The Chimes | Page 4

word, though it would
scarcely have expressed his complicated feeling. For, being but a simple man, he invested
them with a strange and solemn character. They were so mysterious, often heard and
never seen; so high up, so far off, so full of such a deep strong melody, that he regarded
them with a species of awe; and sometimes when he looked up at the dark arched
windows in the tower, he half expected to be beckoned to by something which was not a
Bell, and yet was what he had heard so often sounding in the Chimes. For all this, Toby
scouted with indignation a certain flying rumour that the Chimes were haunted, as
implying the possibility of their being connected with any Evil thing. In short, they were
very often in his ears, and very often in his thoughts, but always in his good opinion; and
he very often got such a crick in his neck by staring with his mouth wide open, at the
steeple where they hung, that he was fain to take an extra trot or two, afterwards, to cure
it.
The very thing he was in the act of doing one cold day, when the last drowsy sound of
Twelve o'clock, just struck, was humming like a melodious monster of a Bee, and not by
any means a busy bee, all through the steeple!
'Dinner-time, eh!' said Toby, trotting up and down before the church. 'Ah!'
Toby's nose was very red, and his eyelids were very red, and he winked very much, and
his shoulders were very near his ears, and his legs were very stiff, and altogether he was

evidently a long way upon the frosty side of cool.
'Dinner-time, eh!' repeated Toby, using his right-hand muffler like an infantine
boxing-glove, and punishing his chest for being cold. 'Ah-h-h-h!'
He took a silent trot, after that, for a minute or two.
'There's nothing,' said Toby, breaking forth afresh--but here he stopped short in his trot,
and with a face of great interest and some alarm, felt his nose carefully all the way up. It
was but a little way (not being much of a nose) and he had soon finished.
'I thought it was gone,' said Toby, trotting off again. 'It's all right, however. I am sure I
couldn't blame it if it was to go. It has a precious hard service of it in the bitter weather,
and precious little to look forward to; for I don't take snuff myself. It's a good deal tried,
poor creetur, at the best of times; for when it DOES get hold of a pleasant whiff or so
(which an't too often) it's generally from somebody else's dinner, a-coming home from
the baker's.'
The reflection reminded him of that other reflection, which he had left unfinished.
'There's nothing,' said Toby, 'more regular in its coming round than dinner-time, and
nothing less regular in its coming round than dinner. That's the great difference between
'em. It's took me a long time to find it out. I wonder whether it would be worth any
gentleman's while, now, to buy that obserwation for the Papers; or the Parliament!'
Toby was only joking, for he gravely shook his head in self- depreciation.
'Why! Lord!' said Toby. 'The Papers is full of obserwations as it is; and so's the
Parliament. Here's last week's paper, now;' taking a very dirty one from his pocket, and
holding it from him at arm's length; 'full of obserwations! Full of obserwations! I like to
know the news as well as any man,' said Toby, slowly; folding it a little smaller, and
putting it in his pocket again: 'but it almost goes against the grain with me to read a paper
now. It frightens me almost. I don't know what we poor people are coming to. Lord send
we may be coming to something better in the New Year nigh upon us!'
'Why, father, father!' said a pleasant voice, hard by.
But Toby, not hearing it, continued to trot backwards and forwards: musing as he went,
and talking to himself.
'It seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or be righted,' said Toby. 'I hadn't much
schooling, myself, when I was young; and I can't make out whether we have any business
on the face of the earth, or not. Sometimes I think we must have--a little; and sometimes I
think we must be intruding. I get so puzzled sometimes that I am not even able to make
up my mind whether there is any good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem
to be dreadful things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are always being complained
of and guarded against. One way or other, we