Free The Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner Page A

good bracing for his feet, and let his hands lie on the top course of stone.
    In the dark his hands could read. And in the dark his hands could hear. There was a long sound in the stone. It was no sound unless Robert heard it, and meant nothing unless he gave it meaning. His chosen place had chosen him. Its end was the beginning.
    Robert went down, slowly. He was gentle with the hatch. Father had the clock open and was oiling it.
    ‘That’s put a quietness on you,’ he said.
    ‘Ay.’
    ‘What is it most?’ said Father.
    ‘He knew it wouldn’t be seen,’ said Robert. ‘But he did it good as any.’
    ‘Ay,’ said Father.
    The clock hung in an iron frame. It was all rods cogs and wheels. It kept time twice. There was a drive to the hours and minutes and the pendulum, and a drive to the bell hammer. The bell was fixed, and the hour was struck on it. Both drives were weights held by two cables, each wound to a drum. The weights fitted in slots that ran down to the base of the tower.
    Every week Father cleaned and oiled the clock, and wound the weights back up. It took them a week to drop the height of the tower. He wound the cables with a key like a crank handle.
    ‘She’s getting two minutes,’ said Father. ‘It’s this dry weather.’ He reached into the clock, among the wheels and cogs and the governor that kept all steady, and he turned a small brass plate to the right. The plate was the top of the pendulum sweeping the bay below. ‘Just a toucher,’ said Father. He did it by feel. The rhythm of the pendulum sounded the same, but Father had made it swing a little further, a little longer, and the clock would slow to the right time, until the weather changed.
    ‘Give us a pound on the windlass, youth,’ said Father.
    Robert liked this part of the job. It was better than turning the mangle at home, lumpy and wet.
    The drums took up the cable.
    ‘What makes wheels go round?’ said Robert.
    Father looked at him from the other side of the clock, through the cogs and gears.
    ‘You, you swedgel,’ said Father.
    ‘I mean wheels,’ said Robert. ‘What makes them turn?’
    ‘You shove them,’ said Father.
    ‘But why do they go round?’ said Robert.
    ‘Come here,’ said Father. ‘This side.’
    Robert left the winding.
    ‘Now see at these; these wheels here,’ said Father. ‘All different sorts and sizes, aren’t they, and all act according to each other?’
    ‘Ay,’ said Robert.
    ‘And if that little un there should stop, so would that big un yonder. It’s all according, do you see?’
    ‘Ay.’
    ‘Well, now,’ said Father, ‘have you ever asked yourself what makes this clock go? Have you the foggiest idea?’ Robert shook his head.
    ‘It’s this wheel,’ said Father. ‘It’s the escapement.’
    In the middle of the clock there was a brass wheel, with pegs set on the rim of the face. Two iron teeth rocked in and out from either side by turns, holding and releasing the pegs, and the wheel came round. The teeth on the pegs were the tick of the clock.
    ‘You wouldn’t think so small a thing could make so great a sound,’ said Father.
    ‘But that’s escapement. And the tick goes into the pendulum. You couldn’t have time without you had escapement.’
    ‘Could you not?’ said Robert.
    ‘That weight you’re winding must try to get back to the ground, mustn’t it?’ said Father. ‘So it’s pulling on that cable. And the cable turns the wheels. But them teeth, see at them. That comes in and catches the peg, and stops the wheel, stops the whole clock: but the pendulum’s swinging, see, and in comes the other and pushes the peg forwards, and out pops the other tooth, and the pendulum swings, and back comes the tooth. Stop. Start. Day and night, for evermore: regular. It’s the escapement.’
    ‘I only asked why wheels go round,’ said Robert.
    ‘And I’m telling you. It’s escapement,’ said Father. ‘Why do you think them weights drop at all? You could say as you