Bell-ringer

“ To ring-in rounds, it matters little which bell is taken to perform upon, as each takes its place in proper turn, whether it be first, middle, last, or any other position, which will be very well understood if the new ringer has practised, as he should do, rounds upon hand bells. ”

“ At all times when it may be desired to produce a good performer upon any musical instrument, it is well that he should understand the instrument itself; for just as the driver who understands his steam engine thoroughly in its parts and details, is the man who can work it best, so is it with the ringer with his bell in the steeple or tower. ”

“ CHAPTER I THE town's bell rang through the dark of the winter morning with queer little jolts and pauses, as if Wanton Wully Oliver, the ringer, had been jovial the night before. A blithe New-Year's-time bell; a droll, daft, scatter-brained bell; it gave no horrid alarms, no solemn reminders that commonly toll from steeples and make good-fellows melancholy to think upon things undone, the brevity of days and years, the parting of good company, but a cheery ditty—“boom, boom, ding-a-dong boom, boom ding, hie, ding-dong,” infecting whoever heard it with a kind of foolish gayety. ”

“ Lest any of our readers, however, should not understand what chiming is, it consists of swinging the bell to and fro by the rope, so that it moves like the pendulum of a clock, and comes in contact with the clapper, which remains nearly stationary inside, owing to its weight and the loose manner of suspending it. ”

“ Paul Hentzner a German, who visited England in the year 1598, records in his journal: “The people are vastly fond of great noises that fill the ear, such as the firing of cannon, drums, and the ringing of bells; so that in London it is common for a number of them that have got a glass in their heads to go up into some belfry, and ring the bells for hours together for the sake of exercise.” This may be exaggeration,—not unusual with travellers. It is, however, a fact that bell-ringing has been a favourite amusement with Englishmen for centuries. ”

“ The bell-ringers take themselves with an absurd seriousness, which has not nowadays the least excuse. The exercise may have been accounted a useful and a pious one when bell-ringing was supposed to exorcise devils, or at the very least of it, to remind the faithful that the hour of prayer was come ”

“ They play all sorts of music, and execute the most difficult passages with a precision and harmony that delighteth even the fastidious and most scientific admirers of the art. There are peals of bells rung in the towers of many churches in Germany, called carillons, or chimes, on which, by the contrivance of a rope fastened by the clappers, and collected together at the lower extremities, tunes are played at stated hours in the day. ”

“ But not only is there a general lack of knowledge upon ringing church bells on the part of the majority, even in this bell ringing isle—it can well be added that, as to change ringing, the really scientific, very useful, and interesting part of ringing is “dog Latin” or “double Dutch” to ninety-nine persons out of every hundred, or even more, the general impression being that it is all very easy, and only to pull—that anyone can do all that is to be done in a very short time ”

“ George, Devon, who from quite a young man has entered deeply and fully into all matters of interest relative to Church Bells and Ringing, and who now supervises that bell-ringing page in the interesting weekly paper called Church Bells, where from time to time much is given which is interesting to all who may wish to become ringers in practice or performance, with good and reliable information as the groundwork upon which they desire to ultimately place their edifice of knowledge of the subject in question. ”

“ This and the beautiful science of bell-ringing consequent on it are peculiar to ourselves. The method of sounding the bells here understood is by a hammer acting on the rim, or by pulling the clapper, as is used with us for chimes, and where the bell frame is weak. This accounts for the much larger bells which are found abroad, and which were never meant to be poised and swung. Owing to the above difference between the Continental and English methods of bell-ringing, it is not easy to express the difference between simpulsare, compulsare, and depulsare. ”

“ But in actual practice it is very rare to have more than five or six thousand rung, even if there are eight or more bells; about 1,600 changes can be rung in the course of an hour, and two to three hours’ consecutive work is as much as an ordinary ringer is [Pg 74] capable of accomplishing. The essential feature of each set of changes is to bring the bells round to the order in which they started; as they would naturally do in the peal given above.
The result of the introduction of systematic and organized change-ringing was that companies or societies of ringers were very soon formed. ”

“ It appears to us quite worth the consideration of the clergy whether the practice of hand-bell ringing would not do much to keep their corps of church ringers together and provide an antidote to the public-house. We find that a medium set of eight hand-bells, forming an octave, can be obtained for from four to five pounds; and the steps of the art present no considerable difficulty, even to rustic intellects. Many a young country curate would find it a pleasant thing to take the post of leader, and call his choir together for hebdomadal practices. ”

“ It is in England alone that bell-ringing is an art, and oh! how lovely an art it is—to those far away who hear the swell and fall of the bells, the music always having a certain sadness in it. But it has its sordid side, as has all art, and the sordid side is the interior of the belfry; or, let us say, was, before reform pushed its way there.
There was some excuse for the ringers to conduct themselves in a free and easy manner in the belfry when it was shut off from the body of the church by a screen of boards against which the west gallery was erected. ”

“ The ringing of bells, although a recreation chiefly of the lower sort, is, in itself, not incurious. The tolling of a bell is nothing more than the producing of a sound by a stroke of the clapper against the side of the bell, the bell itself being in a pendant position, and at rest. In ringing, the bell, by means of a wheel and a rope, is elevated to a perpendicular; in its motion, the clapper strikes forcibly on one side, and in its return downwards, on the other side of the bell, producing at each stroke a sound." There are still in London several societies of ringers. ”

“ And for this there can be no better plan than to note upon paper the changes which may be made with from 2 to 4 bells, assuming that one, which may be represented by a cross, star, or other mark, is the bell which the student takes to move, vary, or change. Whether he takes the position of 1, 2, or any other number, No. 1, in a ring of church bells, is always that with the highest note, and in this way it will be plain, first, to presume that there are 2 bells, and the reader takes the second, upon which there are, as he knows already as shown, but two changes ”

“ To ring, and to ring changes, on either church or musical hand bells, are three very different subjects. In order to ring changes, however, it is absolutely necessary to have a good knowledge of ringing, or the means adopted to make the bells sound in their proper time and place, whether it be in the church tower, on the large swinging bells with ropes, or in the parlour or drawing-room, upon the musical bells, held in the hand or hands. ”

“ The situation, as we smoked and talked, became a more matter-of-fact one, and when Ryckman carried a lamp to the rear end of the wide reception hall and pointed out the bell which was given to ringing without earthly reason or cause, I could even view that bell with half-amused disdain.
It was an old-fashioned and very ordinary-looking bell, swinging on the end of a curling steel band wire. When once set in motion, because of this wire, it would naturally oscillate for some length of time. ”

“ Nevertheless it is only too common for bells to be re-cast when there is no necessity. Perhaps one bell is broken, or it is desired to increase the number of the bells, and the [Pg 154] founder, with a pardonable eye to business, suggests that all the old bells should be melted down, in order to have an entirely new ring, guaranteed in tune with each other. And thus disappears many an interesting and valuable old bell, perfectly sound and well-toned. It does not follow that because a bell is old its tone is inferior to a new one, or that it cannot be fitted into a new ring. ”

“ That an electro-magnet could vibrate a tuning-fork and so produce sound was an entirely new and fascinating idea to the youth. It appealed to his imagination, quickened by his knowledge of speech. "Why not an electrical telegraph?" he asked himself. His idea seems to have been that the electric current could carry different notes over the wire and reproduce them by means of the electro-magnet. Although Bell did not know it, many others were struggling with the same problem, the answer to which proved most elusive. It gave Bell a starting-point, and the search for the telephone began. ”

“ The Beaver, who happened to hear the remark,
Protested, with tears in its eyes,
That not even the rapture of hunting the Snark
Could atone for that dismal surprise!
It strongly advised that the Butcher should be
Conveyed in a separate ship:
But the Bellman declared that would never agree
With the plans he had made for the trip:
Navigation was always a difficult art,
Though with only one ship and one bell:
And he feared he must really decline, for his part,
Undertaking another as well. ”

“ Long in the waist and high in the shoulder they should be for true fineness of sound; but they cast 'em with short waists and flat shoulders now. 'Tis easier to hang and ring them so; but they don't give the same music. My tenor is a wonderful good bell—a maiden bell, as we say—one cast true, that has never had a chip at the sound-bow. 'I call the quick to church and dead to grave,' is her motto. A Pennington bell she is, and no bell-founder ever cast a better. Every year makes her sweeter, for there's nothing improves bell-metal like time. ”

“ Bells are struck in three ways,— (1) with a hammer on the outside, let off either by a tambour or revolving drum, similar in appearance to the prickly cylinder of a musical box, which drum can be fitted with tunes or chimes by musical nuts or spikes, and altered at will; (2) the bell can also be struck by hand, as in the common stand of small bells to be seen occasionally in the London streets, the player having a hammer in each hand; or (3) the clapper may strike the bell internally, either being pulled by a rope, the bell being stationary, or by the bell swinging to and fro. ”

“ But on March 10, 1876, the new instrument actually talked. Watson, who was at the basement end of the wire, heard the disc say, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.” He dashed up the three flights of stairs to the room in which Bell was. “I can hear you!” he cried. “I can hear the words!”
“Had I known more about electricity, and less about sound,” Bell is reported to have said, “I would never have invented the telephone.” He had come upon his discovery by the right path, but it was a path that very few men could ever have picked out. ”

“ I started from my chair and listened intently, but the ringing had stopped, and I settled back to the delights of a nervous chill, when again the deathly silence of the night—the wind had quieted in time to allow me the use of this faithful, overworked phrase—was broken by the tintinnabulation of the bell. This time I recognized it as the electric bell operated by a push-button upon the right side of my front door. To rise and rush to the door was the work of a moment. It always is. ”

“ He is a pitiful skulk, and never stirs out of his hammock except when he is driven. It was he who counselled us to strike to the Spanish frigate, but if we find him out in his roguish tricks his back shall so smart for it, as shall cause him to think that his spine be stuffed full of pepper instead of marrow.’
So it was determined that Bell should be closely watched, and the dice which he was so fond of using, examined [Pg 197] at the first convenient opportunity. ”

“ Glancing backwards, they saw the groined belfry crashed sideways in. It afterwards appeared that the powerful peasant, who had the bell-rope in charge, wishing to test at once the full glory of the bell, had swayed down upon the rope with one concentrate jerk. The mass of quaking metal, too ponderous for its frame, and strangely feeble somewhere at its top, loosed from its fastening, tore sideways down, and tumbling in one sheer fall, three hundred feet to the soft sward below, buried itself inverted and half out of sight. ”

“ The clock-bell, in particular, now drew attention. Under a patient chisel, the latent beauty of its enrichments, before obscured by the cloudings incident to casting, that beauty in its shyest grace, was now revealed. Round and round the bell, twelve figures of gay girls, garlanded, hand-in-hand, danced in a choral ring—the embodied hours.
"Bannadonna," said the chief, "this bell excels all else. No added touch could here improve. Hark!" hearing a sound, "was that the wind?"
"The wind, Excellenza," was the light response. "But the figures, they are not yet without their faults. ”