High in the steeple the bells are conversing. The two younger
ones are sullen. "The people in this village are mad. Why can
they never be quiet? Were not yesterday's duties sufficiently
tiresome?--midnight Mass, Matins, the Mass of the Aurora, the
third Mass, High Mass, Vespers, the Angelus, to say nothing of
supplementary chimes. There was no end to it! And now to-day we must
begin all over again. They pull us, they shake us,--first the toll
for the dead, the funeral service next, then the burial. It is really
too much! Why will they never leave us in peace on our frames? Our
clappers are weary, and our sides are bruised with the repeated
strokes. What can be the matter with these peasants? Here they come
to church again in their holiday clothes. Father Monhache wears his
most forbidding scowl; his beard bristles fiercely; every now and
then he brushes something from his eyes with the back of his hand.
His cocked hat has a defiant tilt. The boys had better be on their
guard this day. Far down the road there, I see two coffins, one large
and one small. They are lifting them on the oxcart; see! But what is
that to us, and why are we expected to ring?"