"Well you are sure to be getting into mischief if you are left to yourselves," said the woman. "Come with me, and I will show you a fine game. It is now a quarter to five. We will go up to the turret and see the Man in Armour strike the hour."
"Hurrah!" cried I, and Eloise skipped. It was the desire of both our hearts to see the mysterious Man in Armour close, and watch him strike the bell.
"Fetch your hats, then, for it is windy in the tower," said Gretel. And off we went to fetch them.
She led us through a door off the corridor, and up circular stone stairs that seemed to have no end, till we reached the room where the machinery was placed that drove the clock and struck the bell.
A ladder from here led us to the topmost chamber, where the iron man with the iron hammer stood before the iron bell.
This chamber was open to the four winds, and gave a splendid view of the mountains and the forest, and the lands lying towards Friedrichsdorff and beyond.
But little cared I for the scenery. I was examining the Man in Armour. He was taller than a real man, and his head was one huge mass of iron cast in the form of a morion. Clauss of Innsbruck had made him, and he struck me with a creepy sensation that was half fear. He stood with his huge hammer half raised; and the knowledge that at the hour he would wheel on his pivot and hit the bell vested him with an uncanny suggestion of life, even though one knew he was dead and made of iron.
"He will not strike for ten minutes," said Gretel. "Gott! how cold it is here, and how windy! Come, let us play a game of blind-man's buff to keep ourselves warm."
My small handkerchief was brought into requisition, and Gretel blinded me, pinning the handkerchief to my képi. "And now," said Gretel, "I will bind Eloise, and you can try to catch me."