Presently, from high above them, a loud and festal song rang out with a deep, echoing, metallic ring. It came down suddenly from the tall church tower on the sleeping city, and into little Johannes' sad and gloomy soul. He looked up much startled. The chime rang on with clear, steady tones, rising joyfully in the air, and boldly scaring the death-like silence. The glad strain struck him as strange—a festal song in the midst of noiseless sleep and blackest woe.
'That is the clock,' said Pluizer, 'it is always cheerful, year in, year out. It sings the same song every hour, with the same vigour and vivacity; and it sounds more gleeful by night than even by day, as if the clock rejoiced that it has no need of sleep, that it can sing at all times with equal contentment, while thousands, just below, are weeping and suffering. But it sounds most gladly when some one is just dead.'
Again the jubilant peal rang out.
'One day, Johannes,' Pluizer went on,' a dim light will be burning in a quiet room, behind just such a window as that yonder; a melancholy light, flickering pensively, and making the shadows dance on the wall. There will be no sound in that room but now and then a low, suppressed sob. A bed will be standing there, with white curtains, and long shadows in their folds. In the bed something will be lying—white and still. That will have been little Johannes. And then, how loud and joyful will that chime sound, breaking into the room, and singing out the first hour after his death!'
Twelve was striking, booming through the air with long pauses between the strokes. At the last stroke, Johannes, all at once, had a strange feeling as though he were dreaming; he was no longer walking, but floating along a little way above the ground, holding Pluizer's hand. The houses and lamps sped past him in swift flight. And now the houses stood less close together. They formed separate rows, with dark, mysterious gaps between them, where the gas lamps lighted up trenches, puddles, scaffoldings and woodwork. At last they reached a great gate, with heavy pillars and a tall railing. In a winking, they had floated over it and come down again on some soft grass by a high heap of sand. Johannes fancied he must be in a garden, for he heard the rustling of trees hard by.
'Now pay attention, and then confess whether I cannot do greater things than Windekind.'
Then Pluizer shouted aloud a short and awful name which made Johannes quake. The darkness on all sides echoed the sound, and the wind bore it up in widening circles till it died away in the upper air.
And Johannes saw the grass blades growing so tall that they were above his head, and a little pebble which but just now was under his feet, seemed to be close to his face. Pluizer, by his side, and no bigger than he was, picked up the stone with both hands and threw it away with all his might. A confused noise of thin, shrill voices rose up from the spot he had cleared.
'Hey day! who is doing that? What is the meaning of it? Lout!' they could hear said.
Johannes saw black objects running in great confusion. He recognised the quick, nimble ground-beetle, the shining, brown ear-wig with his fine nippers, the millipede with its round back and thousand tiny feet, in the midst of them a long earthworm shrank back as quick as lightning into its burrow! Pluizer made his way through the angry swarm of creatures to the worm's hole.