because I am not as brave as I should like to be, and Fred is grandson
to the navy captain.

I think Fred wanted to make me forget the canal-boat, which I followed
with regretful eyes, for he began talking about the churches.

"It must be splendid to hear all sixteen bells going at once," said
he.

"They never do," said I, unmollified.

"They do--_sometimes_," said Fred slowly, and so impressively that I
was constrained to ask "When?"

"In great emergencies," was Fred's reply, which startled me. But we
had only lived in the place for part of our lives, and Fred's family
belonged to it, so he must know better than I.

"Is it to call the doctor?" I asked, thinking of drowning, and broken
bones, and apoplectic fits.

"It's to call everybody," said Fred; "that is in time of war, when the
town is in danger. And when the Great Plague was here, S. Philip and
S. James both tolled all day long with their bells muffled. But when
there's a fire they ring backwards, as witches say prayers, you know."

War and the plague had not been here for a very long time, and there
had been no fire in the town in my remembrance; but Fred said that
awful 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