"Well, I should think you was smart!" cried sundry of them in turn. "Set there like a bump on a log, an' wonder what's the matter! Never heard of anything so numb in all my born days. If I was a man, I guess I'd see!" It was Brad Freeman who broke the spell, with a sudden thought and cry,-- "By thunder! maybe's suthin 's afire!" He leaped to his feet, and with long, loping strides made his way up the hill to Tiverton church. The men, in one excited, surging rabble, followed him. The women were before them. They, too, had heard the tolling for the unknown dead, and had climbed a quicker way, leaving fire and cradle behind. At the very moment when they were pressing, men and women, to the open church door, the last lingering clang had ceased, the bell lay humming itself to rest, and Nicholas Oldfield strode out and faced them. By this time, factions had broken up, and each woman instinctively sought her husband's side, assuring herself of protection against the unresting things of the spirit. Young Nick's Hattie found her lawful ally, with the rest. "My soul!" said she in a whisper, "it's father!" Nicholas touched her arm in warning, and stood silent. He felt that the waters were troubled, as he had known them to be once or twice in his boyhood. "He's got his mad up," remarked Young Nick to himself. "Stan' from under!" Nicholas strode through the crowd, and it separated to let him pass. There was about him at that moment an amazing physical energy, apparent even in the dark. He seemed a different man, and one woman whispered to another, "Why, that can't be Mr. Oldfield! It's a head taller." He walked across the green, and the crowd turned also, to follow him. There, just opposite the church, lay his own Flat-Iron Lot, and he stepped into it, over the low stone boundary, and turned about. "Don't ye come no nearer," called he. "This is my land. Don't ye set foot on it." The Flat-Iron Lot was a triangular piece of ground, rich in drooping elms, and otherwise varied only by a great boulder looming up within the wall nearest the church. Nicholas paused for a moment where he was; then with a thought of being the better heard, he turned, ran up the rough side of the boulder, and faced his fellows. As he stood there, illumined by the rising moon, he seemed colossal. "He'll break his infernal old neck!" said Brad Freeman admiringly. But no one answered, for Nicholas Oldfield had begun to speak.