Christopher And The Clockmakers Part 18

By the time he and his father returned to the store, however, they were practically normal, and he ascended to the fourth floor to hunt up McPhearson, who amid the general excitement he had left somewhat abruptly.

"Well, so you landed your light-fingered friend, did you, laddie?"

remarked the Scotchman.

"Mr. Corrigan did."

"It was thanks to you, I guess."

"Partly!"

"Humph! You don't seem very triumphant about it." The old man peered at the boy over the top of his gla.s.ses.

"I'm not. It made me sick--the whole thing."

"I know, sonny--I know. But we can't have such persons about,"

McPhearson said gently. "Of course you are sorry to put a fellow behind the bars, but--"

"He was so darned decent about it--and so plucky," exclaimed Christopher. "Why, he was almost a gentleman."

The sentence ended in a tremulous laugh.

"No doubt he may have started out to be a gentleman--poor chap--and then got on the wrong track. Well, you did what was right. You know that."

"I hope so," was the dull answer.

"We'll not talk about it any more. Come, let's shift the subject to something else."

"To clocks?"

"Aren't you tired of clocks?"

"No. Are you?"

"I never get tired of them," smiled McPhearson. "If I did, it would be fatal. They are my daily bread."

"And mine, too, for that matter," rejoined Christopher.

"Perhaps," admitted the Scotchman. "Still you do not subsist wholly on clocks. Your bread is studded with pearls, emeralds, and rubies."

The fancy pleased the boy, and he laughed.

"Rather indigestible eating," he protested.

"And yet you look fit as a king."

There was a moment's pause; then the man said:

"Well, if we are to talk clocks, where shall we begin?"

"Anywhere you like," returned the lad, with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Suppose, then, since you are so docile and accommodating, we leap to somewhere near the year 1650, when the inspiration to attach the pallets of the escapement to the pendulum rod, thereby making the escapement horizontal, came almost simultaneously to an Englishman named Harris and a Dutchman named Huyghens. These, together with the later ideas of anchor escapement evolved by Graham, put clocks, within the span of a few years, on an almost modern basis. Other improvements such as using steel springs in place of weights and the perfecting of movements have of course been made since; but this period covers the time of most vital improvement in the art of clockmaking. At this time, too, some of the finest of old English watches and clocks were made.

Thomas Tompion, sometimes called the father of English clock making, took his place at the head of these, and to this day beautiful old clocks that are still in service testify to his skillful workmanship."

"What sort of clocks did he make?" inquired Christopher with interest.

"Just about every design of the period--bracket clocks similar to those of Richard Parsons'; long-case, or what we call grandfather, clocks; even bra.s.s clocks with projecting dials; and in addition, the greater part of the finest watches turned out at this time were of his making.

There were few who could equal him. Possibly Daniel Quare and Joseph Knibb made clocks as good, but they certainly made no better. Were you to visit Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle, you would find there wonderful chiming grandfather clocks made by this same Thomas Tompion.

They are genuine treasures and would bring almost any price. So remember, in journeying through the world, if you ever run across a clock or a watch made by Thomas Tompion, you are looking at a very fine bit of handicraft."

"I'm afraid I never shall," Christopher shook his head.

"One never can tell where his path through life will take him,"

McPhearson said. "For example, I never expected my wanderings would lead me from Glasgow to America. Nor, probably, did Stuart dream when he woke up to-day that his morning ride in a Fifth Avenue bus would land him in jail. So you must not despair of seeing London and some of Thomas Tompion's clocks. Moreover, should you go there, I hope you will hunt up in Westminster Abbey the grave of this famous man."

"Was he buried at Westminster? Why, I thought only kings, queens, poets, and great people had places there," Christopher ventured, a trifle incredulous.

"Usually they do, but Thomas Tompion well merited the honor due him, I a.s.sure you. To begin with, he was no ordinary tradesman. He was a person of culture who all his life a.s.sociated with the foremost philosophers and mathematicians of his day. So widely was his ability recognized that he was made leading watchmaker to the court of Charles II. Now, although timekeepers had vastly improved, they were still pretty faulty, experimental contrivances, whose outside trappings counted with the public far more than did their interior mechanism. Tompion changed all this. Seizing upon all that was good offered by the inventors preceding him, he carefully re-proportioned the various parts and produced English clocks and watches that were at once the pride and despair of his brother craftsmen. Watches were something of an avocation with him, for his primary trade was in clocks, to which for many years he devoted his entire labor. Probably, however, the problems a watch presented won his interest and led him to try his skill in this new field, with the result that he was soon making watches that as far surpa.s.sed his a.s.sociates' as did his clocks. He made a watch for the king, the fame of which traveled to France and prompted the Dauphin to order two like it. These watches all had two balances and balance springs fashioned after the scheme Hooke had worked out. They also, like most of Tompion's timekeepers, had an hour and a minute hand. One more innovation which he presented (and it was a very practical one) was the numbering of his watch movements for purposes of identification--a plan very generally followed since by present-day workmen. And yet all this which I have told you does not give you half an idea of what Tompion really was."

McPhearson paused thoughtfully.

"Thomas Tompion stood for something more than any of these things. He was a genuine lover of his art, and when we see or read of the many kinds of clocks and watches he produced, we cannot but feel the joy he had in making them. He made, for example, a marvellous clock that would run a year without winding, which William III had in his bedroom at Kensington Palace, it having been left to him by the Earl of Leicester.

This clock, although small, struck the hours and quarter-hours, and was of ebony with silver mountings. And to prove to you that it was no novelty timepiece to be used merely for ornament, I will tell you that now, after a hundred and fifty years, it is still running and faithfully doing its duty."

"Who owns it?" queried Christopher.

"It has for a century and a half been in the possession of the family of Lord Mostyn and so famous has been its history that this n.o.bleman has kept the names of those who have wound it during the last hundred years."

"All sorts of bigwigs, I suppose," put in Christopher.

"A list of celebrated persons, you may be sure."

"Was Ebenezer on it?" Christopher chuckled mischievously.

"Most likely he would have been had he not been so busy winding Mr.

Hawley's treasures," replied the Scotchman, smiling at the jest. "Then in 1695 Tompion made a very fine traveling striking and alarm watch with case beautifully chased. The Pump Room at Bath boasts a tall clock of his make--a present from him to the city in acknowledgment of the benefits he derived from its mineral waters. There are also examples of his craft in famous clock collections both here and in England, the Wetherfield collection owning eighteen made by him."

"And did his tall clocks have weights?"

"Yes, their driving power was a big lead weight. The clock at Bath has a thirty-two-pound weight of lead which drops monthly six feet."

"Is it only wound each month?"

"That's all. Some of these tall clocks made by Tompion ran a year without winding. Nor must you get the impression that clocks and watches were the only things this remarkable mechanic produced, for at Hampton Court is a barometer of his construction, proving him to be a master of more intricate science than the mere art of time-keeping. In fact many of his clocks show the days and the months, as well as the difference between sun time and mean time."

"I don't quite understand what mean time is. Isn't all time alike?"

"Mercy, no! Sun time and our time are two quite different things. Some day I will tell you why. Of this Thomas Tompion, although he lived long ago, was well aware. You see, therefore, he was no ordinary uneducated clockmaker. What wonder that he and George Graham, one of the ill.u.s.trious pupils he trained, should have been buried together at Westminster Abbey!"