He
could not find any: it was the time of light evenings.
"There's just one chance, my lord," suggested Jenkins. "That the little
unused door at the corner of the cloisters, leading into the body of
the cathedral, may not be locked."
"Precious careless of the sextons, if it is not!" grunted Ketch.
"It is a door nobody ever thinks of going in at, my lord," returned
Jenkins, as if he would apologize for the sextons' carelessness, should
it be found unfastened. "If it is open, we might get to the bell."
"The sextons, proud, stuck-up gentlemen, be made up of carelessness and
anything else that's bad!" groaned Ketch. "Holding up their heads above
us porters!"
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.
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