River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1882-12-07
THE CURFEW HEROINE.

The story that is the basis of the
well-known poem, @Curfew Shall Not
Ring Tonight" told in prose, is as fol-
lows:
1t lacked quite half an hour of Cur
few. 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 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 Jas
per had lived through many changes
He had tolled out his notes of mourn
ing for good Queen Bess, and, with
tears scarcely dry, he had rung the
glad tidings of the coronation of James.
Charles T. had been crowned, reigned
and expiated his weakness before all
England in Jasper's time; and now he,
who under the army held all the common
wealth in the hollow of his hand, ruled
as more than monarch, and still the
old man, with the habit of long life
upon him, rang his matin and his 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. Lit
tie rocked he that Cromwells spears
men were camped on the moor beyond
the village-that Cromwell himself
rode with his guardsmen a league
away he only knew that the bell that
had been rung in the tower when Will
lam the Conqueror made curfew law
had been spared by Puritan and
Roundhead, and that his arm for sixty
wears had never failed him at even
tide.
He was moving with slow step toward
the gate, when a woman came hurried
ly in from the street, and stood beside
him; a lovely woman, but with face so
blanched that it seemed carved In the
whitest of marble with all its roundness
and dimples. Her great solemn eyes
were raised to the aged face in pitiful
appeal, and the lips were forming
words that he could not understand.
"Speak up, lass; am deaf, and can
not hear your clatter.
The voice raised, and the hands
clasped and unclasped, and wrung
themselves together, palm and palm.
For heavens sake, Jasper, do not
ring the curfew tonight.
what, ma ring curfewl Ye must be
daft, lassie."
casper, for sweet heavens sake, for
my sake, for one night in. all your long
life forget to ring the belll 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. / sold my
jewels that Lady Maud gave me, and
the gold shall all be yours for one cur
few"
Would We bride me, Lily De Verea
Yere changeling. Ye've ma the blood
| of the Plantagenets in ye're veins as
| we're mother had. What corrupt the
bell-ringer under her Majesty, good
| Queen Bess? Not for all the gold that
Lady Maud could bring mel What is
your lover to me? Babes have been
born and strong men have died before
now at the ringing of my bell. Avail
avail"
| And out on the village green, with
the solemn shadows of the linchens
frightening over it, strong man
awaited the curfew to toll for his death.
He stood, handsome and brave and tail
taller by an inch than the tallest pike
man who guarded him.
What had he done that he should
| die? Little it mattered In those days,
when the sword that the great Crom-
well welded was so prone to fall, what
he or others had done. He had been
scribe to the late Lord up at the castle,
and Lady Maud, forgetting that man
must WOO and woman must wait, had
| given her heart to him without the ask
ing, while the gentle Lily De We're, dis
tant kinswoman and poor companion to
her, had, without seeking, found the
treasures of his love, and held them
fast. Then he had joined the army, and
made one of the pious soldiers whose
evil passions we're never stirred but by
sign or symbol of popery. But a
scorned womans hatred had reached
him even there Enemies and deep
plots had compassed him about and
conquered him. Tonight he was to
die.