“Yes, dear; a great many men, and a great many women too,” said Alice, over her task, supposing the child was amused with the circle of labourers. Her father had not sat down. He was contemplating, perhaps calculating, the size of the field. His back was therefore turned to the party of merry children. The next moment came something which stunned them like a thunder-bolt,—the report of fire-arms as if among them,—as if out of the haycock. They sat immoveable, for a second or two, till the vicar, who seemed to be balancing himself on his feet, staggered, fell sideways, and rolled over on his face. None who heard Alice’s shriek ever forgot it. She alone started up; her companions sat mute; the haymakers were all looking, but they did not come. How the poor thing pulled her father’s arm, in the attempt to raise him! How the complaining sound “I can’t! I can’t!” went to his heart,—which had not ceased to beat. He tried to turn himself, and did so. “Turn me, dear child; do not raise me,” he said. “Come, come! O, why don’t you come?” cried Alice, waving her arms towards the haymakers. Her companions joined her in shouting for help; and, at length, several men came forward. Nobody asked who had done this; but one offered to go for the doctor, and another for her uncle Jerom, and a third for Susan. Her father himself settled what should be done. His brother and the surgeon were to be summoned, and he would not be removed till they came; only propped up with hay, so as to breathe a little more easily. He asked if any one knew who had done this? “It is more like you can tell than I,” observed the man he seemed particularly to address. “Perhaps you may recollect having offended somebody.” Alice sprang to the child on the haycock, and asked where he had seen a man just now. The child pointed to the other side of the haycock. Somebody had been crouching there; and he must have entered and departed through a hole in the hedge, which seemed to have been made for the purpose. Half a dozen of the haymakers passed through this hole; but they all came back with the same story,—that no trace of any person was to be found in the next field. Alice believed, in her impatience, that she could have found the murderer if she had been the pursuer; but who but she would chafe her father’s clammy hands, and pass an arm beneath his head, and fan him as his faintness increased? While listening, in hope that he would speak, a distant sound smote her heart,—the tolling of the church-bell. Her father felt the throb of her heart, and smiled as he said, “It is not so, dear child. They are not tolling for me before I am dead. It is the lawsuit—I was aware—I expected a letter to-day, you know.” “O yes; and I brought you out. I made you come here when you wished to stay at home,” cried she in agony.