Mr. Hezekiah Lavender having called three successive bobs, the bells came back into rounds without mishap.
“Excellent,” said the Rector. “You made no mistake about that.”
“All right, so far,” said Wimsey.
“The gentleman will do well enough,” agreed Mr. Lavender. “Now, boys, once again. What ’ull we make it this time, sir?”
“Make it a 704,” said the Rector, consulting his watch. “Call her in the middle with a double, before, wrong and home, and repeat.”
“Right you are, sir. And you, Wally Pratt, keep your ears open for the treble and your eyes on your course bell, and don’t go gapin’ about or you’ll have us all imbrangled.”
The unfortunate Pratt wiped his forehead, curled his boots tightly round the legs of his chair, and took a firm hold of his bell. Whether out of nervousness or for some other cause, he found himself in trouble at the beginning of the seventh lead, “imbrangled” himself and his neighbours very successfully and broke into a severe perspiration. “Stand!” growled Mr. Lavender, in a disgusted tone. “If that’s the way you mean to set about it, Wally Pratt, we may just so well give up the ringing of this here peal. Surely you know by this time what to do at a bob?”
“Come, come,” said the Rector. “you musn’t be disheartened, Wally. Try again. You forgot to make the double dodge in 7, 8, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Forgot!” exclaimed Mr. Lavender, waggling his beard. “Now, just yew take example by his lordship here. He didn’t go forgettin’ things, none the more for being’ out o’ practice.”
“Come, come, Hezekiah,” cried the Rector again. “You mustn’t be hard on Wally. We haven’t all had sixty years’ experience.”
Mr. Lavender grunted, and started the whole touch again from the beginning. This time Mr. Pratt kept his head and his place and the ringing went successfully through to its conclusion.
“Well rung all,” cried the Rector. “Our new recruit will do us credit, I think, Hezekiah?”
“I almost fell down in the second lead, though,” said Wimsey, laughing. “I as nearly as possible forgot to lay the four blows in fourths place at the bob. However, nearly isn’t quite.”
“You’ll keep your place all right, my lord,” said Mr.’ Lavender. “As for you, Wally Pratt—”
“I think,” said the Rector, hastily, “we’d better run across to the church now and let Lord Peter get the feel of his bell. You may as well all come over and ring the bells up for service. And, Jack, see to it that Lord Peter’s rope is made comfortable for him. Jack Godfrey takes charge of the bells and ropes,” he added in explanation, “and keeps them in apple-pie order for us.”
Mr. Godfrey smiled.
“We’ll need to let the tuckings down a goodish bit for his lordship,” he observed, measuring Wimsey with his eye; “he’s none so tall as Will Thoday, not by a long chalk.”
“Never you mind,” said Wimsey. “In the words of the old bell-motto: I’d have it to be understood that though I’m little, yet I’m good.”
“Of course,” said the Rector, “Jack didn’t mean anything else. But Will Thoday is a very tall man indeed. Now where did I put my hat? Agnes, my dear! Agnes! I can’t find my hat. Oh, here, to be sure. And my muffler — I’m so much obliged to you. Now, let me just get the key of the belfry and we — dear me, now! When did I have that key last?”
“It’s all right, sir,” said Mr. Godfrey. “I have all the keys here, sir.”
“The church-key as well?”
“Yes, sir, and the key of the bell-chamber.”
“Oh, good, good — excellent. Lord Peter will like to go up into the bell-chamber. To my mind, Lord Peter, the sight of a ring of good bells — I beg your pardon, my dear?”
“I said, Do remember dinner-time, and don’t keep poor Lord Peter too long.”
“No, no, my dear, certainly not. But he will like to look at the bells. And the church itself is worth seeing. Lord Peter. We have a very interesting twelfth-century font, and the roof is considered to be one of the finest specimens — yes, yes, my dear, we’re just going.”
The hall-door was opened upon a glimmering world. The snow was still falling fast; even the footprints made less than an hour earlier by the ringers were almost obliterated. They straggled down the drive and crossed the road. Ahead of them, the great bulk of the church loomed dark and gigantic. Mr. Godfrey led the way with an old-fashioned lantern through the lych-gate and along a path bordered with tombstones to the south door of the church, which he opened, with a groaning of the heavy lock. A powerful ecclesiastical odour, compounded of ancient wood, varnish, dry rot, hassocks, hymnbooks, paraffin lamps, flowers and candles, all gently baking in the warmth of slow-combustion stoves, billowed out from the interior. The tiny ray of the lantern picked out here the poppy-head on a pew, here the angle of a stone pillar, here the gleam of brass from a mural tablet. Their footsteps echoed queerly in the great height of the clerestory.
“All Transitional here,” whispered the Rector, “except the Late Perpendicular window at the end of the north aisle, which of course you can’t see. Nothing is left of the original Norman foundation but a couple of drums at the base of the chancel arch, but you can trace the remains of the Norman apse, if you look for it, underneath the Early English sanctuary. When we have more light, you will notice — Oh, yes, Jack, yes, by all means. Jack Godfrey is quite right, Lord Peter — we must not waste time. I am apt to be led away by my enthusiasm.”
He conducted his guest westwards under the tower arch, and thence, in the wake of Jack Godfrey’s lantern, up a steep and winding belfry stair, its stone treads worn shallow with the feet of countless long-dead ringers. After a turn or so, the procession halted; there was a jingling of keys and the lantern moved away to the right through a narrow door. Wimsey, following, found himself in the ringing chamber of the belfry.
It was in no way remarkable, except in being perhaps a little loftier than the average, on account of the exceptional height of the tower. By daylight, it was well lit, having a fine window of three lights on each of its three exterior sides, while low down in the eastern wall, a couple of unglazed openings, defended by iron bars against accident, gave upon the interior of the church, a little above the level of the clerestory windows. As Jack Godfrey set the lantern on the floor, and proceeded to light a paraffin lamp which hung against the wall, Wimsey could see the eight bellropes, their woollen sallies looped neatly to the walls, and their upper ends vanishing mysteriously into the shadows of the chamber roof. Then the light streamed out and the walls took shape and colour. They were plainly plastered, with a painted motto in Gothic lettering running round below the windows: “They Have Neither Speech nor Language but their Voices are Heard Among Them, their Sound is Gone Forth into All Lands.” Above this, various tablets of wood, brass and even stone, commemorated the ringing of remarkable peals in the past.