Then William would take his coat off, and put it round me, for all I begged him not, and presently the tower began to shake and the bells began, and directly they began I knew what they was up to.

‘O William,’ I says, ’it’s Grandsire Triples, and there’s five thousand and fifty changes to ’em, and it’s a matter of three hours!’

But he couldn’t hear a word I said for the bells.  So then I took his coat and my shawl, and we wrapped them round both our heads to shut the bells out, and then we could hear each other speak inside.

I’m not going to write down all I said nor all he said, which was only foolishness—­and besides, it come to nothing after all.  But somehow the time wasn’t long; and it’s a funny thing, but unhappy and happy you can be at the same time when you are with one you love and are going to leave.  William, he begged and prayed of me not to give him up.  But I said I knew my duty, and he said he hoped I would think better of it, and I said, ‘No, never,’ and then we kissed each other again, and the bells went on, and on, and on, clingle, clangle, clingle, chim, chime, chim, chime, till I was ’most dazed, and felt as if I had lived up there all my life, and was going to live up there twenty lives longer.

‘I’ll wait for you all my life long,’ says William.  ’Not that I wish the old man any harm, but it’s not in the nature of things your father can live for ever, and then—­’

‘It ain’t no use thinking of that, William,’ said I.  ’Father is sure to make me promise never to have you—­when he’s dying, and I can’t refuse him anything.  It’s just the kind of thing he’d think of.’

Perhaps you will think William ought to have made more stand, for everybody likes a masterful man; but what stand can you make when you are up in a belfry with the bells shouting and yelling at you, and when the girl you are with won’t listen to reason?  And you have no idea what them bells were.  Often and often since then I have started up in the bed thinking I heard them again.  It was enough to drive one distracted.

‘Well,’ says William, ’you’ll give me up, but I’ll never give you up; and you mark my words, you and me will be man and wife some day.’

And as he said it, the bells stopped sudden in the middle of a change.  The rain had come on again.  It was very chill up there.  My teeth was chattering, and so was William’s, though he pretended he did it for the joke.

‘Let’s get inside again,’ says he.  ’Perhaps they are going home, and if they are not, we can stay there till they begin it again.’

So we opened the door and crept down the ladder.  There was light now coming up from the bellringers’ loft through the holes in the floor, and we got down to the belfry easy, and as we got to the bottom of the ladder I heard my father’s voice in the loft below—­

‘I don’t believe it,’ he was shouting.  ’It can’t be true.  She’s a God-fearing girl.’