m, if he can. I cannot rest until I know that we are not
too late. Let us go on, in the name of Heaven!'

They did so, leaving the postilion to order such accommodation as the
house afforded, and to renew his knocking. Kit accompanied them with a
little bundle, which he had hung in the carriage when they left home,
and had not forgotten since--the bird in his old cage--just as she had
left him. She would be glad to see her bird, he knew.

The road wound gently downward. As they proceeded, they lost sight of
the church whose clock they had heard, and of the small village
clustering round it. The knocking, which was now renewed, and which in
that stillness they could plainly hear, troubled them. They wished the
man would forbear, or that they had told him not to break the silence
until they returned.

The old church tower, clad in a ghostly garb of pure cold white, again
rose up before them, and a few moments brought them close beside it. A
venerable building--grey, even in the midst of the hoary landscape. An
ancient sun-dial on the belfry wall was nearly hidden by the
snow-drift, and scarcely to be known for what it was. Time itself
seemed to have grown dull and old, as if no day were ever to displace
the melancholy night.

A wicket gate was close at hand, but there was more than one path
across the churchyard to which it led, and, uncertain which to take,
they came to a stand again.

The village street--if street that could be called which was an
irregular cluster of poor cottages of many heights and ages, some with
their fronts, some with their backs, and some with gable ends towards
the road, with here and there a signpost, or a shed encroaching on the
path--was close at hand. There was a faint light in a chamber window
not far off, and Kit ran towards that house to ask their way.

His first shout was answered by an old man within, who presently
appeared at the casement, wrapping some garment round his throat as a
protection from the cold, and demanded who was abroad at that
unseasonable hour, wanting him.

''Tis hard weather this,' he grumbled, 'and not a night to call me up
in. My trade is not of that kind that I need be roused from bed. The
business on which folks want me, will keep cold, especially at this
season. What do you want?'

'I would not have roused you, if I had known you were old and ill,'
said Kit.

'Old!' repeated the other peevishly. 'How do you know I am old? Not
so old