Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1874-04-23
THE HEROINE OF THE CURFEW,
BY MATILDA n. TURNER.

~ AhCAeu Uut ua41 an nOuf OF CuffoW
toll. The old bell-ringer came from
under the wattled roof of his cottage
stoop. and stood with uncovered head
in the clear, sweet-scented air. He had
grown blind and deaf in the service. but
his old arm was as muscular as ever
and he who listened this day marked no
faltering in the heavy, metallic throbs
of the Cathedral bell. Old Jasper had
lived through many changes. He had
tolled out his notes of mourning for
Good Queen Bess; and with tears
scarcely dry he had rung the glad It'd
ings of the coronation of James; Charles
the First had been crowned, reigned
and explated his weaknesses before all
England in Jasper's time and now he,
who under his army held all the Com
monwealth in the hollow of his hand.
ruled as more than monarch, and still
the old man with the habit of q long
life upon him, rang his matin and sor-
row.
Jasper stood alone now, lifting his
dimmed eyes up to the softly dappled
sky.
The walls of his memory seemed SO
written over-so crossed and recrossed
by the annals of the years that had gone
before, that there seemed little room
for anything in the present. Little
rocked he that Cromwell's spearsmen
were camped on the moor beyond the
village-that Cromwell himself rode
with his guardsmen but q league away
he only knew that the bell that had
been r,,ng in the tower when William
the Conquerer made curfew law, had
been spared by Puritan and Round
head, and that his arm for sixty years
had never failed him at eventide.
He was moving with slow step toward
the gate, when woman came hurriedly
in from the street and stood beside him !;
lovely women, but with face so
blanched, that it seemed carved in the
whitest of marble with oil of it's round
ness and dimples. Her great solemn
eyes were raised to the aged face in
pitiful appeal, and the lips were form
ing words that he could not under
stand.
"Speak up lass. I am deaf, and can
not hear your clatter."
The voice raised, and the hands
clasped and unc]asped, and wrunq
themselves together, palm and palm.
"For Heavens sake, good Jasper, do
not ring curfsw tonight
"What M ring curfew! Yc must be
daft, lassie."
Jasper, for sweet Heavens sake,
for my sake, for one night in all your
long life forget to ring the bell Fail
this once and my lover shall live, whom
Cromwell says shall die at curfew toll.
Do you hear ?-my lover, Richard Tenn.
pie: See, Jasper, here is money to
make your old age happy. I sold my
jewels that the Lady Maud gave me
and the gold shall all be yours for one
curfew."
"Would ye bride me, Lily De We're ?
.Ye're changeling. Ye've ma the blood
of the Plantaganets in ye're veins a.
your mother had. What corrupt me,
bell-ringer under Her Majesty, Good
Queen Bess Not for all the gold that
Lady Maud could bring me ! What is
your lover to me? Babes have been
born and strong men have died before
now at the ringing of my bell. Ava,
AVA p
And out on the village green, with
the solemn shadows of the lindcns
frightening over it, strong man await
ed the curfew to toll for his death. He
stood handsome, and brave, and tall
taller by an inch than tho tallest pike.
man who guarded him.
What had he done that he should
die? Little it mattcrel in those days
when the sword that the Great Crom.
| we'll wielde'l was SO prone to full, what
he or others had done. He had bce,
/ scribe to the late lord up at tho caatle