“Ay, that I can,” cried the old man, cheerfully. “Now, boys, if you be ready, we’ll ring a little touch of 96, just to put this gentleman in the way of it, like. You’ll remember, my lord, that you starts by making the first snapping lead with the treble and after that you goes into the slow hunt till she comes down to snap with you again.”
“Right you are,” said Wimsey. “And after that I make the thirds and fourths.”
“That’s so, my lord. And then it’s three steps forward and one step back till you lay the blows behind.”
“Carry on, sergeant major.”
The old man nodded, adding: “And you, Wally Pratt, mind what you’re about, and don’t go a-follerin’ your course bell beyond thirds place. I’ve tolled yew about that time and again. Now, are you ready, lads — go!”
* * *
The art of change-ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world. To the musical Belgian, for example, it appears that the proper thing to do with a carefully-tuned ring of bells is to play a tune upon it. By the English campanologist, the playing of tunes is considered to be a childish game, only fit for foreigners; the proper use of bells is to work out mathematical permutations and combinations. When he speaks of the music of his bells, he does not mean musicians’ music — still less what the ordinary man calls music. To the ordinary man, in fact, the pealing of bells is a monotonous jangle and a nuisance, tolerable only when mitigated by remote distance and sentimental association. The change-ringer does, indeed, distinguish musical differences between one method of producing his permutations and another; he avers, for instance, that where the hinder bells run 7, 5, 6, or 5, 6, 7, or 5, 7; 6, the music is always prettier, and can detect and approve, where they occur, the consecutive fifths of Tittums and the cascading thirds of the Queen’s change. But what he really means is, that by the English method of ringing with rope and wheel, each several bell gives forth her fullest and her noblest note. His passion — and it is a passion — finds its satisfaction in mathematical completeness and mechanical perfection, and as his bell weaves her way rhythmically up from lead to hinder place and down again, he is filled with the solemn intoxication that comes of intricate ritual faultlessly performed. To any disinterested spectator, peeping in upon the rehearsal, there might have been something a little absurd about the eight absorbed faces; the eight tense bodies poised in a spellbound circle on the edges of eight dining-room chairs; the eight upraised right hands, decorously wagging the handbells upward and downward; but to the performers, everything was serious and important as an afternoon with the Australians at Lord’s.
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.
“We shall hope to put up a new tablet after tonight,” said the Rector’s voice in Wimsey’s ear.
“I only hope I may do nothing to prevent it,” said Wimsey. “I see you have the old regulations for your ringers. Ah! ‘Keep stroak of time and goe not out, Or elles you forfeit out of doubt For every fault a Jugg of beer.’ It doesn’t say how big a jug, but there is something about the double g that suggests size and potency. ‘If a bell you overthrow ’Twill cost you sixpence ere you goe.’ That’s cheap, considering the damage it does. On the other hand, sixpence for every swear or curse is rather on the dear side, I think, don’t you, padre? Where’s this bell of mine?”
“Here, my lord.” Jack Godfrey had unhitched the rope of the second bell, and let down to its full length the portion of rope below the sallie.
“When you’ve got her raised,” he said, “we’ll fix them tuckings proper. Unless you’d like me to raise her for you?”
“Not on your life,” said Wimsey. “It’s a poor ringer that can’t raise his own bell.” He grasped the rope and pulled it gently downwards, gathering the slack in his left hand. Softly, tremulously, high overhead in the tower, Sabaoth began to speak, and her sisters after her as the ringers stood to their ropes. “Tin-tin-tin,” cried Gaude in her silvery treble; “tan-tan,” answered Sabaoth; “din-din-din,” “dan-dan-dan,” said John and Jericho, climbing to their places; “bim, bam, bim, bam,” Jubilee and Dimity followed; “bom,” said Batty Thomas; and Tailor Paul, majestically lifting up her great bronze mouth, bellowed “bo, bo, bo,” as the ropes hauled upon the wheels.
Wimsey brought his bell competently up and set her at backstroke while the tuckings were finally adjusted, after which, at the Rector’s suggestion, a few rounds were rung to let him “get the feel of her.”
“You can leave your bells up, boys,” said Mr. Hezekiah Lavender, graciously, when this last rehearsal was concluded, “but don’t you go a-taking that for what they calls a preceedent, Wally Pratt. And listen here, all on you; don’t make no mistake. You comes here, sharp at the quarter to eleven, see — and you rings same as usual for service, and after Rector has finished his sermon, you comes up here again quiet and decent and takes your places. Then, while they’re a-singin’ their ’ymn, I rings the nine tailors and the ’alf-minute passing-strokes for Old Year, see. Then you takes your ropes in hand and waits for the clock to strike. When she’s finished striking, I says ‘Go!’ and mind as you’re ready to go. And when Rector’s done down below, he’s promised to come up and give a ’and from time to time to any man as needs a rest, and I’m sure it’s very kind of him. And I take leave to suppose, Alt Donnington, as you won’t forget the usual.”
“Not me,” said Mr. Donnington. “Well, so long, boys.”
The lantern led the way from the ringing-chamber, and a great shuffling of feet followed it.
“And now,” said the Rector, “and now. Lord Peter, you will like to come and see — Dear me!” he ejaculated, as they groped upon the dark spiral stair, “where in the world is Jack Godfrey? Jack! He has gone on down with the others. Ah, well, poor fellow, no doubt he wants to get home to his supper. We must not be selfish. Unfortunately he has the key of the bell-chamber, and without it we cannot conduct our researches. However, you will see much better to-morrow. Yes, Joe, yes — we are coming. Do be careful of these stairs — they are very much worn, especially on the inside. Here we are, safe and sound. Excellent! Now, before we go. Lord Peter, I should so much like to show you—”
The clock in the tower chimed the three-quarters. “Bless my heart!” cried the Rector, conscience-stricken, “and dinner was to be at half-past! My wife — we must wait till to-night. You will get a general idea of the majesty and beauty of our church if you attend the service, though there are many most interesting details that a visitor is almost bound to miss if they are not pointed out to him, The font, for instance — Jack! bring the lantern here a moment — there is one point about our font which is most uncommon, and I should like to show it to you. Jack!”
But Jack, unaccountably deaf, was jingling the church keys in the porch, and the Rector, sighing a little, accepted defeat.
“I fear it is true,” he said, as he trotted down the path, “that I am inclined to lose count of time.”
“Perhaps,” replied Wimsey politely, “the being continually in and about this church brings eternity too close.”
“Very true,” said the Rector, “very true — though there are mementoes enough to mark the passage of time. Remind me to-morrow to show you the tomb of Nathaniel Perkins — one of our local worthies and a great sportsman. He refereed once for the great Tom Sayers, and was a notable figure at all the ‘mills’ for miles around, and when he died — Here we are at home. I will tell you later about Nathaniel Perkins. Well, my dear, we’re back at last! Not so very late after all. Come along, come along. You must make a good dinner, Lord Peter, to fit you for your exertions. What have we here? Stewed oxtail? Excellent! Most sustaining! I trust, Lord Peter, you can eat stewed oxtail. For what we are about to receive…”
THE SECOND COURSE
THE BELLS IN THEIR COURSES
When mirth and pleasure is on the wing we ring;
At the departure of a soul we toll.
Ringers’ Rules at Southill, Bedfordshire.
After dinner, Mrs. Venables resolutely asserted her authority. She sent Lord Peter up to his room, regardless of the Rector, who was helplessly hunting through a set of untidy bookshelves in search of the Rev. Christopher Woollcott’s History of the Bells of Fenchurch St. Paul.
“I can’t imagine what has become of it,” said the Rector: “I fear I’m sadly unmethodical. But perhaps you would like to look at this — a trifling contribution of my own to campanological lore. I know, my dear, I know — I must not detain Lord Peter — it is thoughtless of me.”
“You must get some rest yourself, Theodore.”
“Yes, yes, my dear. In a moment. I was only—”
Wimsey saw that the one way to quiet the Rector was to desert him without compunction. He retired, accordingly, and was captured at the head of the stairs by Bunter, who tucked him firmly up beneath the eiderdown with a hot-water bottle and shut the door upon him.
A roaring fire burned in the grate. Wimsey drew the lamp closer to him, opened the little brochure presented to him by the Rector, and studied the title-page:
An Inquiry into
<
br /> the Mathematical Theory
of the
IN AND OUT OF COURSE
together with Directions for
Calling Bells into Rounds
from any position
in all the recognised Methods
upon a
New and Scientific Principle
by
Theodore Venables, M.A.
Rector of Fenchurch St. Paul
sometime Scholar of Caius Coll: Camb:
author of
“Change-ringing for Country Churches,”
“Fifty Short Touches of Grandsire Triples,”
etc.
“God is gone up with a merry noise.”
MCMII
The letter-press was of a soporific tendency; so was the stewed oxtail; the room was warm; the day had been a tiring one; the lines swam before Lord Peter’s eyes. He nodded; a coal tinkled from the grate; he roused himself with a jerk and read: “… if the 5th is in course after the 7th (says Shipway), and 7th after the 6th, they are right, when the small bells, 2, 3, 4, are brought as directed in the preceding peals; but if 6, 7 are together without the 5th, call the 5th into the hunt….”
The Nine Tailors lpw-11 Page 3
