1921-12-10 — Page 18

16

"THE CHIMES.".

(Continued from Page 14.).

For this same dreaded paper redirected Trotty's thoughts into the channel they had taken all that day, and which the day's events had so marked out and shaped. His interest in the two wanderers had set him on: another course of thinking and a happier one, for the time; but being alone again, and reading of the crimes and violences of the people, he relapsed into his former, train.

In this mood, he came to an ac- count (and it was not the first he had;

She listened, with her face towards him all the time. But it underwent no change. She didn't understand them.

Trotty withdrew, resumed his seat by the fire, and once more listened by himself. He remained here a little time.

It was impossible to bear it; their energy was dreadful,

"If the tower door is really open," said Toby, hastily laying aside bis apron, but never thinking of his hat, what's to hinder me from going up into the steeple and satisfying myself? If it's shut, I don't want any other satisfaction. That's enough."

THE CHINA MAIL

room for him to pass without dis- covery, that he would rub the smooth wall upward searching for its face, and downward searching for its feet, while a chill tingling crept all over him. Twice, or thrice, a door, or niche broke the monotonous surface; and then it seemed a gap as wide as the whole church; and he felt on the brink of an abyss, and going to tumble headlong down, until he found the wall again.

Still, up, up, up; and round and, round; and up, up, up; higher higher, higher upi

BATURDAY, DEORMBBB 10. 1. 21.

are joined and mixed by chance; and which they carried in their hands, - when, and how, and by what won He saw these creatures, not only derful degrees, each separates from among sleeping men, but waking each, and every sense and object of alas, activa in pursuits irreconcilable the mind resumes its uvaal form and with one another, and possessing or lives again, no man-though every assuming natures the most opposite. man in every day the casket of this He saw one buckling on innumerable type of the great mystery-can tell,wings to increase his speed; another Again, and again, the dread and

So, when and how the darkness of loading himself with chains and the night-black steeple changed to shining light; when and how the solitary tower was, peopled with a myriad figures; when and how the whispered "Haunt and bunt him," breathing monotonously through his sleep or swood, became a voice es claiming in the waking ears of

and how he ceased to have a sluggish and confused idea that such things were, companioning a host of others that were not; there are no dates or means to tell. But, awake, and standing on his feet upon the boards where he had lately lala, he saw this goblin sight

weights, to retard him. He saw some putting the hands of clocks forward, some putting the hands of clocks backward, some endeavouring to stop the clock entirely. He saw them representing, here a marriage cere mony, there a funeral; in this cham ber an election, in that a ball; he ing mation.

ever read) of a woman who had laid out quietly into the street that he it blew so strong, that he could Trotty," Break his slumbers"; when saw, everywhere, restless and untir in the day; cut off from, all good] him on his course, arrests a mighty

her desperate hands not only on her own life but on that of her young child. A crime zo terrible. and so revolting to his soul, dilated with the love of Meg, that be let the journal drop, and fell back on his chair, ap

palled.

|

At length, the dull and stifling atmosphere began to freshen; pre sently to feel quite windy; présently

hardly keep his legs. But he got to an arched window in the tower, breast high, and holding tight, looked down upon the house tops on the smoking chimneys, on the blur and blotch of lights (towards the place where Meg was wondering where he was, calling to him, perhaps), al kneaded up together in a leaven of misc and darkness. -

Bewildered by the host of shifting and extraordinary figures, as well as by the uproar of the bells, which all this while were ringing, Trotty clung to a wooden pillar for support, and turned his white face here and there

him. Otherwise he would have done Trotty was about to answer, so-ay, would have thrown himself, "Never" But he stopped, and was head foremost, from the steeple-top, confused: rather than have sean them watch The voice of Time," anid the Ing him with eyes that would have phantom, cries to man, advance f waked and watched although the Time is for his advancement pupils had been taken out.

and improvement; for his greater worth his greater happiness, his terror of the lonely place, and of the better life; hie progress onward wild and fearful night that reigned to that goal within its knowledge and there, touched him likea spectral band to view; and set there, in the period His distance from all help; the long, when Time and he began. Ages of dark, winding, ghost-beleagured way darkness, wickedness, and violence. that lay between him and the earth have come and gone millions on which men lived; his being high, countable have suffered, lived, and high, liigh, up there, where it had died to point the way before him. made him dizzy to see the birds fly Who seeks to turn him back, or stay

people, who at such an hour were engine which will strike the meddler safe at home and sleeping in their dead, and be the fiercer and the beds; all this struck coldly through wilder. ever for its momentary him, not as a reflection, but a bodily check 1” sensation. Meantime his eyes and thoughts and fears were fixed upon the watchful figures: which, render ed unlike any@gures of this world He saw the tower, whither his

wrapping and enfolding them, as by the deep gloom and shade en-

"Who puts into the mouth of charmed footsteps bad brought him,

well as by their looks and forms and Time, or of its servants," said the This was the belfry, where the swarming with dwarf phantoms

supernatural hovering above the goblin of the bell, a cry of lamenta ringers came. He had caught hold spirits, ellin creatures of the bells

floor, were nevertheless as plainly to tion for days which have had their of one of the frayed ropes, which He saw them leaping, flying, dropping died and melted into air. No be seen as were the stalwart oaken trial and their fallure, and have left hung down through apertures in the ing, pouring from the bells without fresta supply succeeded them. One frames, cross-pieces, bars and beams, deep traces of it which the blind may oaken roof. At first he started, pause. fle saw them, round him straggler leaped down pretty briskly set up there to support, the bella. see cry that only serves the thinking it was hair; then trembled on the ground; above him, in the air; from the surface the great bell, These hemmed them, in a very forest present time by showing men how at the very thought of waking the clambering from hic, by the types and alighted on his feet; but he was of hewn timber; from the entangle. much it needs their help when any The bells themselves below; looking down upon him, from dead and gone before he could turn ments, intricacies, and depths of ears can listen to regrets for such a

iron-girded beams; were higher. Higher, Trotty, in his the massive fascination, or in working out the peeping in upon him, through the round. Some few of the late com- which, as from among the boughs past who does this, does a wrong. spell upon him, gr ped his way. By chinks and loopholes in the walls pany who had gambolled in the of a dead wood blighted for their And you have done that wrong to Trotty's first excess of fear was ladders now, and toilsomely, for it spreading away and away from him tower remained there, spinning over phantom vise, they kept their dark us, the chimes." was steep, and not too certain hold-in enlarging circles, as the water a little longer; but these became at some and unwinking watch.

A blast of air-how cold and gone. But he had felt tenderly and ripples give place to a huge atone very tura more faint, and few, and Up, up, up; and climb and clam that suddenly comes plashing in feeble, and soon went the way of the shrill-came moaning through the gratefully towards the bells, as you rest. The last of all was one small tower. As it died away, the great! have seen; and when he heard him- ber; ap, up, up; higher, higher, among them. He saw them of a

He saw echoing corner, where he twirled, the ugly, handsome, crippled. ex and floated by himself a long time;

He saw them

showing such perseverance, that at quisitely formed. young, he saw them old; he saw them

ing saw them cruel, we saw last he dwindled to a leg and even

He was pretty certain as he slipped

should find it shut and locked, for he know the door well, and had so rarely seen it open, that he coulda't reckon above three times in all. It was a low-arched portal, outside the church, in a dark nook behind a column; and had such great iron hinges, and such Unnatural and cruel" Toby cried, a monstrous lock, that there was "Unnatural and cruel! None but more hinge and lock than door. pepole who were bad at heart, born But what was his astonishment bad, who had no business on the when, coming bareheaded to the barth, could do such deeds. It's 100 church; and putting his hand into earth, true heard today; tno just, this dark nook, with a certain mis. giving that it might be unexpectedly too full of proof. We're bad!"

The chimes took up the words so seized, and a shivering propensity to sudden but oud, and draw it back again; he found that sted, and sonorous-that the bells the door, which opened outwards,

actually stood ajar! seemed to strike him in his chair. "

And what was that they, said? He thought, on the first surprise, "Toby Veck, Toby Veck, waiting of going back; or of getting a light, for you Toby Toby Veck, Toby or a compansion; but his courage Veck, waiting for you, Toby! Come aided him immediately, and he and see us, come and see us! Drag determined to ascend alone. him to us, drag, him to us! Haunt

"What have I to fear?" said ing for the feet. and hunt him, haunt and hunt him! Trotty, "It's a church! Besides, Break his slumbers. break his the ringers may be there, and have slumbers Toby Veck. Toby Veck, door open wide, Toby Toby Veck,

Toby Veck, door open wide, Toby Then fiercely back to their im petuous strain again, and ringing in the very briksand plaster on the walls.

Toby listened. Fancy, fancy! His remorse for having run away from

them that afternoon! No, no. Noth ing of the kind. Again, again, and yet a dozen times again. "Haunt and hunt him, haunt and hunt him! Drag him to us, drag him to us!" Deafen ing the whole town.

"Meg," said Trotty softly, tapping at ber door. Do you hear anything?"

"I hear the bells, father. Surely they're very loud to-night."

"Is she asleep?" said Toby. mak- ing an excuse for peeping in.

"So peacefully and happily! I can't leave her yet though, father. Look how she holds my hand!"

"Meg! whispered Trotty. "Listen to the bells?"

forgotten to shut the door,

So he went in, feeling his way as

he went, like a blind man; for it was very dark. And very quiet, for the chimes were silent.

deep bell.

higher up.!

Until, ascending through the floor, and pausing with his head just raised above its beams, he came among

the bells. It was barely possible to

aspects and all shapes,

lo mure and stunned astonishment. fastantaneous change! The whole As he gazed, the chimes stopped swarm fainted; their forms collapsed, their speed deserted them; they sought to fly, but in the act of fall

spoke.

"never did so to my knowledge, air," said Trotty. It was quite by accident if I did. I wouldn't go to. do it, I'm sure.”

The dust from the street had blown make out their great shapes in the them merry, he saw them grim; he to a foot, before he finally retired: Trotty fancied that it sounded in the do know-if you knew how often you.

into the recess; and lying there, heaped up, made it so soft and velvet-like to the fact, that there was

something startling, even in that. The narrow stair was so close to the door, too, that he stumbled at the very first; and shutting the door upon himself, by striking it with his foot, and causing it to rebound back heavily, he couldn't open it again.

This was another reason, however, for going on. Trotty groped his way, and went on. Up, up, up, and Found and round; and up, up, up; higher, higher, higher up!

It was a disagreeable staircase for that groping work; so..low and narrow, that his groping hand was always touching something; and it often felt so like a man or ghostly figure standing up erect and making

...

gloom; but there they were. Sha dowy, and dark, and dumb.

A heavy sense of dread and lone liness fell instantly upon him, as he climbed into this airy nest of stone and metal. His head went round and round. He listened, and then raised a wild "Hollo!*

Hollo! was mournfully protracted by the echoes.

saw them dance, and heard them sing; he saw them tear their hair and heard them howl. He saw the

He saw

air thick with them. He saw them come and go, incessantly. them riding downward, soaring up ward, sailing off afar, perching near at hand, all restless and all violently active. Stone, and brick, and slate, and tile, became transparent to him as to them. He saw them in the houses, busy at the sleepers' beds. He saw them soothing people in their dreams; he saw them beating them with knotted whips; he saw them Black are the brooding clouds and yelling in their ears: he saw them troubled the deep waters, when the playing softest music on their pillows; sea of thought, first heaving from ashe saw them cheering some with calm, gives up its dead. Monsters; the songs of birds and the perfume uncouth and wild, arise in premature, of flowers; he saw them flashing imperfect resurrection; the several awful faces on the troubled rest of parts and shapes of different things" others, from enchanted mirrors

Giddy, confused, and out of breath, and frightened, Toby looked about him vacantly, and sank down in a swoon.

but he vanished in the end, and then the tower was silent.

"What visitor is this?" it said. The voice was low and deep, and

"I thought my name was called other figures as well.

Then, and not, before, did Trotty by the chimes," said Trotty, raising see in every bill a bearded figure his hands in an attitude of suppli- of the bulk and stature of the bell cation. "I hardly know why I am incomprehensibly, a figure and the here, or how I came. I have listen bell itself, gigantic, grave, and, ed to the chimes these many years. darkly watchful of him, as he stood They have cheered me often."

"And you have thanked them?" rooted to the ground,

said the bell.

Mysterious and awful Sigures ! Resting on nothing; poised in the night air of the tower, with their draped and hooded beads merged in the dim roof; motionless and sha- dowy. Shadowy and dark, although he saw them by some light belong. ing to themselves--none else was there each with its muffled hand upon its goblin mouth.

He could not plunge down wildly through the opening in the floor; for all power of motion had deserted

"A thousand times!” cried Trotty.

How?

"I am a poor man, faltered Trotty," and could only thank them in words."

"And always so inquired the goblin of the bell. "Have you never done us wrong in words?"

"No!" cried Trotty eagerly. "Never done us foul, and false, and wicked wrong in words? pursued the goblin of the bell.

ed them, so weightily, his heart was touched with penitence and grief,

"If you knew." said Trotty, clasping his hands earnestly or perhaps you

have kept me company; how often you have cheered me up when I've been low; how you were quite the plaything of my little daughter Meg (almost the only one she ever had) when first her mother died, and she and me were left alone; you won't bear malice for a hasty word!"

t

"Who hears in us, the chimes; one- note bespeaking disregard, or stern regard, of any hope, or joy, or pain, of sorrow, of the many-sorrowed throng; who hears us make response- to any creed that gauges human -passions and affections, as it gauges the amount of miserable food on which humaniky may pine and withers does us wrong. That wrong you have done us!" said the bell:

"I have said Trotty. give me!

Oh, for-

(Continued on Page 183

CHAMPAGNE

POL ROGER

VINTAGE 1911

VINTAGE 1914

OBTAINABLE EVERYWHERE

SOLE AGENTS:

H. RUTTONJEE & SON.