"No harm! Dash my bones, yer reverence—God forgi’e me for usin’ Saturday words of a Sunday—they do do harm. Do ’ee think I can strike a true Christian note out o’ the bell? No, not I; ’tis all clodgy, like the spache of a man that’s rum-ripe, and all because some owl or airy-mouse hev made his nest on the clapper, scrounch un." "Well, go up the ladder and brush it off." "Theer ’tis, now. What’s happened o’ the ladder, I’d like to know? Theer bean’t no ladder. ’Twas theer yester morn, but not a mossel o’ ladder be theer to-day. ’Tis bewitched, sure enough; some pixy or nuggy, or little old man, hev sperited un away in the night, for I squinnied up-along and down-along, and never got a sight o’t." "Well, time is getting on. Do your best, Petherick. Someone has borrowed the ladder, no doubt, and will bring it back to-morrow. You should lock the tower door, and then this sort of thing couldn’t happen." Petherick retired, a man with a grievance. Entering the tower, he pulled at the bell-rope with a scornful air, and, indeed, the sound given out was little like the clear note that ordinarily summoned the Polkerran folk to worship. They were on the whole good church-goers. At least half the population were regular attendants, some of the other half being Methodists, who preferred going to "meeting." The principal smugglers were sound churchmen to a man, and repeated the responses after the Commandments with great fervour, especially after the eighth, when they glared reproachfully at Mr. Polwhele in his pew by the chancel steps. In spite of the strangely muffled bell, there was an unusually large congregation on this Sunday morning. The villagers, as their custom was, assembled in the churchyard, waiting until the Squire and his family had passed into the church before they should follow to their seats. Much animation was observable among them this morning, and when Dick walked up the centre path with his parents, he guessed that many of them were discussing the successful run of the previous night, and a smaller number the supposed deportation of Joe Penwarden. There was no sign of perturbation among them, whence he inferred that the disappearance of Doubledick was not yet known. It was not uncommon for the innkeeper, after a run, to absent himself for a day or two, so that, even if it were known that he had not yet returned to the inn, they would feel neither surprise nor alarm. Nor was the failure of their plot against Penwarden suspected. He had not spent the night in his cottage. Dick had insisted that the old man should sleep at the Towers, in order that he might have a good supper, and that Mrs. Trevanion might bathe and anoint his chafed wrists and ankles.