The crafty magistrates, being anxious to have the clock perfect, granted him this request.
The artist filed, sawed, regulated here and there, and then was led away, and in the same hour deprived of his sight.
The cruel deed was hardly accomplished, when it was found that the clock had stopped. The artist had destroyed his work with his own hands; his righteous determination that the chimes would never ring again, had become a melancholy truth. Up to the present no one has been able again to set the dead works going. An equally splendid clock now adorns the cathedral, but the remains of the first one have been preserved ever since.
The little Man at the Angel's Pillar
Close to the famous clock in the Cathedral of Strassburg, there is a little man in stone gazing up at the angel's pillar which supports the south wing of the cathedral. Long ago the little man who is now sculptured in stone, stood there in flesh and blood. He used to stare up at the pillar with a criticising eye from top to bottom and again from bottom to top. Then he would shake his head doubtfully each time.
It happened once that a sculptor passed the cathedral and saw the little man looking up, evidently comparing the proportions of the pillar.
"It seems to me you are finding fault with the pillar, my good fellow," the stone-cutter remarked, and the little man nodded with a self-satisfied look.
"Well, what do you think of it? Speak out my man," said the master, tapping the fellow's shoulder encouragingly.