"Belfry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before. He loved to hear the masts creak, to breathe in the fresh and whistling gusts of wind that arose during the night; and after having tacked a long time to find the buoys, guiding himself by a peak of rocks, the roof of a belfry or the Fecamp lighthouse, he delighted to remain motionless beneath the first gleams of the rising sun which made the slimy backs of the large fan-shaped rays and the fat bellies of the turbots glisten on the deck ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Beguile (deceive) trompi. Beguile amuzi. Behalf parto. Behave konduti. Behaviour konduto. Behead senkapigi. Behind (prep.) post. Behind (adv.) poste. Behold rigardi. Beholder rigardanto. Behoof profito. Being estajxo. Belabour bategi. Belch rukti. Belfry sonorilejo. Belgian Belgo. Belgium Belgujo. Belie kalumnii. Belief kredo. Believe kredi. Bell sonorilo. Bell (door, etc.) sonorileto. Bell (ornament) tintilo. Bell ringer sonorigisto. Belladonna beladono. Belle ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... clouded belfry calling Hear my soft ascending swells, Hear my notes like swallows falling: I am Bega, least of bells. When great Turkeful rolls and rings All the storm-touched turret swings, Echoing battle, loud and long. When great Tatwin wakening roars To the far-off shining shores, All the seamen know ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... store, where, with elevated heels and busy jackknives, they whittled out shapeless things, or made remarks concerning any luckless female who chanced to pass. While thus engaged they were startled by a loud, sharp ring from the belfry of the Methodist church succeeded by a merry peal, which seemed to proclaim some joyful event. It was a musical, rollicking ring, consisting of three rapid strokes, the last prolonged a little, as if ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... industrial city about a half-hour away. These story-and-a-half cottages, executed along simple Federal lines, are owned by the families who occupy them. They look out on a street lined with fine old elms and at the end is the stone mill with its belfry where still hangs the bell that once ruled the lives of spinners and weavers with its clanking iron tongue, morning, ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... side of the bill. "Orpheus himself (says Waterton) would drop his lute to listen to him, so sweet, so novel, and romantic is the toll of the pretty, snow-white Campanero." "The Campanero may be heard three miles! (echoes Sidney Smith). This single little bird being more powerful than the belfry of a cathedral ringing for a new dean! It is impossible to contradict a gentleman who has been in the forests of Cayenne, but we are determined, as soon as a Campanero is brought to England, to make him toll in a public place, and have the distance measured."[175] But the most remarkable ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... ever equaled. The chronometer pronounced it noon; but do you call this midnight or midday? So dense is the fog, that though we have a fair wind, we shorten sail for fear of accidents; and not only that, but here am I, poor Wellingborough, mounted aloft on a sort of belfry, the top of the "Sampson-Post," a lofty tower of timber, so called; and tolling the ship's bell, as ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... night it is! The mist has cleared off, and the moat is glistening in the moonlight, and the old trees are silvered over and blackened alternately by its beams; the church tower stands out massively against the sky. How dark the old belfry looks on such a night as this, contrasting with the white tombstones in the churchyard, and the slated roof shimmering above the aisle! There is a faint breeze sighing amongst the few remaining leaves, now rising into a pleading whisper, now dying away with a sad, unearthly moan. ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... yielded, and she found herself—after passing the staircase-turret that led by a gallery to the belfry in the centre of the church—in an exceedingly dilapidated transept; once, no doubt, it had been beautiful, before the coloured glass of the floriated window had been knocked out and its place supplied ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... church so anshunt in history, Read yo the Latin words high in the steeple, Hear yo the sounds that arose from the belfry, It seem'd to be shaating along ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... country as you are doing, or rather will be doing before long, for you are on the ice just now," cried Mr Norman from a handsome sleigh which drove up to them. The horses' harness, surmounted by a belfry, as Harry called the frame to which the bells were suspended, was covered with bright-coloured braiding, and rich skins filled the sleigh itself and hung over the back. From among them a lady's head was seen. "Allow me to introduce my wife," continued Mr Norman. "She has just told me that she has ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... on an open common, at the northeast corner of his farm. A couple of cross-roads bounded it on two sides; and it was bounded on the other two by Jedwort's overgrown stone wall. It was a square, old-fashioned building, with a low steeple, that had a belfry, but no bell in it, and with a high, square pulpit and high, straight-backed pews inside. It was now some time since meetings had been held there; the old society that used to meet there having separated, one division of it building a fashionable chapel in the North Village, and the other ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge
... in the room and opened the outer shutters a little, for they had been closed. The moon was shining even more brightly than on the previous night, but the rays did not fall as they fell on the loggia at the inn; the roofs of the low houses opposite were partly illuminated, and the belfry of San Stefano, and of the little church of Santa Marta and the Minerva much farther away; but that side of the irregularly built Altieri palace and the street below were almost in darkness. Looking down between the shutters, Ortensia and Stradella could ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... last time, otherwise than in true and full tone—I have been a sinful man for one of our holy profession," added he, looking upward, "yet may I presume to say, not a bell hath sounded out of tune from the tower of the house, while Father Philip had the superintendence of the chime and the belfry." ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... a grove of oaks. It had a flowery churchyard, and around it a white paling, keeping in the dead, and keeping out all roaming cattle. There was a small cracked bell, and the swallows forever circled above the eaves and in and out of the belfry. Without the yard, beneath the oaks, were a horserack and a shed for carriages. To-day there were horses at the rack and tied beneath the trees; coaches, chaises, and curricles, not a few, beneath ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... see their own style reflected back to them from a foreign page, may be able to appreciate its exquisite truth to nature. Christian, still a boy, is at play with his companions; he hides from them in the belfry of a church. It was the custom to ring the bells at sunset. He had ensconced himself between the wall and the great bell, and "when this rose, and showed to him the whole opening of its mouth," he found he was within a hair's breadth of contact with it. Retreat ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... "listen to this motto printed in raised letters on the bronze robe of the great bell of Schaffhausen, 'I call the living, I mourn the dead, I break the thunder.' And this other which figured on an old bell in the belfry of Ghent, 'My name is Roland. When I toll, there is a fire; when I peal, there is a ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... she continually blessed as her darling, praying that God, too, would bless and keep His covenant child. At last there came a change, and one lovely Sabbath morning, ere the bell from St. Paul's tower sent forth its summons to the house of God, there rang from its belfry a solemn toll, and the villagers listening to it, said, as they counted forty-four, that Mrs. ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... small in size, and so much lowered in height by the graves on the outside, which ascended half way up the low Saxon windows, that it might itself have appeared only a funeral vault, or mausoleum of larger size. Its little square tower, with the ancient belfry, alone distinguished it from such a monument. But when the grey-headed beadle turned the keys with his shaking hand, the antiquary was admitted into an ancient building, which, from the style of its architecture, and some monuments of the Mowbrays of St. Ronan's, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... shown in the pictures we are permitted to publish. In the belfry is a set of tubular chimes. Inside is a basement room, capable of division into seven excellent class-rooms, by the use of movable partitions. The main auditorium has wide galleries, and will seat over a thousand in its exceedingly comfortable pews. Scarcely any ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... following it round the bend of a valley, where a stream sang its way down to the creek, came suddenly on a flat meadow swept by the pale light and rising to a grassy slope, where a score of whitewashed houses huddled around a tall belfry, all glimmering under ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... a chestnut man, Out of his bundle draws a bone: "Lo, by the belfry of St. Ann, And ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... the conversion was rather of a doubtful character as we hear of their burning churches, plundering shrines, and slaughtering ecclesiastics with apparently as little remorse as ever. In the very year in which the Danes of Dublin are said to have been converted, they burned the belfry of Slane while filled with religious who had sought refuge there. Meanwhile the Irish monarchies were daily weakened by divisions and domestic wars. Connaught was divided between two or three independent princes, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... and his companions rose the white glistening walls of the Hotel Dieu, and farther off the tall tower of the newly-restored Cathedral, the belfry of the Recollets, and the roofs of the ancient College of the Jesuits. An avenue of old oaks and maples shaded the walk, and in the branches of the trees a swarm of birds fluttered and sang, as if in rivalry with the gay French talk and laughter of the group of officers, who waited ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... rising with all the offended dignity of a drunken man, "I can't keep on my legs? Why, I'll wager I can go up into the belfry of the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... skies; Come out forgetful of the week's turmoil, From halls of mirth and iron gates of toil; Come forth, come forth, and let your joy increase Till one loud paean hails the day of peace. Sing trembling age, ye youths and maidens sing; Ring ye sweet chimes, from every belfry ring; Pour the grand anthem till it soars and swells And heaven seems full of great celestial bells! Behold the Morn from orient chambers glide, With shining footsteps, like a radiant bride; The gladdened brooks proclaim her on the hills And every grove with choral welcome thrills. Rise ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... service was just over, and we met a crowd coming out as we entered the great building. "Service is over, and two pence for all that wants to stay," was the first sound that caught our ears. In the Burlesque of "Esmeralda," a man is met in the belfry of the Notre Dame at Paris, and being asked for money by ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... quaternary. Of Confucius we have a picture in some respects even more detailed than Boswell's of Johnson; but when we have said everything, we still feel that nothing has been said. Boswell lets you in through his master's church-door; shows you nave and aisle, vault and vestry; climbs with you to the belfry; stands with you at the altar and in the pulpit; till you have seen everything there is to see. But with Confucius as with every Adept the case is quite different. "The Master's wall is fathomless," said Tse Kung; but he and the other disciples took care ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... the belfry of a far-off church as the horses, plunging and panting, struggled up the road that led to ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... Gray was hurt and indignant, while her husband growled: "Aw, don't pay any attention to that human phonograph, Amy. He's got bats in his belfry." ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... of Bruges In the quaint old Flemish city, As the evening shades descended, Low and loud and sweetly blended, Low at times and loud at times, And changing like a poet's rhymes, Rang the beautiful wild chimes From the belfry in the market Of the ancient ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... departing time, and prayed it to return, and give her back what she had too little valued while it was yet in her possession. What a vain show Life seemed! How unsubstantial, and flickering, and flitting! It was as if from some aerial belfry, high up above the stir and jar of the earth, there was a bell continually tolling, 'All are shadows!—all are passing!—all is past!' And when the morning dawned, cool and gray, like many a happier morning before—when Margaret looked one by one at the sleepers, it seemed as if ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... out of his lips, when he caught sight of Jung Erh running out of the belfry. "Look at him," shouted Chia Chen. "Look at him! I don't feel hot in here, and yet he must go in search of a cool place. Spit at him!" he ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... were finally closed. But all the night through they heard in the streets the unceasing clamor: "A Roman pope, a Roman pope!" Toward the morning the tumult became more fierce and dense. Strange men had burst into the belfry of St. Peter's; the clanging bells tolled as if all ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Drumsheugh, after a long pause, and then every man concentrated his attention on the belfry of ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... surrounded on three sides by an amphitheatre of mountains, which slant off to the distance of fifteen or twenty miles. The Mission stands a little back of the town, and is a large building, or rather collection of buildings, in the centre of which is a high tower, with a belfry of five bells. The whole, being plastered, makes quite a show at a distance, and is the mark by which vessels come to anchor. The town lies a little nearer to the beach,— about half a mile from it,— and is composed of one-story houses built of sun-baked ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... told. Perceval makes the sign of the Cross, on which the Devil vanishes, and the knight falls insensible before the altar. On reviving he takes the veil, dips it in holy water, and sprinkles the walls within and without. He sleeps there that night, and the next morning, on waking, sees a belfry. He rings the bell, upon which an old man, followed by two others, appears. He tells Perceval he is a priest, and has buried 3000 knights slain by the Black Hand; every day a knight has been slain, and every day a marble ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... I stood at my window looking at the cloudless heaven. From the earth ascended, like incense, the mellow odours of summer-time; the belfry of the neighbouring church stood boldly outlined against the darkness, and the storks that had built their nest upon it were motionless, not stirring even as the bells rang out the hours. The city slept, and it seemed that I alone watched ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... from bad to worse, seemed at length almost to gasp in an atmosphere of hints, allusions, faint unspoken admissions, ill-concealed antipathies, unfinished speeches, mistaken identities and whisperings of hidden strife. The cathedral clock struck twelve and was answered again from the convent belfry; and as the notes died away he suddenly became aware that the weird, drowsy throb of the African song and dance had been swinging drowsily in his brain for ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... effect his rescue; and while the glittering train of the sovereign was pouring into the streets amid the flourish of trumpets and the acclamations of the populace, the unfortunate prisoner was conveyed to the Hotel-de-Ville, where he was confined in a small chamber on the summit of the belfry-tower, "so that," says a quaint old historian, "the ravens came about him to sport among the stone-crop. A hundred of the Swiss Guards were on duty near his person night and day to prevent his holding any communication with the capitouls,[179] the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... rocky heights. Up these slopes might be seen here and there, gleaming between the tree-tops, a pathway leading to a little irregular mass of building that seemed to have clambered in a hasty way up the mountain-side, and taken a difficult stand there for the sake of showing the tall belfry as a sight of beauty to the scattered and clustered houses of the village below. The rays of the newly-risen sun fell obliquely on the westward horn of this crescent-shaped nook: all else lay in dewy shadow. No sound came across the stillness; the very waters seemed to have curved ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... cxxx feet. The height of the western dome contains from the altar cij feet. The height of the dome of the new building contains from the altar lxxxviij feet. The whole pile of the church contains in height cl. feet with the cross. The height of the stone fabric of the belfry of the same church contains, from the level ground, cclx feet. The height of the wooden fabric of the same belfry contains cclxxiiij feet. But altogether it does not exceed five hundred and xx^{ty} feet. Also the ball of ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous
... skeleton-like tower of the artesian well that was to feed the irrigating ditch. Farther on, the course of Broderson Creek was marked by a curved line of grey-green willows, while on the low hills to the north, as Presley advanced, the ancient Mission of San Juan de Guadalajara, with its belfry tower and red-tiled roof, began to show itself over the crests of the venerable pear trees ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Flanders, and then it was the fiddler's turn to laugh at the discomfiture of his old sweetheart. Gambrinus kept clear of women, says the legend, and so lived in peace. For thirty years he sat beneath his belfry with the chimes, meditatively drinking beer with his nobles and burghers around him. Then Beelzebub sent Jocko, one of his imps, with orders to bring back Gambrinus before midnight. But Jocko was, like Swiveller's Marchioness, ignorant of the ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... those of some of our own frontiersmen,—with a ready smile and laugh, and ever eager to join in any merrymaking. On Sundays and fast-days he was summoned to the little parish church by the tolling of the old bell in the small wooden belfry. The church was a rude oblong building, the walls made out of peeled logs, thrust upright in the ground, chinked with moss and coated with clay or cement. Thither every man went, clad in a capote or blanket coat, a bright silk handkerchief knotted round his head, and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... case more strongly. Other voices, silent till now, struck in from boughs lower down and higher up and midway, and to the right and left, and from the tree-tops; and others, arriving hastily from the grey church turrets and old belfry window, joined the clamour which rose and fell, and swelled and dropped again, and still went on; and all this noisy contention amidst a skimming to and fro, and lighting on fresh branches, and frequent change of place, which satirised the old ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Aritao, have been a point of some importance in the past. It has a large brick church with a decidedly Flemish facade, and a detached pagoda-like belfry. Its streets are overgrown with fine soft grass, and its houses had somehow or other an air of comfort and ease. Here we made quite a stop, first of all quenching our thirst with bubud, beer, cocoanut milk, anything, everything, for we had ridden nearly all the way so far ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... like a deer that hears the crackle of a twig behind it. Here in the deep brazen voice of the marriage bells ringing out in the belfry above him he thought he heard the answer his incantation had forced from the white man's Okee. But the voice was so terrible, so loud, that, forgetting the shaman's injunctions, forgetting everything but his need to escape, he ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... 9th—A Movement regulating the Clock as a repeater to strike or be silent. 10th—Saturn, the God of Time, who beats in movement while the organ plays. 11th—A circle of the face shows the names of eight celebrated tunes played by the organ in the interior of the cabinet every four hours. 12th—A Belfry with six ringers, who ring a merry peal ad libitum; the interior of this part of the cabinet is ornamented with beautiful paintings, representing some of the principal ancient Buildings of the city of Exeter. 13th—Connected with the organ there is a Bird Organ, which plays when required. This ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... tread of its Sabbath feet, Walled about by its basement stones, Lie the marvellous preacher's bones. No saintly honors to them are shown, No sign nor miracle have they known; But he who passes the ancient church Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch, And ponders the wonderful life of him Who lies at rest in that charnel dim. Long shall the traveller strain his eye From the railroad car, as it plunges by, And the vanishing town behind him search For the slender spire of the Whitefield Church; And feel for one moment the ghosts ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... these all to assure me that, after a year of melancholy and eventful absence, I looked again upon the precincts of home. A little farther on rose the gray wall and tower of the library and belfry, half concealed by its heavy coating of ivy, glossy and dark, and shutting away all other view of the mansion. Beyond these last was the pavilion my father had built for the playhouse of his children, through the open lattice-door of which ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... pictures in my Scripture Catechism—pictures which I did not doubt were authentic copies; and what more respectable and venerable architectural precedent could any one desire? Its double rows of windows, of which I knew the number by heart, its doors with great wooden quirls over them, its belfry projecting out at the east end, its steeple and bell, all inspired as much sense of the sublime in me as Strasbourg Cathedral itself; and the inside was ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... child, when you order anything again, order it from me. At times my husband has bats in his belfry, and it does no good to talk to him. Believe me, on my word, it will be done by Saturday. Good-bye. (Exit Boy.) You see, my dear Antonius, how it goes in our house. We lose one job after another ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... dwelling-houses. At Salem is still preserved one of the early churches. The second and more dignified form of New England meeting-house was usually a square wooden building with a truncated pyramidal roof, surmounted often with a belfry, which served as a lookout station and held a bell, from which the bell-rope hung down to the floor in the centre of the church aisle. The old church at Hingham, Massachusetts, still standing and ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... standing where everybody has stood, opposite the great Belfry Tower of Bruges, and thinking, as every one has thought (though not, perhaps, said), that it is built in defiance of all decencies of architecture. It is made in deliberate disproportion to achieve the one startling ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... Mexican landmark which appealed to me most pathetically was the quaint rustic belfry which stood solitary in the open space in front of the Mission buildings. Its strong columns were the trunks of trees that looked as though they might have grown there for the purpose of shouldering the heavy cross-beams from which the chimes hung. Its smooth timbers had ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... the thoughts of the fated king. He had turned his face from the field, and his eyes were fixed upon the tower of the church behind. And while he so gazed, the knoll from the belfry began solemnly to chime. It was now near the hour of the Sabbath prayers, and amidst horror and carnage, still the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of fifty or sixty feet. During the war times they make use of these fires as signals from band to band, and each fire has a conventional meaning. Like the phares that flashed the alarm from hill-top to hill-top or the tocsin that sang from belfry to belfry in the Basse Bretagne, in the days of the rising of the Vendee, so those beacons would communicate as swiftly the tidings that one band or tribe had to convey to another. Again, speaking of the danger of fire-making, I will give an example of what those ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... and most the same color. They say she's a wise old girl though,—carries on three diff'rent business propositions left by her late string of husbands, goes in deep for classical music, and is some kind of a high priestess in the theosophy game. A bit faddy, I judged, with maybe a few bats in her belfry. ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... of all good! but she is a brave lass, and a right and stout one, and fit to be helpmate to any knight-errant that is or is to be, who may make her his lady: the whoreson wench, what sting she has and what a voice! I can tell you one day she posted herself on the top of the belfry of the village to call some labourers of theirs that were in a ploughed field of her father's, and though they were better than half a league off they heard her as well as if they were at the foot of the tower; and the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... build a beautiful human creature than a beautiful dome or steeple—and more delightful to look up reverently to a creature far above us, than to a wall; only the beautiful human creature will have some duties to do in return—duties of living belfry ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the walls of the houses were hot to the touch. The limes in the narrow avenue leading to the west door of the great church of St. Mary stood breathless and still. The ancient church itself looked as if it pondered gravely on what had been and what was to be; and the tall windows of the belfry, with their wooden louvres, seemed to be solemn half-shut eyes. At the south side of the church, connected with it by a wooden cloister, stood a tall house of grey stone. In a room looking out upon the graveyard sate two men. The room had an austere air; its ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... this purpose had to pass through the schoolroom, where sat Master Parker, teaching the A B C and playing the fiddle at intervals. He was as clever with his tongue as with his fiddlestick, the big schoolmaster; and while helping the sweet little maiden to wind the clock in the belfry, he told her wonderful tales of his doings in foreign lands, and of his travels through many countries. And now the old, old story, as ancient as the hills, was played over again once more. It was no very difficult task for the clever ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... caused him to make. He put spurs to his horse, dashed down the little, narrow, ill-paved street, through the deserted plaza, and pulled up in a cloud of dust before the only remaining tower, with its cracked belfry, of the half-ruined Mission church. A new dormitory and school-building had been extended from its walls, but in a subdued, harmonious, modest way, quite unlike the usual glaring white-pine glories of provincial towns. Steptoe laughed to himself bitterly. ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... spraying silver on a ruddy soil where glimmered irrigation tanks and grinding mills, we came upon a large, irregular clump of white buildings grouped together, and made one by a high wall with an open belfry at ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... certainly be counted the best part of San Francisco. It is there that the millionaires are gathered together vying with each other in display. From thence, looking down over the business wards of the city, we can descry a building with a little belfry, and that is the Stock Exchange, the heart of San Francisco: a great pump we might call it, continually pumping up the savings of the lower quarters into the pockets of the millionaires upon the hill. But these same thoroughfares that enjoy for awhile so elegant a destiny have their lines prolonged ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in whispers, almost afraid to go in through the open ports. There was neither priest nor worshiper, yet they found all the evidences of use, by a congregation which Billy judged must be small from the number of the benches. Inter they climbed the earthquake-racked belfry, noting the hand-hewn timbers; and in the gallery, discovering the pure quality of their voices, Saxon, trembling at her own temerity, softly sang the opening bars of "Jesus Lover of My Soul." Delighted with the result, she leaned over the railing, gradually increasing her voice to its ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... up to glory, politically and socially and every which way, in a few years, and there's nothing to it. Grant's a good son, and a good brother, and a good friend and neighbor, but"—the Doctor pounds his chair arm vehemently, "there are bats, my dear, bats in his belfry just the same. Don't get excited when you see Grant mount his haystack to jump into the crack o' doom for the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... persisted, they called him a "nut", a "poor cheese"; they told him that he was "cuckoo", that his "trolley was twisted"; they made whirling motions with their hands to indicate that he had "wheels in his head", they made flapping motions over him to signify that there were "bats in his belfry". So Jimmie subsided, and let them talk their own talk—imploring one another to "have a heart", or to "get wise", or to "make it snappy", or to "cut out the rough stuff". And he would sit and listen while they sang with zest a song telling ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... victims, surrounded by parapets, yet stands in the midst of the ruined abodes of those who used to gather under its roof; it is to-day converted into a fortress. The few soldiers of the post are the only human beings that inhabit these deserts for many leagues around; its old walls, its belfry, widowed of its bells, are all that indicates to the traveller that ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... mountain. Add to this instinct the frequent necessity of points of elevation for watch-towers, or of points of offense, as in towers built on the ramparts of cities, and, finally, the need of elevations for the transmission of sound, as in the Turkish minaret and Christian belfry, and you have, I think, a sufficient explanation of the tower-building of the world in general. Look through your Bibles only, and collect the various expressions with reference to tower-building there, and you will have a very complete idea of the ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... prisoners had all sorts of requests. He listened to them quietly, in impenetrable silence, and never fulfilled any of their requests, because they were all in disaccord with the regulations. Just as Nekhludoff drove up to the old General's house, the high notes of the bells on the belfry clock chimed "Great is the Lord," and then struck two. The sound of these chimes brought back to Nekhludoff's mind what he had read in the notes of the Decembrists [the Decembrists were a group who attempted, but failed, to put an end to absolutism in Russia at the time of ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... in his ears ever since morning, he turned up to the right again, and only felt safe when he at last stood before the great doorway, where he could not be seen from the parsonage. The front of the church, quite bare and worn by the sunshine and rain of years, was crowned by a narrow open stone belfry, in which a small bell showed its black silhouette, whilst its rope disappeared through the tiles. Six broken steps, on one side half buried in the earth, led up to the lofty arched door, now cracked, smothered with dust and rust and ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... belfry railing, waist high and sheeted with metal save four holes, for air, at the base, where he could thrust his rifle through as he ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... Slowly his arms sank, the thin hands strove to fold themselves—fell apart, and, sighing rapturously, Friar Martin sank back upon his pillows like one that is weary, and, with the sigh, was dead. And lo! in that same moment, from tower and belfry near and far, rose a sudden wild and gladsome clamour of bells ringing out peal on peal of rapturous joy, insomuch that those who knelt beside that couch of death lifted bowed heads—eye questioning eye in a ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... These straggling French towns give no opportunity for a shelter. I saw that I should have to get out beyond the market gardens, and that it might be a mile or two before I found any rest. A clock struck one. I looked up and saw it was from the belfry of one of those new chapels which the monks are building everywhere, nor did I forget to curse the monks in my heart for building them. I cursed also those who started smelting works in the Moselle valley; those who gave false advice to travellers; those ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... many other of our finest edifices have been constructed. The tower has below an entrance doorway, finished with rich mouldings and tracery; on each side are the arms of his Majesty and the City of London. Above is a clock with three dials, and a belfry to admit the fine set of bells[2] from the old church, the sound of which will doubtless receive effect through the four large upper windows which are the main features of the tower. Above these windows, the tower, hitherto square, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... 1816, founded the chapel of San Antonio de Pala, twenty miles east from San Luis Rey: to which place were removed the Palatingwas, or Agua Calientes, evicted a few years ago from Warner's Ranch. This chapel has the picturesque campanile, or small detached belfry, the pictures of which are known ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... Mr. Ombos,' I thought as I looked at his shrivelled fearsome figure, 'has turned your head. There are certainly a few bats in your belfry. You will find your way into an asylum before many weeks ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... the belfry!" Jimmie grinned. "Knocked off a shingle and brought away a piece of it! Now, why did the Chink run away? That's what ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... successful against their enemies, impatient of anything like slavery; vastly fond of great noises that fill the ear, such as the firing of cannon, drums, and the ringing of bells, so that it is common for a number of them, that have got a glass in their heads, to go up into the belfry, and ring the bells for hours together for the sake of exercise. If they see a foreigner very well made, or particularly handsome, they will say, "It is a pity ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... respectable inhabitants of the town, when it was understood that the Rector had, for the first time since his induction to his living, given permission for the bells to greet the happy pair. After, however, sounding a merry peal a short hour and a half, a message was received at the belfry that the Rector thought they had rung long enough. The tardiness with which this mandate was obeyed soon brought the rev. gentleman in person to enforce his order, which was then reluctantly complied with to the great disappointment of the inhabitants, and mortification of the ringers, several ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... arm with the nude Friday. No, it was not this: the memory of a vanished respectability called for some outward manifestation, and the result was—an umbrella. A pious castaway might have rigged up a belfry and solaced his Sunday mornings with the mimicry of church-bells; but Crusoe was rather a moralist than a pietist, and his leaf-umbrella is as fine an example of the civilised mind striving to express itself under adverse circumstances ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the public offices, the nearness of the chapel made our situation what is called eligible in advertisements, and gave us a side look on some native life. Every morning, as soon as he had fed the fowls, Taniera set the bell agoing in the small belfry; and the faithful, who were not very numerous, gathered to prayers. I was once present: it was the Lord's day, and seven females and eight males composed the congregation. A woman played precentor, starting with a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mr. Walden! see Christ Church!" Miss Newville exclaimed. "Tower, belfry, turret, and steeple are glazed with frozen ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... this chimney of mine was, for size, a sort of belfry, for ding-donging at me about it, my wife and daughters were a sort of bells, always chiming together, or taking up each other's melodies at every pause, my wife the key-clapper of all. A very sweet ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... one who has no need of them. Of course, by-and-by, they'll atrophy and disappear like the tails of our ancestors. Meanwhile, I suppose they are bound to get sore. Mine is such a fierce, ill-bred, impudent sort of a brain, and it's as busy as a bat in a belfry. I often wish that I had one of those soft, flexible, paralytic, cocker-spaniel brains, like that of our friend Mrs. Seavey. She is so happy with it—so unterrified. She is equally at home in bed or on horseback, reading the last best seller ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... forcibly before our minds the stern conditions of republican life in mediaeval Italy. A block of houses had to be bought from the family of Foraboschi; and their tower, called Torre della Vacca, was raised and turned into the belfry of the Priors. There was not room enough, however, to construct the palace itself with right angles, unless it were extended into the open space where once had stood the houses of the Uberti, "traitors to Florence and Ghibellines." In destroying ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... Only to the student deeply read in Elizabethan politics do these mean to-day what must have been patent to the inner circle at Elizabeth's court. Those symbols of Mr. Yeats that we may understand intuitively, as we may "The white owl in the belfry sits," other generations also may understand, but hardly those that have meanings known only to a coterie. But we may read Spenser with enjoyment even if all the inner allegories are missed, and so, too, many read ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... wicket, passed through, floundered over the melancholy mounds that strewed God's acre, and reached the square, stone stump upon which the wooden spire was reared, and in which hung the bells. The door was on the latch, the lower part of the belfry being used as a storehouse for odds and ends of stone, wood, and rope belonging to the church itself. Windybank knew his bearings fairly well. He found the staircase, and began to wend upwards to the bell-chamber. ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... had a high steeple which overlooked the whole country. He left one of his spools outside, and then, easily creeping with the other under one of the great doors, he carried it with infinite pains and labor up into the belfry. ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... will publish to-day the Landgravine's canonisation, and translate her to the new church prepared for her. Alack, now, that all the world should be out sight-seeing and saint- making, and we laid up here, like two lame jackdaws in a belfry! ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... "The Belfry Pigeon," Mr Willis has expressed most truthfully the feelings and thoughts which all have had for this gentle ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... the nightshade's root, Nor sound of service is ever heard, Except from throat of the unclean bird, Hooting to unassoiled shapes as they pass In midnights unholy his witches' mass, Or shouting "Ho! ho!" from the belfry high As the Devil's sabbath-train whirls by; But once a year, on the eve of All-Souls, Through these arches dishallowed the organ rolls, Fingers long fleshless the bell-ropes work, The chimes peal muffled with sea-mists mirk, The skeleton windows are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... inscription in the old choir, torn down in 1877, stated that the building was finished in 1540. It is probable that the original plans called for an even loftier building. One of the towers first projected was begun, but it was never concluded and the belfry is still a temporary one. Of late years there have been attempts to provide for the completion of this tower by popular subscription. The building has been damaged repeatedly by earthquakes and the repairs made have changed its original outer appearance on the plaza side. In its roof there ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... interesting! Now, what's that bell for?' he went on, pointing to an old ship's bell in a rude belfry at the end of an outhouse. 'Was that a chapel once?' The red-eyed giant seemed to have difficulty in expressing himself for the moment ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... She told me what had happened in the village, how a cow had escaped from the cowhouse and had been found the next morning in front of Prosper Malet's mill, looking at the sails turning, or about a hen's egg, which had been found in the church belfry without anyone being able to understand what creature had been there to lay it, or the story of Jean-Jean Pila's dog, who had been ten leagues to bring back his master's breeches, which a tramp had stolen while ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... ancient of all mechanical puzzles. Its origin is unknown. Cardan, the mathematician, wrote about it in 1550, and Wallis in 1693; while it is said still to be found in obscure English villages (sometimes deposited in strange places, such as a church belfry), made of iron, and appropriately called "tiring-irons," and to be used by the Norwegians to-day as a lock for boxes and bags. In the toyshops it is sometimes called the "Chinese rings," though there seems to ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... and it was dark, but Ralph knew by the scent that came in on the light wind, and a little stir of blended sounds, that it was hard on dawning; and even therewith he heard the challenge of the warders on the walls and their crying of the hour; and the chimes of the belfry rang clear and loud, and seeming close above him, two hours and a half after midnight. Roger spake not, and Ralph was man-at-arms enough to know that he must hold his peace; and though he longed sore to have his horse Falcon with him, yet he wotted that it ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... are supposed to be sung by a mediaeval prisoner who cannot sleep; and who, to beguile the tediousness of his insomnia, sets any words that come into his head to the tune of the chime which marks the hours from a neighboring belfry. I tried to fancy that his name was Pasquier de la Mariere, and that he was ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... rather remote. It was commonly referred to as "Worcester's dream," and one of my friends in the army medical corps probably quite correctly voiced public sentiment when he said, "Poor Worcester has bats in his belfry." However, he laughs best who laughs last! After the lapse of a good many years my dream came true. The three great institutions which I hoped might sometime be established are to-day in existence, and are doing the work which I hoped that they might perform. Now let us consider ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... from the building; it is within the square, but unconnected. The west door is decorated with the most elaborated carvings of flowers, images of angels, and figures of the apostles; the interior is plain. To the right is a handsome tower and belfry, and above the altar a large stone cupola. Behind the church is a long range of rooms for the missionaries, with a corridor of nine arches in front. The Texan troops were long quartered here, and, although always intoxicated, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... had once seen, in marching by, the belfry of his village!' I continued. 'The circumstance is quaint enough. It seems to bind up into one the whole bundle of those human instincts that make life beautiful, and people and places dear—and from which it would ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... His eyes penetrate the masks and wrappings which cover human nature, as the Rontgen rays penetrate the human body. He sees a man's heart through the flesh and bones, and knows what is concealed in it. He ascends a church-steeple, and looking down from the belfry the whole life of the town is spread out before him. Men and women come and go—Hawthorne knows the errands they are on. He sees a militia company parading below, and they remind him from that elevation of the toy soldiers in a shop-window,—which ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... Christendom, teachers strive to enlarge the mental range of their pupils, readily assenting to Voltaire's well-known definition of an educated man: "One who is not satisfied to survey the universe from his parish belfry." Everywhere else, the intellectual class have some sense of the ill-consequences of "breeding in and in," and take care to infuse into their minds the vigor of new ideas and the nourishment of strange knowledge. How impossible for a Northern State to ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... Santa Fe. It stood twenty miles east of Santa Fe on the old trail. The walls were built of adobe, the doors were round-topped and built of solid hewed timbers, with wooden hinges, wooden latches. When I first saw the old ruins it had a belfry on the top of it with a rounded topped opening in it the same as the doors below. This church was built on the plan of a fort. When it was originally built it was the storage place for all kinds of ammunition, Roman spears, shields, ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... two small knocks with his heel, and Troy went right up into the darkness; the cow-punch grabbed him, cut his lines, and said: "Skin, you sucker! Hike along the edge and jump out the belfry." ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... fence, to run and swim, and to swarm up a ship's ladder if need be. How could any lad be idle these last nineteen days, with fathers and brothers patrolling the wharves day and night to keep the tea from landing; when patriot sentinels are stationed in every belfry; and when all Beacon Hill is topped with tar-barrels ready to blaze out into signals at a moment's notice. I tell you—my very dreams are of defiance! But my deeds—what can a lad do when he goes through life halting? A maimed foot makes ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... man been on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and doubtless profited by his travels and the opportunity afforded of inspecting some of the architectural marvels of the Romano-Byzantine engineers. Although Gundulf had rebuilt the cathedral of Rochester, to which he added the large detached belfry tower that still bears his name, built other church towers at Dartford, and St. Leonard's, West Malling (long erroneously supposed to have been an early Norman castle keep),[11] and founded at ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... close to a hundred buildings, ranging from small cabins to a structure with a belfry. It seemed to have been a church, partly ruined in the war of two centuries ago and ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... instantly ordered that no one should leave the town. But Dr. Warren was before him, and, as the troops crossed the river, Paul Revere was rowing over the river farther down to Charlestown, having agreed with his friend, Robert Newman, to show lanterns from the belfry of ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... actually raised. This tower at Ypres, however, fails to illustrate—perhaps because it is earlier, and therefore in better taste—that astounding disproportion in height that is so frequently exhibited by Belgian towers, as at Malines, or in the case of the famous belfry in the market-place at Bruges, when considered with reference to the church, or town hall, below. In front of the High Altar, in the pavement, is an inconspicuous square of white stone, which marks the burial-place of Cornelius Jansen, who died of the plague, ...
— Beautiful Europe - Belgium • Joseph E. Morris
... outskirts of the hamlet there used to be a large factory. Only the iron framework of this factory remained; the ashes had commenced to smoke, giving forth flames from time to time. Here also every house had been destroyed and pillaged. Only the church remained standing, and on the belfry which was silhouetted against the sky, the weather cock ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... the same wide river upon whose crowded shore now stands the great city of New York; the same fair river above whose banks now towers the noble front of the massive State Capitol at Albany. And that lofty edifice stands not far from the very spot where, beneath the pyramidal belfry of the old Dutch church, the boy patroon sat nodding through Dominie Westerlo's sermon, one drowsy July Sunday in ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... John's old belfry was pulled down and Jean Mauser de Carnot, who asserted he had excavated 11,300 basketfuls of rubbish, was paid at the rate of twelve deniers the hundred for the work. Evidently these were good times for the basket makers as well as builders. December 22, 1340, three contractors, Isnard and Raymond ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... S. from Cole Green Station, G.N.R.), has a stone church erected early in the seventeenth century. It has a wooden belfry and spire. The building was restored in 1856-7, but contains little of architectural or historical interest. There are, however, several memorials, notably the altar table in memory of Bishop Ken, born in the parish in 1637. On a hill N.E. from the church stands ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... fanes, Moss-grown and ivied o'er Bearing long centuries' darkened stains On belfry and turrets hoar— A hundred years and more hast thou Thy shadow o'er us cast; And we claim thee in our country's youth As a land-mark of ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... the royal comrades stand beside the gigantic monument in the centre of the Great Market, and above the shouting of the multitude the music of the old belfry floats unheard. Ghent and Antwerp have put on their glad raiment, and in their crooked streets and crowded squares joy flows like a river surging as it goes. Into Brussels I see this man and woman ride ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... grandmother once went to school, and told them that perhaps some day they would go there too. Katy's heart gave a strange leap; it was such a tremendous thing to think of, but instantly the suggestion was transformed for her into one of the certainties of life. She looked with solemn awe at the tall belfry, and the long rows of windows in the front of the academy, there where it stood high and white among the clustering trees. She hoped that they were going to drive by, but something forbade her taking the responsibility ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of the beach, now garlanded with lines of fresh seaweed torn up and washed ashore by the gale, were scattered a half dozen fishhouses, with dories and lobster pots before them, and at the rear of these began the gray and white huddle of houses and stores, with two white church spires and the belfry of the schoolhouse rising ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... making a good deal of noise, but no water began to squirt, which did not matter (for the hose was all cracked, and would not have conveyed it); and at last everything was packed up again, and, the fire being out for want of more food, the engine was dragged back to its dwelling-place in the belfry, to go on growing older and ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... had come. The church of the village Stood gleaming white in the morning's sheen. On the spire of the belfry, Tipped with a vane of metal, the friendly frames of the Spring-sun Glanced like the tongues of fire, beheld by Apostles aforetime. Clear was the heaven and blue, and May, with her cap crowned with roses, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... leave my work to get no leather to-day, Mester. Soon as I've putt in these here four nails, I'm gooing over to belfry." ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... has announced that he will not ring the great bell of St. Paul's. The DEAN and Chapter, while regretting that Sir WILLIAM DUNN should be deprived of a health-giving exercise, had, as a point of fact, declined to countenance his contemplated invasion of their belfry. ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... focus at last, however, by their arrival at Charlotte Bedford's lodgings, which, like most houses in the town, had a lookout or belfry fitted with green blinds and a telescope, and had a green-painted ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
