t once," said
he.

"They never do," said I, unmollified.

"They do--_sometimes_," said Fred slowly, and so impressively that I
was constrained to ask "When?"

"In great emergencies," was Fred's reply, which startled me. But we
had only lived in the place for part of our lives, and Fred's family
belonged to it, so he must know better than I.

"Is it to call the doctor?" I asked, thinking of drowning, and broken
bones, and apoplectic fits.

"It's to call everybody," said Fred; "that is in time of war, when the
town is in danger. And when the Great Plague was here, S. Philip and
S. James both tolled all day long with their bells muffled. But when
there's a fire they ring backwards, as witches say prayers, you know."

War and the plague had not been here for a very long time, and there
had been no fire in the town in my remembrance; but Fred said that
awful calamities of the kind had happened within the memory of man,
when the town was still built in great part of wood, and that one
night, during a high gale, the whole place, except a few houses, had
been destroyed by fire. After this the streets were rebuilt of stone
and bricks.

These new tales which Fred told me, of places I knew, had a terrible
interest peculiarly their own. For the captain's dangers were over for
good now, but war, plague, and fire in the town might come again.

I thought of them by day, and dreamed of them by night. Once I
remember being awakened, as I fancied, by the clanging of the two
peals in discordant unison, and as I opened my eyes a bright light on
the wall convinced me that the town was on fire. Fred's vivid
descriptions rushed to my mind, and I looked out expecting to see S.
Philip and S. James standing up like dark rocks in a sea of dancing
flames, their bells ringing backwards, "as witches say prayers." It
was only when I saw both the towers standing grey and quiet above the
grey and quiet town, and when I found that the light upon the wall
came from the street lamp below, that my head seemed to grow clearer,
and I knew that no bells were ringing, and that those I fancied I
heard were only the prolonged echoes of a bad dream.

I was very glad that it was so, and I did not exactly wish for war or
the plague to come back; and yet the more I heard of Fred's tales the
more restless I grew, because the days were so dull, and because we
never went anywhere, and nothing ever happened.

CHAPTER VII.

WE RESOLVE TO RUN AWAY--SC