"Curfew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... surroundings, that he had somehow wandered into a definitely low-class neighborhood. Around him were the stark, plain housing groups of Class Six families. The streets were more dimly lit, and there was almost no one on the street, since it was after curfew time for Sixes. The nearest pedestrian was a ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... best of all, the legends of our own. I see him, a silver-haired minstrel, touching melodious keys, playing and singing in the twilight, within sound of the rote of the sea. There he lingers late; the curfew-bell has tolled and the darkness closes round, till at last that tender voice is silent, and he softly moves unto ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... of storm. Minor tempests that burst from a clear sky, apparently without cause, and the great final tornado. There had been cause enough for that. Why was it, mused Mr Ferguson, that every girl in every country town in every county of England who had ever recited 'Curfew shall not ring tonight' well enough to escape lynching at the hands of a rustic audience was seized with the desire to come to London ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... thought. "People awake! Some student or some saint, confound the crew! Can't they get drunk and lie in bed snoring like their neighbours? What's the good of curfew, and poor devils of bell-ringers jumping at a rope's end in bell-towers? What's the use of day, if people sit up all night? The gripes to them!" He grinned as he saw where his logic was leading him. "Every man to his business, after all," added he, "and if they're awake, by the Lord, I ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... floated overhead; a voice from the old time, an admonition of mortality in strains sweet to the ear of childhood. Harvey had but to listen, and the days of long ago came back to him. Above all, when at evening rang the curfew. Stealing apart to a bowered corner of the garden, he dreamed himself into the vanished years, when curfew-time was bed-time, and a hand with gentle touch led him from his play to that long sweet slumber which is the child's ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... their midst; from the stone hall a stone stair leads to the various chambers above; in the outer walls the windows are high and narrow; each is filled with old painted glass. A strong, grim building, this; and when the iron gates are locked, as they are every night when the curfew bell—an ancient institution jealously kept up in Hathelsborough—rings from St. Hathelswide's tower, a man might safely wager his all to nothing that only modern artillery could effect an entrance to its dark and ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... itself, as if it wanted to hush the little birds asleep in their varied leafy cradles. The very cattle, that had been seen lying lazily out of the heat under the beech-trees, had ceased their lowings. In fact, Nature had rung her curfew bell, and the sentry stars were coming out, one by ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... is but one among so many of their bells that seems to toll with a spiritual music so loud as to be unforgotten when the mind goes up a little higher than the earth, to listen in thought to earth's untethered sounds. This is Milton's curfew, that sways across one of the greatest of all the ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... In weeds of Greek the church-yard's peace annoys, With classic Weston, Charley Coote and Tew, In dismal dance about the mournful yew. But first in notes Sicilian placed on high, Bates sounds the soft precluding symphony; And in sad cadence, as the bands condense, The curfew tolls the knell ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... sore oppressed with long travel. Penury and misfortune have been my lot, and I am driven from place to place without a home or a morsel of bread. Last night, long after the curfew, I came hither, but no hospitium or religious house being near, I sat down by the hill-side yonder, until morning should enable me to crave help for my hopeless journey. The morning had not dawned ere I awoke—a ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... and heavier, the stars came out, and still the fire blazed up brightly and the girls continued to sing songs and tell stories and drink in the vigor and inspiration of the scene. At last, however, the Guardian announced that it was 9 o'clock, which was Flamingo's curfew, and there was a general move to extinguish the fire, which by this time had been allowed ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... island. There is much amusing and instructive episodical matter; but this is the main action. To us, we will own, nothing is so interesting and delightful as to contemplate the steps by which the England of Domesday Book, the England of the Curfew and the Forest Laws, the England of crusaders, monks, schoolmen, astrologers, serfs, outlaws, became the England which we know and love, the classic ground of liberty and philosophy, the school of all knowledge, the mart of all trade. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the hall was a very lively place. If it was at all cold weather there was a great fire in the ingle-nook, and a girl was sure to be found in the hall playing on the grand piano or on the beautiful organ, or singing in her sweet voice; but now all was deadly silence. Even the dogs, Curfew and Tocsin, were nowhere to be seen. There was no Magsie to talk to. Magsie had gone ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... rule—'No Rules!' O, of course male noddies Will snigger at once, the superior bodies! But OSCAR WILDE must 'pull up his socks,' Ere he'll equal women at paradox. What I mean is this, in our 'Women's Hotel,' We'll have no such thing as the 'Curfew Bell,' And no fixed hour for the cry, 'Out lights!' We will give free way to true 'Woman's Rights,' Which are to thump, strum, tap, twirl, trill, From morn till night at her own sweet will. That's why we cherish, despite male spleen, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... charity school. And that was not like a happy real home, for the little Brothers were rough and rude and far from loving one another. He had started at dusk from the school, hoping to be at the village church before curfew. For Pierre had a sweet little voice, and he was to earn a few pennies by singing in the choir on Christmas morning. But it was growing late. The church would be closed and the Cure gone home before Pierre could reach it; and then what should ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine, Hath hurtful power ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... tale of ghost, or pigmy sprite, Is stripp'd by theme more cheerful of its power, The song employs the early dim of night, Till village-curfew counts a later hour. ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... a week or two after Myles had come to Devlen—Blunt was called to attend the Earl at livery. The livery was the last meal of the day, and was served with great pomp and ceremony about nine o'clock at night to the head of the house as he lay in bed. Curfew had not yet rung, and the lads in the squires' quarters were still wrestling and sparring and romping boisterously in and out around the long row of rude cots in the great dormitory as they made ready for the night. ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... equal to this part of the occasion. She recited "Curfew shall not Ring Tonight," and played Haydn's "Gipsy Rondo." Joanna began ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... The stars twinkled overhead, the sandman was abroad, curfew sounded through the dunes, ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... the only strictly native, original, and typical sound he reports on that occasion. The bleating of sheep, the barking of dogs, the lowing of cattle, the splash of the bucket in the well, "the pastoral curfew of the cowbell," etc., are sounds we have heard before in poetry, but that clatter of the pasture bars is American; one can almost see the waiting, ruminating cows slowly stir at the signal, and ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... hole, and the groaning ropes of the old dummy" the girls were howling and tumbling around in a pretty good imitation of Madam Z herself. They shuddered, acted the spook, and Judith proclaimed something like the old "Curfew shall not" in her swing out the window that she imagined went with the wild night's terrors. This detail of Judith's upset things some, for she fell off the couch (her pedestal for the tragic act), and although ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... — N. evening, eve; decline of day, fall of day, close of day; candlelight, candlelighting[obs3]; eventide, nightfall, curfew, dusk, twilight, eleventh hour; sunset, sundown; going down of the sun, cock- shut, dewy eve, gloaming, bedtime. afternoon, postmeridian, p.m. autumn; fall, fall of the leaf; autumnal equinox; Indian summer, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... regularly kindled at curfew toll, and supplied with as much wood and charcoal as maintained the light till sunrise; and at no period was the ceremonial omitted, saving during the space intervening between the death of a Lord of the Castle and his interment. When this ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... "admirable," and the young lady seized the first opportunity of deserting Rachel, and plunging into the melee. Rachel sat on, sick with suspense, feeling utterly unable to quit her seat. Still they waited, the whole of the party were not arrived, and here was the curfew ringing, and that at the Deanery, which always felt injured if it were seven o'clock before people were in the dining-room! Grace must be upstairs dressing, but to ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets, that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid (Weak masters tho' ye be) I have be-dimm'd The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds, And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder Have I giv'n fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak With his own bolt; ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... "off to the Moat House, and send all other laggards the same gate. Bowyer will give you jack and salet. We must ride before curfew. Look to it: him that is last at the lych-gate Sir Daniel shall reward. Look to it right well! I know you for a man of naught.—Nance," he added, to one of the women, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... can you tell me about the curfew?" The first boy was well up in the curfew, and rattled off a "full, true, and particular account" of that fine old English institution, much to everybody's satisfaction. The Doctor went on repeating two or three verses till ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... the narrer-gage comin' in on one side, an' the Montreal flyer the other, an' the old bridge teeterin' between?" said the Deacon. "Kin you put your nose down on the cow-catcher of a locomotive when you're waitin' at the depot an' let 'em play 'Curfew shall not ring to-night' ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... gathered in the markets and restaurants of Pekin, without much regard to their cleanliness. There is an immense quilt of thick felt the exact size of the hall, and raised and lowered by means of mechanism. When the curfew tolls the knell of parting day, the beggars flock to this house, and are admitted on payment of a small fee. They take whatever places they like, and at an appointed time the quilt is lowered. Each lodger is at liberty to lie coiled up ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... worn by a citizen, and even the number of trees that might be planted in his garden. Each citizen had to serve his turn as watchman on the walls or in the streets at night. When the great bell in the belfry rang the "curfew," [7] at eight or nine o'clock, this was the signal for every one to extinguish lights and fires and go to bed. It was a useful precaution, since conflagrations were common enough in the densely packed wooden houses. After curfew the streets ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... what," I asked, "would be the effect were he to tell you to put all your fires out at eight o'clock?" "If he were so to order, we should do it; but we know that he will not." But who does know to what General Halleck or other generals may come, or how soon a curfew-bell may be ringing in American towns? The winning of liberty is long and tedious; but the losing it is a down-hill, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... the keys of the castle do not leave the belt of the old steward; when curfew is rung and he has made his rounds to make sure that all the doors are fast shut, he gives them up to William Douglas, who, if he stays up, fastens them to his sword-belt, or, if he sleeps, puts them under his pillow. For five months, Little Douglas, whom everyone is accustomed to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of influence, and he's always Johnny-on-the-Spot to turn any dirty trick that they want. There are four or five rich men in town who are there with the bank-roll, providing he engages women who ain't so very particular about the location of their residence, and who don't hear a curfew ring at ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... that his hearer, though fairly educated, would regard hypotheses as intense intellectual luxuries, prized academically, but without a place in the sane world without. He decided on saying:—"Of course, you would have documentary evidence." Then he felt that his tone had been ill-chosen—a curfew of the day's discussions, a last will and testament of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... and ordered him to be hanged [g]. It appears from a statute of Edward I. that these disorders were not remedied even in that reign. It was then made penal to go out at night after the hour of the curfew, to carry a weapon, or to walk without a light or lantern [h]. It is said in the preamble to this law, that, both by night and by day, there were continual frays in the streets of London. [FN [g] Ibid. p. 197, 198. [h] Observations on the ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... my warriors, Spaniard! but thou hast not kept thy time; Only two had sunk before thee ere I heard the curfew chime; Back thou goest to thy dungeon, and thou may'st be wondrous glad, That thy head is on thy shoulders for ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... left to the clerk in order that he may ring the curfew-bell, or a bell at night and early morning, so that travellers may be warned lest they should lose their way over wild moorland or bleak down, and, guided by the sound of the bell, may reach ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... Betty had taken a great deal of trouble to understand about the Norman Conquest herself, and to make it easy for Godfrey, but he would not take any interest to-day in the oppression of the poor Saxons, or the curfew bell, ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... from the general tenor of his communication, MR. GIBSON appears to labour under an impression, that, from ignorance of historical authorities, I have merely given utterance to a popular fallacy, unheard of by him and other learned men; and, like the "curfew," to be found in no contemporaneous writer. I beg, however, to assure him, that before forwarding the note and question to your paper, I had examined not only the Bulls, and our best historians, but also the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... a "view of an interior" to contemplate before facing the lower Thames. And first, as the day is fading, we seek the dimmest part. We dive into the crypt of the bell-tower, or the curfew-tower, that used to send far and wide to many a Saxon cottage the hateful warning that told of servitude. How old the base of this tower is nobody seems to know, nor how far back it has served as a prison. The oldest initials of state prisoners ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... after the curfew bell had rung the cab came. The dogs were not shut up this time, and they, and we, and the Arkwrights met in a very ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... vocal, while at the striking of the hours, the pious bowed their heads and the workmen heard the call for rest, or they took cheer, because their day's toil was over. At sunrise, noon, or sunset, the Angelus, and at night the curfew sounded ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... air those gaunt, quaint old camelbacks, with spindles or pinnacles astride. You cannot but love them for their strangeness and the surprise they make against the quiet sky. In Britain, too, you might have beheld this tendency, where the lordly curfew quenched the lights in castle and cot from beneath a very extinguisher of a roof. Now, as, in the natural growth of the human mind, the heart became more and more impregnated with the beauty of holiness, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... and, taking a hasty leave, the burghers disappeared noiselessly into the darkness, and Mr. Hattingh literally tore home across the veld on his bicycle, clearing holes and jumping over stones in his mad career. He was able to reach his home just in time to be under shelter when the "curfew" rang 10 o'clock, the hour at which all respectable citizens, carrying residential passes, were supposed ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... The curfew bell rang at nine o'clock; the lights were put out; and all had betaken themselves to their hammocks. The sentries (not a few,) passed backwards and forwards outside, or stood at ease in their boxes. The picquets went the rounds every ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... and Saint Benedight Blesse this house from wicked wight; From the night-mare and the goblin, That is hight good-fellow Robin; Keep it from all evil spirits, Fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets: From curfew ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... Boy Scouts, understanding that their honor was pledged when they gave their word, even to an enemy. Some of the restrictions applying to the other citizens of Amiens did not restrain them. They were allowed to be on the streets after the hour of curfew, for one thing. And between the scouts and a good many of the German privates and younger officers a relation almost friendly had been established. Frank, for instance, was welcomed at one Bavarian mess, which contained several soldiers who had studied at English ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... than it is at present. By the night, I mean that portion of time which Nature has thrown into darkness, and which the wisdom of mankind had formerly dedicated to rest and silence. This used to begin at eight o'clock in the evening, and conclude at six in the morning. The curfew, or eight o'clock bell, was the signal throughout the nation for putting out their candles ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... loud city's busy throngs Urge the warm bowl and splendid fire: Harmonious dances, festive songs, Against the spiteful heaven conspire. Meantime, perhaps, with tender fears Some village dame the curfew hears, While round the hearth her children play: At morn their father went abroad; The moon is sunk, and deep the road; She sighs, and ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... everything else in the room was neat and even elegant, this chair appeared to be more fit for the lumber-closet, the entire square of silk having been cut from the back, leaving the underlining of coarse striped cotton exposed to view. The tones of the curfew or "first bell," which may still be heard nightly in the seagirt old city, had just died away when a loud rap came from the heavy brass knocker on the street-door, and in a few moments old Billy appeared to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... the early morning swinging his dinner pail while with light steps he marched to the daily task in mill and factory, and whom he watched in the evening's dusk after the factory sirens had blown the working man's curfew, hurrying home anxious to reach his humble fireside, and for whom heretofore he had only known feelings of deepest contempt, suddenly had become a man who benefitted preciously far more of his life than any yegg ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... replied 'Bloaters.' The sentry replied, 'Advance, friend,' and the scene closed. You doubt this as ben trovato. Well, do not doubt any longer when I plead conviction in personal guilt. I was 'Bloaters.' Nevertheless, to an active sentrydom, as well as to vigilant curfew, we were becoming cheerfully accustomed. It is martial law, and the camp is the centre of Boerdom. Anything, indeed, is welcome, even martial law, if it relieves boredom ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... to her. The "cinque spotted cowslip bells" brought only thoughts of wine to her. When he was watching "certain stars shoot madly from their spheres," she most likely was grumbling at him for mooning there after curfew bell. When he was learning Nature's lore in "the fresh cup of the crimson rose," she was dinning in his ear that Hammet and Judith wanted worsted socks. When he was listening in fancy to the "sea-maid's ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him 35 When he comes back; you demi-puppets that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid— 40 Weak masters though ye be—I have bedimm'd The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds. And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... hour of supposed security, that loving group is broken up by the intrusion of death, and some one or more carried from the bosom of love to the cold and cheerless grave. The curfew-bell speaks the solemn truth, and warns the members that "in the midst of life they are in death." Where is the home that has not some memorial of departed ones,—a chair empty, a vacant seat at the table,—garments laid by,—ashes of the dead treasured up in the urn of memory! What sudden ravages ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... advise you not to exceed seven o'clock. But, to effect this, a sine qua non is, retiring early, say at eleven—(though really I am too liberal.)—When people were compelled to retire at the sound of the curfew, when ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... around. On a bed of green serge, similar in all respect to the other beds in the Bastile, save that it was newer, and under curtains half-drawn, reposed a young man, to whom we have already once before introduced Aramis. According to custom, the prisoner was without a light. At the hour of curfew, he was bound to extinguish his lamp, and we perceive how much he was favored, in being allowed to keep it burning even till then. Near the bed a large leathern armchair, with twisted legs, sustained his clothes. A little table—without pens, books, paper, or ink—stood ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with her back to the chateau; the curfew had tolled for the laborious villagers of Fleurieres, and the street was unlighted and empty. She promised him that he should have the marquis's manuscript in half an hour. Mrs. Bread choosing not to go in by ...
— The American • Henry James
... the face of day, The mantling mists of even-tide rise slow, As thro' the forest gloom I wend my way, The minster curfew's sullen roar I know; I pause and love its solemn toll to hear, As made by distance soft, it dies upon ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... along those lines, I'll let you know. If it's a beauty mask, I'll bring Daisy a pilot model—to use to scare strange kids." He put his watch to his ear. "Good lord, I'm going to have to cut to make it underground before the main doors close. Just ten minutes to Second Curfew! 'By, ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... the old lady; "as we cannot escape the Norman neighbourhood, or get beyond the sound of their curfew, it signifies not whether they be near our walls or more far off, so that they enter them, not. And, Berwine, bid Hundwolf drench the Normans with liquor, and gorge them with food—the food of the best, and liquor of the strongest. Let them not say the old Saxon hag is churlish of her ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... on fires that we ever heard of. You are thinking, probably, of the Curfew Tolls mentioned ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... U. alone has secured temperance measures of many kinds, including a law in every State requiring scientific temperance instruction in the public schools; in many States curfew laws, and statutes prohibiting the sale of cigarettes and of liquor on or near fair grounds, Soldiers' Homes and school-houses, and preventing gambling devices, immoral exhibits, etc. The Federation of Women's Clubs has obtained laws for free traveling libraries and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the dry smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering moon, Riding near her highest noon, Like one that had been led astray Through the heaven's wide pathless way, And oft, as if her head she bowed, Stooping through a fleecy cloud. Oft, on a plat of rising ground, I hear the far-off curfew sound, Over some wide-watered shore, Swinging slow with sullen roar; Or, if the air will not permit, Some still removed place will fit, Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... of Africa and Asia, and known what it is to be literally unable to dismount from a horse. Street lighting was in its early infancy. In Shakespeare's time every man of substance was compelled to hang a lighted lantern outside his house from dusk to curfew, during a few weeks of midwinter, and that ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... with their round cardboard tops; the cheese was never put on the same rack with the butter; the doors of the ice-box were carefully latched. Such observations, and the slow twinkle of the fire in the range, deep down under the curfew layer of coals, pleased him. In the cellar he peeped into the garbage can, for it was always a satisfaction to assure himself that Fuji did not waste anything that could be used. One of the laundry tub taps was dripping, ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... In the Curfew he quaintly and beautifully reminds us of the old couvre-feu bell of the days of William the Conqueror, a custom still kept up in many of the towns and hamlets of England, and some of our own towns and cities; ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the lovers met, and their interview was protracted beyond that at which they usually parted, by the delay of the priest to ring his usual curfew. No change took place upon the nymph's outward form; but as soon as the lengthening shadows made her aware that the usual hour of the vespers chime was passed, she tore herself from her lover's arms ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... that it would be more comfortable to be an Italian than a Yugoslav. The local Reading-Rooms, whose committee had received no previous warning, fell so greatly under the displeasure of the Italians that one night after ten o'clock—at which time curfew sounded for the Yugoslavs; the Italians and their friends could stay out until any hour—the premises were sacked: knives were used against the pictures, furniture was taken by assault, and mirrors ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... gargoyles, and the Norman south porch. From the tower, shot made from the organ pipes of the church was hurled at the castle during the siege. The clock was constructed while Elizabeth was queen and curfew is still rung daily from October to March at 8 p.m. Within the church may be seen the old altar frontal used prior to the Reformation, and the fifteenth-century font. Of much interest are the quotations ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... the town rang out the curfew,—a custom fallen elsewhere into desuetude, but still observed in the provinces, where venerable habits are abolished slowly. Though the lights were not put out, the watchmen of each quarter stretched the chains across the streets. Many doors were locked; ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... the dead. The good Lord will take care of them, and they don't cause him half as much sitting up at nights as the living do, and he always knows where to find them when the curfew blows. ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... tourists. Not far away are the ruins of the priory, which was founded at the same time as the castle. A dismantled gate-house with some rather extensive foundations are all that remain. In a little church near by the matins and the curfew are still tolled, one of the bells used having belonged to the priory. Few English ruins have more romance attached to them than those of Kenilworth, for the graphic pen of the best story-teller of Britain has interwoven them into one of ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... productions, unless his father took him to the theatre (as once in a while he did), for it was a strict rule of the house, until The Boy was well up in his teens, that he must be in by ten o'clock. His father did not ask him where he was going, or where he had been; but the curfew in Hubert Street tolled at ten. The Boy calculated carefully and exactly how many minutes it took him to run to Hubert Street from Brougham's or from Burton's; and by the middle of the second act his watch—a small silver affair with a hunting-case, ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... it was useless. He says that when a vowel ends a syllable it is long, and when it does not it is short. Apart from the confusion of cause and effect there is the error of identifying for instance the e in beatus and the e in habebat. Moreover, Walker confounds the u in 'curfew', really long, with the short and otherwise different u in 'but'. The rule was useless as a guide, for it did not say whether moneo for instance was to be read as ino-neo or as mon-eo, and therefore whether the o was to be long or short. Even Walker's list is no exact guide. ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... blind against the wanderer born Drops at his feet, and stills his droning horn. —The whistling swain that plods his ringing way Where the slow waggon winds along the bay; The sugh [v] of swallow flocks that twittering sweep, The solemn curfew swinging long and deep; The talking boat that moves with pensive sound, Or drops his anchor down with plunge profound; Of boys that bathe remote the faint uproar, And restless piper wearying out the shore; These all to swell the village murmurs blend, That soften'd ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... by an amphitheatre of purple mountain, rich in tint and furrowed by ravines, high in air, when the tall gables and narrow windows of its ancient graystone houses, and the tower of the old church, from which every evening the curfew still rings, show like silver in the moonbeams, and the black elms that stand round throw moveless shadows upon the short level grass—is one of the most singular and beautiful ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... "Farewell" in one breath. I heard the cuckoo calling across the meadows to-day, and already I noticed a faltering in his second note. Soon the second note will be silent altogether, and the single call will sound over the valley like the curfew bell of spring. ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... and in each district a special official was equipped with a proper hook and cord for pulling down houses on fire. At night respectable town-life was practically at a standstill: the gates were shut; the curfew sounded; no street-lamps dispelled the darkness, except possibly an occasional lantern which an altruistic or festive townsman might hang in his front-window; and no efficient police-force existed—merely a handful of townsmen were drafted from time to ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... repudiated by their chief. The feeling of all parties coincided with Mr. Tuffnell; finally, an Irish repealer rose and announced that the government were bartering their Corn Bill to secure coercion to Ireland. Lord George Bentinck said the Coercion Bill was 'a second Curfew Act,' that nothing but necessity could justify it, and if it were necessary it must be immediate. Sir Robert remained irritated and obstinate. He would not give up a stage either of the Corn Bill or the Coercion Bill; he wanted to advance both before Easter. The mere division of the House ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... late it lay In life's grey dusk itself is grey, And when the curfew of life's day By death is tolled, Shall forfeit not the auroral ray ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... It is about half-way between Newcastle and Berwick. It is not now an important town, having only about eight thousand inhabitants, but it has a history which few towns surpass in interest. Old customs linger long here. The curfew-bell is still tolled; and, until the year 1854, the custom of "leaping the well" was observed. This absurd, though amusing ceremony, was performed by all young freemen previous to their being admitted to the corporate privileges of the town. They used to ride on horseback, carrying ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... that space is but a trifling circumstance in the history of this old country. One of these kings appointed an officer called a "wakeman" for the town. He must originally have been a kind of secular beadle of the community, or a curfew constable, to see the whole population well a-bed in good season. One of his duties consisted in blowing a horn every night at nine o'clock as a signal to turn in. But a remarkable consideration was attached to faithful compliance ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... off the street," that has been raised in our cities, as the real gravity of the situation has been made clear, has led to the adoption of curfew ordinances in many places. Any attempt to fit such a scheme to metropolitan life would result only in adding one more dead-letter law, more dangerous than all the rest, to those we have. New York is New York, and one look at the crowds in the streets ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... regulation called the curfew, a bell rang at sunset in summer and at eight in winter, which was the government signal for putting out lights and covering up fires. This law, which was especially hated by the English, as a Norman innovation ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... beyewtiful?" she continued, after accomplishing the pirouette that prevented creases. "And Mart, he looked that proud, and solemn too. It made me think of that gal when she spoke 'Curfew shall not ring tewnight' at the schoolhouse. Every one looks fine. I hain't seen Barnabas so fussed up sence Libby Sukes' funyral. It makes him look real spry. And whoever got Larimer Sasser to perk up and put ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... In a land that's far away, Or he may be idly plighting Some foreign hussy gay; Or perhaps his bones are whiting In the wind to their decay! . . . Ah!—does he mind him how The girls he saw that day On the bridge, were sitting singing At the time of curfew-ringing, "Take me, Paddy; will you now, dear? Paddy, will ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... thought unfashionable, is simply monstrous! His behaviour is perfectly inexcusable; and, as a punishment, he should in future be compelled for a certain time to dine at our Saxon forefathers' early hour, and go to bed at the sound of the curfew bell instituted by their Norman conquerors—that is how I would teach ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... us much to be able to say, That a meeting is fixt for some early day, Of all such dowagers—he or she— (No matter the sex, so they dowagers be,) Whose opinions concerning Church and State From about the time of the Curfew date— Stanch sticklers still for days bygone, And admiring them for their rust alone— To whom if we would a leader give, Worthy their tastes conservative, We need but some mummy-statesman raise, Who was pickled and potted in Ptolemy's days; For that's the man, if waked from ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... one time, walks "unseen" to muse at midnight; and, at another, hears the sullen curfew. If the weather drives him home, he sits in a room lighted only by "glowing embers;" or, by a lonely lamp, outwatches the north star, to discover the habitation of separate souls, and varies the shades of meditation, by contemplating the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... suggested, "that it was scarce an hour since the tolling of the curfew;" an ill-chosen apology, since it turned upon a topic ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... cranny, not a halfpenny, and bundles which set to howling. I open them and find beggars inside. Is this fair? Besides, the laws are violated. Ah! vagabond with your vagabond child! Mischievous pick-pocket, evil-minded abortion, so you walk the streets after curfew? If our good king only knew it, would he not have you thrown into the bottom of a ditch, just to teach you better? My gentleman walks out at night with my lady, and with the glass at fifteen degrees of frost, bare-headed and ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... school was in the city's centre; hence, it was but five minutes' walk to the park, scarce ten to buildings of palatial splendour. Quite near were wide streets brightly lit, teeming at this moment with life: carriages were rolling through them to balls or to the opera. The same hour which tolled curfew for our convent, which extinguished each lamp, and dropped the curtain round each couch, rang for the gay city about us the summons to festal enjoyment. Of this contrast I thought not, however: gay instincts my nature had few; ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... fellow, I am talking truth. The curfew no longer rings at nine o'clock. Only last night my concierge Ravenouillet gave a party; and I think I made a great mistake in not accepting the indirect invitation he gave ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... conquered by the Union Army it had been determined to hold them permanently as a conquered territory. It could be done thus. First, the original inhabitants must be disarmed and put under stringent laws, like that of the curfew, etc. Then to every private soldier in the Union Army a farm, say of fifty acres, would be assigned, on condition that whenever summoned by the captain of his company he would present himself armed to do military ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... him. "I ask thee to reveal nothing," he said significantly. "I have but two eyes, and I must use them, as I said, to see, all that goeth on before me. Do thou but ask Eric there to show thee the way out of the town before the curfew ring. He hateth king's men worse even than I. My master will summon me to the house shortly, according to his custom. That will be the time for thee, for I can in no wise see what goeth on behind my back, nor did I ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... cops are sometimes shrewd, but often the silly children of convention like the rest of us. West Dempster has an evil reputation in the underworld. The pinching of joy-riders is purely incidental; they run in anybody they catch after the curfew sounds from the ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson |
