Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders

by George Wharton Edwards

I was glad to see him and to have his company in that place of cobwebs and dangling hand rope. I gave him a thick black cigar which I had bought in the market-place that morning, and struck a match from which we both had a light. He expressed wonder at my matches, those paper cartons common in America, but which he had never before seen. I gave them to him, to his delight. He brought me upwards into a room crammed with strange machinery, all cranks and levers and wires and pulleys, and before us two great cylinders like unto a "Brobdingnagian" music box. He drew out a stool for me and courteously bade me be seated, speaking in French with a strong Flemish accent. He was, he said, a mechanic, whose duty it was to care for the bells and the machinery. He had an assistant who went on duty at six o'clock. He served watches of eight hours. There came a "whir" from a fan above, and a tinkle from a small bell somewhere near at hand. He said that the half hour would strike in three minutes. Had I ever been in a bell tower when the chimes played? Yes? Then M'sieur knew what to expect.

I took out my watch, and from the tail of my eye I fancied that I saw a gleam in his as he appraised the watch I held in my hand. He drew his bench nearer to me and held out his great hairy, oily paw, saying, "Let me see the pretty watch." "Not necessary," I replied, putting it back in my pocket and calmly eying him, although my heart began to beat fast. I was alone in the tower with this hairy Cerberus, who, for all I knew, might be contemplating doing me mischief.

If I was in danger, as I might be, then I resolved to defend myself as well as I was able. I had an ammonia gun in my pocket which I carried to fend off ugly dogs by the roadside, which infest the country. And this I carried in my hip pocket. It resembled somewhat a forty-four caliber revolver. I put my hand behind me, drew it forth, eying him the while, and ostentatiously toyed with it before placing it in my blouse side pocket. It had, I thought, an instantaneous effect, for he drew back, opening his great mouth to say something, I know not what nor shall I ever know, for at that instant came a clang from the machinery, a warning whir of wheels, the rattle of chains, and one of the great barrels began to revolve slowly; up and down rattled the chains and levers, then, faint, sweet and far off, I heard a melodious jangle followed by the first notes of the "Mirleton" I had so often heard below in the town, but now subdued, etherealized, and softened like unto the dream music one fancies in the night. The watchman now grinned reassuringly at me, and, rising, beckoned me with his huge grimy hand to follow him. Grasping my good ammonia gun I followed him up a wooden stairway to a green baize covered door. This he opened to an inferno of crash and din. The air was alive with tumult and the booming of heavy metal. We were among the great bells of the bottom tier. Before us was the "bourdon," so called, weighing 2,200 pounds, the bronze monster upon which the bass note was sounded, and which sounded the hour over the level fields of Flanders. Dimly above I could see other bells of various size, hanging tier upon tier from great, red-painted, wooden beams clamped with iron bands.

I contrived to keep the watchman ever before me, not trusting him, although his frank smile somewhat disarmed my suspicion. It may be I did him an injustice, but I liked not the avaricious gleam in his little slits of eyes.

The bells clanged and clashed as they would break from their fastenings and drop upon us, and my brain reeled with the discord. On they beat and boomed, as if they would never stop. No melody was now apparent, though down below it had seemed as if their sweetness was all too brief. Up here in the tower they were not at all melodious; they were rough, discordant, and uneven, some sounding as though out of tune and cracked. All of the mystery and glamour of sweet tenderness, all their pathos and weirdness, had quite vanished, and here amid the smell of lubricating oil and the heavy, noisy grinding of the cog wheels, and the rattle of iron chains, all the poetry and elusiveness of the bells was certainly wanting.

All at once just before me a great hammer raised its head, and then fell with a sounding clang upon the rim of a big bell; the half hour had struck. All about us the air resounded and vibrated with the mighty waves of sound. From the bells above finally came the hum of faint harmonics, and then followed silence like the stillness that ensues after a heavy clap of thunder.

Cerberus now beckoned me to accompany him amongst the bells, and showed me the machinery that sets this great marvel of sound in motion. He showed me the huge "tambour-carillon," with barrels all bestudded with little brass pegs which pull the wires connected with the great hammers, which in their turn strike the forty-six bells, that unrivaled chime known throughout Flanders as the master work of the Van den Gheyns of Louvain, who were, as already told, the greatest bell founders of the age.

The great hour bell weighing, as already noted, nearly a ton, required the united strength of eight men to ring him. Cerberus pointed out to me the narrow plank runway between the huge dusty beams, whereon these eight men stood to their task. The carillon tunes, he told me, were altered every year or so, and to do this required the entire changing of the small brass pegs in the cylinders, a most formidable task, I thought. He explained that the cutting of each hole costs sixty centimes (twelve cents) and that there were about 30,000 holes, so that the change must be quite expensive, but I did not figure it out for myself.

The musical range of this carillon chime of Malines may be judged by the fact that it was possible to play, following on the hour, a selection from "Don Pasquale," and on the half and quarter hours a few bars from the "Pre aux Clercs." Every seven and a half minutes sounded a few jangling sweet notes, and thus the air over the old town of Malines and the small hamlets surrounding it both day and night was musical with the bells of the carillon.

On fête days a certain famous bell ringer was engaged by the authorities to play the bells from the clavecin. This is a sort of keyboard with pedals played by hand and foot, fashioned like a rude piano. The work is very hard, one would think, but I have heard some remarkable results from it. In former times the office of "carilloneur" was a most important position, and, as in the case of the Van den Gheyn family of Louvain, it was hereditary. The music played by these men, those "morceaux fugues," once the pride and pleasure of the Netherlands, is now the wonder and despair of the modern bell ringer, however skillful he may be.