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The crashing peals of a dozen large bells banged violently with clapper instead of softly struck with hammer, the exasperating dong, or ding, dong, of the Ritualist temple over the way, or the hoarse, gong-like roar of Big Ben that is all we know about bells in London, and no form of church discipline could be more ferocious.
This is a sort of machine eloquence; she deafens you with her tears, with her words which come jerked out in confusion; it is the clapper and torrent of a mill. French women and especially Parisians possess in a marvelous degree the secret by which such scenes are enacted, and to these scenes their voices, their sex, their toilet, their manner give a wonderful charm.
He was, alas! as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; one of those who make no music unless the clapper be silver. In the course of a few days, the sailors, like the doctor and myself, were cajoled out of everything, and our "tayos," all round, began to cool off quite sensibly.
Now and then a maiden going by, with a tray of her best cooking which she carried to her young man as a sign that she had accepted him, would throw me a morsel, and at evenings the priests would come out of the kivas and strike with a clapper of deer's shoulder on a flint gong to call the people to the dancing-places."
Whether bronze bell or wooden clapper was used, three preliminary strokes were given by way of warning, and it therefore became inexpedient to designate any of the hours "one," "two," or "three." Accordingly the initial number was four, and the day being divided into six hours, instead of twelve, the highest number became nine, which corresponded to the Occidental twelve.*
When this instrument is struck on the ground it digs a shallow hole an inch or more in depth, the clapper meanwhile keeping up an incessant noise. It is said by some that the rattle is intended to please the guardian spirit of the fields, but this does not seem to be the prevalent idea. The women follow the men, dropping seeds into the holes and pushing the soil over them with their feet.
It had a fence around it, and blended with the whiteness of the fence were a few gravestones. About eleven o'clock Westerfelt saw a negro boy climb a ladder leaning against the side of the church and creep along the edge of the roof to the open cupola and grasp the clapper of the cast-iron bell. Then it began to toll.
"I thought I should have snorted right out two or three times," said the Clockmaker; "I had to pucker up my mouth like the upper eend of a silk puss, to keep from yawhawin' in her face, to hear the critter let her clapper run that fashion. She is not the first hand that has caught a lobster, by puttin' in her oar afore her turn, I guess. She'll mind her steps next hitch, I reckon."
He's short on tongue this mornin'. Ketched a bad cold night before last. Settled on his word-mill. Unjinted his clapper. Can't speak a word. Doctor says it will last several days. Not a great affliction. Couldn't 've lost anything o' less account." "Must've bin an orful cold," said she, taking her pipe from her mouth and eyeing Si suspiciously.
She remained nearly an hour, planted on a chair, watching with a sort of stupor the turning of the fan of this word-mill, whose clapper kept up such an incessant noise.
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