Alice got all right there; because you cannot think much about
ghosts and nonsense when the sun is shining bang down on you at
four o'clock in the afternoon, and you can see red farm-roofs
between the trees, and the safe white roads, with people in carts
like black ants crawling.

It was very jolly, but we felt we ought to be getting back, because
tea is at five, and we could not hope to find lifts both ways.

So we started to go down. Dicky went first, then Oswald, then
Alice--and H. O. had just stumbled over the top step and saved
himself by Alice's back, which nearly upset Oswald and Dicky, when
the hearts of all stood still, and then went on by leaps and
bounds, like the good work in missionary magazines.

For, down below us, in the tower where the man whose beard grew
down to his toes after he was dead was buried, there was a noise--a
loud noise. And it was like a door being banged and bolts
fastened. We tumbled over each other to get back into the open
sunshine on the top of the tower, and Alice's hand got jammed
between the edge of the doorway and H. O.'s boot; it was bruised
black and blue, and another part bled, but she did not notice it
till long after.

We looked at each other, and Oswald said in a firm voice (at least,
I hope it was)--

'What was that?'