The Press., 1915-02-03
What the Clock
 Said A Medieval Romance
By E. A. MITCHELL

| In the year 1870 holiday was pro
 claimed in the town of Strassburg. The
 occasion for rejoicing was the setting up of a clock in tower built for the
 purpose, where all citizens could see it
 and note the time of day. This was the second clock of which we have any
 account the first having been placed
 six years before in tower in the pal ace of Charles V. of France. There
 were no pendulums to these primitive
 clocks, the regulators being fywheels. l But since the fiywheel was resisted by the air it acted imperfectly, as any
 one may see by watching windmill
 which turns as fast or as slowly as the l current that moves it.
 | Nevertheless the goodpeople of Strass- | burg, who had been always obliged to
 regulate their movements by the sun,
 which rose very early in summer and i late in winter, were delighted at now | having something that would divide the day for them, telling them what l time to go to work in the morning, 1 when to have meals and when to go l | into the tower they feasted from morn
 ing till night, and when the hands
 pointed to the hour of 9, though it was
 the month of June and still daylight.
 all said their prayers and went to bed
 for the first time in their lives know
 ing that they had turned in at proper
 hour.
 From this time forward everything
 was regulated by the clock. Before 1t
 was set up the mayor of the town had
 been the ruler, but now his authority
 was superseded by the clock. With it's | tiywheel influenced by the currents of
 mir that wlistled through the tower it
 reeled along like q drunken man try
 ing to get home. sometimes getting the
 people up all hour or more ahead Of
 time in the morning or putting them to bed in the middle of the afternoon.
 But, though knowledge often creeps.
 still it moves. The people of Strassburg.
 having made n beginning by setting up timepiece, soon found a way to make 1t serviceable in other respects than by
 dividing the day. The mayor ordered
 that the clock be the calendar by which all public matters be regulated. If
 Franz Gotieb promised to pay Carl
 Stengel q sum of money in thirty days
 it meant that when the hour hand of the clock had made the circle of it's
 face thirty times the money would be due. If Hans Bunker drank too much beer and was sentenced for making all unnecessary noise to ten days impris- Onment it meant that the short hand on the clock must rotate ten times be | fore Hans would be free again.
 There lived in Strassburg at this time maiden named Gretchen Borchert
 whom everybody loved for her amiable disposition, her beauty and her piety. Gretchen loved Josef Brett, young carpenter, roofer, mason. well digger | in short, one who did anything re quired in, on or about the homes of the people of the town. Unfortunately for Gretchen, another girl, Anna Huber. also loved Josef, and, finding that Gretchen was the winner in the matter l of Josefs affections, she resorted to q devilish means of putting her rival out of the way. Anna went before the JuuSc ol lue COuIL duu S"OIc LIlsI Gretchen was witch. The accuser named several persons whom Gretchen had bewitched. She swore that she had herself seen Gretchen standing over well swallowing crooked pins and carrying water in a sieve.
 Gretchen was brought before the court for trial. Every one of the per sons named by Anna as having been bewitched by Gretchen was found to be a dangerous lunatic. Several wit nesses testified that they had seen Gretchen riding over their houses on a broomstick. and a little girl of seven declared that she had seen the culprit sweeping cobwebs from the sky. All this testimony was admitted except that of the last witness, whom the judge considered too young to testify. However, there was quite enough with out this to warrant the condemning of Gretchen as witch, and the judge sentenced her to be burned at the stake. In order that she might have time to cast out the devil that was in her before going to her long home, the day of her execution was fixed at two weeks from her sentence.
 Josef, strange to say, was not in the least influenced by all this overwhelm- ing evidence to believe that his sweet heart was witch. Indeed, he was sure that she was the same lovely girl she had always been. And he knew, Anna having tried her best to make him love her, that she had accused her rival of witchcraft, hoping that with Gretchen removed Josef could be won.
 Those were superstitious times, as may be inferred from the trial and con demnation of this innocent girl. Josef turned to something more powerful than himself to save his sweetheart. As has been said, the clock had super seded the mayor and all others in au- thority in Strassburg, so the clock being the most powerful thing Josef had any knowledge of one night when every one was in bed he knelt at the base of the tower that supported it and prayed to it to tell him how to prevent Gretch- en from being burned at the stake.
 Whether or not it was the clock that nnt the idea into J0sef's head-.Josef ttul uOC uOukt It WAS tu0 CloIN--ItP a''
 tainIy conceived it while he was on his knees before it asking for help. Rising he went at once to the tower and, being an expert at climbing, made his way up to the clock. Once there he set the hands ahead a couple of hours.
 The next morning all the people of Strassburg woke up to find that they had overslept themselves and some of them hurried to their daily work with out taking time to eat their breakfasts. But not one of them thought of accus- ing the clock of being wrong. From that time forward for two weeks they found themselves at times getting out of bed too late. at times too early, but it was usually too late. Some of them believed that Gretchen had bewitched the town and they would not return to regular habits until she had been