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The Weathercock: Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 11. Oiling The Clock |
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_ CHAPTER ELEVEN. OILING THE CLOCK The plan of the town of Mavis Greythorpe was very simple, being one long street with houses on either side, placed just as the builders pleased. Churchwarden Rounds' long thatched place stood many yards back, which was convenient, for he liked to grow roses that his neighbours could see and admire. Crumps the cowkeeper's, too, stood some distance back, but that was handy, for there was room for the cowshed and the dairy close to the path. Dredge, the butcher, had his open shop, too--a separate building from the house at the back--close to the path, where customers could see the mortal remains of one sheep a week, sometimes two, and in the cold weather a pig, and a half or third of a "beast," otherwise a small bullock, the other portions being retained by neighbouring butchers at towns miles away, where the animal had been slain. But at fair time and Christmas, Butcher, or, as he pronounced it, Buttcher Dredge, to use his own words, "killed hissen" and a whole bullock was on exhibition in his open shop. The houses named give a fair idea of the way in which architecture was arranged for in Mavis; every man who raised a house planted it where it seemed good in his own eyes; and as in most cases wayfarers stepped down out of the main street into the front rooms, the popular way of building seemed to have been that the builder dug a hole and then put a house in it. Among those houses which were flush with the main street was that of Michael Chakes, clerk and sexton, who was also the principal shoemaker of Mavis, and his place of business was a low, open-windowed room with bench and seat, where, when not officially engaged, he sat at work, surrounded by the implements and products of his trade, every now and then opening his mouth and making a noise after repeating a couple of lines, under the impression that he was singing. Upon that point opinions differed. Vane Lee wanted a piece of leather, and as there was nothing at home that he could cut up, saving one of the doctor's Wellington boots, which were nearly new, he put on his cap, thrust his hands in his pockets, and set off for the town street, as eagerly as if his success in life depended upon his obtaining that piece of leather instanter. The place was perfectly empty as he reached the south end, the shops looked nearly the same, save that at Grader the baker's there were four covered glasses, containing some tasteless looking biscuits full of holes; a great many flies, hungry and eager to get out, walking in all directions over the panes; and on the lowest shelf Grader's big tom-cat, enjoying a good sleep in the sun. Vane did not want any of those biscuits, but just then he caught sight of Distin crossing the churchyard, and to avoid him he popped in at the baker's, to be saluted by a buzz from the flies, and a slow movement on the part of the cat who rose, raised his back into a high arch, yawned and stretched, and then walked on to the counter, and rubbed his head against Vane's buttons, as the latter thrust his hands into his pocket for a coin, and tapped on the counter loudly once, then twice, then the third time, but there was no response, for the simple reason that Mrs Grader had gone to talk to a neighbour, and John Grader, having risen at three to bake his bread, and having delivered it after breakfast, was taking a nap. "Oh, what a sleepy lot they are here!" muttered Vane, as he went to the door which, as there was no sign of Distin now, and he did not want any biscuits, he passed, and hurried along the street to where Michael Chakes sat in his open window, tapping away slowly at the heavy sole of a big boot which he was ornamenting with rows of hob-nails. Vane stepped in at once, and the sexton looked up, nodded, and went on nailing again. "Oughtn't to put the nails so close, Mike." "Nay, that's the way to put in nails, Mester Vane!" said the sexton. "But if they were open they'd keep a man from slipping in wet and frost." "Don't want to keep man from slipping, want to make 'em weer." "Oh, all right; have it your own way. Here, I want a nice strong new bit of leather, about six inches long." "What for?" "Never you mind what for, get up and sell me a bit." "Nay, I can't leave my work to get no leather to-day, Mester. Soon as I've putt in these here four nails, I'm gooing over to belfry." "What for? Some one dead?" "Nay, not they. Folk weant die a bit now, Mester Vane. I dunno whether it's Parson Syme's sarmints or what, but seems to me as if they think it's whole dooty a man to live to hundred and then not die." "Nonsense, cut me my bit of leather, and let me go." "Nay, sir, I can't stop to coot no leather to-day. I tellee I'm gooin' to church." "But what for?" "Clock's stopped." "Eh! Has it?" cried Vane eagerly. "What's the matter with it?" "I d'know sir. Somethin' wrong in its inside, I spect. I'm gooing to see." "Forgotten to wind it up, Mike." "Nay, that I arn't, sir. Wound her up tight enew." "Then that's it. Wound up too tight, perhaps." "Nay, she's been wound up just the same as I've wound her these five-and-twenty year, just as father used to. She's wrong inside." "Goes stiff. Wants a little oil. Bring some in a bottle with a feather and I'll soon put it right." The sexton pointed with his hammer to the chimney-piece where a small phial bottle was standing, and Vane took it up at once, and began turning a white fowl's feather round to stir up the oil. "You mean to come, then?" said the sexton. "Of course. I'm fond of machinery," cried Vane. "Ay, you be," said the sexton, tapping away at the nails, "and you'd like to tak' that owd clock all to pieces, I know." "I should," cried Vane with his eyes sparkling. "Shall I?" "What?" cried the sexton, with his hammer raised. "Why, you'd never get it put together again." "Tchah! that I could. I would somehow," added the lad. "Ay somehow; but what's the good o' that! Suppose she wouldn't goo when you'd putt her together somehow. What then?" "Why, she won't go now," cried Vane, "so what harm would it do?" "Well, I don't know about that," said the sexton, driving in the last nail, and pausing to admire the iron-decorated sole. "Now, then, cut my piece of leather," cried Vane. "Nay, I can't stop to coot no pieces o' leather," said the sexton. "Church clock's more consekens than all the bits o' leather in a tanner's yard. I'm gooing over yonder now." "Oh, very well," said Vane, as the man rose, untied his leathern apron, and put on a very ancient coat, "it will do when we come back." "Mean to go wi' me, then?" "Of course I do." The sexton chuckled, took his hat from behind the door, and stepped out on to the cobble-stone pathway, after taking the oil bottle and a bunch of big keys from a nail. The street looked as deserted as if the place were uninhabited, and not a soul was passed as they went up to the church gate at the west end of the ancient edifice, which had stood with its great square stone fortified tower, dominating from a knoll the tiny town for five hundred years--ever since the days when it was built to act as a stronghold to which the Mavis Greythorpites could flee if assaulted by enemies, and shoot arrows from the narrow windows and hurl stones from the battlements. Or, if these were not sufficient, and the enemy proved to be very enterprising indeed, so much so as to try and batter in the hugely-thick iron-studded belfry-door, why there were those pleasant openings called by architects machicolations, just over the entrance, from which ladlesful of newly molten lead could be scattered upon their heads. Michael Chakes knew the bunch of keys by heart, but he always went through the same ceremony--that of examining them all four, and blowing in the tubes, as if they were panpipes, keeping the one he wanted to the last. "Oh, do make haste, Mike," cried the boy. "You are so slow." "Slow and sewer's my motter, Mester Vane," grunted the sexton, as he slowly inserted the key. "Don't you hurry no man's beast; you may hev an ass of your own some day." "If I do I'll make him go faster than you do. I say, though, Mike, do you think it's true about those old bits of leather?" As he spoke, Vane pointed to a couple of scraps of black-looking, curl-edged hide, fastened with broad headed nails to the belfry-door. "True!" cried the sexton, turning his grim, lined, and not over-clean face to gaze in the frank-looking handsome countenance beside him. "True! Think o' that now, and you going up to rectory every day, to do your larning along with the other young gents, to Mester Syme. Well, that beats all." "What's that got to do with it?" cried Vane, as the sexton ceased from turning the key in the door, and laid one hand on the scraps of hide. "Got to do wi' it, lad? Well I am! And to call them leather." "Well, so they are leather," said Vane. "And do you mean to say, standing theer with the turn-stones all around you as you think anything bout t'owd church arn't true?" "No, but I don't think it's true about those bits of leather." "Leather, indeed!" cried the sexton. "I'm surprised at you, Mester Vane--that I am. Them arn't leather but all that's left o' the skins o' the Swedums and Danes as they took off 'em and nailed up on church door to keep off the rest o' the robbin', murderin' and firin' wretches as come up river in their ships and then walked the rest o' the way across the mash?" "Oh, but it might be a bit of horse skin." "Nay, nay, don't you go backslidin' and thinking such a thing as that, mester. Why, theer was a party o' larned gentlemen come one day all t'way fro' Lincoln, and looked at it through little tallerscope things, and me standing close by all the time to see as they didn't steal nowt, for them sort's terruble folk for knocking bits off wi' hammers as they carries in their pockets and spreadin' bits o' calico over t' brasses, and rubbin' 'em wi' heel balls same as I uses for edges of soles; and first one and then another of 'em says--'Human.' That's what they says. Ay, lad, that's true enough, and been here to this day." "Ah, well, open the door, Mike, and let's go in. I don't believe people would have been such wretches as to skin a man, even if he was a Dane, and then nail the skin up there. But if they did, it wouldn't have lasted." The sexton shook his head very solemnly and turned the great key, the rusty lock-bolt shooting back reluctantly, and the door turning slowly on its hinges, which gave forth a dismal creak. "Here, let's give them a drop of oil," cried Vane; but the sexton held the bottle behind him. "Nay, nay," he said; "they're all right enew. Let 'em be, lad." "How silent it seems without the old clock ticking," said Vane, looking up at the groined roof where, in place of bosses to ornament the handsome old ceiling of the belfry, there were circular holes intended to pour more lead and arrows upon besiegers, in case they made their way through the door, farther progress being through a narrow lancet archway and up an extremely small stone spiral staircase toward which Vane stepped, but the sexton checked him. "Nay, Mester, I go first," he said. "Look sharp then." But the only thing sharp about the sexton were his awls and cutting knives, and he took an unconscionably long time to ascend to the floor above them where an opening in the staircase admitted them to a square chamber, lighted by four narrow lancet windows, and into which hung down from the ceiling, and through as many holes, eight ropes, portions of which were covered with worsted to soften them to the ringers' hands. Vane made a rush for the rope of the tenor bell, but the sexton uttered a cry of horror. "Nay, nay, lad," he said, as soon as he got his breath, "don't pull: 'twould make 'em think there's a fire." "Oh, all right," said Vane, leaving the rope. "Nay, promise as you weant touch 'em, or I weant go no further." "I promise," cried Vane merrily. "Now, then, up you go to the clock." The sexton looked relieved, and went to a broad cupboard at one side of the chamber, opened it, and there before them was the great pendulum of the old clock hanging straight down, and upon its being started swinging, it did so, but with no answering _tic-tac_. "Where are the weights, Mike?" cried Vane, thrusting in his head, and looking up. "Oh, I see them." "Ay, you can see 'em, lad, wound right up. There, let's go and see." The sexton led the way up to the next floor, but here they were stopped by a door, which was slowly opened after he had played his tune upon the key pipes. "Oh I say, Mike, what a horrible old bore you are," cried the boy, impatiently. "Then thou shouldstna hev coom, lad," said the sexton as they stood now in a chamber through which the bell ropes passed and away up through eight more holes in the next ceiling, while right in the middle stood the skeleton works of the great clock, with all its wheels and escapements open to the boy's eager gaze, as he noted everything, from the portion which went out horizontally through the wall to turn the hands on the clock's face, to the part where the pendulum hung, and on either side the two great weights which set the machine in motion, and ruled the striking of the hours. The clock was screwed down to a frame-work of oaken beams, and looked, in spite of its great age and accumulation of dust, in the best of condition, and, to the sexton's horror, Vane forgot all about the eight big bells overhead, and the roof of the tower, from which there was a magnificent view over the wolds, and stripped off his jacket. "What are you going to do, lad?" cried the sexton. "See what's the matter. Why the clock won't go." "Nay, nay, thou must na touch it, lad. Why, it's more than my plaace is worth to let anny one else touch that theer clock." "Oh, nonsense! Here, give me the oil." Vane snatched the bottle, and while the sexton looked on, trembling at the sacrilege, as it seemed to him, the lad busily oiled every bearing that he could reach, and used the oil so liberally that at last there was not a drop left, and he ceased his task with a sigh. "There, Mike, she'll go now," he cried. "Can't say I've done any harm." "Nay, I wean't say that you hev, mester, for I've been standing ready to stop you if you did." Vane laughed. "Now, then, start the pendulum," he said; "and then put the hands right." He went to the side to start the swinging regulator himself but the sexton again stopped him. "Nay," he said; "that's my job, lad;" and very slowly and cautiously he set the bob in motion. "There, I told you so," cried Vane; "only wanted a drop of oil." For the pendulum swung _tic_--_tac_--_tic_--_tac_ with beautiful regularity. Then, as they listened it went _tic_--_tic_. Then _tic_ two or three times over, and there was no more sound. "Didn't start it hard enough, Mike," cried Vane; and this time, to the sexton's horror, he gave the pendulum a good swing, the regular _tic_--_tac_ followed, grew feeble, stopped, and there was an outburst as if of uncanny laughter from overhead, so real that it was hard to think that it was only a flock of jackdaws just settled on the battlements of the tower. "Oh, come, I'm not going to be beaten like this," cried Vane, "I know I can put the old clock right." "Nay, nay, not you," said the sexton firmly. "But I took our kitchen clock to pieces, and put it together again; and now it goes splendidly--only it doesn't strike right." "Mebbe," said the sexton, "but this arn't a kitchen clock. Nay, Master Vane, the man 'll hev to come fro Lincun to doctor she." "But let me just--" "Nay, nay, you don't touch her again." The man was so firm that Vane had to give way and descend, forgetting all about the piece of leather he wanted, and parting from the sexton at the door as the key was turned, and then walking back home, to go at once to his workshop and sit down to think. There was plenty for him to do--any number of mechanical contrivances to go on with, notably the one intended to move a boat without oars, sails, or steam, but they were not church clocks, and for the time being nothing interested him but the old clock whose hands were pointing absurdly as to the correct time. All at once a thought struck Vane, and he jumped up, thrust a pair of pliers, a little screw-wrench and a pair of pincers into his pockets and went out again. _ |
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