A vestry meeting was called, and the rate (to obtain funds for the bells) was at length passed.  Two or three voices were feebly lifted in opposition; Mr. West alone had courage to speak out; but the Captain put him down with his strong hand.  It may be asked why Captain Monk did not provide the funds himself for this whim.  But he would never touch his own pocket for the benefit of the parish if he could help it:  and it was thought that his antagonism to the parson was the deterring motive.

To impose the rate was one thing, to collect it quite another.  Some of the poorer ratepayers protested with tears in their eyes that they could not pay.  Superfluous rates (really not necessary ones) were perpetually being inflicted upon them, they urged, and were bringing them, together with a succession of recent bad seasons, to the verge of ruin.  They carried their remonstrances to their Vicar, and he in turn carried them to Captain Monk.

It only widened the breach.  The more persistently, though gently, Mr. West pleaded the cause of his parishioners, asking the Captain to be considerate to them for humanity’s sake, the greater grew the other’s obstinacy in holding to his own will.  To be thus opposed roused all the devil within him—­it was his own expression; and he grew to hate Mr. West with an exceeding bitter hatred.

The chimes were ordered—­to play one tune only.  Mr. West asked, when the thing was absolutely inevitable, that at least some sweet and sacred melody, acceptable to church-going ears, might be chosen; but Captain Monk fixed on a sea-song that was a favourite of his own—­“The Bay of Biscay.”  At the end of every hour, when the clock had struck, the Bay of Biscay was to burst forth to charm the parish.

The work was put in hand at once, Captain Monk finding the necessary funds, to be repaid by the proceeds of the rate.  Other expenses were involved, such as the strengthening of the belfry.  The rate was not collected quickly.  It was, I say, one of those times of scarcity that people used to talk so much of years ago; and when the parish beadle, who was the parish collector, went round with the tax-paper in his hand, the poorer of the cottagers could not respond to it.  Some of them had not paid the last levy, and Captain Monk threatened harsh measures.  Altogether, what with one thing or another, Church Leet that year was kept in a state of ferment.  But the work went on.

* * * * *

One windy day in September, Mr. West sat in his study writing a sermon, when a jarring crash rang out from the church close by.  He leaped from his chair.  The unusual noise had startled him; and it struck on every chord of vexation he possessed.  He knew that workmen were busy in the tower, but this was the first essay of the chimes.  The bells had clashed in some way one upon the other; not giving out The Bay of Biscay or any other melody, but a very discordant jangle indeed.  It was the first and the last time that poor George West heard their sound.