There it went, sure enough, Effie’s very pretty hat, with George Brayton after it halfway across the green, and at that moment and with the breath of that one sudden gust, the obnoxious character in the steeple had uttered a grating and sonorous warning that there was life and mischief in him yet. Just that one malicious effort did the village monster make, but that was enough, and in five minutes more there were a hundred pairs of eyes straining up at the steeple on all sides, and Dr. Dryer, accompanied by his faithful “third,” was striding across the green with the key in his hand. Even in that moment of concentrated thought and feeling, however, Mrs. Dryer’s vision swept in all the surrounding circumstances, and she exclaimed, in the tone of an injured angel: “I told you so. There’s Effie with George Brayton out there on the green, and she’s bare-headed, too. It’s awful! There, he’s had her hat in his hand. Doctor, what do you say to such doings? Are you a post?” “A humble pillar, I hope, Dorothy Jane,” replied the Doctor, but there was no time for anything more. “Are you not going to help them?” asked Effie of Brayton. “No, indeed. Why should I?” he asked. “There’s enough of ’em now. Too many, in fact. Besides, if they find out what’s the matter, they’ll be sure to let the rest of us know.” It looked very much as if the young man was right, but the curious part of it was, after all, that not one of that crowd, nor all of them together, did more than rummage the Academy after hidden human beings. They were all equally sure that there was no one up in the belfry, and so that part of the building was left to keep its own secrets and those of Mrs. Wood’s ghosts. Meantime, George Brayton and Effie had the pleasantest kind of a walk and talk, and Mrs. Dryer was enabled to bottle-up an immense amount of wrath against her next meeting with her stepdaughter. In fact, when that much-disturbed lady came out of the Academy, after the fruitless raid of the villagers, she was unable to so much as even smile in the bewildered faces of her neighbors, thereby sending them all away with a deeper sense than ever of the gloomy depth of the cloud which seemed to be settling over Ogleport and its Academy. CHAPTER XXIV MAJOR MONTAGUE HAS A VISITOR On the morning after the visit of Mr. Ashbel Norton, old Judge Danvers was opening his mail. He had spent a good part of the previous evening with Dr. Manning, and the remainder with a pair of the best “detectives” in the city. There was evidently something heavy weighing upon his mind, for he tore open his letters, one by one, and seemed to glance over them almost mechanically. That is, he did so until, as he looked listlessly into one of them, he gave a sudden start and almost sprang to his feet. That was a good deal for such a man, but his next movement was to ring his table-bell, and send out in all haste for a carriage, exclaiming: “I’ll go to see him at once!”