Glancing round the room, it occurred to him that he might give the alarm by ringing the enormous bells near him; but though he set them slightly in motion, he could not agitate the immense clappers sufficiently to produce any sound.

At sundown the noise and bustle ceased; the big city gates closed with a clang, and the municipal guard, for all the world like Dogberry and his watch, made their rounds beating wooden clappers, not in the hope of catching, but rather in the hope of frightening malefactors away.

The bellringer would ply his clapper until he drew a crowd, and then the Garde Civique would halt in an open space at the junction of two or more streets and read a proclamation from the burgomaster calling on all the inhabitants to preserve their tranquillity and refrain from overt acts against the Germans, under promise of safety if they obeyed and threat of death at the hands of the Germans if they disregarded the warning.

When the horseshoe is in the circuit, it is a magnet, and it pulls its clapper toward it with enormous power.

To intensify the latter and multiply the number of blows, the clapper spring is prolonged over the fulcrum and bent back so as to form a spring, which is tightened by the lifting of the flap, and sends the clapper down on the bell with increased force.

If, instead of giving the bell the monotonous tink, the Indian had shaken the clapper irregularly, it would have resulted in the certain capture of the child, beyond the father's power of aid or rescue.

Still swang the clappers to and fro, When, in the far-spread fields below, I saw a ploughman with his team Lift to the bells and fix on them His distant eyes, as if he would Drink in the utmost sound he could; While near him sat his children three, And in the green grass placidly Played undistracted on, as if What music earthly bells might give Could only faintly stir their dream, And stillness make more lovely seem.

He was sixty years of age, and had white hair, but he was as strong as younger men, and could swing the clapper against the side of the great bell with a boom that could be heard across rivers, and far into the peaceful country, on quiet nights.

"Easy, I tell you, ye born mill-clappers!

O cuckoopint, toll me the purple clapper That hangs in your clear green bell!"

At d there is a small projection of the tin upward, which touches the clapper of the bell suspended above every time the plate passes up or down, and thus gives notice of its motions.