ath the windows of a sleeping cottage,
and hailed its occupants by name. No one answered. Only, on the
other side of the alley, a few of the beasts ceased their lowing for
a while, and, thrusting their faces over the wall, gazed at him with
patient wonder.

At the lower end of the alley, where it makes an abrupt bend around
the hinder premises of the "Ship" Inn before giving egress upon the
street, the Vicar lifted his head and sniffed the morning air.
Surely his nose detected a trace of smoke in it--not the reek of
chimneys, but a smoke at once more fragrant and more pungent. . . .

Yes, smoke was drifting high among the elms above the church.
The rooks, too, up there, were cawing loudly and wheeling in circles.

He dropped his gaze to his feet, and once more started back in alarm.
A gutter crossed the alley here, and along it rushed and foamed a
dark copper-coloured flood which, in an instant, his eye had traced
up to the back doorstep of the "Ship," over which it poured in a
cascade.

Beer? Yes; patently, to sight and smell alike, it was beer. With a
cry, the Vicar ran towards the doorway, wading ankle-deep in beer as
he crossed the threshold and broke in to the kitchen. The whole
house swam with beer, but not with beer only; for when, no inmate
answering his call, he followed the torrent up through yet another
doorway and found himself in the inn cellar, in the dim light of its
iron-barred window he halted to gaze before one, two, three, a dozen
casks of ale, port, sherry, brandy, all pouring their contents in a
general flood upon the brick-paved floor.

Here, as he afterwards confessed, his presence of mind failed him;
and small blame to him, I say! Without a thought of turning off the
taps, he waded back to the doorway and leaned there awhile to recover
his wits with his breath.

While he leaned, gasping, with a hand against the door-jamb, the
clock in the church tower above him chimed and struck the hour of
five. He gazed up at it stupidly, saw the smoke drifting through the
elm-tops beyond, heard the rooks cawing over them, and then suddenly
bethought himself of the bell which had clanged amid his dreams.

Yes, it had been the clang of a real bell, and from his own belfry.
But how could anyone have gained entrance into the church, of which
he alone kept the keys? How? Why, by the little door at the east
end of the south aisle, which stood ajar. Across the alley he could
see it, and that it sto