Windybank stole across the river meadow to the nearest house. The door stood open and the place was empty. The neighbouring house was in like condition, and a quick survey told him that the fisher-folk, hearing sounds of the fight, had gone down to learn what strange business was adoing at midnight. Master Andrew was deficient neither in caution nor in cunning. He acted promptly. A pantry was visited, and a loaf of bread abstracted. He slipped from the house and passed through the orchard. He stuffed his pockets with half-ripe apples; they would help to quench his thirst, and he could hope for no water in his lofty place of concealment. He got to the churchyard wicket, passed through, floundered over the melancholy mounds that strewed God's acre, and reached the square, stone stump upon which the wooden spire was reared, and in which hung the bells. The door was on the latch, the lower part of the belfry being used as a storehouse for odds and ends of stone, wood, and rope belonging to the church itself. Windybank knew his bearings fairly well. He found the staircase, and began to wend upwards to the bell-chamber. About twenty feet up he felt a rush of cool, river air, and he knew that he had passed the first lattice. A little later, and he was on the belfry floor, his hands feeling the chill, smooth surface of the largest bell. Aching with fatigue and excitement, he sat down. He did not propose to attempt the perilous climb upwards in the darkness, and daylight could not be far off. Hunger sent in its claims; he broke the loaf, and munched a couple of sour apples. The food refreshed him, and he felt he could wait patiently for the dawn. Day came, and with it a buzz of excitement in the village. Windybank ventured to peep through the topmost lattice and scan the groups of excited gossips. Then he looked aloft through the great network of beams and rafters. He was tired, and his brain swam inside his head. The apex of the spire looked fearfully high and dark, and the brown, cobwebbed maze of woodwork bewildered him. The latch below clicked; some one was in the lower tower. The great bell began to swing; the sexton was ringing an alarm. Seized by a sudden fright, Windybank clambered by a bell-wheel to the first huge beam. He got his fingers on it and swung his body across. He gained the next, and the next; he was twenty feet above the floor of the bell-chamber. The boom of the bell was deafening. He paused for breath, and then hurried on his upward way, slipping sometimes, but never falling.