It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth.

Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it.

It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year.
Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice.

I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance.

Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay.