Free The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers Page B

slip.”
    “I shan’t slip,” said Hilary, scornfully. She climbed briskly up the thick and ancient rungs, to emerge into the chamber which formed the second story of the tower. It was empty, except for the case which housed the chiming mechanism of the church clock, and the eight bell-ropes rising through the sallie-holes in the floor to vanish through the ceiling in the same way. Jack Godfrey followed her up soberly, carrying his grease and cleaning-rags.
    “Be a bit careful of the floor. Miss Hilary,” he urged, “it’s none so good in places.”
    Hilary nodded. She loved this bare, sun-drenched room, whose four tall walls were four tall windows. It was like a palace of glass lifted high into the air. The shadows of the splendid tracery of the south window lay scrawled on the floor like a pattern of wrought iron on a gate of brass. Looking down through the dusty panes, she could see the green fen spread out mile upon mile.
    “I’d like to go up to the top of the tower, Mr. Godfrey.”
    “All right. Miss Hilary; I’ll take you up, if so be as there’s time when I’ve done with the bells.”
    The trap-door that led to the bell-chamber was shut; a chain ran down from it, vanishing into a sort of wooden case upon the wall. Godfrey produced a key from his bunch and unlocked this case, disclosing the counterpoise. He pulled it down and the trap swung open.
    “Why is that kept locked, Mr. Godfrey?”
    “Well, Miss Hilary, now and again it has happened as the ringers has left the belfry door open, and Rector says it ain’t safe. You see, that Potty Peake might come a-traipsing round, or some of they mischeevious lads might come up here and get larking about with the bells. Or they might go up the tower and fall off and hurt theirselves. So Rector said to fix a lock the way they couldn’t get the trapdoor open.”
    “I see.” Hilary grinned a little. “Hurt theirselves” was a moderate way of expressing the probable result of a hundred-and-twenty-foot fall. She led the way up the second ladder.
    By contrast with the brilliance below, the bell-chamber was sombre and almost menacing. The main lights of its eight great windows were darkened throughout their height; only through the slender panelled tracery above the slanting louvres the sunlight dripped rare and chill, striping the heavy beams of the bell-cage with bars and splashes of pallid gold, and making a curious fantastic patterning on the spokes and rims of the wheels. The bells, with mute black mouths gaping downwards, brooded in their ancient places.
    Mr. Godfrey, eyeing them with the cheerful familiarity born of long use, fetched a light ladder that stood against the wall, set it up carefully against one of the crossbeams, and prepared to mount.
    “Let me go up first, or I shan’t see what you’re doing.”
    Mr. Godfrey paused and scratched his head. The proposal did not seem quite safe to him. He voiced an objection.
    “I shall be quite all right; I can sit on the beam. I don’t mind heights one bit. I’m very good at gym.”
    Sir Henry’s daughter was accustomed to have her own way, and got it—with the stipulation that she should hold on very tightly by the timber of the cage and not let go or “morris about.” The promise being given, she was assisted to her lofty perch. Mr. Godfrey, whistling a lively air between his teeth, arranged his materials methodically about him and proceeded with his task, greasing the gudgeons and trunnions, administering a spot of oil to the pulley-axle, testing the movement of the slider between the blocks and examining the rope for signs of friction where it passed over wheel and pulley.
    “I’ve never seen Tailor Paul as close as this before. She’s a big bell, isn’t she?”
    “Pretty fair,” said Jack Godfrey, approvingly, giving the bell a friendly pat on her bronze shoulder. A shaft of sunshine touched the soundbow, lighting up a few letters of the inscription, which ran, as Hilary very well