Now I know.

A circumstance that occurred this afternoon recalled the time to me most forcibly.

To make it certain to myself that all was not a dream, I went up there with a spade; I searched, and saw enough to know that something decays there in a closed badger's hole.' 'Mills, do you think the Duchess guessed ?' 'She never did, I am sure, to the day of her death.' 'Did you leave all as you found it on the hill ?' 'I did.' 'What made you think of going up there this particular afternoon ?' 'What your Grace says you don't wish to be told.' The Duke was silent; and the stillness of the evening was so marked that there reached their ears from the outer air the sound of a tolling bell.
'What is that bell tolling for ?' asked the nobleman.
'For what I came to tell you of, your Grace.' 'You torment me it is your way!' said the Duke querulously.

'Who's dead in the village ?' 'The oldest man--the old shepherd.' 'Dead at last--how old is he ?' 'Ninety-four.' 'And I am only seventy.

I have four-and-twenty years to the good!' 'I served under that old man when I kept sheep on Marlbury Downs.