BELL OF s1|IHAEy.
BY EDGAR L. wAKkMEs.

of Cornwall. at the eose oi ofe"fy' wind-swept downs.
 AS far as the eye can reach to the north, are ragged. furrowy hiliocks of furze, and to the south. over tree less plain. there Is nothing to relieve the sense of desolation but the white sails, or the trailing plumes from pas sing steamers tunnels. upon the gray or spumy sea.
 Of the hundred or more souls housed in the stone cottages, huddling close against the venerable parish church. gray and drear as the sea and land. a few gain their scant livelihoods in the distant mines: few sell "growder." a sort of rotten stone which from time immemorial has provided the Cornish housewife with a substitute for soap in her weekly securing of floors and furni- ture: some are hedge-cutters. field hands. furze-gatherers and cottage thatchers: others are the village black smith. shoemaker. joiner and what-not of the scrimp-penny village: but most are coasting sailors. or fishermen who seek the harvests of the deep. from Mullion cove to Narration and Mounts bay.
 One of the latter, Joe Davy. was des- tined to give the hamlet of Stithney no little Cornish distinction. And 1t all originated in his unwise and inexplica- ble devotion to the church bells of the village.
 These, three in number, had hung in their little old Norman tower for more than hundred years. Joe had been their head ringer since he was lad: and though he knew not one note from another, his dogged insistence and in- domitable perseverance had left him for many years undisputed, though not undisturbed, master of the Stithney bells.
 All this time tragedy of sacrificial love was enacting at Stithney. Poll Treenoodle was Joe Davy's betrothed. scraggy, lean and gaunt. the girl slav- ed on and waited for the blessed bans to be read; but Joe's life was so wrapped up in the bells was so dis traught from the constant cunning at- tempts of rivals to oust him from his proud position, and his meager earn ings were so engulfed in repairs for ropes, brasses, gudgeons," stay straps, bolts, head-stocks, sliders and pulleys, that the time never came when the bit ter tongues of the Stithney harridans could be stilled by the only act. that of a wedding, which might give them kindly silence.
 Poor Poll Treenoodle bore their gibes in silence, and starved and slaved until the years silvered her hair and bent her scraggy form; while Joe Davy, fercely contentious for the possession of his loved bells, grew to be stiff and old in the hard life of the sea.
 For years, Poll Treenoodle, forced from housework by the cruel taunts of the ignorant women about her, had been despised "growder'' seller. With donkey and cart she had hurried up and down the village highways and halted before village doors, with her well-filled tub and her shrill cry to the Cornish housewife of,
 "Growder to-day, mawther?"
 "Hown't a sellin' un to-day, Poll?" was the endless rejoinder.
 Her changeless reply would be:
 Same ol' drug
 Hapn'y tub!
 Then the housewife would empty the tub, pay the immemorial half penny and look at old Poll Treenoodle con- temptuously or pityingly as she trudg- ed on. If the latter, she would some times be moved to call after her:
 Poll, Poll, besn't tha coortin' Joe Davy o'erlong?"
 "No, no, mawther:" Poll would sadly and wearily reply. "Joe be coortin' tn Stithney bells o'erlong!
 Perhaps the housewife would toss poor old Poll half penny with,
 '"Weel, weel, Poll ther be hapn'y for tha marryin'."
 This the growder seller would clutch with miserly eagerness and hasten to her next customer.
 But though her ragged form sped from hamlet to hamlet in a seemingly endless quest for growder buyers, when- ever the bells of Stithney rang, Poll Treenoodle would be found crouching in corner of the old church tower, well away from the whipping of the ringers ropes, living another life as she watched old Joe and his men with an almost fierce pride and happiness, or closed her eyes and listened nod dingly to the chiming of the bells above her.
 Then, when their tones had ceased, the old couple would sit alone in the tower and, croon over their plans for welded life, when Joe Davy should feel 1t safe to have the bans read, precisely as they had done times without num- Der for nearly two score years.
 One Sabbath day Rector Dunlea came to them here, with resolute but troubled face.
 Poll and Joe." he said with a touch of genuine compassion in his voice, "Ive something to say to you very earnestly" "Thankee, sir;'' said Poll humbly, crouching little closer to Joe.
 sIt's a word an scat wi us Golden (cousin) Jacks. So, bear away sir"