Chapter 3 - Page 2

their hands.

He saw these creatures, not only among sleeping men but waking
also, active in pursuits irreconcilable with one another, and
possessing or assuming natures the most opposite. He saw one
buckling on innumerable wings to increase his speed; another
loading himself with chains and weights, to retard his. He saw
some putting the hands of clocks forward, some putting the hands of
clocks backward, some endeavouring to stop the clock entirely. He
saw them representing, here a marriage ceremony, there a funeral;
in this chamber an election, in that a ball he saw, everywhere,
restless and untiring motion.

Bewildered by the host of shifting and extraordinary figures, as
well as by the uproar of the Bells, which all this while were
ringing, Trotty clung to a wooden pillar for support, and turned
his white face here and there, in mute and stunned astonishment.

As he gazed, the Chimes stopped. Instantaneous change! The whole
swarm fainted! their forms collapsed, their speed deserted them;
they sought to fly, but in the act of falling died and melted into
air. No fresh supply succeeded them. One straggler leaped down
pretty briskly from the surface of the Great Bell, and alighted on
his feet, but he was dead and gone before he could turn round.
Some few of the late company who had gambolled in the tower,
remained there, spinning over and over a little longer; but these
became at every turn more faint, and few, and feeble, and soon went
the way of the rest. The last of all was one small hunchback, who
had got into an echoing corner, where he twirled and twirled, and
floated by himself a long time; showing such perseverance, that at
last he dwindled to a leg and even to a foot, before he finally
retired; but he vanished in the end, and then the tower was silent.

Then and not before, did Trotty see in every Bell a bearded figure
of the bulk and stature of the Bell--incomprehensibly, a figure and
the Bell itself. Gigantic, grave, and darkly watchful of him, as
he stood rooted to the ground.

Mysterious and awful figures! Resting on nothing; poised in the
night air of the tower, with their draped and hooded heads merged
in the dim roof; motionless and shadowy. Shadowy and dark,
although he saw them by some light belonging to themselves--none
else was there--each with its muffled hand upon its goblin mouth.

He could not plunge down wildly through the opening in the floor;
for all power of motion had deserted him. Otherwise he would have
done so--aye, would have thrown himself, headforemost, from the
steeple-top, rather than have seen them watching him with eyes that
would have waked and watched although the pupils had been taken
out.

Again, again, the dread