The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-11

cottage homes. one more look they would take down the swirlins. snow pelted road. They stepped from the door together. They fell upon and over some suddenly upraised obstacle. One Of the old men plunged headiong over a snow -whitensd donkey into drift. and the other sprawled struggiingiy within snow-ailed cart.
 What his hands touched and his body met. besides the snow. sent him bounding and floundering into the high way. Then old stithney hamlet was awakened by cries of terror which brought It's men and browny house. wives to the smithy door crouching behind IL, the watching miners were chattering and mumhling in supersti- uoNs fear.
 They pulled and pushed the mute don key and Its cart within the shadowy place. White aa q new washed fleece they could see the donkey then. White as driven snow were the donkey cart and wheels. White as snow or death. the stiffened objects. 10 which the pelt- ing flakes had strangely molded. White as the drifts in blossoming haw- thorn lanes. the faces that they found beneath. Jw
 For there lay the ringer of the tenor bell of Stithney. with sand and tiny sea shells and seaweed drift in his grizzled hair and beard. just as old Poll had laid his lifeless body in her cart; and there beside 1t. too. her tthln and shriveled hands clutching the other one's against her pulseless heart. lay Poll Treenoodle. a smile on her weazened face:-for had not their bells been rung. their bans called out. and had not the two at last become as one In the everlasting sleep?
 "Stithney would not ever since have rested under the shadow of something like a superstitious curse." perplexedly remarked Rector Dunlea to his daugh- ter Rose and their young literary friend from London, William Hardy. as they sat together In the pleasant library of the rector, some three years later, s'had not an unaccountable incident at that moment occurred"
 He had been recounting the tragedy of three years before. and the awe and solemnity which had overshadowed the villagers from the ghostly return of the dead. when donkey, cart and mute bur dens had come with their appalling si- lence out of the bitter storm to the open smithy door.
 They had got the frozen bodies stretched stark upon a rude litter in a corner of the smithy, had covered them tenderly with sheets from near house. wives stores and were whispering among each other, arranging for watch CTS of the dead until morning. as Is the custom here In Cornwall when there burst upon their startled ears a mighty clamor of the old church tenor bell"
 That was Joe's bell, MT. Hardy" in- terrupted Rose.
 "Yes, it is the largest bell. As head ringer, Joe had rung that bell for more than forty years It had never been set for a full peal before. It thun- dered madly for q time. finally subsi- ding into something, like a toll, and at last died tremulously away"
 Tt startled every one in Stithney,i even us here at the rectory, from our, beds in fright" added Rose shuddering- ly. i..Ff"
 And brought all those in the smithy to their knees in added terror" resumed the rector: flor toiitheir superstitious imagination nothing short of soMe sH-, pernatiraI power cUufd have ruhg Joe; Davy's bell, as he lay there dead before them.
 "'Lans! Joes speris!'-his ghost or wraith-they cried as they tremblingly crouched together. From that moment to this the great bell has !, been the Ghost Bell of stithney,' for. it has rung out wildly about y4midnight, of each Christmas eve, butfAt no other time; and the villagers stoutly claim that this IS done by old Joe's ghostly hands"
 "The oldwives of the village have many grewsome sayings, MT. Hardy, which you should knowss persisted Rose with a keen interest whicktwon grateful response from the writer's brightening eyes. T can recall few of them at this moment. Here is one:
 "'Ghaist Beel-Ghaist Beel!-
 Rings for a. not weeded weel!
 This passes current as fine scorn in the villages roundabout, particularly as a reflection on the quarrelsome nature of some of our people. Another Is:
 D 9Th Ghaist Beel O Stithney
 Warns him best wed ma!
 And many of the sailors and fisher folk profess to have heard on that dreadful night. and to hear every night the bell is still mysteriously rung, these doleful and distinctly repeated words IT. oq al lyA1fs "N " 'All-ye-'ave'n = sweSfhearts-on'n-
 landr ssEs''.- +''@ Baans = caad = too -lsse--- for tn
 hand! sssss*Rs3y
 There are others I lW1libtry and get for you," she concludedrAsshe4w wrote the hastily in his notebook: but these will serve to show how the Qnhap- py superstition is completely, interwo- ven with the villagers lives"
 's'That is the worst of it." returned her father discouragedly. "Itahas greater influence upon them than my pulpit. It has brought hundreds of morbidly curi- ous people here. It has become the sub- ject of untrue, unjust, triS4aa end most irritating newspaper comnasnt. It has rendered the living here almost More painful still. the ghost-bell rings on from year to year. and, so far, no human ingenuity has been able to silence 1t. would give" he added with deep feeling, five years of my life to discover a rational and clearly explainable cause for this mani festation, and to have the tongue of this ghost-bell stilled!" w
 William HardY WAS a writer of the