The custom
was still observed in many places, and we often heard the sound of the
curfew bell, which was almost invariably rung at eight o'clock in the
evening. The poet Gray commences his "Elegy written in a Country
Churchyard" with--
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
and one of the most popular dramatic pieces in the English language,
written by an American schoolgirl born in 1850, was entitled "The Curfew
Bell." She described how, in Cromwell's time, a young Englishwoman,
whose sweetheart was doomed to die that night at the tolling of the
curfew bell, after vainly trying to persuade the old sexton not to ring
it, prevented it by finding her way up the tower to the belfry and
holding on to the tongue of the great bell. Meanwhile the old sexton who
had told her "the curfew bell _must_ ring tonight" was pulling the
bell-rope below, causing her to sway backwards and forwards in danger of
losing her life while murmuring the words "Curfew shall _not_ ring
to-night":
O'er the distant hills comes Cromwell. Bessie sees him; and her brow,
Lately white with sickening horror, has no anxious traces now.
At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands all bruised and torn;
And her sweet young face, still haggard with the anguish it had worn,
Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eyes with misty light.
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