od ajar; and more by token a heifer had
planted her forefoot on the step and was nosing it wider. Someone
had forced the lock. Someone was at this moment within the church!

The Vicar collected his wits and ran for it; thrust his way once more
through the crowd of cattle, and through the doorway into the aisle,
shouting a challenge. A groan from the belfry answered him, and
there, in the dim light, he almost stumbled over a man seated on the
cold flags of the pavement and feebly rubbing the lower part of his
spine.

It is notoriously dangerous to ring a church bell without knowing the
trick of it. Gunner Sobey, having broken into the belfry and laid
hands on the first bell-rope (which happened to be that of the
tenor), had pulled it vigorously, let go too late, and dropped a good
ten feet plumb in a sitting posture.

"Good Lord!" The Vicar peered at him, stooping. "Is that Sobey?"

"It _was_," groaned Sobey. "I'll never be the same man again."

"But what has happened?"

"Happened? Why, I tumbled off the bell-rope. You might ha' guessed
_that_."

"Yes, yes; but why?"

"Because I didn' know how it worked." Gunner Sobey turned his face
away wearily and continued to rub his hurt. "I didn't know till now,
either, that a man could be stunned at this end," he added.

"Man, I see you're suffering, but answer me for goodness' sake!
What's the meaning of all these cattle outside, and the taps running,
and the smoke up yonder on the hill? And why--?"

"I done my best," murmured Gunner Sobey drowsily. "Single-handed I
done it, but I done my best."

"Are you telling me that all this has been _your_ doing?"

"A man can't very well be ten detachments at once, can he?" demanded
the Gunner, sitting erect of a sudden and speaking with an air of
great lucidity. "At least not in the Artillery. The liquor, now--
I've run it out of every public-house in the town; that was
Detachment D's work. And the hayricks; properly speakin', _they_
belonged to Detachment E, and I hadn' time to fire more than Farmer
Coad's on my way down wi' the cattle. _And_ the alarm bell, you may
argue, wasn' any business of mine; an' I wish with all my heart I'd
never touched the dam thing! But with the French at your doors, so
to speak--"

"The French?"

"Didn' I tell you? Then I must have overlooked it. Iss, iss, the
French be landed at Talland Cove, and murderin' as they come!
And the Troy lads be cut down like a swathe o' gra