The Argosy | Page 5

to you all; and may we never know a moment in it worse than the present! Three-times-three--and drain your glasses."
"But we have had the toast too soon!" called out one of the farmers, making the discovery close after the cheers had subsided. "It wants some minutes yet to midnight, Captain."
Captain Monk snatched out his watch--worn in those days in what was called the fob-pocket--its chain and bunch of seals at the end hanging down.
"By Jupiter!" he exclaimed. "Hang that butler of mine! He knew the hall clock was too fast, and I told him to put it back. If his memory serves him no better than this, he may ship himself off to a fresh berth.--Hark! Listen!"
It was the church clock striking twelve. The sound reached the dining-room very clearly, the wind setting that way. "Another bumper," cried the Captain, and his guests drank it.
"This day twelvemonth I was at a feast in Derbyshire; the bells of a neighbouring church rang-in the year with pleasant melody; chimes they were," remarked a guest, who was a partial stranger. "Your church has no bells, I suppose?"
"It has one; an old ting-tang that calls us to service on a Sunday," said Mr. Winter.
"I like to hear those midnight chimes, for my part. I like to hear them chime-in the new year," went on the stranger.
"Chimes!" cried out Captain Monk, who was getting very considerably elated, "why should we not have chimes? Mr. West, why don't we have chimes?"
"Our church does not possess any, sir--as this gentleman has just remarked," was Mr. West's answer.
"Egad, but that parson of ours is going to set us all ablaze with his wit!" jerked out the Captain ironically. "I asked, sir, why we should not get a set of chimes; I did not say we had got them. Is there any just cause or impediment why we should not, Mr. Vicar?"
"Only the expense," replied the Vicar, in a conciliatory tone.
"Oh, bother expense! That's what you are always wanting to groan over. Mr. Churchwarden Threpp, we will call a vestry meeting and make a rate."
"The parish could not bear it, Captain Monk," remonstrated the clergyman. "You know what dissatisfaction was caused by the last extra rate put on, and how low an ebb things are at just now."
"When I will a thing, I do it," retorted the Captain, with a meaning word or two. "We'll send out the rate and we'll get the chimes."
"It will, I fear, lie in my duty to protest against it," spoke the uneasy parson.
"It may lie in your duty to be a wet-blanket, but you won't protest me out of my will. Gentlemen, we will all meet here again this time twelvemonth, when the chimes shall ring-in the new year for you.--Here, Dutton, you can unlock the door now," concluded the Captain, handing the key to the other churchwarden. "Our parson is upon thorns to be away from us."
Not the parson only, but several others availed themselves of the opportunity to escape.
II.
It perhaps did not surprise the parish to find that its owner and master, Captain Monk, intended to persist in his resolution of embellishing the church-tower with a set of chiming-bells. They knew him too well to hope anything less. Why! two years ago, at the same annual feast, some remarks or other at table put it into his head to declare he would stop up the public path by the Rill; and his obstinate will carried it out, regardless of the inconvenience it caused.
A vestry meeting was called, and the rate (to obtain funds for the bells) was at length passed. Two or three voices were feebly lifted in opposition; Mr. West alone had courage to speak out; but the Captain put him down with his strong hand. It may be asked why Captain Monk did not provide the funds himself for this whim. But he would never touch his own pocket for the benefit of the parish if he could help it: and it was thought that his antagonism to the parson was the deterring motive.
To impose the rate was one thing, to collect it quite another. Some of the poorer ratepayers protested with tears in their eyes that they could not pay. Superfluous rates (really not necessary ones) were perpetually being inflicted upon them, they urged, and were bringing them, together with a succession of recent bad seasons, to the verge of ruin. They carried their remonstrances to their Vicar, and he in turn carried them to Captain Monk.
It only widened the breach. The more persistently, though gently, Mr. West pleaded the cause of his parishioners, asking the Captain to be considerate to them for humanity's sake, the greater grew the other's obstinacy in holding to his own will. To be thus opposed roused all the devil within him--it was