The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1897-09-11

JlOneu tnat tne Steeple Was CuUCh Iull Oh
mice and rats and bats and such that
Miss Payson consented to try the rope.
Even then she was a mighty dissatisfied
woman and came very near resolving
that she would take the risk of the wild
animals rather than lose such a first
class chance for capturing a desirable
husband. Halsey rugged up a sort of
seat for the woman, so that she could
sit in the blight Of the rope, with lash
ings around her here and there, and
couldn't fall out if she wanted to. Then
he got her to stand on the window ledge
and lowered away. Miss Payson
shrieked a good deal at first and begged
Halsey to let her come back and die
close to him, but he wasn't going to
have any woman dying around his neck
if he knew himself. So he lowered her
down gently and easily, encouraging
her all the time, till he found that his
rope had come to an end. 1t wasn't
quite as long as he had supposed that it
was, and the upshot was that there was
Miss Payson about 80 feet from the
ground, with no possible way of reach
ing it unless Halsey should let 90 his
end of the rope.
He thought of letting 60 of it, but
being a humane, good tempered man, as
| said, he couldn't bring himself to do
it, since the result would have been
that either Miss Payson would have
been killed OR at least most of her limbs
would have been broken. So he made
the end of the rope fast to a beam and
called out to Miss Payson not to lose
courage, and he would soon think of
some way of getting her out Of the diff
Guilty. She begged him to draw her up
again. and he actually tried to do it,
knowing all the while what the conse-
quences would be if he succeeded, but
he found that he didn't have the neces-
sary strength. Miss Payson was heavier
than she looked to be, though she was
mostly bones, but she vas a good 70
feet below him, and it would have
taken two men of his strength to have
hoisted her up into the steeple again.
He pulled at the rope till he was pretty
nearly exhausted, for he naturally felt
a little ashamed of acknowledging to a
woman that there was anything that he
wasn't strong enough to do. However,
he had to come TO it at last and tell her
that il it was to save both their lives he
couldn't manage to pull her back into
the steeple. So she settled down to cry,
and he settled down to smoke a pipe,
with a view to clearing his ideas.
"All of a sudden he saw what he
ought to do and wondered that he had
been such an idiot as to not have seen
it before. There was the bell just above
his head, and all he had to do was to
climb up and ring it by swinging the
clapper from side to side till the alarm
should bring back the sexton with the
keys. By this time it was getting rath-
er dark, and Halsey set to work at that
bell and kept on tolling it slow and
regular, for that was the only way he
could manage to ring it.
Its the custom with us to toll the
bell when anybody dies and to give
just as many strokes on the bell as the
deceased had lived years. When Halsey
began to toll the bell, the Athensville
people listened to find out how old the
deceased had been. When the strokes
had got up among the eighties, they al
lowed that the Oldest settler in the
town must have died very sudden, for
he had been seen drunk, as usual, and
in perfect health that afternoon as late
as 3 O'Clock. But the bell kept on, and
bimeby, after it had tolled some $50
times and showed no signs Of stopping,
folks began to think that the sexton
had just happened to hear about the
death of Methuselah and was notifying
other people of the fact.
"You may ask why didn't somebody
go to the church and find out what the
bell was ringing for. Well, for one
thing, it was just supper time, and no.
body felt anxious to take a walk Of a
mile or two just at that hour. Then,
too, it had been said that the Baptist
churchyard was haunted, and there
wasn't any general desire to interfere
with ghosts in case they should have
, taken a notion to toll the bell. The toll.
ing kept on till Halsey had tolled the
bell over 400 times, and then Rev. Mr..
, Humphreys arrived on the spot, and
when he heard Miss Payson's voice
somewhere in the air over his head he
was considerably startled, though not
being a believer in ghosts he wasn't the
least bit frightened.
"'How on earth did you come VI
there, ma'am, asked the minister, 'and
what are you tolling the bell for?'
| miss Payson explained what was
the matter. She said that she and Mr..
Halsey had come to the church in the
!, afternoon, cal'latin to find the parsor
there and to get married; that not find
| ing him they had gone into the steeple
| to see the view and had accidentally
! been locked in. She was sure that she
couldn't live many minutes longer, she
felt so weak, and she hoped Mr..
1 Humphreys would marry her to Mr..
Halsey without another minutes delay,
and s o save her reputation even if il
didn't save her life.
| 1.-The minister wanted to send fol
/ help and get her safe on the solid
ground before marrying her, but she
said that she must be married before
+ she could dare to face any of her towns.
men. Such, she said, were also deal
Mr.. Halsey's views, and if MI. Hum.
phreyS had the feelings Of a man and
> Christian, let alone a Baptist minister,
he would go ahead with the marriage
service.
"Mr. Humphreys finally consented
All called out to Halsey to nod wheI