dead-bell

Involuntarily it carried me back – perhaps others besides me – to the day at Longfield when little Guy had devoted himself to his "pretty lady;" when we first heard that other name which by a curious conjuncture of circumstances had since become so fatally familiar, and which would henceforward be like the sound of a dead-bell in our family – Gerard Vermilye.

John Halifax, Gentleman 1897

When the bedesman had prayed and the dead-bell rung;

Hildegarde's Holiday a story for girls Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards 1896

Two years ago -- I had been there a year then -- I was sitting all alone in the watch-room, one gusty winter's night, chilled, numb, comfortless; drowsing gradually into unconsciousness; the sobbing of the wind and the slamming of distant shutters falling fainter and fainter upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenly that dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head!

Life on the Mississippi Mark Twain 1872

Two years ago -- I had been there a year then -- I was sitting all alone in the watch-room, one gusty winter's night, chilled, numb, comfortless; drowsing gradually into unconsciousness; the sobbing of the wind and the slamming of distant shutters falling fainter and fainter upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenly that dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head!

Life on the Mississippi, Part 7. Mark Twain 1872

Two years ago -- I had been there a year then -- I was sitting all alone in the watch-room, one gusty winter's night, chilled, numb, comfortless; drowsing gradually into unconsciousness; the sobbing of the wind and the slamming of distant shutters falling fainter and fainter upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenly that dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head!

Life on the Mississippi 1870

And the dead-bell was tolled in the hamlet -- and there,

Poems Victor Hugo 1843

Believe me that this morning when, in my donjon keep, I first heard the sound of the dead-bell, I thought to have died; and when it tolled for the third time, I should have gone distraught in my grief, had not the Almighty God at that moment taken the life of my strange father, so that your innocent life should be saved by me.

Sidonia, the Sorceress : the Supposed Destroyer of the Whole Reigning Ducal House of Pomerania — Volume 2 Wilhelm Meinhold 1824

'Among other omens to which faithful credit is given among the Scottish peasantry, is what is called the "dead-bell," explained by my friend James Hogg to be that tinkling in the ears which the country people regard as the secret intelligence of some friend's decease.

Marmion Walter Scott 1801

And thus I still prayed when the maid came in all dressed in black, and with the silken raiment of my sweet lamb hanging over her arm; and she told me, with many tears, that the dead-bell had already tolled from the castle tower, for the first time, and that my child had sent for her to dress her, seeing that the court was already come from Usedom, and that in about two hours she was to set out on her last journey.

Sidonia, the Sorceress : the Supposed Destroyer of the Whole Reigning Ducal House of Pomerania — Volume 2 Wilhelm Meinhold 1824

And thus I still prayed when the maid came in all dressed in black, and with the silken raiment of my sweet lamb hanging over her arm; and she told me, with many tears, that the dead-bell had already tolled from the castle tower, for the first time, and that my child had sent for her to dress her, seeing that the court was already come from Usedom, and that in about two hours she was to set out on her last journey.

Maria Schweidler die Bernsteinhexe. English Wilhelm Meinhold 1824