After all, this was not so very much more difficult than going up the ladders in that oast-house in Kent, where they had gone to see the men stamp out a hop-pocket, when the whole family had spent that happy fortnight in a Kentish farm-house last summer. Only then Hugh had been there to help her, and pull her up that awkward step where two rungs had gone from the ladder. Her back was to the Vicar, but Miss Osric saw the sudden wistfulness in the girl’s grey eyes.
“Well, come on, if you really don’t feel nervous,” Mr. Seaton said. “Oh, Hiram,” as the old clerk came stumbling down the ladders at the sound of their voices, “you here? That’s just as well. Now you can go up in front and get the little tower door open for the ladies.”
“Gentleman up the tower now, sir,” Hiram said, touching his battered hat.
“All right; he won’t interfere with us,” the Vicar said. “Now, Miss Lisle, will you go first, and take Hiram’s hand where the ladders cross. Miss Osric, you next. Then Pauly. Hold tight, you little monkey, or I’ll take you down again! I’ll bring up the rear, and then if anybody slips, I’ll catch them.”
The procession started, Mr. Seaton keeping a firm grip of his small son’s blouse the whole time, and calling at intervals directions to the others.
Up, up they went, clinging to the ladders set perpendicularly against the rough grey walls, worn with the lapse of time. Higher and higher still they went, till Sydney and Miss Osric felt as though they had been climbing for hours instead of minutes.
The elders had no breath for speech, but little Pauly chattered unceasingly. “Did these funny stairs go right up into Heaven? Would there be angels at the top of the tower? Would there be stars? Would there be at least a hole through which Pauly might look into Heaven when he came so near it?”
Sydney could hear his shrill little voice talking on, and his father’s grave tones answering him now and then. As they came higher the echoes caught up the two voices and made the old tower ring with them in a way that sounded strange and very eerie, Sydney thought.
“Getting tired, Miss Lisle?” called the Vicar cheerily, as she set foot on the highest ladder.