Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/62

 dwelt. And as all rent-charges due to the Priory were collected by the Prior, we may be pretty certain that Sir Jenkin was not defrauded of his due. But you will ask how came this clock in Abergavenny? Well it was one of the fruits of the leisure of the good old monks, who even in their idlest hours were not entirely idle, but rather were for ever inventing, fertilising, concocting, devising, fabricating, producing and making productive. Ah! we owe a great deal to these holy men who saw into the essence of things and knew more than we do about juices and the perpetuum mobile. Accordingly one of them at Burgavenny Priory as he sat in the sunny garden looking at the wonderful hill called the Blorenge, and meditating upon what mechanical device he should next put his hands and mind to, suddenly bethought him that they had no clock worthy of their quire, and presently determined that he would make a clock that should be the pride of the Convent, the town, and the Lordship. And when this canon (his name was Dom. Maria de Wick) told the Prior of what he intended to do the Prior said O Admirabile, and nothing doubted that they would have a very special clock as Dom. Maria was known to have made an instrument in which was a wheel eternally moving and yet not finishing one revolution in seven thousand years. And in much less time than that Dom. Maria had made all his wheels, and cogs and chains and had fitted them with weights, having likewise fashioned the face, splendidly coloured in red and blue and gold, and all manner of astrological tables written on it, so that this clock got the name, among the