oor is ajar--those winding stairs are not easy of
access. The edges are worn away, and the steps strewn with small
sticks of wood; sticks once used by the jackdaws in building their
nests in the tower. It is needful to take much care, lest the foot
should stumble in the semi-darkness. Listen! there is now a slight
sound: it is the dull ticking of the old, old clock above. It is the
only thing with motion here; all else is still, and even its motion
is not life. A strange old clock, a study in itself; all the works
open and visible, simple, but ingenious. For a hundred years it has
carried round the one hour-hand upon the square-faced dial without,
marking every second of time for a century with its pendulum. Here,
too, are the bells, and one, the chief bell, is a noble tenor, a
mighty maker of sound. Its curves are full and beautiful, its colour
clear; its tone, if you do but tap it, sonorous, yet not harsh. It
is an artistic bell. Round the rim runs a rhyme in the monkish
tongue, which has a chime in the words, recording the donor, and
breathing a prayer for his soul. In the day when this bell was made
men put their souls into their works. Their one great object was not
to turn out 100,000 all alike, it was rarely they made two alike.
Their one great object was to construct a work which should carry
their very spirit in it, which should excel all similar works, and
cause men in after-times to inquire with wonder for the maker's
name, whether it was such a common thing as a knife-handle, or a
bell, or a ship. Longfellow has caught the spirit well in the saga
of the 'Long Serpent,' where the builder of the vessel listens to
axe and hammer:

All this tumult heard the master,
It was music to his ear;
Fancy whispered all the faster,
'Men shall hear of Thorberg Skafting
For a hundred year!'

Would that there were more of this spirit in the workshops of our
day! They did not, when such a work was finished, hasten to blaze it
abroad with trumpet and shouting; it was not carried to the topmost
pinnacle of the mountain in sight of all the kingdoms of the earth.
They were contented with the result of their labour, and cared
little where it was placed or who saw it; and so it is that some of
the finest-toned bells in the world are at this moment to be found
in village churches; and for so local a fame the maker worked as
truly, and in as careful a manner, as if he had known his bell was
to be hung in S