Guy shook his head.
"It's such a glorious morning that I could almost swim the river," he declared.
"Oh, Margaret, don't let him," Pauline exclaimed.
Guy said he would be in the churchyard before they were back in Rectory Lane to meet him, and with Bob barking at his heels he ran at full speed through the orchard, through the garden, over the bridge and down Rectory Lane just as the two girls reached the lych-gate. They all went into the big church, even Bob, though he slunk at their heels as modestly as might the Devil. High up over the chancel they could see the Rector and the shiny-pated sacristan leaning from the windows of the bell-ringers' chamber and scratching with wands at some blind arches where bats might most improbably lurk.
"Let's go to the top of the tower," Guy proposed.
"Father isn't on the top of the tower," said Margaret. "But you go up with Pauline. I'll wait for you."
So Guy and Pauline went through a low door beaked by Normans centuries ago, and climbed the stone stairs until they reached the bell-ringers' chamber where they paused to greet the Rector, who waved a vague arm in greeting. The stairs grew more narrow and musty as they went higher; but all the way at intervals there were deep slits in the walls, framing thin pictures of the outspread country below the tower. Still up they went past the bell-ropes, past the great bells themselves that hung like a cluster of mighty fruit, until finally they came out through a small turret to meet the March sky. The spire, that rose as high again as they had already come, occupied nearly all the space and left only a yard of leaded roof on which to walk; but even so, up here where the breeze blew strongly, they seemed to stand in the very course of the clouds with the world at their feet. Northward they looked across the brown mill-stream; across Guy's green orchard; across the flashing tributary beyond; across the meadows, to where the Shipcot road climbed the side of the wold. Westward they looked to Plashers Mead and Miss Peasey flapping a table-cloth; to Guy's mazy garden and the grey wall under the limes; and farther to the tree-tops of Wychford Abbey; to the twining waters of the valley and the rounded hills. Southward they looked to Wychford town in tier on tier of shining roofs; and above the translucent smoke to where the telegraph-poles of the long highway went rocketing into Gloucestershire. And lastly Eastward they looked through a flight of snowy pigeons to the Rectory asleep in gardens that already were painted with the simple flowers of Spring.
Guy took Pauline's hand where it rested on the parapet.
"Dearest, Spring is here," he said. "And this is our world that you and I are looking at to-day."