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It was exactly twelve o'clock by the chiming timepiece in the hall. Just the hour for such a task, I felt with a sort of shiver, as Sir John came down to the pantry, where I had candles ready, and a small crowbar used for opening packing-cases, and a screw-driver. "Everybody seems quiet up-stairs, Burdon," says Sir John, "so let's get to work at once. But, hillo! just put out a lamp?"
I was in such good time, indeed, that old Saint Thomas's clock in High Street was only just chiming Eight; while the ships' bells over the water were repeating the same piece of information in various tones and the shrill steam whistle from the dockyard workshops hard by screeching its confirmation of the story.
The Marble Faun suggests the problem as to whether he has for an instant stopped laughing, or will not immediately laugh; and what has a little while ago, or will suddenly cause, the animal fury of gladness to turn this jocund athlete into a dancing, bewilderingly enticing companion, chiming with guffaws and songs.
I suppose you had some good reason for so doing?" remarked the colonel, chiming into the conversation. "I had no less than three good reasons for leaving the hull of the ship unpainted," answered the professor. "In the first place, aethereum is quite insensible to the attacks of air and water it never oxidises, and paint was therefore unnecessary for its preservation.
It was quite midnight the hush of all things around had grown more intense and profound there was a wonderful might of silence in the shining air and amidst the shadows thrown by the near banks and the distant hills over the water. So that as the music chiming in with the oars grew fainter and fainter, it is impossible to describe the thrilling and magical effect it produced.
The chiming of church bells came gaily towards them through the frosty air, and Babette knew that her terrible journey was well-nigh ended. At the entrance of the town the stranger stopped. "Good-bye," she said, curtly; "I am late for the market, and must sell my eggs quickly or shall not get my price."
The noise of the people at work in the city resounded in the air, the chiming of the church-bells was wafted from the distance over this solitary dwelling; but as no sound arose from the habitation itself, the distant hum from an active multitude rendered the silence of the spot all the more striking.
Cynics have sometimes denounced Christians as worse than the heathens, in requiring loud church-bells to summon them to worship. Such, it appears, are putting the case rather thoughtlessly. Mohammedans have their muezzins, while both Christians and idolaters have their chiming bells.
Thus it is there today and thus it was long ago, when the happy pair were sailing in the beautiful ship. It was a Sunday, towards the end of September; the sun was shining, and the chiming of the church bells in the Bay of Nissum was carried along by the breeze like a chain of sounds. The churches there are almost entirely built of hewn blocks of stone, each like a piece of rock.
Baptists immersed, Presbyterians sprinkled, Methodists shouted, and Episcopalians read their prayers, while ministers of the various sects preached that Christ died for all. The chiming of the bells seemed to mock the sighs and deep groans of the forty human beings then incarcerated in the slave-pen.
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