See whar
the edge o' t' bell took him, and smashed his ain, the self-same lids.
By ma sang, I wonder the deaul did na carry awa' his corpse i' the
night, as he did wi' Tam Lunder's at Mooltern Mill."

"Hout, man, who ever sid t' deaul inside o' a church?"

"The corpse is ill-faur'd enew to scare Satan himsel', for that
matter; though it's true what you say. Ay, ye're reet tul a trippet,
thar; for Beelzebub dar'n't show his snout inside the church, not the
length o' the black o' my nail."

While this discussion was going on, the gentlefolk who were talking
the matter over in the centre of the yard had dispatched a message for
the coroner all the way to the town of Hextan.

The last tint of sunset was fading from the sky by this time; so, of
course, there was no thought of an inquest earlier than next day.

In the meantime it was horribly clear that the sexton had intended to
rob the church of its plate, and had lost his life in the attempt to
carry the second bell, as we have seen, down the worn ladder of the
tower. He had tumbled backwards and broken his neck upon the floor of
the loft; and the heavy bell, in its fall, descended with its edge
across his forehead.

Never was a man more completely killed by a double catastrophe, in a
moment.

The bells and the contents of the sack, it was surmised, he meant to
have conveyed across the lake that night, and with the help of his
spade and pick to have buried them in Clousted Forest, and returned,
after an absence of but a few hours--as he easily might--before
morning, unmissed and unobserved. He would no doubt, having secured
his booty, have made such arrangements as would have made it appear
that the church had been broken into. He would, of course, have taken
all measures to divert suspicion from himself, and have watched a
suitable opportunity to repossess himself of the buried treasure and
dispose of it in safety.

[Illustration: _It was the corpse of Toby Crooke_!]

And now came out, into sharp relief, all the stories that had, one way
or other, stolen after him into the town. Old Mrs. Pullen fainted when
she saw him, and told Doctor Lincote, after, that she thought he was
the highwayman who fired the shot that killed the coachman the night
they were robbed on Hounslow Heath. There were the stories also told
by the wayfaring old soldier with the wooden leg, and fifty others, up
to this more than half disregarded, but which now seized on the
popular belief w