![]() I cannot just now remember when I first observed that the boy tended to disappear, but he did – quite frequently. After winding the clocks, he swept the floor, before his father opened the shop. From my window, I had the perfect view into the shop and every morning I could see the boy, who always kept a stoic expression, winding all those clocks while his sister was playing with alphabet bricks on the ground. His shop windows were equipped with clocks of various sizes, which were all well-manufactured and beautiful in detail. The days went on and I soon learnt, the red wooden shop sign revealed the secret, that the man was called Mr Avery and that he was a clockmaker. Yet when I had observed him for a considerable time, he appeared strangely lost. To speak plainly, the boy had, in spite of his young age of approximately 12 years, an audacious and virtuous kind of face. The boy was delicate, with skin as white as chalk and pitch-black hair. As soon as one item of furniture was brought into their house, he reappeared to get the next one, but only when everything was unloaded and the man removed the carriage, I understood why the man was so fast, because the moment the carriage vanished, a boy appeared. Sash windows brightened up the house and had been added to it in a fairly symmetrical pattern, whereas the rooftop was covered by slate.Īs he returned, he went to the back and started unpacking. Although it was time-withered, the outside of the house looked snug and comfortable. On the ground floor was room for a shop while the family had room for themselves on the first. The house, you ought to know, had two storeys. ![]() She was sleeping soundly as he carried her into the house, which was already very old and showed splinted wood on the doorframe. All in all, I estimated his age around forty and two years, but to be honest, I was never told his true age.Īt a first glance, it seemed as if he had travelled all alone, but before the man started unpacking his carriage, he went to the front seat and returned with an infant of about five years in his arms. His youthful appearance, however, didn’t reach his face as it was marked by deeply-carved wrinkles. He was at least 6.2 ft with broad shoulders and strong legs. ![]() The latest newcomer was Mr Edward who had opened a tea-dealer’s shop ten years ago (which was still infrequently visited) and as everybody knows, in a general way, that being new means being strange, especially in a community as small as ours.Īs the man climbed off the carriage, it was his height which was salient. It was rare to see newcomers in our small village. The horse in the front appeared to be weary, and so I wondered where it had come from. While peering through the smoky panes, I was surprised to see new faces in-between the black-dressed gentlemen who hurried to get home after a long day of work.Ī man with a neat salt-and-pepper beard and a stern look was standing next to a carriage. With a cigar in my mouth and a brown, woolen blanket wrapped around my legs, I had been amusing myself for the greater part of the evening watching the street, which was very much crowded during the day. For years I had been ill in health, accompanied by the common ups and downs of a weak body, but I found myself in a good mood this evening. In 1899, about the closing in of a chilly evening in November, I sat at the large wooden window of my house. ![]()
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