"I—I—" stammered the Lord Mayor, "I really—humph! If I felt quite well, do you know, Sir Richard, I should not hesitate a moment."
"Pho! pho!" said Sir Richard, taking his arm, and leading him unwillingly forward. "Remember that the eyes of those are upon you whose opinions are to you of importance."
With a groan the unfortunate Lord Mayor, who from the first had shrunk from the enterprise altogether, being fearful that it might possibly involve dangerous consequences, allowed himself to be dragged by Sir Richard Blunt in the direction of the pews.
"If you have a pistol," said the magistrate, "you had better keep it in your hand ready for service."
"Lord bless you," said the Lord Mayor, in a nervous whisper, "I never fired off a pistol in all my life."
"Is that possible?"
"I don't know about being possible, but it's true."
"Well, you do surprise me."
"So—so you see, Sir Richard," added his temporary lordship, suddenly popping into the churchwarden's pew, which they had just reached—"so I'll stay here and keep an eye upon you."
Sir Richard Blunt was not at all sorry to get rid of such a companion as the Lord Mayor, so with a cough, he left him in the pew, and went forward alone, determined to find out what it was that made the extraordinary noise. As he went forward, towards the spot from whence it had come, he heard it once again, and in such close proximity to him, that albeit, unaccustomed to allow anything to affect his nerves, he started back a pace. Shading, then, the little bit of wax candle that he had in his hand, he looked steadily in the direction of the low moaning sound. In an instant he found a solution of the mystery. A couple of pigeons stood upon the hand rail of one of the pews, and it was the peculiar sound made by these birds, that, by the aid of echo in the silent empty church, had seemed to be of a very different character from its ordinary one.