Chapter 8

CHAPTER VII - THE HOODED FACE

They awoke in the grey of the morning; the birds were not yet in
full song, but twittered here and there among the woods; the sun
was not yet up, but the eastern sky was barred with solemn colours.
Half starved and over-weary as they were, they lay without moving,
sunk in a delightful lassitude. And as they thus lay, the clang of
a bell fell suddenly upon their ears.

"A bell!" said Dick, sitting up. "Can we be, then, so near to
Holywood?"

A little after, the bell clanged again, but this time somewhat
nearer hand; and from that time forth, and still drawing nearer and
nearer, it continued to sound brokenly abroad in the silence of the
morning.

"Nay, what should this betoken?" said Dick, who was now broad
awake.

"It is some one walking," returned Matcham, and "the bell tolleth
ever as he moves."

"I see that well," said Dick. "But wherefore? What maketh he in
Tunstall Woods? Jack," he added, "laugh at me an ye will, but I
like not the hollow sound of it."

"Nay," said Matcham, with a shiver, "it hath a doleful note. An
the day were not come" -

But just then the bell, quickening its pace, began to ring thick
and hurried, and then it gave a single hammering jangle, and was
silent for a space.

"It is as though the bearer had run for a pater-noster while, and
then leaped the river," Dick observed.

"And now beginneth he again to pace soberly forward," added
Matcham.

"Nay," returned Dick - "nay, not so soberly, Jack. 'Tis a man that
walketh you right speedily. 'Tis a man in some fear of his life,
or about some hurried business. See ye not how swift the beating
draweth near?"

"It is now close by," said Matcham.

They were now on the edge of the pit; and as the pit itself was on
a certain eminence, they commanded a view over the greater
proportion of the clearing, up to the thick woods that closed it
in.

The daylight, which was very clear and grey, showed them a riband
of white footpath wandering among the gorse. It passed some
hundred yards from the pit, and ran the whole length of the
clearing, east and west. By the line of its course, Dick judged it
should lead more or less directly to the Moat House.

Upon this path, stepping forth from the margin of the wood, a white
figure now appeared. It paused a little, and seemed to look about;
and then, at a slow pace, and bent almost double, it began to draw
near across the heath. At every step the bell clanked. Face, it
had none; a white hood, not even pierced with eye-holes, veiled the
head; and as the creature moved, it seemed to feel its way with the
tapping of a stick. Fear fell upon the lads, as cold as death.