Someone was at this moment within the church! The Vicar collected his wits and ran for it; thrust his way once more through the crowd of cattle, and through the doorway into the aisle, shouting a challenge.

A groan from the belfry answered him, and there, in the dim light, he almost stumbled over a man seated on the cold flags of the pavement and feebly rubbing the lower part of his spine.
It is notoriously dangerous to ring a church bell without knowing the trick of it.

Gunner Sobey, having broken into the belfry and laid hands on the first bell-rope (which happened to be that of the tenor), had pulled it vigorously, let go too late, and dropped a good ten feet plumb in a sitting posture.
"Good Lord!" The Vicar peered at him, stooping.

"Is that Sobey ?" "It _was_," groaned Sobey.

"I'll never be the same man again." "But what has happened ?" "Happened?
Why, I tumbled off the bell-rope.