Chapter 13 13.magic clock

One day Anthony was taken to stay for a few days with his aunt Hanah, who lived in Wells. "It doesn't look like a city." Anthony said this once he got there, and what he said was true.Wells is more of a lovely big village, although it has a beautiful cathedral and a mansion for the bishop.There is also a river around the mansion, like a moat, in which swans of all sizes swim.But the streets of the city were like the streets of the village, and the cathedral green was like the village green.The only difference, perhaps, is that everything here is a little bigger and a little cuter than in the small village.Under the shadow of the cathedral, the meadow was peaceful and quiet, and it seemed that this peace also crept up every stone of the church tower and the roofs of the houses around the meadow.And the cathedral towers themselves seemed to be two great organs with blue pipes, and when Anthony looked up at them he thought he heard them playing.Besides, the cathedral had the most wonderful clock that Anthony Anshone had never seen.It's like a special toy that kids love.

The clock has two faces, one inside the cathedral and one outside.The outer face is more ordinary, but there are also two figures on it, like two warriors in armor, with two clocks hanging between them.Four times in an hour the two warriors raised their axes to strike the two bells, so that the two bells struck every quarter of an hour. "Is that what those two warriors always do, Aunt Hanach?" he asked. "It's always done that way. You mustn't call 'em samurai, you've got to call 'em Jack for a quarter of an hour." "Didn't those two quarter-hour Jacks never sleep?"

"Of course. They have to stay awake and do their duty. I want you to do yours, Anthony." "You'd be a fine boy with Aunt Hanach, wouldn't you, Anthony?" his mother said softly.She'd be driving away soon, leaving him there with such a young boy with such an old lady. Anthony nodded to show that he would be fine, and his mother, as usual, seemed to understand him immediately, but his aunt said, "It's not like just nodding. Answer your mother well, dear." Yes." So Anthony said, "Yes, Mother." His mother squeezed his hand, and Aunt Hanach said, "That's better." It looked like she had a crush on Anthony and her I am very satisfied.But Anthony could not help wondering what his responsibility was when he was with his aunt.He really wasn't sure what it was, and he hoped he wasn't going to sleep like Jack who chimed the quarter-hour and stayed awake waiting for their clock to strike.

Then his aunt took him into the cathedral, where he saw the face inside the clock, a face a thousand times more magical than the outside, made up of the stars, the sun, the moon, and the twenty-four hours of the day.At its four outer corners are four winged angels occupying the four directions of the sky, and in the center is the round globe itself, held in place by a rose.One revolution of the sun represents an hour, one revolution of the stars represents one minute, and the crescent moon points out the days of a month.But the magic of that clock is much more than that.A small tower rises above the clock face, and when it strikes an hour, four warriors appear in the tower, turning around the tower, two going this way and two going that way, desperately Hit me, one got knocked down and got up again, then got knocked down again, got up again, fell down again!Oh my god!

"That fourth warrior keeps getting knocked down, doesn't it, Aunt Hanach?" asked Anthony. "That's right, dear." "why?" "I think he deserved to be shot down." "Then what did he do?" "You don't have to worry about it." Aunt Hanah said and pouted.Anthony couldn't help but think that the samurai must have done something very bad, so Aunt Hanach didn't want to mention him. The magic doesn't end here.Because there is a shrine a little distance away on the wall, in which sits Master Jack Brontifer, all carved out of wood.His painted legs hang in the air, he holds two hammers in his hands, and a clock hangs in front of him.At the quarter of an hour, Jack Brantifer jumped down from his seat and kicked the bell twice; at the half-hour, he kicked four times; at the hour, he kicked Eight kicks.Then with his hammer he struck the clock, and struck the hour, nine at nine, ten at ten.Anthony didn't see the master doing these things that day, but when he lived at his aunt's he used to sneak into the cathedral and watch Jack Brontefer kick and hammer the clock, and see The four warriors dashed out to fight, and Jack who struck a quarter of an hour was outside ringing the clock around which the sun, stars and moon all moved according to their time, and the rose at the center of the earth held up both the sky and the earth.

"Did God make this clock?" Anthony asked. "My God, no, child!" said Aunt Hanach, "you can figure it out! The clock is only five hundred years old, and it was made by a monk." "What's the name of that monk?" "Brightfoot Peter." Anthony looked at the moving Venus. "Did he make the clock out of his feet?" "Children should never ask such stupid questions," said Aunt Hanah. Anthony looked at his mother questioningly, and she just shook her head slightly.Anthony's eyes mean: "Is that a stupid question, Mom?" And she shook her head like, "No, honey, it's not a stupid question." But neither of them said it out loud, and Anthony wanted Hana Aunt Hert said to his mother, "It's not a good way to shake your head!" But she didn't do that, and no doubt, if she had seen it all, she would have thought that a shake of his head meant he was a stupid little boy .

She walked with Anthony through the gardens of the Bishop's mansion and around the moat-like river before his mother drove away.There they saw some white swans swimming in the river with gray cygnets.While Anthony was watching, he saw a swan swim up to a rope hanging by the river and tug at the rope with its beak.The rope rang a bell on the top and caused a basket full of food to tip over and overturn in the water.As soon as the bell rang, the little swans became greedy and hurriedly paddled over. The white swans also swam among them like big water lilies, and soon they devoured desperately together.

"Why, Mother!" cried Anthony, "that swan is just like you, ringing the bell for lunch!" "Yes," said the mother with a big laugh, "that little swan came over happily, just like you!" Before long Mom drove away, and before she went, she put her arms around Anthony and said, "Be a happy little boy, dear. When your dad is a little better, you should go home." "Okay," said Anthony, quite sure that in such a fairy-tale place he couldn't help being a happy little boy.So when he watched his mother drive away, he felt only a little uncomfortable, just a little, never more.

But at night, Anthony lay in bed, feeling that he was not a very happy little boy after all.Because a bed in the dark is a bed in the dark, it has nothing to do with how many magical clocks there are outside, how many swans are eating and ringing the bells.It mattered who was in the next room, who was downstairs, and who was upstairs.It wasn't his own mother, or even Baba, in the next room, but just Aunt Hanach, whom he didn't know very well. Anthony couldn't sleep, despite his best attempts.And he couldn't keep three tears from rolling down his cheeks, though he tried harder to keep them back.Before the fourth tear fell, he heard a voice beside the bed, though he heard no footsteps on the floor.

"Anshoney, you come down and do your duty." Anthony looked up and saw a tall and thin figure of a monk standing by the bed.The monk was wearing a long brown robe with a rope tied around his waist, and a pair of kind eyes looked out from the hood. "What is my responsibility?" Anthony asked. "My clock is broken. Will you help me get it running again?" "Can I see the parts of the clock?" Anthony asked. "Of course," said the monk. Anthony got out of bed immediately, and followed the monk out of the door, down the stairs, and onto the cathedral lawn.No one saw them or stopped them.Anthony noticed that his partner walked quietly.As the friar's robe was so long, Anthony could not see his feet, but there were some golden glints from under the robe, so that he seemed to be walking in a light.

"He must have golden feet," thought Anthony, and he said aloud, "Isn't your name Peter Brightfoot?" "That's my name," said the monk. "You made that magic clock?" Anthony said. "Yes, now I have to rebuild it, because it was broken." "Who broke it?" "Those samurai broke it when they were fighting. They fought too hard. One of them, according to several others, always wanted to break the clock, so they all came out to stop him, but they fought too hard , broke the world, and the sun and the stars went away. Look below." Anthony looked down and saw one of Chung's faces lying on the ground outside.It appears to be more than a thousand times larger than it was in the cathedral. "Now you look up," said Brightfoot Peter.Anthony looked up and saw the other face of the clock in the sky, so round and so big that it covered all the stars.Its clock face was dark, and the clock face on the ground was also dark. The light that Anshone could see came from the monk's feet, and from the rose in the center of the clock face on the ground. "Where's the sun?" Anthony asked. "It got away." "And what about the stars?" "They were destroyed." "And the moon?" "It was broken." "But the rose is still there," said Anthony. "Yes," said Lightfoot Peter, "the rose has always been there." Then Anthony asked again: "And the warriors, where are the two Jack and Jack Brontifer who knocked the quarter-hour? Have they been destroyed too?" "No, they're all in their places waiting for the clock to be fixed and time to go on. They won't move until then." "But then the samurai will fight again and break it again." "Yes, and many, many more times," said Brightfoot Peter. "So you're always going to have to fix it up again?" "Yes, many times," said Brightfoot Peter. "Fix it now," Anthony said eagerly, "let me see the parts!" "Here's the part," said Brightfoot Peter, reaching out his hand and taking three tears from Anthony's cheek.One drop is placed on the clock face where the moon tells which day it is, one drop is placed where the sun tells the hour and that hour, and one drop is placed where the stars tell the minutes and minutes.Then he stepped onto the clock face, from the edge to the center, circled and circled, and wherever he stepped, there were golden lights shining.Finally he got to the center and stood there motionless while Anthony watched him grow taller until his head touched the sky.He grabbed the other face of the clock, and the two faces flew up and became one.Then Anthony heard the organ music pouring from the two towers of the cathedral, ringing in the night sky, and saw his three tears become sun, moon, and stars as they circled the center of the world. They all shone above his head as the roses moved their time. "The clock is fixed," said Brightfoot Peter, "and I'm going to put it back in the church. Go back to bed, Anthony, you've done your duty." The next morning Aunt Hanach said, "Did you sleep well, Anthony?" "No, Auntie, I never shut my eyes," said Anthony cheerfully. "Children, please don't tell lies." Aunt Hanah said. "I'm really not lying at all," Anthony said. "Then you must be very naughty. What have you been up to all night?" "I've been awake and doing my duty," Anthony said, "just like the two Jacks striking the quarter-hour in the Magic Clock." Aunt Hanach gave him a sharp look to see if he was being rude to her.But Anthony looked so happy that she kept her mouth shut and said nothing.