Argosy (UK), January 1955 — page 104: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ed 102 MARGARET BONHAM Us got no leisure for bells. Get they sacks up, now, and let’s get on.” “You mean I'can keep ’em? Can I look for ’em now?” “Look for °em when you dang well like. Fred Copley’s a- paying you, I ain’t.” | George’s mind hovered, in passing, over the enigma of human nature. If he had asked old Elcombe for one extra potato he’d have come away with a flea in his ear, yet old Elcombe had pre- sented him, unasked, with what was probably worth the whole lorry-load. He shook his head, mystified. With the last sack heaved into place, and Elcombe and his man gone, he took up the bell again and stood alone in the ancient dust of the barn, a dark, youngish man, not tall but muscular, with a blueness of eye and slant of cheek-bone marking some forgotten Celtic ancestry, and his head full of bells. He liked ringing them in church, though his village peal was mediocre, but most of all he liked ringing hand-bells. The set they had was cheap and bad, used for practising, and for carols at Christmas. ‘They could not afford better; but once, he had handled good ones, in his wife’s village ten miles away in the hills, and he had never forgotten it. The weight and balance, the ringing note exactly placed came back to him entirely as he held the mute shell in his hand. Then he remembered that the others had to be found. The chances of unearthing the whole set seemed dim. But anyways, he thought, I can keep this ’un. He took it out to the cattle-trough and dropped it in to soak; the muck was like cement and a wash wouldn’t get it off. Mr. Copley, waiting three miles away for pig potatoes—at the Ministry of Agriculture rate per hour—never even crossed his mind. He began methodically searching. After half an hour he had seven bells in the trough. Another twenty minutes produced three more. For the last two, made desperate by near success, he hunted with maniacal determination, and at last tackled old Elcombe’s missus in her kitchen. Here, apologetic but relentless, he had her grumbling and ferreting till they were found in the boot-cupboard. They were dirty, but - not caked like the others. Crossing the yard to the trough, he rubbed one of them with his sleeve and read the engraved letters of the maker’s name, its number, and the date, 1832. He fished the remaining ten out of the water, and wiped them with a handful of hay pulled furtively (for old Elcombe would have objected, might even, if he’d been looking, have charged him sixpence for its use) from the rick. comicloooks.comn)