"He's gone, anyway," declared Nathan. Then suddenly a man's boot rubbed against his face. The impact moved it a moment; but it swung back heavily again. The innkeeper yelled aloud, while Gollop fetched a lantern and lighted it. Then they found that Mark Baskerville had fastened a length of stout cord to the great rope of the tenor bell at twenty feet above the floor. He had mounted a ladder, drawn a tight loop round his neck, jumped into the air, and so destroyed himself. CHAPTER XVI Certain human dust lay in a place set apart from the main churchyard of St. Edward's. Here newborn babies, that had perished before admission into the Christian faith, were buried, because the ministers of the church felt doubtful as to the salving of these unbaptised ones in another world. The spot was known as 'Chrisomers' Hill,' a name descended from ancient use. By chrisom-cloths were first understood the anointed white garments put upon babes at baptism; and afterwards they came to mean the robes of the newly-baptised. Infants were also shrouded in them if they perished a month after baptism; while a chrisom-child, or chrisomer, signified one who thus untimely died. Among these fallen buds the late vicar of the parish had also buried a woman who took her own life; and Thomas Gollop, nothing doubting but that here, and only here, the body of Mark Baskerville might decently be laid, took it upon himself to dig the grave on Chrisomers' Hill. But the ground was very hard and Thomas no longer possessed his old-time strength of arm. Therefore a young man helped him, and during the intervals of labour, the elder related incidents connected with past interments. Some belonged to his own recollection; others had been handed down by his father. "And touching these childer took off afore the holy water saved 'em, my parent held the old story of the Heath Hounds," concluded Thomas. "And there might be more in it than us later-day mortals have a right to deny. For my father solemnly swore that he'd heard 'em in winter gloamings hurrying through the air, for all the world like a flock of night-flying birds, and barking like good-uns in full cry after the Dowl. 'Tis Satan that keeps 'em out of the joys of Paradise; but only for a time, you must know, because these here babbies never done a stroke of wrong, being too young for it; and therefore, in right and reason, they will be catched up into Heaven at the last." "But no doubt 'tis different if a human takes their own life," said the young man.