PEREUNT ET IMPUTANTUR
  (They pass, and are placed to our account.)

The notes telling the hours were struck upon the rich-toned bell named “Great Peter,” which was placed above, the curfew or couvre-feu ("cover-fire”) being also rung upon the same bell.

The curfew bell was formerly sounded at sunset, to give notice that all fires and lights must be extinguished.  It was instituted by William the Conqueror and continued during the reign of William Rufus, but was abolished as a “police regulation” in the reign of Henry I. The custom was still observed in many places, and we often heard the sound of the curfew bell, which was almost invariably rung at eight o’clock in the evening.  The poet Gray commences his “Elegy written in a Country Churchyard” with—­

  The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;

and one of the most popular dramatic pieces in the English language, written by an American schoolgirl born in 1850, was entitled “The Curfew Bell.”  She described how, in Cromwell’s time, a young Englishwoman, whose sweetheart was doomed to die that night at the tolling of the curfew bell, after vainly trying to persuade the old sexton not to ring it, prevented it by finding her way up the tower to the belfry and holding on to the tongue of the great bell.  Meanwhile the old sexton who had told her “the curfew bell must ring tonight” was pulling the bell-rope below, causing her to sway backwards and forwards in danger of losing her life while murmuring the words “Curfew shall not ring to-night”: 

  O’er the distant hills comes Cromwell.  Bessie sees him; and her brow,
  Lately white with sickening horror, has no anxious traces now. 
  At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands all bruised and torn;
  And her sweet young face, still haggard with the anguish it had worn,
  Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eyes with misty light. 
  “Go!  Your lover lives!” cried Cromwell.  “Curfew shall not ring to-night!”

  Wide they flung the massive portals, led the prisoner forth to die,
  All his bright young life before him.  ’Neath the darkening English sky
  Bessie came, with flying footsteps, eyes aglow with love-light sweet;
  Kneeling on the turf beside him, laid his pardon at his feet. 
  In his brave, strong arms he clasped her, kissed the face upturned and
    white,
  Whispered:  “Darling, you have saved me; curfew will not ring to-night!”

The “Great Peter” bell was presented to Exeter Cathedral in the fifteenth century by Bishop Peter Courtenay, and when re-cast in 1676 weighed 14,000 lb., being then considered the second largest bell in England.  The curfew was tolled on “Great Peter” every night at eight o’clock, and after that hour had been sounded and followed by a short pause, the same bell tolled the number of strokes correspending with the day of the month.  This was followed by another short pause, and then eight deliberate strokes were tolled.