Punch (93.1887)

294 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 24, 1887.

THE IRREVOCABLE PAST!

" This is truth the Poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things! "

"Alas ! in looking back over one's Life, how many things there are to cause one to Regret I"
"Oh, tes, indeed ! I often regret I didn't eat more Oysters when they were Eightpence a Dozen I"

THE CHIMES.

(Dickens once again adapted to the Season and the Situation.)

High tip in the steeple of an old old Tower, of ancient foundation,
somewhat incongruous and complicated in design, but of sound Con-
•titution—as everybody, even the angriest campanological opponents,
admitted—fax above the light and the noise of the town, if far below
the flying clouds that shadow it, dwelt the Chimes I tell of.

They were old Chimes, trust me. Centuries ago those Bells had
been hung by our ancestors, eo many centuries ago, that the register
of their first suspension, the record of their first peal, was lost in
antiquarian mist as impenetrable as the darkness of the belfry
corners on a starless November night. They had had their donors
and sponsors, these Bells ; but time had mowed down their donors,
and mislaid the names of their sponsors, and they now hung name-
less and dateless, but sound and sonorous still, in that high old Tower,
time-worn but steadfast and four-square to all winds, Party or
otherwise, that have blown or that Bhall blow.

Not speechless though. Far from it. They had clear, loud, lusty,
sounding voices, had these Bells ; and far and wide they might be
heard upon the wind. Much too sturdy Chimes, moreover, were
they, to he dependent upon the mere pleasure of the wind, of any of
the winds—Party or otherwise—aforementioned. They had been
pulled at by many generations of ringers, pulled at sometimes skil-
fully, often awkwardly and ill; sometimes in tune, and with the
well-ordered harmony which was natural to them ; sometimes again,
wildly and wilfully, by incompetent or angry ringers, ringers ill-
matched and ill-accordant, who did their worst to mar their melody,
and spoil their tunefulness, and upset their time, and make them
sound, in the great Singer's words:—

" Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune, and harsh."

But the fault was ever less in the Bells than in the Bell-ringers.
Cracked were they not, nor were they cacophonous; let their

clappers swing free, and keep their throats unrusted and unologged,
and in skilled, and loyal, and well-oonducted hands, they would
ever sound out strongly and sweetly, and send forth on and against
the wildest and angriest of the winds aforesaid, most excellent and
inspiring music.

» * * • • •

Toby knew them well, those Bells, as did his great and genial
Master. Toby was not a oanine casuist. Being but a simple and
loyal dog, he invested them with a strange and solemn character.
They were so mysterious and mighty ; often heard, and never seen;
so high up, so far off, and so full of such a deep, strong melody, that
he regarded them with a species of awe; and sometimes when he
looked up at the dark arched windows in the tower, he half expected
to be beckoned to by something whioh was not a Bell, and yet was
what he had heard so often sounding in the Tower, the Spirit,
namely, of Loyalty and Love, of Honour and of Home. For all this,
Toby sGouted with doggish disdain—being, like his Master, as
sensible as loyal—a certain occasionally flying rumour that the
Chimes were haunted, as implying the possibility of their being
connected with any Evil thing. And Toby—no unlioked oub, but a
considerate, composed old dog,—never puppyishly barked at the
Bella. He would as soon have thought of baying the moon.

But he often had occasion to yap, warningly or reprovingly, at the

Bell-ringers I

#**#•*

Bow-wow-wow! It was the voice of Toby. It meant not, this
time, either warning or reproof; rather amicable acknowledgment,
and just a little surprise. Not fear, oh, no! not fear.

A Voice—was it a vision-voice, or the accents of the biggest of the
Bells, or was it. perchance, the veritable Voice of Time himself,
naturally and fitly vocal and audible at this particular Season ?—
sounded strangely through the shadowy belfry. Thus it seemed to
speak, in words curiously pertinent to the moment, though Toby
seemed to have heard them before in other connection and in other
circumstances.