"Church bell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Rotherwood arrived at the New Court with his sister. He wanted to show Florence some of his favourite haunts at Beechcroft, and had brought her to join his cousins in their walk. A very pleasant expedition they made, but it led them so far from home that the church bell was heard pealing over the woods far in the distance. Lily could not go to Mrs. Eden's cottage, because she did not know the nature of Agnes's complaint, and her aunt could not bear that Florence should go into any house where there was illness. In the course of the walk, however, she met ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the thunder was roaring over the sea and vivid flashes of lightning blinded for the moment one daring enough to face the storm, the little village church bell rang the dread alarm of fire. The apparatus for firefighting was of the type most city people have forgotten. Men rushed to the fire company's quarters and dragged the engine forth. From one of the highest hilltops flames lighted the sky. The men seizing the rope dragged the apparatus up the ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... earliest grey of the morning, Mr Rowland took Margaret home. As they stood on the steps, waiting to be let in, she observed that the morning star was yellow and bright in the sky. As soon as the sun had risen, the toll of the church bell conveyed to every ear in Deerbrook the news that Mrs Enderby was dead. Perhaps there might have been compunction in the breasts of some who had been abroad on Saturday night, on hearing the universal remark that it must have been rather ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... went to church in the morning and again in the evening. Prayer-meeting night saw them always on their way to the place where the church bell called: ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... There was not a sound from the water; across the harbor Peach's Point seemed about to dissolve in a faint green haze; a strong scent of mingled spices came from the warehouses. There was the splash of oars in the Basin beyond, and the more distant peal of a church bell. ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... on his knees, and his chin upon his hands, he was staring into the embers, with his gin beside him, when suddenly a swimming came in his head, he lost sight of the fire, and a sound like one stroke of a loud church bell smote ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... musing over her wants, she was aroused from her reverie by the ringing of the near-by church bell. The good, old shepherdess came running into the room saying that the clergyman from over the hill would hold services in the chapel that day. Countess Berlow, with her son, hastened at once ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... Middle Ages," laughed Beata. "That's because she poses so much for Dad's pictures. It sounds like a church bell under the sea to me. When we lived at Porthkeverne we were close to the lost land of Lyonesse, and there was a lovely story about a mermaid. They said she used to come and sit on a broad flat stone outside the church and listen to the singing; and the priest heard of it, so one day ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... very day, and had come back with the news that people there were actually dying in the streets. He had seen two men fall down, either dead or stricken for death, before he could turn his beast away and gallop off, and the shops were shut and the church bell was tolling, whilst all men looked in each other's faces as if afraid of ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his sire, "there is drift all the way; a man could hardly wade through it. However, lad," he continued, seeing that the boy rose as the church bell began to toll, "this is a case wherein I would by no means balk the obdurate chap of his will. Go to church by all means. There is a pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen sleet, besides the depth under foot. Go out into it, since thou prefers ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... day the gusty north wind bore The loosening drift its breath before; Low circling round its southern zone, The sun through dazzling snow mist shone. No church bell lent its Christian tone 30 To the savage ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... The nearby church bell struck the hour of seven as Captain Stark and his wife, as well as the colonel and his better half, climbed into the capacious vehicle that had been waiting for them at the door of the club-house for several hours. The horses had become stiff in the joints, and, with a cold and raw blustering ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... little procession went by with its queer muffled noises, the big church bell boomed ten, and the constabulary bugles from the other end of the town blew taps. The sound came faintly clear on the still night air, and the tall cocoanut tree that I love to watch from my window drooped its dim outline as ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... o'clock, the little church bell ringing the Angelus, woke the women up, who usually slept the whole ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... prisoners in their blue-grey uniform made a strange splash of colour in a corner of the platform, where, very contentedly, they were drinking their tea; some one in the invisible distance was playing the balalaika and every now and then some church bell in the town rang clearly and sharply above the tumult. The thin films of dust, yellow in the evening sun, hovered like golden smoke under the station roof. At last with a reluctant jerk and shiver the train was slowly persuaded to totter ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... once lost her way on the Lincolnshire wolds, nigh Boston, but was guided to her home by the sound of the church bell tolling at night. So grateful was she that she bequeathed a piece of land to the parish clerk on condition that he should ring one of the bells from seven to eight o'clock each evening during ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... a church bell ringing," cried Bob suddenly at this point. "It sounds as if it came from ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... deranged too; for it was not uncommon in those days for an undertaker and his family to be advised of an early order to make a coffin by the sound of planes and hammers at work in the workshop. Gravediggers were not without their early notices of funerals. Sometimes the church bell would toll at midnight, the graveyard gate would be thrown open by unseen hands, and a living form be seen to enter alone; or it might be that the whole funeral cortege which would appear in the flesh a few days later, could be observed in spirit in the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... How deafening was the traffic! The church bell was ringing for midday service. What a thin tinkle it made out there, yet how deep was its boom within! Stock Exchange men with their leisurely activity were going in by their seven doorways to their great market place ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... by his hand, and his brow bore the marks of strong agony. Oh, he was wounded! Those moments were awful in their silence. The darkness deepened in the old parlor. There was a sound of voices passing in the street. The church bell broke the stillness. Softly the old calm crept over his brow, and he raised his face and looked at her with those great dark eyes—eyes of unfathomable tenderness and impenetrable fire, and she felt that her very soul stood naked before him. She trembled and sank on the couch ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... that with me. Send him to me, and I will soon polish him.' The father was glad to do it, for he thought: 'It will train the boy a little.' The sexton therefore took him into his house, and he had to ring the church bell. After a day or two, the sexton awoke him at midnight, and bade him arise and go up into the church tower and ring the bell. 'You shall soon learn what shuddering is,' thought he, and secretly went there before ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... A distant church bell began to clang and she realized with a start that the day was Sunday. She looked at her watch and was amazed to see it was nearly eleven. She must have slept longer ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... as Crook's Tavern on the southern boundary of the town, where, having drunk up what rum they could find, and hearing that the other tavern in the center of the town was kept on teetotal principles, they at once retreated. Not, however, before an alarm had been rung out by the church bell and the militia company called to arms. Great was the fright of the women and children. There was no sleeping in any house, no working and little eating for several days. My mother took her family to ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... the judges of election, with lists of the registered voters. But in any precinct of the canton an elector who could prove that he had not voted at home might deposit his ballot in any other. The church bell rang for the people to assemble, and the voting began and ended in perfect quiet. But I could not witness an election of this ancient republic, where Freedom was so many centuries old, without strong emotion; it had from its nature and the place the consecration ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... there is something the matter. There—" he broke off as a church bell pealed out with ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... to hear from Mr. Norton's Letter to you that you hold well, through all the Wet and Cold we have had for the last six months. Our Church Bell here has been tolling for one and another of us very constantly. I get out on the River in my Boat, and dabble about my five acres of Ground just outside the Town. Sometimes I have thought you might come to my pleasant home, where I never live, but where you should be treated with better fare ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... to flight. 'It was thought,' says Young, 'the people, from hunger, would revolt;' and we see they have done it. Desperate Lackalls, long prowling aimless, now finding hope in desperation itself, everywhere form a nucleus. They ring the Church bell by way of tocsin: and the Parish turns out to the work. (See Hist. Parl. ii. 243-6.) Ferocity, atrocity; hunger and revenge: such ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... room. The Vicomte gazed from the window with knitted brows and compressed lips, while his companion, seated near at hand, leant back in his chair, with an air of affected carefulness. Outside, the rattle of arms and hum of voices told that the watch were passing through the street. The church bell rang one o'clock. Suddenly the Vicomte burst into a forced laugh, and, turning, took up his cloak and sword. "The trap was well laid, M. le Capitaine," he said almost jovially; "but I am still sober enough to take care of myself—and ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... forgery." The man had a voice as sweet as a church bell, and as deep. Every word he said rang out slowly, sonorously. The attention of the table was fixed in an instant. "It is the case of a Monsieur Filon, of Cherbourg. He is a cider merchant. He has cheated the state, making false entries, etc. But his worst crime is that he has used ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... her work, and I went out across the courtyard. Already the wains stood there, the teams of sleepy oxen tossing their long horns in the glare of torches. The church bell was clanging the alarm of fire to bring home the men from field or forest if any were abroad so late, for it was an hour after sunset, and there was ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... to the bishop and taken the oath, and rung the church bell, and touched the altar, the missal, and the holy cup before the church-wardens? And they have handed me the parish seal; see, here it is. Nay, 'tis a real vicar inviting a ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... he seemed phosphorescent, the dark itself was defeated by his whiteness. His bark was low and deep and resonant—a church bell of a bark—it reminded [Transcriber's note: original reads 'remainded'] you less of a 'cello than all 'cellos—except M. ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... to school, Ursula lived still in the shadowy corner of the graveyard, where pink-red petals lay scattered from the hawthorn tree, like myriad tiny shells on a beach, and a church bell sometimes rang sonorously, and sometimes a bird called out, whilst Maggie's voice went on ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... nights he shows himself. He is very old: grandmother says that she has heard her own grandmother tell of him; he is said to lead a solitary life, and to have nobody with whom he can converse save the great old church bell. Once the bell hung in the church tower; but now there is no trace left of the tower or of the church, ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... frequently, and the answers assured us that la haut we should see the castle and the "Trou Meluisin." We slept well in our snow-white beds; occasionally hearing, during the night, the cracked, hollow, unearthly sound of the great church bell of the Lusignans, to which an equally ghost-like voice on the stair replied. At day-break the noise of hilarity roused us, and we found that a rural meeting was taking place below, in the grand salon. Our friends of the day before seemed all met previous to setting out to begin the walnut gathering; ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello |
