“That is very good of you, little Arla; very good indeed. And, now that
we are about it, isn’t there something else you would like to change?
What do you say to having these stone pillars put to one side, so that
they may be out of the way of the people when they come in? Or those
great beams in the roof--they might be turned over, and perhaps we
might find that the upper side would look fresher than this lower part,
which is somewhat time-stained, as you see? Or, for the matter of that,
what do you say to having our clock-tower taken down and set out there
in the square before the church-door? Then short-sighted people could
see the time much better, don’t you think? Now tell me, shall we do all
these things together, wise little friend?”
A tear or two came into Arla’s eyes, but she made no answer.
“Good-morning, sir,” she said, and went away.
“I suppose,” she said to herself as she ran up the stone steps, “that
he thought it would be too much trouble to climb to the top of the
tower to set the clock right. But that was no reason why he should make
fun of me. I don’t like him as much as I used to.”
The next church to which Arla went was a large one, and it was some
time before she could find the sacristan. At last she saw him in a
side chapel at the upper end of the church, engaged in dusting some
old books. He was a large man, with a red face, and he turned around
quickly, with a stern expression, as she entered.
“Please, sir,” said Arla, “I came to tell you that your church clock
is wrong. It strikes from four to six minutes before it ought to;
sometimes the one and sometimes the other. It should be changed so that
it will be sure to strike at the right time.”
The face of the sacristan grew redder and twitched visibly at her
remark.
“Do you know what I wish?” he almost shouted in reply.
“No, sir,” answered Arla.
“I wish,” he said, “that you were a boy, so that I might take you by
the collar and soundly cuff your ears, for coming here to insult an
officer of the church in the midst of his duties! But, as you are
a girl, I can only tell you to go away from here as rapidly and as
quietly as you can, or I shall have to put you in the hands of the
church authorities!”
Arla was truly frightened, and although she did not run--for she knew
that would not be proper in a church--she walked as fast as she could
into the outer air.
“What a bad man,” she then said to herself, “to be employed in a
church! It surely is not known what sort of a person he is, or he would
not be allowed to stay there a day!”
Arla thought she would not go to any more churches at present, for she
did not know what sort of sacristans she might find in them.
“When the other clocks in the town all strike properly,” she thought,
“it is most likely they will see for themselves that their clocks are
wrong, and they will have them changed.”
She now made her way to the great square of the town, and entered the
building at the top of which stood the stone man with his hammer. She
found the doorkeeper in a little room by the side of the entrance.
She knew where to go, for she had been there with her mother to ask
permission to go up and see the stone man strike the hour with his
hammer, and the stone woman strike the half-hour with her broom.
The doorkeeper was a grave, middle-aged man with spectacles; and,
remembering what had just happened, Arla thought she would be careful
how she spoke to him.
“If you please, sir,” she said, with a courtesy, “I should like to say
something to you. And I hope you will not be offended when I tell you
that your clock is not quite right. Your stone man and your stone woman
are both too slow; they sometimes strike as much as seven minutes after
they ought to strike.”
The grave, middle-aged man looked steadily at her through his
spectacles.
“I thought,” continued Arla, “that if this should be made known to you,
you would have the works of the stone man and the stone woman altered
so that they might strike at the right time. They can be heard so far,
you know, that it is very necessary they should not make mistakes.”
“Child,” said the man, with his spectacles still steadily fixed on her,
“for one hundred and fifty-seven years the open tower on this building
has stood there. For one hundred and fifty-seven years the thunder and
the lightning in time of storm have roared and flashed around it, and
the sun in time of fair weather has shone upon it. In that century and
a half and seven years men and women have lived and have died, and
their children and their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren,
and even the children of these, have lived and died after them. Kings
and queens have passed away, one after another; and all things living
have grown old and died, one generation after another, many times.
And yet, through all these years, that stone man and that stone woman
have stood there, and in storm and in fair weather, by daylight or in
the darkness of night, they have struck the hours and the half-hours.
Of all things that one hundred and fifty-seven years ago were able to
lift an arm to strike, they alone are left. And now you, a child of
thirteen, or perhaps fourteen years, come to me and ask me to change
that which has not been changed for a century and a half and seven
years!”
Arla could answer nothing with those spectacles fixed upon her. They
seemed to glare more and more as she looked at them. “Good-morning,
sir,” she said, dropping a courtesy as she moved backward toward the
door. Reaching it, she turned and hurried into the street.
“If those stone people,” she thought, “have not been altered in all
these years, it is likely they would now be striking two or three hours
out of the way! But I don’t know. If they kept on going slow for more
than a century, they must have come around to the right hour sometimes.
But they will have to strike ever and ever so much longer before they
come around there again!”
Arla now walked on until she came to a street corner where a cobbler
had a little shop. In the angle of the wall of the house, at the
height of the second story, was a clock. This cobbler did not like
the confined air and poor light of his shop, and whenever the weather
allowed he always worked outside on the sidewalk. To-day, although it
was winter, the sun shone brightly on this side of the street, and he
had put his bench outside, close to his door, and was sitting there,
hard at work. When Arla stopped before him he looked up and said,
cheerfully:
“Good-morning, Mistress Arla. Do you want them half-soled, or heeled,
or a patch put on the toes?”
“My shoes do not need mending,” said Arla. “I came to ask you if you
could tell me who has charge of the clock at this corner?”
“I can easily do that,” he said, “for I am the man. I am paid by the
year, for winding it up and keeping it in order, as much as I should
get for putting the soles, heels, tops, linings, and buckles on a pair
of shoes.”
“Which means making them out and out,” said Arla.
“You are right,” said he, “and the pay is not great; but if it were
larger, more people might want it and I might lose it; and if it were
less, how could I afford to do it at all? So I am satisfied.”
“But you ought not to be entirely satisfied,” said Arla, “for the
clock does not keep good time. I know when it is striking, for it has
a very jangling sound, and it is the most irregular clock in Rondaine.
Sometimes it strikes as much as twenty-five minutes after the hour, and
very often it does not strike at all.”
The cobbler looked up at her with a smile. “I am sorry,” he said, “that
it has a jangling stroke, but the fashioning of clocks is not my trade,
and I could not mend its sound with awl, hammer, or waxed-end. But it
seems to me, my good maiden, that you never mended a pair of shoes.”
“No, indeed!” said Arla; “I should do that even worse than you would
make clocks.”
“Never having mended shoes, then,” said the cobbler, “you do not know
what a grievous thing it is to have twelve o’clock, or six o’clock, or
any other hour, in fact, come before you are ready for it. Now, I don’t
mind telling you, because I know you are too good to spoil the trade of
a hard-working cobbler--and shoemaker too, whenever he gets the chance
to be one--that when I have promised a customer that he shall have his
shoes or his boots at a certain time of day, and that time is drawing
near, and the end of the job is still somewhat distant, then do I skip
up the stairway and set back the hands of the clock according to the
work that has to be done. And when my customer comes I look up to the
clock-face and I say to him, ‘Glad to see you!’ and then he will look
up at the clock and will say, ‘Yes, I am a little too soon;’ and then,
as likely as not, he will sit down on the doorstep here by me and
talk entertainingly; and it may happen that he will sit there without
grumbling for many minutes after the clock has pointed out the hour at
which the shoes were promised.
“Sometimes, when I have been much belated in beginning a job, I stop
the clock altogether, for you can well see for yourself that it would
not do to have it strike eleven when it is truly twelve. And so, if my
man be willing to sit down, and our talk be very entertaining, the
clock being above him where he cannot see it without stepping outward
from the house, he may not notice that it is stopped. This once served
me very well, for an old gentleman, over-testy and over-punctual, once
came to me for his shoes, and looking up at the clock, which I had
prepared for him, exclaimed, ‘Bless me! I am much too early!’ And he
sat down by me for three-quarters of an hour, in which time I persuaded
him that his shoes were far too much worn to be worth mending any more,
and that he should have a new pair, which, afterward, I made.”
“I do not believe it is right for you to do that,” said Arla; “but even
if you think so, there is no reason why your clock should go wrong at
night, when so many people can hear it because of the stillness.”
“Ah, me!” said the cobbler, “I do not object to the clock being as
right as you please in the night; but when my day’s work is done, I am
in such a hurry to go home to my supper that I often forget to put the
clock right, or to set it going if it is stopped. But so many things
stop at night--such as the day itself--and so many things then go
wrong--such as the ways of evil-minded people--that I think you truly
ought to pardon my poor clock.”
“Then you will not consent,” said Arla, “to make it go right?”
“I will do that with all cheerfulness,” answered the cobbler, pulling
out a pair of waxed-ends with a great jerk, “as soon as I can make
myself go right. The most important thing should always be done first;
and, surely, I am more important than a clock!” And he smiled with
great good-humor.
Arla knew that it would be of no use to stand there any longer and talk
with this cobbler. Turning to go, she said:
“When I bring you shoes to mend, you shall finish them by my clock, and
not by yours.”
“That will I, my good little Arla,” said the cobbler, heartily. “They
shall be finished by any clock in town, and five minutes before the
hour, or no payment.”
Arla now walked on until she came to the bridge over the river. It was
a long, covered bridge, and by the entrance sat the bridge-keeper.
“Do you know, sir,” said she, “that the clock at this end of your
bridge does not keep the same time as the one at the other end? They
are not so very different, but I have noticed that this one is always
done striking at least two minutes before the other begins.”
The bridge-keeper looked at her with one eye, which was all he had.
“You are as wrong as anybody can be,” said he. “I do not say anything
about the striking, because my ears are not now good enough to hear the
clock at the other end when I am near this one; but I know they both
keep the same time. I have often looked at this clock and have then
walked to the other end of the bridge, and have found that the clock
there was exactly like it.”
Arla looked at the poor old man, whose legs were warmly swaddled on
account of his rheumatism, and said:
“But it must take you a good while to walk to the other end of the
bridge.”
“Out upon you!” cried the bridge-keeper. “I am not so old as that yet!
I can walk there in no time!”
Arla now crossed the bridge and went a short distance along a country
road until she came to the great stone house known as Vougereau. This
belonged to a rich family who seldom came there, and the place was in
charge of an elderly man who was the brother of Arla’s mother. When his
niece was shown into a room on the ground floor, which served for his
parlor and his office, he was very glad to see her; and while Arla
was having something to eat and drink after her walk, the two had a
pleasant chat.
“I came this time, Uncle Anton,” she said, “not only to see you, but to
tell you that the great clock in your tower does not keep good time.”
Uncle Anton looked at her a little surprised.
“How do you know that, my dear?” he said.
Then Arla told him how she had lain awake in the early morning, and had
heard the striking of the different clocks. “If you wish to make it
right,” said she, “I can give you the proper time, for I have brought
my own little clock with me.”
She was about to take her rose-clock out of her basket, when her uncle
motioned to her not to do so.
“Let me tell you something,” said he. “The altering of the time of day,
which you speak of so lightly, is a very serious matter, which should
be considered with all gravity. If you set back a clock, even as little
as ten minutes, you add that much to the time that has passed. The
hour which has just gone by has been made seventy minutes long. Now,
no human being has the right to add anything to the past, nor to make
hours longer than they were originally made. And, on the other hand,
if you set a clock forward even so little as ten minutes, you take away
that much from the future, and you make the coming hour only fifty
minutes long. Now, no human being has a right to take anything away
from the future, or to make the hours shorter than they were intended
to be. I desire, my dear niece, that you will earnestly think over what
I have said, and I am sure that you will then see for yourself how
unwise it would be to trifle with the length of the hours which make up
our day. And now, Arla, let us talk of other things.”
And so they talked of other things until Arla thought it was time
to go. She saw there was something wrong in her uncle’s reasoning,
although she could not tell exactly what it was, and thinking about it,
she slowly returned to the town. As she approached the house of the
little old lady with white hair, she concluded to stop and speak to her
about her clock. “She will surely be willing to alter that,” said Arla,
“for it is so very much out of the way.”
The old lady knew who Arla was, and received her very kindly; but when
she heard why the young girl had come to her, she flew into a passion.
“Never, since I was born,” she said “have I been spoken to like this!
My great-grandfather lived in this house before me; that clock was good
enough for him! My grandfather lived in this house before me; that
clock was good enough for him! My father and mother lived in this house
before me; that clock was good enough for them! I was born in this
house, have always lived in it, and expect to die in it; that clock is
good enough for me! I heard its strokes when I was but a little child,
I hope to hear them at my last hour; and sooner than raise my hand
against the clock of my ancestors, and the clock of my whole life, I
would cut off that hand!”
Some tears came into Arla’s eyes; she was a little frightened. “I hope
you will pardon me, good madam,” she said, “for, truly, I did not wish
to offend you. Nor did I think that your clock is not a good one. I
only meant that you should make it better; it is nearly an hour out of
the way.”
The sight of Arla’s tears cooled the anger of the little old lady with
white hair. “Child,” she said, “you do not know what you are talking
about, and I forgive you. But remember this: never ask persons as old
as I am to alter the principles which have always made clear to them
what they should do, or the clocks which have always told them when
they should do it.”
And, kissing Arla, she bade her good-by.
“Principles may last a great while without altering,” thought Arla, as
she went away, “but I am sure it is very different with clocks.”
The poor girl now felt a good deal discouraged.
“The people don’t seem to care whether their clocks are right or not,”
she said to herself, “and if they don’t care, I am sure it is of no
use for me to tell them about it. If even one clock could be made to
go properly, it might help to make the people of Rondaine care to know
exactly what time it is. Now, there is that iron donkey. If he would
but kick at the right hour it would be an excellent thing, for he kicks
so hard that he is heard all over the town.”
Determined to make this one more effort, Arla walked quickly to the
town-building, at the top of which was the clock with the iron donkey.
This building was a sort of museum; it had a great many curious things
in it, and it was in charge of a very ingenious man, who was learned
and skilful in various ways.
When Arla had informed the superintendent of the museum why she had
come to him, he did not laugh at her nor did he get angry. He was
accustomed to giving earnest consideration to matters of this sort, and
he listened attentively to all that Arla had to say.
“You must know,” he said, “that our iron donkey is a very complicated
piece of mechanism. Not only must he kick out the hours, but five
minutes before doing so he must turn his head around and look at the
bell behind him; and then, when he has done kicking, he must put his
head back into its former position. All this action requires a great
many wheels and cogs and springs and levers, and these cannot be
made to move with absolute regularity. When it is cold, some of his
works contract; and when it is warm, they expand; and there are other
reasons why he is very likely to lose or gain time. At noon, on every
bright day, I set him right, being able to get the correct time from
a sun-dial which stands in the court-yard. But his works--which I am
sorry to say are not well made--are sure to get a great deal out of the
way before I set him again.”
“Then, if there are several cloudy or rainy days together, he goes very
wrong indeed,” said Arla.
“Yes, he truly does,” replied the superintendent, “and I am sorry for
it. But there is no way to help it except for me to make him all over
again at my own expense, and that is something I cannot afford to do.
The clock belongs to the town, and I am sure the citizens will not be
willing to spend the money necessary for a new donkey-clock; for, so
far as I know, every person but yourself is perfectly satisfied with
this one.”
“I suppose so,” said Arla, with a sigh; “but it really is a great pity
that every striking-clock in Rondaine should be wrong!”
“But how do you know they are all wrong?” asked the superintendent.
“Oh, that is easy enough,” said Arla. “When I lie awake in the early
morning, when all else is very still, I listen to their striking, and
then I look at my own rose-clock to see what time it really is.”
“Your rose-clock?” said the superintendent.
“This is it,” said Arla, opening her basket and taking out her little
clock.
The superintendent took it into his hands and looked at it attentively,
both outside and inside. And then, still holding it, he stepped out
into the court-yard. When in a few moments he returned, he said:
“I have compared your clock with my sun-dial, and find that it is ten
minutes slow. I also see that, like the donkey-clock, its works are not
adjusted in such a way as to be unaffected by heat and cold.”
“My--clock--ten--minutes--slow!” exclaimed Arla, with wide-open eyes.
“Yes,” said the superintendent, “that is the case to-day, and on
some days it is, probably, a great deal too fast. Such a clock as
this--which is a very ingenious and beautiful one--ought frequently to
be compared with a sun-dial or other correct time-keeper, and set to
the proper hour. I see it requires a peculiar key with which to set it.
Have you brought this with you?”
“No, sir,” said Arla; “I did not suppose it would be needed.”
“Well, then,” said the superintendent, “you can set it forward ten
minutes when you reach home; and if to-morrow morning you compare the
other clocks with it, I think you will find that not all of them are
wrong.”
Arla sat quiet for a moment, and then she said: “I think I shall
not care any more to compare the clocks of Rondaine with my little
rose-clock. If the people are satisfied with their own clocks, whether
they are fast or slow, and do not care to know exactly when Christmas
Day begins, I can do nobody any good by listening to the different
strikings and then looking at my own little clock, with a night-lamp by
it.”
“Especially,” said the superintendent, with a smile, “when you are not
sure that your rose-clock is right. But if you bring here your little
clock and your key on any day when the sun is shining, I will set it to
the time shadowed on the sun-dial, or show you how to do it yourself.”
“Thank you very much,” said Arla, and she took her leave.
As she walked home, she lifted the lid of her basket and looked at
her little rose-clock. “To think of it!” she said. “That you should
be sometimes too fast and sometimes too slow! And, worse than that,
to think that some of the other clocks have been right and you have
been wrong! But I do not feel like altering you to-day. If you go fast
sometimes, and slow sometimes, you must be right sometimes, and one of
these days, when I take you to be compared with the sun-dial, perhaps
you will not have to be altered so much.”
Arla went to bed that night quite tired with her long walks, and when
she awoke it was broad daylight. “I do not know,” she said to herself,
“exactly when Christmas began, but I am very sure that the happy day is
here.”
“Do you lie awake in the morning as much as you used to?” asked Arla’s
mother, a few weeks after the Christmas holidays.
“No, mother dear,” said Arla; “I now sleep with one of my windows shut,
and I am no longer awakened by that chilly feeling which used to come
to me in the early morning, when I would draw the bed-covers close
about me and think how wrong were the clocks of Rondaine.”
And the little rose-clock never went to be compared with the sun-dial.
“Perhaps you are right now,” Arla would say to her clock each day when
the sun shone, “and I will not take you until some time when I feel
very sure that you are wrong.”
THE GRIFFIN AND THE MINOR CANON
Over the great door of an old, old church which stood in a quiet town
of a far-away land there was carved in stone the figure of a large
griffin. The old-time sculptor had done his work with great care, but
the image he had made was not a pleasant one to look at. It had a large
head, with enormous open mouth and savage teeth; from its back arose
great wings, armed with sharp hooks and prongs; it had stout legs in
front, with projecting claws; but there were no legs behind,--the body
running out into a long and powerful tail, finished off at the end with
a barbed point. This tail was coiled up under him, the end sticking up
just back of his wings.
The sculptor, or the people who had ordered this stone figure, had
evidently been very much pleased with it, for little copies of it, also
in stone, had been placed here and there along the sides of the church,
not very far from the ground, so that people could easily look at
them, and ponder on their curious forms. There were a great many other
sculptures on the outside of this church--saints, martyrs, grotesque
heads of men, beasts, and birds, as well as those of other creatures
which cannot be named, because nobody knows exactly what they were;
but none were so curious and interesting as the great griffin over the
door, and the little griffins on the sides of the church.
A long, long distance from the town, in the midst of dreadful wilds
scarcely known to man, there dwelt the Griffin whose image had been put
up over the church-door. In some way or other, the old-time sculptor
had seen him and afterward, to the best of his memory, had copied his
figure in stone.
The Griffin had never known this, until, hundreds of years afterward,
he heard from a bird, from a wild animal, or in some manner which it is
not now easy to find out, that there was a likeness of him on the old
church in the distant town.
Now, this Griffin had no idea how he looked. He had never seen a
mirror, and the streams where he lived were so turbulent and violent
that a quiet piece of water, which would reflect the image of any thing
looking into it, could not be found. Being, as far as could be known,
the very last of his race, he had never seen another griffin. Therefore
it was that, when he heard of this stone image of himself, he became
very anxious to know what he looked like, and at last he determined to
go to the old church, and see for himself what manner of being he was.