Out he slipped without his cap or apron, and sure enough the
door was open. In he went, and up and up in the darkness, climbing the steps
and then the ladders, until he was among the bells, when a sense of dread and
loneliness came upon him all at once, and he fell in a swoon. So ends the
second quarter.
When the chimes began to right Tony awakened, and many
wonderful things did he now begin to see. The spirits of the bells were
swarming all around him; goblins and fairies and elfin spirits in endless numbers
were pouring out in all directions from the chiming bells, until the whole
interior of the tower seemed thronged with them. But when the chimes stopped,
the elfish figures, one by one, faded into nothingness, and then when the bells
hung still Toby noticed for the first time that each bell was itself a strange
and mysterious figure with a long beard, and its muffled hand on its goblin mouth.
Charles Dickens, from "The Chimes, A Goblin Story"
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