"Clang--clang--clang--clang" came the solemn tones of the great bell; solemn, although they seemed to split his head with the noise, and now he had counted eleven, and the last blow was about to fall. The hammer was rising--slowly rising--and in less than a moment he felt that the blow would come. He could not struggle, though he was being impelled nearer and nearer. He could not cry. He could not move; and at last, after an agonising suspense, during which the widow's imploring, reproachful face was pressing closer and closer, down came the great hammer for the twelfth stroke-- "Crash!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "The clock stopped; and the bells won't ring," said a cheery voice; "and on a Christmas-morning, too. Let me try." Asher Skurge heard the voice, and directly after he shrieked out with pain, for he felt something cutting into his leg, and this caused him to open his eyes, and to see that his lanthorn lay close beside him; that he was regularly wrapped, tied, and tangled with the bell-ropes, while the clock cupboard lay open before him--the clock at a standstill-- probably from the cold; while, as for himself, he was quite at a lie-still, and there had been some one dragging at one of the ropes so as almost to cut his leg in two. Directly after the head of young Harry Thornton appeared above the trap-door, and then at his call came the sexton; but more help was needed before Asher Skurge could be got down the ladders and across the churchyard to his cottage, where, what with rheumatics and lumbago, the old man is not so fond of winter night walks as of old. But though Asher would as soon of thought of turning himself out as Widow Bond, he did not have her long for a tenant, for her husband's ship was not lost; and after three years' absence, Frank Bond came back safe and sound, but so weatherbeaten as hardly to be recognised. But Asher Skurge was ever after an altered man, for it seemed to him that he had taken out a new lease of his life, and in spite of neighbourly sneers, he set heartily to work to repair his soul's tenement. You can see where it has been patched; and even now it is far from perfect, but there are much worse men in the world than Asher Skurge, even if he does believe in spirits, and you might have a worse man for a landlord than the obstinate old clerk, who so highly offended the new vicar because he would not go and wind up the clock after dark. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. MUNDAY'S GHOST.