* * * * *

Up, up, up! and round and round; and up, up, up! higher, higher, higher up!

There was the belfry where the ringers came. Punch caught hold of one of the frayed ropes which hung down through the apertures in the oaken roof.  But he started; other hands seemed on it; he shrank from the thought of waking the deep Bell.  The Bells themselves were higher.  Higher, Punch and Toby, in their fascination, or working out the spell upon them, groped their way; until, ascending through the floor, and pausing, with his head raised just above its beams Punch came among the Bells.  It was barely possible to make out their great shapes in the gloom; but there they were.  Shadowy, and dark, and dumb.

He listened, and then raised a wild “Halloa!” “Halloa!” was mournfully protracted by the echoes.  Giddy, confused, and out of breath, Punch looked about him vacantly, and sank down in a swoon.

* * * * *

He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps had brought him, swarming with dwarf phantoms, sprites, elfin creatures of the Bells.  He saw them leaping, flying, dropping, pouring from the Bells without a pause.  He saw them, round him on the ground; above him in the air; clambering from him by the ropes below; looking down upon him from the massive iron-girdered beams; peeping in upon him through the chinks and loopholes in the walls; spreading away and away from him in enlarging circles.  He saw them of all aspects and all shapes.  He saw them ugly, handsome, crippled, exquisitely formed.  He saw them young, he saw them old; he saw them kind, he saw them cruel; he saw them merry, he saw them grim; he saw them dance, he heard them sing; he saw them tear their hair, he heard them howl.  He saw the air thick with them.

Wh-o-o-o-sh! With what a wild whirr of startled wings the owls and bats scurried away, dim spectral hiding things that love the darkness and the silence of night, and shrink from light and cheerful sounds!  “Well rid of you!” murmured Punch, as Toby barked at the flying phantoms.

But among the other swarming sprites, and circling elfs, and frolic phantoms of the Bells, Punch beheld brighter things.  That pleasant pair, hand in hand, princely-looking both, and loving withal, bring a music as of marriage-bells “all in the wild March morning.”  And those other goodly and gracious presences, hint they not of Health and Home Happiness, and Benignant Art, and Humanity-serving Science, of Electric Sympathy, and Ready Rescue, of Mammon-thwarting Reform, and Misery-staying Benevolence; of all the spiritual charities and fairy graces that can bless and brighten country and hearth, Sire and citizen, master and servant, employer and employed, struggling man, suffering woman and helpless child? Punch read in their whirling forms and expressive faces the signs and promise of all the best and brightest influences of the time, happy and opportune attendants upon the auspicious hour of this the opening day of the New Year!