unch_! Come and see us! Come and see us! Come and see us! Drag them
to us! Haunt and hunt them! Haunt and hunt them. Break their slumbers!
Break their slumbers! _Punch, Toby; Toby, Punch; Toby, Punch; Punch,
Toby_!!" Then fiercely back to their impetuous strain again, and
ringing in the very bricks and plaster on the Sanctum's walls!

_Toby_ barked! _Punch_ listened! Fancy, fancy! No, no! Nothing of the
kind. Again, again, and yet a dozen times again. "Haunt and hunt them!
Haunt and hunt them!"

"If the tower is really open," said _Punch_, "what's to hinder us,
_Toby_, from going up to the steeple, and seeing for ourselves?"
"Nothing," yapped _Toby_, or sounds to that effect.

* * * * *

[Illustration: 'ARRY OUT 'UNTIN'.

_'Arry_ (_who goes to the Meet in a frost_). "'AVE THE 'OUNDS COME,
MY LADS?"

_Little Girl_ (_respectfully_). "IF YOU PLEASE, SIR, _OUR_ 'OUNDS DON'T
'UNT IN 'ARD WEATHER!"]

* * * * *

Up, up, up! and round and round; and up, up, up! higher, higher,
higher up!

There was the belfry where the ringers came. _Punch_ caught hold of
one of the frayed ropes which hung down through the apertures in the
oaken roof. But he started; other hands seemed on it; he shrank from
the thought of waking the deep Bell. The Bells themselves were higher.
Higher, _Punch_ and _Toby_, in their fascination, or working out the
spell upon them, groped their way; until, ascending through the floor,
and pausing, with his head raised just above its beams _Punch_ came
among the Bells. It was barely possible to make out their great shapes
in the gloom; but there they were. Shadowy, and dark, and dumb.

He listened, and then raised a wild "Halloa!" "Halloa!" was mournfully
protracted by the echoes. Giddy, confused, and out of breath, _Punch_
looked about him vacantly, and sank down in a swoon.

* * * * *

He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps had brought him,
swarming with dwarf phantoms, sprites, elfin creatures of the Bells.
He saw them leaping, flying, dropping, pouring from the Bells without
a pause. He saw them, round him on the ground; above him in the air;
clambering from him by the ropes below; looking down upon him from the
massive iron-girdered beams; peeping in upon him through the chinks
and loopholes in the walls; spreading away and away from him in
enlarging circles. He saw them of all aspects and all sh