I wondered if he said it to please my father, who certainly showed pleasure in the hearing, but I believe it truly was of very good workmanship. The clockman said there were a number in Winchester, but none as fine as this. There was no other Watch in the village, nor in any of the villages round about. The clockman was only allowed to see to it every third year, and at such times my father stood by, watching him as he worked. This, a miniature clock with a dial less than an inch across and a circlet permitting it to be worn on the wrist, was kept in a locked drawer of his desk and only brought out to be worn on ceremonial occasions, like Harvest Festival, or a Capping. My father’s great treasure, though, was not the clock, but the Watch. He did not show much enthusiasm, but he listened to them.

My father, if he were not busy milling, would stalk out at this time, with some contemptuous remark about gossip but later, in the evening, I would hear my mother passing the stories on to him. Afterward he would drink camomile tea with my mother, and tell her the news of the city and what he had learned in the villages through which he had passed. Once a year the clockman came from Winchester, on an old jogging packhorse, to clean and oil it and put it right. It stood on the mantelpiece in the parlor, and every night before he went to bed he took the key from a vase, and wound it up.

Apart from the one in the church tower, there were five clocks in the village that kept reasonable time, and my father owned one of them.

The white mountains by john christopher