AN ELIZABETHAN CLOCK helmet, that once hung over the recumbent effigy of its former knightly owner in the quiet village church, has been basely filched away to add to the collector's store, where they may only be seen by the favoured few, and why should this be? The queer old clock was being wound up, not by a key, but by a sort of miniature windlass. The works were of wrought iron, all hammered and cut by hand, for machinery manifestly had no part in their construction; perhaps that is why they have lasted so long! From our knowledge of such things, we concluded that this clock could not have been of later date than Elizabeth's time; how much earlier, if any, it would be hard to say. Unless, however, we are greatly mistaken, it has outlived three centuries, and has probably marked the hours all those long years, more or less correctly, whilst the cunning hands that designed and constructed it are forgotten dust. Here the inevitable moral should follow, but I refrain. This reminds me that I once gave my thirteen-year-old daughter an improving, well-intentioned book, and in due course I asked her how she liked it: "Well, dada," she replied, quite innocently, "when you've skipped all the goody bits there's nothing left!" A brass plate attached to the clock informed us that
W. Foster
Repaired this Clock
Anno Domini
1816.
We understood that, so far as the sexton knew, it had not been repaired since that date. Then we called
