The Bell That Rang Itself
Once there was a girl called Nell, the youngest of the goatherd’s children and the smallest person in her village. She kept a wooden spoon in her apron pocket at all times, in case of porridge. You would be surprised how often there is porridge, if you are ready for it.
Nell’s village went round and round a round hill, and at the very top stood a stone bell tower with a window on each of its four sides. On clear nights the moon looked in at all four windows at once. In the tower hung the Old Bell. She was very big and very old and green at the rim. Nobody had pulled her rope in three hundred years, because nobody needed to. Every day at first light she rang the morning in all by herself.
Then, one autumn, the Old Bell began to ring at night.
At midnight she rang two notes, the second higher than the first, like someone asking a question. Is it? Is it? She asked again every hour after that, and at first light she rang the morning in as if nothing had happened.
They were lovely nights on the hill that autumn, with the moon in all four windows, and nobody could sleep in them. The babies woke. The grown-ups lay awake counting the hours, which they need not have done, because the bell was counting them already. Each time the bell asked, every goat on the hill stood up and then lay down again, and by morning the goats were very cross. A cross goat gives thin milk and eats the washing. Nell knew, because she milked the goats and brought the washing in.
What Nell wanted, more than she had ever wanted porridge, was one whole night. One night with the hill asleep from top to bottom, and the goats lying down and staying down.
The first to try was Big Tam the blacksmith, who was the strongest person on the hill and the kindest, which is a good thing to be if you are a blacksmith.
Big Tam carried a long iron chain up the tower stairs. At the top was one last ladder, very narrow, going up through a hole into the bell room. Big Tam got stuck at the shoulders. So Big Tam stood on the top rung with head and arms through the hole, like a mole come up to look at the weather. Very gently, Big Tam wound the chain round the bell’s clapper and said, “Sorry, old girl.”
At midnight the Old Bell asked anyway. But with the chain on her, the two notes came out thick and small, like a question asked into a pillow. Is it? Is it? It sounded so sad that the whole village lay awake feeling sorry for her, which is even harder to sleep through than noise.
In the morning Big Tam climbed up and took the chain off. “I’d rather she asked out loud,” Big Tam said.
The second to try was Mrs. Bundle, the mayor. Mrs. Bundle did not fit up the ladder either, and would not have tried it in her good hat. She stood at the foot of the tower and gave the bell a speech in her best speech voice, the one for opening the summer fair.
“Old Bell,” she said, “on behalf of the village, the council and the goats, you are hereby instructed to stop it. Bells ring in the morning. That is the rule. Thank you.”
Everyone clapped, because that is what you do when Mrs. Bundle stops.
At midnight the Old Bell rang louder than she had ever rung, as if somebody had told her to speak up. IS it? IS it? Every goat on the hill stood up and did not lie down again till breakfast. Mrs. Bundle went home and put her hat away.
Nobody thought to ask Nell, because she was the smallest, and people seldom think to ask the smallest. Nell did not wait to be asked.
The next night she took the blanket off her bed and climbed the tower, round and round the stairs and up the narrow last ladder where Big Tam had stuck. She did not stick at all.
At the top, the moon was looking in at all four windows at once, so the room was silver from every side, and bright as a plate. Nell put her hand flat on the bell’s green side, and it was humming, so low and deep that she felt it in her teeth before she heard it.
Nell wrapped herself in the blanket and waited.
At midnight the hum grew and grew under her hand, and the Old Bell asked. Is it? Is it? So close, it went right through Nell from her hair to her boots, and made her toes tingle.
“Old Bell,” said Nell, “what’s the matter?”
The hum under her hand changed. It went lower and slower, and there were words in it, the way there are words in a cat’s purr if you know the cat well enough.
“Is it morning?” said the Old Bell.
“No,” said Nell. “It’s only midnight.”
“Ringing the morning in is my one job,” said the Old Bell. “I have done it every day for three hundred years, and I have never missed once. But I am old now, and I sleep heavy. I am worried that one night I will sleep straight through the dawn. So I ask the night. The night never answers, so I ask again.”
Nell thought of the goats, who woke her at first light every day of her life by complaining under the door. She had never once slept through a dawn. She had never been allowed to.
“I’ll answer,” she said. “I’m up at first light anyway. I’ll come up every morning and wake you. Then you can sleep all night and not ask anybody anything.”
“How would you wake me?” said the Old Bell. “I am very big, and I sleep very deep.”
Nell took the wooden spoon out of her apron pocket. She held it up where the bell could see it, if bells can see, and then she tapped the green rim, very lightly. Tink.
It was the smallest sound in the world. But Nell felt the hum give a little jump under her hand, like someone tapped on the shoulder.
“Oh,” said the Old Bell. “Yes. That would do it.”
“Then I promise,” said Nell.
“And when you are too big for the ladder?” said the Old Bell.
“Then whoever’s smallest,” said Nell. “I’ll show them how.”
The hum went slower, and lower, and softer, until it was only a warmth in the metal, like a doorstep that has had the sun on it all day. Nell stood on her toes and put her blanket over the top of the bell. It only covered the very top, like a cap, but she meant well by it.
“Goodnight, Old Bell,” she said, and went down the narrow ladder and round and round the stairs, and home to bed without her blanket. She was asleep before one o’clock.
At one o’clock the Old Bell did not ask. At two she did not ask, nor at three, nor at four. The whole round hill slept from top to bottom. The babies slept. Mrs. Bundle slept in her nightcap. Big Tam slept so soundly that the snoring from the forge was the loudest thing on the hill. And the goats lay down and stayed down, every one of them, all night long.
At first light the goats complained under the door, the same as always, and Nell got up and went up the hill with her spoon. The Old Bell hung perfectly still in the early sun with the blanket on her head. Nell took the blanket off and folded it. Then she tapped the green rim.
Tink.
The hum came up under her hand, quick and surprised. And the Old Bell rang the morning in, glad and loud, gladder and louder than anyone on the hill could remember, so that every shutter opened and every goat came out to look. Nell stood beside her with her hands over her ears, laughing.
Down in the square, Mrs. Bundle was out in her dressing gown, and Big Tam was yawning the good kind of yawn, the kind that comes after sleep and not instead of it.
“I tied her up and you told her off,” said Big Tam, “and not one of us thought to ask her what was wrong.”
“Or to ask Nell,” said Mrs. Bundle. When Nell came down the hill, Mrs. Bundle shook her hand in front of everybody and did not make a speech at all.
Then Nell went home, and there was porridge, and she had her spoon.
And that is why, to this day, the youngest child on the round hill carries a wooden spoon up the tower at first light and taps the green rim. Tink. Then the Old Bell wakes and rings the morning in. All night long, while the moon looks in at all four windows, she sleeps. She does not ask the night anything any more. She knows somebody is coming with a spoon.