【英文原著类】The Chimes(教堂钟声).pdf

The Chimes
The Chimes
1
The Chimes
CHAPTER I - First Quarter.
HERE are not many people - and as it is desirable that a story- teller
and a story-reader should establish a mutual understanding as soon as
possible, I beg it to be noticed that I confine this observation neither to
young people nor to little people, but extend it to all conditions of people:
little and big, young and old: yet growing up, or already growing down
again - there are not, I say, many people who would care to sleep in a
church. I don't mean at sermon-time in warm weather (when the thing
has actually been done, once or twice), but in the night, and alone. A
great multitude of persons will be violently astonished, I know, by this
position, in the broad bold Day. But it applies to Night. It must be
argued by night, and I will undertake to maintain it essfully on any
gusty winter's night appointed for the purpose, with any one opponent
chosen from the rest, who will meet me singly in an old churchyard,
before an old church-door; and will previously empower me to lock him in,
if needful to his satisfaction, until morning.
For the night-wind has a dismal trick of wandering round and round a
building of that sort, and moaning as it goes; and of trying, with its unseen
hand, the windows and the doors; and seeking out some crevices by which
to enter. And when it has got in; as one not finding what it seeks,
whatever that may be, it wails and howls to issue forth again: and not
content with stalking through the aisles, and gliding round and round the
pillars, and tempting the an, soars up to the roof, and strives to
rend the rafters: then flings itself despairingly upon the stones below, and
passes, muttering, into the vaults. Anon, es up stealthily, and
creeps along the walls, seeming to read, in whispers, the Inscriptions
sacred to the Dead. At some of these, it breaks out shrilly, as with
laughter; and at others, moans and cries as if it were lamenting. It has a
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