With this state of confusion reigning, therefore, it was impossible for Wildfire Ned, Garnet, or any one else, to get their horses quick enough to pursue the villains with any chance of success. Bob Bertram was foremost at the stables. There were more than twenty horses there, besides his own, and those of his friends. He ran hither and thither, busy with hands and voice, and ere long a party of gentlemen started in hot pursuit, led on by Wildfire Ned, who, with loud shouts, dashed spurs into Starlight, and was foremost of them all. CHAPTER XV. IN WHICH SOME OF THE VILLAGERS ARE MADE SANDWICHES OF. The village of Walton, near to the abbey, never forgot that memorable night on which Lady Julia, a newly-made bride, was carried off by the chief of the Skeleton Crew, and her young husband cruelly killed. It was an event which shocked the most hardened. During the day, the whole village, and its surroundings had been making holiday in honor of Lady Julia’s nuptials, and everything had passed off with the greatest satisfaction to every one. But few persons were astir, and these consisted of the village clerk, the butcher, the druggist, the post-master, and a few other notabilities, who were warming their legs round the tavern fire, and indulging in all manner of stories, both wild and strange, until long after the church clock had struck the hour of twelve. The parson’s clerk was just in the middle of a ghost-story; his hearers, with open mouths, and staring eyes, listened in wrapt attention. The wind sighed down the chimney most dolefully, and the clerk began to look very nervous and shaky. He had just got to that part of his tale where the ghost appears upon the scene, when the village bells in a discordant peal clanged out upon the silent night. Every one in the parlor of the “Black Bull” was startled. For a moment they looked at each other, and then towards the door, as if expecting that the ghost so often mentioned in the story would really step in among them. They listened again and breathed very hard. Still they heard the dismal clanging of the village bells. “Who is that?” “What can that mean?” “How comes this?” said one and all. “Don’t thee hear it?” “Why, in course we do.” “What can it mean?” “Oh, it’s some o’ the drunken ringers as have got into the steeple, and want to frighten us,” said the courageous butcher. “Then, let us go and stop ’em,” said the clerk. “Who’ll go wi’ me?” “I will.” “And so will I,” several replied at once. They left the cosy parlour, and, lanterns in hand, proceeded through the village, armed with thick, stout cudgels, bent on giving the drunken bell-ringers a sound thrashing for thus disturbing the silence of the night. It would have been bad enough, the worthies thought, if the ringers had pealed out merrily; but, instead of that, as we have said, it was a muffled funeral peal which issued from the old tower.