from
The Nine Tailors
by
Dorothy Sayers

The art of change-ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world. [...] By the English campanologist, the playing of tunes is considered to be a childish game, only fit for foreigners; the proper use of bells is to work out mathematical permutations and combinations. When he speaks of the music of his bells, he does not mean musicians’ music—still less what the ordinary man calls music. To the ordinary man, in fact the pealing of bells is a monotonous jangle and a nuisance, tolerable only when mitigated by remote distance and sentimental association. The change-ringer does, indeed, distinguish musical differences between one method of producing his permutations and another; he avers, for instance, that where the hinder bells run 7, 5, 6, or 5, 6, 7, or 5, 7, 6, the music is always prettier, and can detect and approve, where they occur, the consecutive fifths of Tittums and the cascading thirds of the Queen’s change. But what he really means is, that by the English method of ringing with rope and wheel, each several bell gives forth her fullest and her noblest note. His passion—and it is a passion—finds its satisfaction in mathematical completeness and mechanical perfection, and as his bell weaves her way rhythmically up from lead to hinder place and down again, he is filled with the solemn intoxication that comes of intricate ritual faultlessly performed.

“We mustn’t question the ways of Providence,” said the Rector.

“Providence?” said the old woman. “Don’t yew talk to me about Providence. I’ve had enough o’ Providence. First he took my husband, and then he took my ’taters, but there’s One above as’ll teach him to mend his manners, if he don’t look out.”

The Rector was too much distressed to challenge this remarkable piece of theology.

“[...] there’s somebody in this village that knows something. And the less they think we guess, the more free they’ll act and speak. And that’s why, my lord, I was rather glad when the reverend gentleman suggested you coming down here. They’ll talk freer to you than to me—see?”

“Perfectly. I’m a terrific success at pottering round asking sloppy questions. And I can put away quite a lot of beer in a good cause.”

“But it really makes things easier to do a little wondering, I mean, if you’re once interested in a thing it makes it seem less real. That’s not the right word, though.”

“Less personal?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. You begin to imagine how it all happened, and gradually it gets to feel more like something you’ve made up.”

“H’m!” said Wimsey. “If that’s the way your mind works, you’ll be a writer one day.”

“The French, as you have no doubt often noticed, seldom head their letters with an address as we do in England, though they occasionally write at the foot some such useless information as ‘Paris’ or ‘Lyon,’ without adding the number of the house and the name of the street. They do, however, frequently place these necessary indications on the flap of the envelope, in the hope that they may be thrown into the fire and irrecoverably lost before the letter is answered or even read.”

“It has sometimes occurred to me, my lord, to be surprised at that habit.”

“Not at all, Bunter. It is quite logical. To begin with, it is a fixed idea with the French that the majority of letters tend to be lost in the post. They put no faith in Government departments, and I think they are perfectly right. They hope, however, that, if the post-office fails to deliver the letter to the addressee it may, in time, return it to the sender. It seems a forlorn hope, but they are again perfectly right. One must explore every stone and leave no avenue unturned. The Englishman, in his bluff, hearty way, is content that under such circumstances the post-office should violate his seals, peruse his correspondence, extract his signature and address from the surrounding verbiage, supply a fresh envelope and return the whole to him under the blushing pseudonym of ‘Hubbykins’ or ‘Dogsbody’ for the entertainment of his local postman.”