ometimes wont to do.

"A good two hours before sunset, I suppose," he said, looking towards
the sun, which was blazing fiercely. "Pugh! where does that horrid
smell come from? Ah, that is the vesper bell, as they call it--the
unclean beasts that they are! Well, we at least are pure from every
shadow of idolatry.

"Yet are we pure from sin? I do think, now, it was a pity--a mistake--
that visit of mine to Sir Piers de Rievaulx. I might have let that girl
live--the girl that Belasez loved. Well! she is one of the creeping
things now. She--our Belasez! This is a cross-grained, crooked sort of
world. Faugh! that smell again!

"I suppose this is the wall of Tewkesbury Castle. Is my Lord the Earl
at home, I wonder? How I did hate that boy!

"What is coming yonder, with those jingling bells? A string of pilgrims
to some accursed shrine, most likely. May these heathen idolaters be
all confounded, and the chosen people of Adonai be brought home in
peace! I could see, I dare say, if I stood on the wall. They may have
some vile idol with them, and if I do not get out of the way--"

He had sprung upon the parapet, and stood trying so to twist himself as
to catch a glimpse of the religious procession which he supposed to be
approaching, when suddenly he slipped and fell backwards. A wild cry
for "Help!" rang through the startled air. Where was he going? Down,
down, plunging overhead into some soft, evil-odoured, horrible mass,
from which, by grasping an iron bar that projected above, he just
managed so far to raise himself as to get his head free. And then the
dreadful truth broke upon him, and his cries for help became piercing.

Delecresse had fallen into the open cess-pool of Tewkesbury Castle.

Suddenly he ceased to shriek, and all was still. Not that he needed
help any the less, nor that he was less conscious of it, but because he
remembered what at first he had forgotten in his terror and disgust,
that until sunset it was the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.
Perhaps, by clinging to the iron bar, he could live till the sun dropped
below the horizon. At any rate, Delecresse, sternest of Pharisees to
his heart's core, would not profane the Sabbath, even for life.

But now there was a little stir outside, and a voice shouted--

"What ho!--who cried for help?"

"I."

"Who art thou, and where?"

"I have fallen into the cess-pool; I pray thee, friend, whoever thou
art, to bring or send me som