nine o'clock
Growing duller , I went to the cellar door , which was in the front entry , opened it , and stared down in the black gulf , till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination . The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed , which rose from the Surrey shores , dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth . It came through the ground again in the woodhouse , smooth and round , like the bald head of some old Titan , and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams . As I contemplated the rock , and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes , I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell , which hung in the belfry of the church across the street . Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves , and its last hoarse breath in the belfry , there was no reverberation of its clang in the house ; the rock under us struck back its voice . It was an old Spanish bell , Aunt Mercy told me . How it reached Barmouth she did not know .