A Great Emergency and Other Tales

ving ever been much bigger, and the churches were very large and very handsome. That is, they were fine outside, and might have been very imposing within but for the painted galleries which bloc

"the brother churches." In the towe

ames the next. We were so accustomed to this that it never struck us as odd. What did seem odd, and per

and evening prayer at S. James, and the bells rang changes and cannons, and went on ringing by turns all the evening, the bell-ringers being escorted from one church to another wi

ghly, and thought the churches delightfully sweet; but my Mother said the smell of th

to get yellow flags to try and grow them in tubs as Johnson's father did water-lilies, and partly to watch for a canal-boat or "monkey-barge," which was expected up with coal. Fred knew the old man, and we hoped to go home as part of the cargo if the old man's dog would let us; but

arked so fiercely at us that Fred would not go on board, to my great annoyance, for I never feel afraid of dogs,

es which seemed nothing to me; and I felt this to be very odd, because I am n

nal-boat, which I followed with regretful ey

hear all sixteen bells

do," said I,

lowly, and so impressively that

But we had only lived in the place for part of our lives, and

ked, thinking of drowning, and b

when the Great Plague was here, S. Philip and S. James both tolled all day long with their b

ul calamities of the kind had happened within the memory of man, when the town was still built in great part of wood, and that one night, d

interest peculiarly their own. For the captain's dangers were over

scriptions rushed to my mind, and I looked out expecting to see S. Philip and S. James standing up like dark rocks in a sea of dancing flames, their bells ringing backwards, "as witches say prayers." It was only when I saw both the towers standing grey and quiet

ome back; and yet the more I heard of Fred's tales the more restless I grew, because