From Belfry to Porch [pp. 399-409]

FROM BELFRY TO PORCIH.
were, it would matter not. I am strong
yet-he, he! I am strong yet;" and he
raised his palsied old arm into the air
and feebly shook it for a moment, in
sickening pretense of power. "But to
do it all the time-every minute during
the day-that is where the load lies,
Master. I ought rather to have been
put where I might do stronger work, and
that only once in a while. Now, do you
know the place I ought to have, if I
were treated as I should be? The belfry, Master-to sit there, and ring the
bells."
"The bells!" I exclaimed, amazed at
such senile assurance.
"Ah, yes the bells. Do you think
they are too heavy for me? That is
what all say, and yet it is wrong. Wrong,
indeed. Why, I am strong yet-strong
yet, he, he! I could ring those bells
as well as any man; and I should have
to do it only three times a day. That
done, I. should have the rest of my time
to sit still, instead of working all the
while. And do you know, Master, that
the man up there who has the place feels
that I ought to have it instead, and hates
me for it. and rings the bells at me all
the louder, taunting-like, to provoke me
to anger at him? And it does provoke
me, too-that I will allow-we can not
all forgive every thing; and sometimes,
when I hear him ringing those bells at
me, I get so angry, Master, that I shake
my fist at him;" and with that he again
raised aloft the palsied arm. "But what
does shaking the fist at him matter, so
long as I can not leave this place to go
up after him, and he is afraid to come
down so that I may beat him here?"
"And yet, my friend, up yonder it is
lonely and dim, while here it is light and
pleasant, and you can see people come
and go-which, for an old man like
you-"
"Yes, yes, an old man," he echoed,
and somewhat curiously mixing up my
words. "An old man-lonely and dim
-all his people gone from him. But it
was not always so, Master. There was
the good wife, once -long, ah! many
years ago. She must be dead now, for
it was so many years ago, and I did not
know where she went to or why she did
not come back again, if she could. And
there was the boy-a pretty little child,
only a year old, with the yellow curls
just growing over his temples. Ah,
Master! if I had the boy here, so that
he could sit beside me or on my lap, and
let me play with the yellow curls, I would
never care to go into the belfry."
There was something touching to me
at hearing this old man reviving the past
and its associations; seeming to have no
perception of the flight of time, or the
changes which long years would make;
his voice, as he spoke, even losing something of its queer old quaver, and gaining in softness and sadness of inflection.
"See here, Master!" he continued,
drawing the half of a gold coin from his
pocket. "When I meet the boy, it will
be by this that I will know him, as well
as by the yellow locks; for he had on
him the other half of the money. It was
when the French were coming through,
and I-a young fellow, then-had been
helping to fight them at Leipsic. When
I came home, the wife and the boy
they were both gone, Master."
How the plot thickened; and how, as
the old man spoke, I threw my eyes,
with an involuntary start, up at the lofty
belfry! The young priest saw my glance,
read by some instinct the expression of
my face-as, perhaps, he had before
read the same in the faces of others
and beckoned me aside.
"You know the story?" he asked.
"The bell- ringer-has he been making
you the confidant of his birth?"
I nodded.
"And you will not speak of it again
to either of them: is it not better?" he
said. "I myself have known the secret
for three years; and all that time I have
I871.]
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