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As he recalled the bishop's elaborate description, he turned and gazed at the towers which loomed ghost-like beyond the ridge. He was now in the midst of the wide field from which he had heard the tinkle of cow-bells on the morning of his arrival. The place was deserted, save for his own presence.
A witness brought in a short section of one of the apple trees, which had twenty-nine rings showing its age, which made a sensation. Several other witnesses swore that when they were boys, they used to hunt for cattle, on the bottoms, to the north of Cole's land, and often got on to the old tree fences, to listen for the cow-bells. And Bart rested his case. One branch of this defence looked ugly.
They would have opened their wide mouths wider had they known that the red-cloaked page was looking wistfully at them and their kine and the nodding clover. "It must be very enjoyable to wander all day in the peace of the meadows and hear nothing louder than cow-bells," she was thinking. "It is good to see creatures that no man is stabbing or doing harm to."
The Destroyer had not passed this way, it seemed, for the oat-fields stretched before them in unbroken silvery sheen; and the straight young corn dared to rustle its green ribbons boastfully. Fowls still uncaptured crowed lustily in adjacent barnyards; and now and again, sweet as echoes from elfin horns, came the tinkling music of cow-bells.
There is a distant tinkling of cow-bells from the heights, where isolated pastures gleam like a patchwork quilt between the spread of forest; and farther down a train from Paris or Geneva, booming softly, leaves a trail of smoke against the background of the Alps where still the sunshine lingers. But trains, somehow, do not touch the village; they merely pass it.
Nasmyth failed to understand how the delay would improve their position, but believing that his companion was somewhat dubious about his tale he restrained his curiosity. In half an hour Jake came back and nodded to Lisle. "Quite a bunch of them," he reported. "I struck the fellow's trail." "What was it I heard?" Nasmyth asked. "Cow-bells," Lisle explained, laughing.
Representatives from backwoods districts were used to such circulating mediums as military warrants, guard certificates, horses, cattle, cow-bells, land, and whiskey. They looked askance at a bank as a sort of whirlpool into which wealth would disappear, and bolt out at the bottom into the pockets of a few individuals who understood what was beyond the average intellect.
There was the usual clatter of home-going wagons; lights winked out of kitchen windows; the tinkle of distant cow-bells was in the air; on Main Street the commerce of the town was gently ebbing, and man and nature seemed utterly oblivious of the great event that had happened.
She loves to describe the long still summer nights and the gray dawn when the birds begin to sing, the sweet scents of the forest, and the soft freshness of the western breeze. The smallest details of the living picture do not escape her notice. She records the musical tinkling of distant cow-bells and the mournful cry of the bittern.
"It is looser in time of need." "Very well. Stand still." I whipped out my knife and, bunching the faintly tinkling thrums in my fingers, severed the tin points and tossed them into the darkness. "I can understand," said I, "a horse-riding Indian of the plains galloping into battle all over cow-bells, but never before have I heard of any forest Indian wearing such a fringe in time of war."
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