afraid
with William's arm round me. But when we got to the porch and had
sat down, I was sorry I'd come, for I heard feet on the road below,
and they stopped outside the lychgate.

'Come, quick,' says I, 'or we're caught like rats in a trap. If I am
going to give you up to please father, I may as well please him all
round. There's no reason why he should know I've seen you.'

'So we stole on our tiptoes round to the little door that is hardly
ever fastened, and so through to the tower. Father being one of the
bellringers, I knew every step. There's a stone seat cut out of the
wall in the bellringers' loft, and there we sat down again, and I
was just going to tell him again what I had said in the letter about
being his sister and a friend, which seemed to comfort me somehow,
though William has told me since it never would have him, when
William, he gripped my hand like iron, and ''S-sh!' says he,
'listen.' And I listened, and oh! what I felt when I heard footsteps
coming up the tower. I didn't dare speak a word to him, and only
kept tight hold of his hand, and pulled him along till we got to the
tower steps, and went on up. But I says to myself, 'Oh, what's my
head made of, to forget that it's practising night? and Him the
church was built for only knows how long they won't be here
practising!' We went on up the twisted cobwebby stairs, with bits of
broken birds' nests that crackled under our feet that loud I thought
for sure the folks below must hear us; and we got into the belfry,
and there William was for staying, but I whispered to him--

'If you hear them bells when they're all a-going, you won't never
hear much else. We must get on up out of it unless we want to be
deaf the rest of our lives.'

And it was pitch dark in the belfry, except for the little grey
slits where the shuttered windows are. The owls and starlings were
frightened, I suppose, at hearing us, though why they should have
been, I don't know, being used to the bells; and they flew about
round us liker ghosts than anything feathered, and one great owl
flopped out right into my face, till I nearly screamed again. It was
all very, very dusty, and not being able to see, and being afraid to
strike a light, we had to feel along the big beams for our way
between the bells, I going first, because I knew the way, and
reaching back a hand every now and then to see that William was
coming after me safe and sound. On hands and knees we had to go for
safet