"Kaspar, thou little rogue, how often shall I tell thee not to meddle
with that clock?"
"I was only watching the wheels go round, father," said a sturdy little
fellow in a soiled leathern jacket, starting up with a half-mischievous
look in his blue eyes.
"And what hast _thou_ to do with the wheels, eh? Suppose this clock is
stopped or put wrong some day by one of thy tricks, what shall I, Hans
Scheller, custodian of St. Martin's Church, say to the Town Council?
Dost thou know what birch porridge is, thou rogue? Beware, or I'll give
thee such a taste of it as shall make thee go round faster than the
wheels."
Poor Hans was indeed kept in constant terror by his inquiring son's
uncontrollable habit of going wherever he ought not. The old Church of
St. Martin was a famous play-ground for any boy, with its shadowy
aisles, and countless pillars, and tall towers, and deep niches, and
half-ruined battlements; and the worthy custodian, when he awoke from
his after-dinner nap in his little room at the foot of the great clock
tower, never knew whether he should find his hopeful boy hiding behind
the altar-screen, trying to blow the organ bellows, playing
hide-and-seek among the pinnacles of the roof, or sitting astride of a
carved spout a hundred and sixty feet above the pavement.
All this, however, might have been forgiven; for the old custodian was
really as fond of his "little rogue" as the boy, with all his wildness,
was of him. But the one thing that Hans could not pardon was the danger
caused by his son's restless inquisitiveness to his beloved church
clock. It was his pride and glory to be able to tell every one that
during the whole forty years that he had been in charge of the "St.
Martin's Kirche," the clock had never stopped or gone wrong; and nothing
would convince him that it was not by far the finest clock in the whole
world.
"Don't tell _me_ of the big clock of Strasburg Cathedral," he would say,
with an obstinate shake of his gray head. "Could _it_ go forty years on
end, think you, without the slightest deviation? No, that it couldn't,
nor any other clock on the face of the earth except this one."
Mindful of Kaspar's inquiring turn of mind, his father, having to do
some marketing in the town the day after our hero's stolen visit to the
clock, locked the door of the tower, and took the key along with him.
"No harm can happen now," he muttered; "and, in any case, I shall be
back before he gets out of school."
But, as ill-luck would have it, the teacher was called away by some
business that afternoon, and the boys got out of school more than an
hour earlier than usual. Kaspar, finding his father gone, went straight
to the door of the clock tower, and looked rather blank on discovering
that it was locked. But he was not one to be easily stopped when he had
once made up his mind. Getting out upon the roof, and crawling along a
cornice where only a cat or a school-boy could have found footing, he
crept through an air-hole right into the clock-room.
For some time he was as happy as a child in a toy shop, running from one
marvel to another, until at length he discovered another hole, and
thrusting his head through it, found himself looking down upon the
market-place through the face of the clock itself. But when he tried to
withdraw his head again, it would not come.
It was such a queer scrape to be in that Kaspar was more inclined to
laugh than to be frightened; but suddenly a thought struck him which
scared him in earnest: his neck was in the track of the minute-hand,
which, when it reached him, must inevitably tear his head off!
Poor Kaspar! it was too late now to wish that he had left the clock
alone. He tried to scream for help, but with his neck in that cramped
position, the cry that he gave was scarcely louder than the chirp of a
sparrow. He struggled desperately to writhe himself back through the
hole; but a piece of the wood-work had slipped down upon the back of his
neck, and held him like a vise.
On came the destroyer, nearer and nearer still, marking off with its
measured tick his few remaining moments of life. And all the while the
sun was shining gayly, the tiny flags were fluttering on the booths of
the market, and the merry voices of his school-fellows who were playing
in the market-place came faintly to his ears, while he hung there
helpless, with Death stealing upon him inch by inch. His head grew
dizzy, and the measured beat of the ticking sounded like the roll of a
muffled drum, while the coming hand of the clock looked like a monstrous
arm outstretched to seize him, and the carved faces on the spouts seemed
to grin and gibber at him in mockery. And still the terrible hand crept
onward, nearer, nearer, nearer.
"What _can_ that thing in the clock face be?" said a tourist below,
pointing his spy-glass upward. "Why, I declare it looks like a boy's
head!"
"A boy's head!" cried a gray-haired watchmaker beside him (one of Hans
Scheller's special friends), snatching hastily at the glass as he spoke.
"Why, good gracious! it's little Kaspar. He'll be killed! he'll be
killed!" And he rushed toward the church, shouting like a madman.
The alarm spread like wild-fire, and before Klugmann, the watchmaker,
had got half-way up the stairs leading to the tower, more than a score
of excited men were scampering at his heels. But at the top of the stair
they were suddenly brought to a stand-still by the locked door.
"It's locked!" cried Klugmann in tones of horror, "and Hans must have
taken the key with him, for it isn't here."
"Never mind the key," roared a brawny smith behind him. "Pick up that
beam, comrades, and run it against the lock. All together now!"
Crash went the door, in rushed the crowd, and Kaspar, now senseless from
sheer fright, was dragged out of his strange prison just as the huge bar
of the minute-hand actually touched his neck. And so it fell out that
poor old Scheller, coming home for a quiet afternoon nap, found the door
of the tower smashed in, his son lying in a swoon, and his little room
crowded with strange men all talking at once.
But from that day forth Kaspar Scheller never meddled with the church
clock again.