The Weathercock Part 26

"Don't want to keep man from slipping, want to make 'em weer."

"Oh, all right; have it your own way. Here, I want a nice strong new bit of leather, about six inches long."

"What for?"

"Never you mind what for, get up and sell me a bit."

"Nay, I can't leave my work to get no leather to-day, Mester. Soon as I've putt in these here four nails, I'm gooing over to belfry."

"What for? Some one dead?"

"Nay, not they. Folk weant die a bit now, Mester Vane. I dunno whether it's Parson Syme's sarmints or what, but seems to me as if they think it's whole dooty a man to live to hundred and then not die."

"Nonsense, cut me my bit of leather, and let me go."

"Nay, sir, I can't stop to coot no leather to-day. I tellee I'm gooin'

to church."

"But what for?"

"Clock's stopped."

"Eh! Has it?" cried Vane eagerly. "What's the matter with it?"

"I d'know sir. Somethin' wrong in its inside, I spect. I'm gooing to see."

"Forgotten to wind it up, Mike."

"Nay, that I arn't, sir. Wound her up tight enew."

"Then that's it. Wound up too tight, perhaps."

"Nay, she's been wound up just the same as I've wound her these five-and-twenty year, just as father used to. She's wrong inside."

"Goes stiff. Wants a little oil. Bring some in a bottle with a feather and I'll soon put it right."

The s.e.xton pointed with his hammer to the chimney-piece where a small phial bottle was standing, and Vane took it up at once, and began turning a white fowl's feather round to stir up the oil.

"You mean to come, then?" said the s.e.xton.

"Of course. I'm fond of machinery," cried Vane.

"Ay, you be," said the s.e.xton, tapping away at the nails, "and you'd like to tak' that owd clock all to pieces, I know."

"I should," cried Vane with his eyes sparkling. "Shall I?"

"What?" cried the s.e.xton, with his hammer raised. "Why, you'd never get it put together again."

"Tchah! that I could. I would somehow," added the lad. "Ay somehow; but what's the good o' that! Suppose she wouldn't goo when you'd putt her together somehow. What then?"

"Why, she won't go now," cried Vane, "so what harm would it do?"

"Well, I don't know about that," said the s.e.xton, driving in the last nail, and pausing to admire the iron-decorated sole.

"Now, then, cut my piece of leather," cried Vane.

"Nay, I can't stop to coot no pieces o' leather," said the s.e.xton.

"Church clock's more consekens than all the bits o' leather in a tanner's yard. I'm gooing over yonder now."

"Oh, very well," said Vane, as the man rose, untied his leathern ap.r.o.n, and put on a very ancient coat, "it will do when we come back."

"Mean to go wi' me, then?"

"Of course I do."

The s.e.xton chuckled, took his hat from behind the door, and stepped out on to the cobble-stone pathway, after taking the oil bottle and a bunch of big keys from a nail.

The street looked as deserted as if the place were uninhabited, and not a soul was pa.s.sed as they went up to the church gate at the west end of the ancient edifice, which had stood with its great square stone fortified tower, dominating from a knoll the tiny town for five hundred years--ever since the days when it was built to act as a stronghold to which the Mavis Greythorpites could flee if a.s.saulted by enemies, and shoot arrows from the narrow windows and hurl stones from the battlements. Or, if these were not sufficient, and the enemy proved to be very enterprising indeed, so much so as to try and batter in the hugely-thick iron-studded belfry-door, why there were those pleasant openings called by architects machicolations, just over the entrance, from which ladlesful of newly molten lead could be scattered upon their heads.

Michael Chakes knew the bunch of keys by heart, but he always went through the same ceremony--that of examining them all four, and blowing in the tubes, as if they were panpipes, keeping the one he wanted to the last.

"Oh, do make haste, Mike," cried the boy. "You are so slow."

"Slow and sewer's my motter, Mester Vane," grunted the s.e.xton, as he slowly inserted the key. "Don't you hurry no man's beast; you may hev an a.s.s of your own some day."

"If I do I'll make him go faster than you do. I say, though, Mike, do you think it's true about those old bits of leather?"

As he spoke, Vane pointed to a couple of sc.r.a.ps of black-looking, curl-edged hide, fastened with broad headed nails to the belfry-door.

"True!" cried the s.e.xton, turning his grim, lined, and not over-clean face to gaze in the frank-looking handsome countenance beside him.

"True! Think o' that now, and you going up to rectory every day, to do your larning along with the other young gents, to Mester Syme. Well, that beats all."

"What's that got to do with it?" cried Vane, as the s.e.xton ceased from turning the key in the door, and laid one hand on the sc.r.a.ps of hide.

"Got to do wi' it, lad? Well I am! And to call them leather."

"Well, so they are leather," said Vane. "And do you mean to say, standing theer with the turn-stones all around you as you think anything bout t'owd church arn't true?"

"No, but I don't think it's true about those bits of leather."

"Leather, indeed!" cried the s.e.xton. "I'm surprised at you, Mester Vane--that I am. Them arn't leather but all that's left o' the skins o'

the Swedums and Danes as they took off 'em and nailed up on church door to keep off the rest o' the robbin', murderin' and firin' wretches as come up river in their s.h.i.+ps and then walked the rest o' the way across the mash?"

"Oh, but it might be a bit of horse skin."

"Nay, nay, don't you go backslidin' and thinking such a thing as that, mester. Why, theer was a party o' larned gentlemen come one day all t'way fro' Lincoln, and looked at it through little tallerscope things, and me standing close by all the time to see as they didn't steal nowt, for them sort's terruble folk for knocking bits off wi' hammers as they carries in their pockets and spreadin' bits o' calico over t' bra.s.ses, and rubbin' 'em wi' heel b.a.l.l.s same as I uses for edges of soles; and first one and then another of 'em says--'Human.' That's what they says.

Ay, lad, that's true enough, and been here to this day."