CHAPTER X.THE COURT-HOUSE BELL.
The court-house bell ringing in the night! No hesitating stroke of Schofields' Henry, no uncertain touch, was on the rope.

A loud, wild, hurried clamor pealing out to wake the country-side, a rapid _clang! clang! clang!_ that struck clear in to the spine.
The court-house bell had tolled for the death of Morton, of Garfield, of Hendricks; had rung joy-peals of peace after the war and after political campaigns; but it had rung as it was ringing now only three times; once when Hibbard's mill burned, once when Webb Landis killed Sep Bardlock and intrenched himself in the lumber-yard and would not be taken till he was shot through and through, and once when the Rouen accommodation was wrecked within twenty yards of the station.
Why was the bell ringing now?
Men and women, startled into wide wakefulness, groped to windows--no red mist hung over town or country.
What was it?
The bell rang on.

Its loud alarm beat increasingly into men's hearts and quickened their throbbing to the rapid measure of its own.

Vague forms loomed in the gloaming.

A horse, wildly ridden, splashed through the town.