Page:An Old English Home and Its Dependencies.djvu/155

Rh rope about, the stick rattles this bell, that bell, all of them. Voila tout!"

"And the banner waving augustly above the tower?" I further inquired. "Bien simple," was his answer. "An old pair of my patched pantaloons. My wife slit them; we have no parish flag, so I said—allons! mes pantalons. There they are: aloft! One must do what one can in honour of the bon Saint Jean." It is in England alone that bell-ringing is an art, and oh! how lovely an art it is—to those far away who hear the swell and fall of the bells, the music always having a certain sadness in it. But it has its sordid side, as has all art, and the sordid side is the interior of the belfry; or, let us say, was, before reform pushed its way there. There was some excuse for the ringers to conduct themselves in a free and easy manner in the belfry when it was shut off from the body of the church by a screen of boards against which the west gallery was erected. Then the belfry was so much apart from the church that it ceased to be regarded as