It was worth the trial. The bishop rose from the chair, and groped his way out of the chapter-house, the two others following. “If it hadn’t been for that Jenkins’s folly, fancying he saw a light in the burying-ground, and me turning round to order him to come on, it might not have happened,” grumbled Ketch, as they wound round the cloisters. “A light in the burial-ground!” hastily repeated the bishop. “What light?” “Oh, a corpse-candle, or some nonsense of that sort, he had his mind running on, my lord. Half the world is idiots, and Jenkins is the biggest of ‘em.” “My lord,” spoke poor Jenkins, deprecatingly, “I never had such a thought within me as that it was a ‘corpse-candle.’ I said I fancied it might be a glowworm. And I believe it was one, my lord.” “A more sensible thought than the other,” observed the prelate. Luck at last! The door was found to be unlocked. It was a low narrow door, only used on the very rare occasion of a funeral, and was situated in a shady, out-of-the-way nook, where no one ever thought of looking. “Oh, come, this is something!” cried the bishop, cheerily, as he stepped into the cathedral. “And your lordship now sees what fine careless sextons we have got!” struck in Ketch. “We must overlook their carelessness this time, in consideration of the service it renders us,” said the bishop, in a kindly tone. “Take care of the pillars, Ketch.” “Thank ye, my lord. I’m going along with my hands held out before me, to save my head,” returned Ketch. Most likely the bishop and Jenkins were doing the same. Dexterously steering clear of the pillars, they emerged in the wide, open body of the cathedral, and bent their steps across it to the spot where hung the ropes of the bells. The head sexton to the cathedral--whom you must not confound with a gravedigger, as you might an ordinary sexton; cathedral sextons are personages of more importance--was seated about this hour at supper in his home, close to the cathedral. Suddenly the deep-toned college bell boomed out, and the man started as if a gun had been fired at him. “Why, that’s the college bell!” he uttered to his family. And the family stared with open mouths without replying. The college bell it certainly was, and it was striking out sharp irregular strokes, as though the ringer were not accustomed to his work. The sexton started up, in a state of the most amazed consternation. “It is magic; it is nothing less--that the bell should be ringing out at this hour!” exclaimed he. “Father,” suggested a juvenile, “perhaps somebody’s got locked up in the college.” For which prevision he was rewarded with a stinging smack on the head. “Take that, sir! D’ye think I don’t know better than to lock folks up in the college? It was me, myself, as locked up this evening.”