THE ALARM FROM THE BELFRY.—THE BEADLE IN A QUANDARY.
“The belfry,” cried Will Stephens. “Oh! if I could but reach the
belfry.”
He went stumbling on, now falling, then gathering himself up again to
renewed exertions, for the stairs were steep and narrow, and although
the little church tower was by no means very high yet the place where
the bell hung was not to be reached in a moment.
Perseverance, however, will do wonders, and it was reached at last.
Yes, he stood panting in a little square building in the very centre of
which hung a thick rope. It was the means of tolling the bell. To seize
it was the work of a moment.
The bell swung round and its iron tongue gave forth a loud and stunning
sound. Again and again—bang—bang—bang! went the bell, and then feeling
that at all events he had given an alarm, Will Stephens turned to
retrace his steps.
He was half stupefied by his previous fears. The noise of the bell, so
close as he had been to it, had been stunning and bewildering, and Will
Stephens reeled like a drunken man. The ale too might have a little to
do with that, but certainly he made a false step, and down he went head
foremost from top to bottom of those old steep, narrow belfry stairs.
• • • • •
Will Stephens was right when he considered that the tolling of the bell
would give an alarm. Most persons in the neighbourhood were awakened by
it, and they listened to the seven or eight pealing sounds in surprise.
What could they mean? Who was doing it? It could not be fire. Oh dear
no. The alarm would not leave off if it were. Somebody dead—ah, yes,
it was some great person in the state dead, and the news had been
brought there, and so the bell was tolled, and we shall hear all about
it in the morning. And so those who had been awakened went to sleep
again, and the unhappy sexton was left to his fate at the foot of the
little stairs leading up to the belfry, where he had gone with so much
trouble, and produced so little effect.
The long weary hours of the night crept on, and at last the faint dawn
of early morning showed itself upon the ocean, and in faint streaks of
light in the glowing east.
The fishermen began to ply their hazardous and hardy trade. The birds
in the gardens, and in the old lime and yew trees that shaded the
church-yard, shook off their slumbers. Gradually the light advanced,
and a new day began.
But there lay poor Stephens, the victim of what he had seen and heard
in the old church, and he was doomed to lie some time longer yet.
There was a Mr. Anthony Dorey, who was parish beadle, and he had
awakened, and heard the sound of the tolling of the well-known bell.
“I say, mother Dorey,” he had said to his better half, “what’s that?”
“How should I know, idiot,” was the polite rejoinder.
“Oh, very good.”
“You had better get up and see.”
“Oh dear no. It’s no business of mine; Master Wiggins is bell-ringer; I
dare say it’s something though.”
This was a wise conclusion for the beadle to come to, and he turned
to go to sleep again, which was wise likewise, only more easy in the
conception than in the execution, for his mind was more disturbed than
he had thought it possible anything could disturb it, by the tolling of
the bell.
Whenever he found himself just going off to sleep, he jumped awake
again quite wide, crying,—
“Eh! eh! Was that the bell?”
This sort of thing, varied by a great number of punches in the ribs
from Mrs. Dorey, went on until the morning had sufficiently advanced to
make it quite light enough to see objects with ordinary distinctness,
and then, fancying that all his attempts to sleep would be futile, the
vexed beadle rose.
“I can’t sleep, that’s a clear case,” he said, “so I will go and see
what the bell was tolled for at such an odd time of the night. The more
I think of it, the more I don’t know what to think.”
Full of this resolution, he went post haste to Mr. Wiggins’s and
knocked loudly at his cottage door.
“Hillo! hillo! Wiggins.”
“Well,” said Wiggins, looking out of his bed-room window with his head
picturesquely adorned by a red night-cap, “Well what’s the matter now?”
“That’s what I want to know. Why did you toll the bell in the middle of
the night?” “I toll the bell!”
“Yes, to be sure, I heard it.”
“Yes, and I heard it too, but it was none of my tolling, and if I had
not been rather indisposed, Mr. Dorey. I should have got up myself and
seen what it was all about. As it is you find me cleaning myself rather
early.”
“I’ll wait for you, then,” said Dorey.
Wiggins soon made his appearance, and he and Dorey walked off together
to the church, much pondering as they went, upon the mysterious
circumstance that took them there, for if neither had rung the bell
they could not think who had, for although the name of Will Stephens
certainly occurred to them both, they thought it about one of the most
unlikely things in the world that he would take the trouble to perform
upon the great bell in the middle of the night, when it was none of his
business to do so under any circumstances whatever.
“Nonsense,” said the beadle; “I hardly ever knew him do a very civil
thing.”
“Nor I either, so you may depend, neighbour Dorey, it’s not him.”
“It’s a great mystery, neighbour Wiggins. That’s what it is, and
nothing else.”
“I hope it don’t bode none of us no harm, that’s all. Times are quite
bad enough, without anything happening to make ’em worse.”
This sentiment, as any grumbling one always is, was acceded to by the
beadle, and so they went on conversing until they reached the church
door; and then the surprise of finding the smaller entrance open struck
them, and they stood staring at each other for some moments in profound
silence.
“There’s somebody here,” said Wiggins at last.
“In course.”
“What shall we do, Mr. Dorey? Do you think it’s our duty to—to go in
and see who it is, or—or run away? You know I ain’t a constable, but
you are, so perhaps it alters the case so far as you are concerned, you
see.”
“Not at all; you are a strong man, Mr. Wiggins, a very strong man; but
suppose we try to make some one answer us. Here goes.”
The beadle advanced close to the threshold of the door, and in as loud
a tone of voice as he could command, he said,—
“Ahem!—ahem!—Hilloa, hilloa!—What are you at there?—Come, come, I’m
down upon you.”
“What do they say?” inquired Wiggins.
“Nothing at all.”
“Then, perhaps, it’s nobody.”
“Well, do you know, if! thought that, I’d go in at once, like a roaring
lion—I would—and show ’em who I was—ah!”
“So would I—so would I.”
After listening for some short time longer, most intently, and hearing
nothing, they came to the conclusion, that although some one had
evidently been there, there was no one there now; so it would be quite
safe to go into the church, always taking care to leave the door open,
so that, in the event of any alarm, they could run away again, with all
the precipitation in the world.
It certainly was not one of the most hazardous exploits in the whole
history of chivalrous proceedings to enter a church in daylight, as it
then was, in search of some one, who it was very doubtful was there.
But to have seen the beadle and Mr. Wiggins, anybody would have thought
them bound upon an enterprise of life or death, and the latter the most
likely of the two, by a great deal.
“Ahem!” cried Mr. Dorey again; “we are two strong, bold fellows, and we
have left our six companions—all six feet high, at the door—ahem!”
No effect was produced by this speech, which Mr. Dorey fully intended
should strike terror into somebody, and after a few minutes search,
they both felt convinced that there was no one hidden in the lower part
of the church, and there was only the gallery to search.
And yet that was a ticklish job, for the nearer they approached the
belfry, of course the nearer they approached the spot from whence the
alarm had been given. It was therefore with rather a backwardness in
going forward, that they both slowly proceeded up the staircase, and
finally reached the gallery, where they saw no one; and much to their
relief the want of any discovery was.
“It’s all right,” said the beadle. “There’s nobody here. Oh, how I do
wish the rascals had only stayed, that’s all. I’d a shewn them what a
beadle was—I’d a took ’em up in a twinkling—I would. Lord bless you,
Mr. Wiggins, you don’t know what a desperate man I am, when I’m put to
it, that you don’t.”
“Perhaps not, but there don’t seem to be any danger.”
“Not the least. Eh? eh?—oh, the Lord have mercy upon us! I give
in—what’s that?—take my everything, but, oh! spare my life—oh! oh! oh!”
This panic of the beadle’s was all owing to hearing somebody give a
horrible groan—such a groan that it was really dreadful to hear it.
Mr. Wiggins, too, was much alarmed, and leant upon the front rail of
the gallery, looking dreadfully pale and wan. The beadle’s face looked
quite of a purple hue, and he shook in every limb.
“I—I thought I saw a groan,” he said.
“So—so—did—I—oh, look—then don’t you hear a horrible bundle up in that
corner. Oh, mercy! I begin to think we are as good as dead men—that we
are—oh, that we are. What will become of us?—what will become of us?”
By this time, Will Stephens, who, the reader is aware, was there to
make the groan, had got up from the foot of the belfry-stairs, and he
began to drag his bruised and stiffened frame towards the beadle and
Mr. Wiggins, which they no sooner perceived than they set off as hard
as they could scamper from the place, crying out for help, as if they
had been pursued by a thousand devils.
In vain Stephens called after them; they did not hear his voice, nor
did they stop in their headlong flight until they reached the door of
the clergyman, concerning whose power to banish all evil spirits into
the Red Sea, they had a strong belief, and as the reverend gentleman
was at breakfast, the first thing they both did was to rush in, and
upset the tea-tray which the servant had just brought in.