Part 129

Owen saw his errand. There is an unmistakable look in the face of every man who brings tidings of death. Graye opened the window.

‘Miss Aldclyffe....’ said the messenger, and paused.

‘Ah--dead?’

‘Yes--she is dead.’

‘When did she die?’

‘At ten minutes past four, after another effusion. She knew best, you see, sir. I started directly, by the rector’s orders.’

SEQUEL

Fifteen months have passed, and we are brought on to Midsummer Night, 1867.

The picture presented is the interior of the old belfry of Carriford Church, at ten o’clock in the evening.

Six Carriford men and one stranger are gathered there, beneath the light of a flaring candle stuck on a piece of wood against the wall. The six Carriford men are the well-known ringers of the fine-toned old bells in the key of F, which have been music to the ears of Carriford parish and the outlying districts for the last four hundred years. The stranger is an assistant, who has appeared from nobody knows where.

The six natives--in their shirt-sleeves, and without hats--pull and catch frantically at the dancing bellropes, the locks of their hair waving in the breeze created by their quick motions; the stranger, who has the treble bell, does likewise, but in his right mind and coat. Their ever-changing shadows mingle on the wall in an endless variety of kaleidoscopic forms, and the eyes of all the seven are religiously fixed on a diagram like a large addition sum, which is chalked on the floor.

Vividly contrasting with the yellow light of the candle upon the four unplastered walls of the tower, and upon the faces and clothes of the men, is the scene discernible through the screen beneath the tower archway. At the extremity of the long mysterious avenue of the nave and chancel can be seen shafts of moonlight streaming in at the east window of the church--blue, phosphoric, and ghostly.

A thorough renovation of the bell-ringing machinery and accessories had taken place in anticipation of an interesting event. New ropes had been provided; every bell had been carefully shifted from its carriage, and the pivots lubricated. Bright red ‘sallies’ of woollen texture--soft to the hands and easily caught--glowed on the ropes in place of the old ragged knots, all of which newness in small details only rendered more evident the irrepressible aspect of age in the mass surrounding them.

The triple-bob-major was ended, and the ringers wiped their faces and rolled down their shirt-sleeves, previously to tucking away the ropes and leaving the place for the night.

‘Piph--h--h--h! A good forty minutes,’ said a man with a streaming face, and blowing out his breath--one of the pair who had taken the tenor bell.

‘Our friend here pulled proper well--that ‘a did--seeing he’s but a stranger,’ said Clerk Crickett, who had just resigned the second rope, and addressing the man in the black coat.

‘’A did,’ said the rest.

‘I enjoyed it much,’ said the man modestly.

‘What we should ha’ done without you words can’t tell. The man that d’belong by rights to that there bell is ill o’ two gallons o’ wold cider.’

‘And now so’s,’ remarked the fifth ringer, as pertaining to the last allusion, ‘we’ll finish this drop o’ metheglin and cider, and every man home--along straight as a line.’

‘Wi’ all my heart,’ Clerk Crickett replied. ‘And the Lord send if I ha’n’t done my duty by Master Teddy Springrove--that I have so.’

‘And the rest o’ us,’ they said, as the cup was handed round.

‘Ay, ay--in ringen--but I was spaken in a spiritual sense o’ this mornen’s business o’ mine up by the chancel rails there. ‘Twas very convenient to lug her here and marry her instead o’ doen it at that twopenny-halfpenny town o’ Budm’th. Very convenient.’

‘Very. There was a little fee for Master Crickett.’

‘Ah--well. Money’s money--very much so--very--I always have said it. But ‘twas a pretty sight for the nation. He coloured up like any maid, that ‘a did.’

‘Well enough ‘a mid colour up. ‘Tis no small matter for a man to play wi’ fire.’

‘Whatever it may be to a woman,’ said the clerk absently.

‘Thou’rt thinken o’ thy wife, clerk,’ said Gad Weedy. ‘She’ll play wi’it again when thou’st got mildewed.’