The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories

riding

, made him feel himself a parody on the ancestors who had roamed the moors and forests of this West Riding of Yorkshire in hot pursuit of game worth the killing. But when in England in August he always a

their own, wherein they were immune from rheumatism, the bag had been small. The women, too, were an unusually dull lot, with the exception of

ed two days ago, and his track might have sprung to the upper air for all trace he had left behind him. He had been a guest on the adjoining estate during the past week, shooting with the fervor of the true sportsman, making love in the intervals to Adeline Cavan, and apparently in the best of spirits. As far as was known there was nothing to lower his mental mercury, for h

s and workmen were beating the woods and poking the bogs on the

osed to be more angry than frightened. At Cambridge Gifford had been an incorrigible practical joker, and by no means had outgrown the habit; it would be

sleep. He went down to the river and followed the path through the woods. There was no moon, but the stars sprinkled their cold light upon the pretty belt of water flowing placidly past wood and ruin, between g

promising at a distance, but a hollow mockery when you get within. You see daylight on both sides, and the sun freckles the very bracken. Our woods need the nig

he various theories of the soul's destiny. That afternoon they had met at the coffin of a college friend whose mind had been a blank for the past three years. Some months previously they had called at the asylum to see him. His expression had been senile, his face imprinted with the record of debauchery. In

and triumph once more for a few hours while old friends look their last? It has had time to repent while compelled to crouch and behold the result of its work, and it has shrived itself into a state of comparative purity. If I had my way, I should stay inside my bones until the coffin had gone into its niche, that I might obviate

dent entity, then--that it and the vit

ays loyal in the last instance. Some day, when I am tired of the world, I shall go to India and becom

lights to find your earthly part unfit for habitation? It is an experiment I don'

predicament. I should rather enjoy e

nt, and watched the waters boil down into the narrow pass with their furious untiring energy. The black quiet of the woods rose high on either side. The stars seemed colder and whiter just above.

oiling course, never to appear in the still pool a few yards beyond. Below the great rocks which form the walls of the Strid was believed to be a natural vault, on to whose shelves the dead were drawn. The spot had an ugly fascination. Weigall stood, visioning skeletons, uncoffi

1

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is eye and arrested his step. Then he saw that it was describing a contrary motion to the rushing water-an upward backward motion. Weigall stood rigid, breathless; he fancied he heard the

e himself from the suction beneath the Strid, swept down, doubtless, but a

ing savagely in the face of that force which leaves its creatures to immutable law; then

caught in the rocks below, perhaps already half-way along one of those hideous shelves. Weigall let himself down upon a lower rock, braced his shoulder against the mass beside him, then, leaning out over the water, th

hen the mist cleared. The hand and arm were nearer, although the rest of the body was still concealed by the foam. Weigall peered out w

me way with this friend. Scenes of college days, of travel, where they had deliberately sought adventure and stood between one another and death upon more occasions than one, of hours of delightful companionship among the treasures of art, and others in the pursuit of pleasure, flashed like the changing particles of a kaleido

ing, the skin was torn from his hands. The fingers

e branch from Weigall's grasp. The body had been liberated an

ford must be carried straight to the quiet pool. Gifford was a fish in the water and could live under it longer than

tion visible in the black water. Weigall plunged into the shallow pool, lifted Gifford in his arms and returned to the bank. He laid the body down and threw off his coat that he might be the freer to practise the methods of resuscitation. H

moment he did not appreciate its nature. Then his teeth clacked together, his feet, his outstretched arms pointed