The Channings. Henry Wood

the episcopal bench, locked up ignominiously in the cloisters of Helstonleigh, with Ketch the porter, and Jenkins the steward’s clerk; likely, so far as appearances might be trusted, to have to pass the night there! The like had never yet been heard of.

      The bishop went to the south gate, and tried the keys himself: the bishop went to the west gate and tried them there; the bishop stamped about the west quadrangle, hoping to stamp upon the missing keys; but nothing came of it. Ketch and Jenkins attended him—Ketch grumbling in the most angry terms that he dared, Jenkins in humble silence.

      “I really do not see what is to be done,” debated the bishop, who, no doubt, wished himself well out of the dilemma, as any less exalted mortal would have done, “The doors leading into the college are sure to be closed.”

      “Quite sure,” groaned Ketch.

      “And to get into the college would not serve us, that I see,” added the bishop. “We should be no better off there than here.”

      “Saving that we might ring the bell, my lord,” suggested Jenkins, with deference.

      They proceeded to the college gates. It was a forlorn hope, and one that did not serve them. The gates were locked, the doors closed behind them. No reaching the bell that way; it might as well have been a hundred miles off.

      They traversed the cloisters again, and tried the door of the schoolroom. It was locked. Had it not been, the senior boy might have expected punishment from the head-master. They tried the small door leading into the residence of Dr. Burrows—fast also; that abode just now was empty. The folding doors of the chapter-house were opened easily, and they entered. But what did it avail them? There was the large, round room, lined with its books, furnished with its immense table and easy-chairs; but it was as much shut in from the hearing of the outside world as they were. The bishop came into contact with a chair, and sat down in it. Jenkins, who, as clerk to Mr. Galloway, the steward to the dean and chapter, was familiar with the chapter-house, felt his way to the spot where he knew matches were sometimes kept. He could not find any: it was the time of light evenings.

      “There’s just one chance, my lord,” suggested Jenkins. “That the little unused door at the corner of the cloisters, leading into the body of the cathedral, may not be locked.”

      “Precious careless of the sextons, if it is not!” grunted Ketch.

      “It is a door nobody ever thinks of going in at, my lord,” returned Jenkins, as if he would apologize for the sextons’ carelessness, should it be found unfastened. “If it is open, we might get to the bell.”

      “The sextons, proud, stuck-up gentlemen, be made up of carelessness and anything else that’s bad!” groaned Ketch. “Holding up their heads above us porters!”

      It was worth the trial. The bishop rose from the chair, and groped his way out of the chapter-house, the two others following.

      “If it hadn’t been for that Jenkins’s folly, fancying he saw a light in the burying-ground, and me turning round to order him to come on, it might not have happened,” grumbled Ketch, as they wound round the cloisters.

      “A light in the burial-ground!” hastily repeated the bishop. “What light?”

      “Oh, a corpse-candle, or some nonsense of that sort, he had his mind running on, my lord. Half the world is idiots, and Jenkins is the biggest of ‘em.”

      “My lord,” spoke poor Jenkins, deprecatingly, “I never had such a thought within me as that it was a ‘corpse-candle.’ I said I fancied it might be a glowworm. And I believe it was one, my lord.”

      “A more sensible thought than the other,” observed the prelate.

      Luck at last! The door was found to be unlocked. It was a low narrow door, only used on the very rare occasion of a funeral, and was situated in a shady, out-of-the-way nook, where no one ever thought of looking. “Oh, come, this is something!” cried the bishop, cheerily, as he stepped into the cathedral.

      “And your lordship now sees what fine careless sextons we have got!” struck in Ketch.

      “We must overlook their carelessness this time, in consideration of the service it renders us,” said the bishop, in a kindly tone. “Take care of the pillars, Ketch.”

      “Thank ye, my lord. I’m going along with my hands held out before me, to save my head,” returned Ketch.

      Most likely the bishop and Jenkins were doing the same. Dexterously steering clear of the pillars, they emerged in the wide, open body of the cathedral, and bent their steps across it to the spot where hung the ropes of the bells.

      The head sexton to the cathedral—whom you must not confound with a gravedigger, as you might an ordinary sexton; cathedral sextons are personages of more importance—was seated about this hour at supper in his home, close to the cathedral. Suddenly the deep-toned college bell boomed out, and the man started as if a gun had been fired at him.

      “Why, that’s the college bell!” he uttered to his family. And the family stared with open mouths without replying.

      The college bell it certainly was, and it was striking out sharp irregular strokes, as though the ringer were not accustomed to his work. The sexton started up, in a state of the most amazed consternation.

      “It is magic; it is nothing less—that the bell should be ringing out at this hour!” exclaimed he.

      “Father,” suggested a juvenile, “perhaps somebody’s got locked up in the college.” For which prevision he was rewarded with a stinging smack on the head.

      “Take that, sir! D’ye think I don’t know better than to lock folks up in the college? It was me, myself, as locked up this evening.”

      “No need to box him for that,” resented the wife. “The bell is ringing, and I’ll be bound the boy’s right enough. One of them masons must have fallen asleep in the day, and has just woke up to find himself shut in. Hope he likes his berth!”

      Whatever it might be, ringing the bell, whether magic or mason, of course it must be seen to; and the sexton hastened out, the cathedral keys in his hand. He bent his steps towards the front entrance, passing the cloisters, which, as he knew, would be locked at that hour. “And that bear of a Ketch won’t hurry himself to unlock them,” soliloquized he.

      He found the front gates surrounded. The bell had struck upon the wondering ears of many living within the precincts of the cathedral, who flocked out to ascertain the reason. Amongst others, the college boys were coming up in troops.

      “Now, good people, please—by your leave!” cried the sexton. “Let me get to the gates.”

      They made way for the man and his ponderous keys, and entrance to the college was gained. The sexton was beginning a sharp reproof to the “mason,” and the crowd preparing a chorus to it, when they were seized with consternation, and fell back on each other’s toes. It was the Bishop of Helstonleigh, in his laced-up hat and apron, who walked forth.

      The sexton humbly snatched off his hat; the college boys raised their trenchers.

      “Thank you all for coming to the rescue,” said the bishop, in a pleasant tone. “It was not an agreeable situation, to be locked in the cathedral.”

      “My lord,” stammered the sexton, in awe-struck dread, as to whether he had unwittingly been the culprit: “how did your lordship get locked in?”

      “That is what we must inquire into,” replied the bishop.

      The next to hobble out was Ketch. In his own fashion, almost ignoring the presence of the bishop, he made known the tale. It was received with ridicule. The college boys especially cast mockery upon it, and began dancing a jig when the bishop’s back was turned. “Let a couple of keys drop down, and, when picked up, you found them transmogrified into old rusty machines, made in the year one!” cried Bywater. “That’s very like a whale, Ketch!”

      Ketch tore off to his lodge, as fast as his lumbago allowed him, calling upon the crowd to come and look at the nail where the keys always hung, except when in use, and holding out the rusty