Volume Two—Chapter Sixteen.
The Doctor is Relieved.
The old clock wheezed, and rattled, and spun round, and its weights ran down as the doctor and old Moredock entered the belfry door. Then, as the portal was closed, the dark place seemed to be filled with sound as the chimes rang out the four quarters, and then the deep-toned strokes of hammer upon bell proclaimed that it was nearing day.
“Only three o’clock,” thought North, “and it seems as many days as hours.”
They passed into the church as soon as the old man had lit his lanthorn and covered it with the skirt of his coat, which he held so that the light fell only upon the matting, and here and there upon a brass or some half-worn letters cut in the stones.
The chancel door stuck and refused to open till the old man had held down his lanthorn to see what held it.
“What’s here?” he whispered, as something glittered. “Young miss’s bracelet,” he added, as he dragged out the shining gewgaw, which Leo had dropped in her flight, and which had fallen close to the bottom of the door, and acted as a wedge. “Take hold, doctor.”
“Pah!” ejaculated North, drawing back. “Throw it away.”