astle Clock Strikes 13

aron Von Lodge was the head of a small country known as Lilliland near Switzerland. The time was the early 1900s.

Everything was quiet and peaceful in Lilliland. The swans on Castle Lake were even more beautiful than ever. The Baron and his fiancée Lady Angela enjoyed their early morning rides along the shores of the lake, the Baron on his wonderful horse, Ridgeway, and Lady Angela on her beautiful mare, Daisy. Life was, indeed, idyllic in Lilliland.

There was one small exception. The grandfather clock in the Great Hall of Lilliland Castle began to strike an additional note from time to time. About once a month the clock would strike thirteen when it was really midnight. This frightened the castle staff because most of them were superstitious and believed it to be a bad omen.

The staff believed that when a clock struck thirteen times it was a sign that someone was going to die a quiet unnoticed death. The person who would die might be a member of the royal family, a member of the staff, or a relative of the staff outside the castle.

The working efficiency of the staff was beginning to suffer because everyone was worrying about the omen of the clock chiming thirteen.

The Baron called his chief advisor Professor Hamblin to investigate the problem with the grandfather clock. The Professor called in a clockmaker to see if there could be a faulty gear inside the clock. A previous inspection by another clock expert could find nothing wrong with the clockworks. The clockmaker, who was expert in putting together the most intricate of workings, did find that one of the gears seemed not to be functioning correctly all the time. A problem that was intermittent was harder to solve than one that made the same mistake all the time.

The clockmaker sent to Switzerland for a replacement part and that would solve the problem.

As far as people dying when the clock struck thirteen, the Professor explained to the staff that there were always people dying and being born no matter what time a clock would strike. People dying at that particular time was merely a coincidence.

The people of Lilliland felt peace once more after the clock was repaired and everyone went back to enjoying the beauty of nature again.