Watchhouse

“ He continued to lean down perplexedly, and at length, under the interrogation of his attitude, it became impossible to sit still, and she opened the door and stepped out. It was equally impossible to stand on the sidewalk, and her next steps carried her to the door of the building. She groped for the bell and rang it, feeling still dimly accountable to the coachman for some consecutiveness of action, and after a moment the night watchman opened the door, drawing back amazed at the shining apparition which confronted him. ”

“ Or perhaps a child would wake up in a troubled dream, and would lay and listen, terrified by hideous imaginations of thieves and robbers climbing in at the kitchen window to kill father and mother with long knives. But outside the watchman cries: "Two o'clock, and a still night."
Ah! the watch; yes, of course, that was the watch; so no thieves or robbers can come in at the kitchen window. All bad people must stay at home, or the watch will take them to the lock-up. ”

“ The watchman—holding his lantern close to the door, and so perceiving that what she tells is verified by the caked dust that fills its crevices and that clogs its key-hole—is for abandoning their attempt to enter. The friar insists that they must enter: that his rosary is within the house; that he is determined to recover it; that the door must be forced. Yielding to him, the watchman forces the door and together they enter: to find a yellowed skeleton upon the floor ”

“ When he had finished his pipe he ascended to the top loft and walked all round from one end of the building to the other, pausing now and then to listen at the head of a ladder or at a trap-door, or to look out of a window into the deserted street below. This took a long time, for there was no need of haste. It was an understood thing among the watchmen that each should speak to the other two about once an hour. Thus it would be known each hour that all was well throughout the building. The watchman now began to descend. He went down more rapidly than he came up. ”

“ Good verse, clever poems, a good idea. The watchman in his uniform, armed with his spiked mace, his horn in his hand, goes his nightly round, and, pausing outside the houses, tells us what he sees and imagines within.
He is a genuine night-watchman—thoroughly weary of the old woman at home, who is so ugly and so wrinkled, yet with whom he manages to live peaceably, for she sleeps by night and he by day; a genuine night-watchman, who sings the watchman's song about lights and fires; looks up at the prisoners, the political prisoners, peering through the iron bars and shaking them ”

“ In each of these is a bier for the body, directly above which hangs a cord, having on the end ten thimbles, which are put upon the fingers of the corpse, so that the slightest motion strikes a bell in the watchman's room. Lamps are lighted at night, and in winter the rooms are warmed. In the watchman's chamber stands a clock with a dial-plate of twenty-four hours, and opposite every hour is a little plate, which can only be moved two minutes before it strikes. ”

“ A gate is placed at each end of the cross streets, which are all streight, and at right angles with the main streets; from each gate a watchman proceeds till he meets his brother watchman about the middle; at every half hour he beats the hollow bamboo tube, in his left hand, with the mallet in the right, striking the same number of blows as there may be half hours elapsed from nine o’clock: the blow gives a dead, dull sound, sufficiently audible, and to a stranger sufficiently disagreeable. Each watchman is also furnished with a paper lantern. ”

“ Another door opened into the guardroom proper, where stood the big, red hot stove and where waited two blacksmiths with the irons. Once in the guard room every window was barred, and members of the guard, three deep, blocked in eager curiosity the doorway leading to the outer air. ”

“ My father is gone, and his door stands wide open. We turn to the stairs, and a cold wind rushes up in our faces. We go down, and find the side-door that leads to the courtyard unfastened and ajar. There is not a soul in the courtyard. There is not the faintest glimmer of light from the guard-house windows. The sentry who walks perpetually to and fro in front of the gate is not at his post ”

“ The inspector nodded, and told the constable to guard the door at the top of the cellar stairs. He then asked the hall lamp to be lit, after which he took the policeman's lantern, and led the way into the front room. He paused with the door wide open, and threw the light all round; then he jumped into the room, and looked behind the door; there was no one there; but all over the polished oak floor, between the scattered rugs, went the marks of those horrible spreading footprints; and the room permeated with the horrible odour. ”

“ Three centuries have rolled away and thirteen sovereigns have reigned since the construction of this hiding-place, but the mechanism of this masterpiece of ingenuity remains as perfect as if it had been made yesterday! Those who may be privileged with permission to inspect the interesting hall will find other surprises where least expected. An oak-panelled passage upon the basement of the aforesaid entrance gateway contains a secret door that gives admittance into the living-rooms in the most eccentric manner. ”

“ Mrs. Darling asked if it had occurred to me that the watchman might give me in charge. I assured her that I had not left such a contingency out of my calculations. I should well tip the watchman, and a drink out of my flask on top of the tip would make a friend of him for life. No doubt he would be glad of a talk to relieve the monotony of his job, and the talk of a night watchman in Westminster Abbey would be worth listening to. ”

“ After I got up-stairs I couldn't sleep. At about ten o'clock I heard the door-bell ring, then long heavy steps going down the hall, and the shutting of a door which I guessed to be the door of the study. That was odd; father seldom had visitors so late. I tossed and tossed. I kept trying to picture the court room. I saw it as a vast place, with a cold chilly light, like the hall of the prison, filled with a surging mob of people; serried rows of lawyers all in white wigs—the memory of some English pictures—and a terrible judge in a black gown, calling out my name. ”

“ At the angle, elevated so as to give a commanding view, and reached by ascending a few steps, is the watch-tower represented in the following engraving. It is twelve feet square, and has two doorways. The interior is plain, and against the back wall is a small altar, at which the guard might offer up prayers for the preservation of the city. But no guard sits in the watch-tower now; trees are growing around it; within the walk the city is desolate and overgrown, and without is an unbroken forest. ”

“ The watchman's steps shuffled past the door. They stopped. Through the glass panel I saw the shadow of an arm reaching out. The door opened part way. Standing behind it, holding my breath, I heard the watchman grunt. He pulled the door shut with a decisive bang.
I waited a moment before checking the door. It had an automatic lock which was now set.
When I was sure the watchman was out of earshot, I searched the office and its connecting laboratory. Both were empty. I went back to the desk in the office and took the black crystal from my pocket. ”

“ The policeman will be pacing up and down the empty street, the gamekeeper will be watching in the lonely wood, the night watchman will be keeping guard in the deserted warehouse. But nearly all in that part of the world will be fast asleep, little dreaming of what is coming. ”

“ The public are only admitted from ten till five, and there is a guardian to 155every two rooms. He stands at the door between them, and so commands them both.”
“But at night?”
“When the public are gone, we at once put up the great iron shutters, which are absolutely burglar-proof. The watchman is a capable fellow. He sits in the lodge, but he walks round every three hours. We keep one electric light burning in each room all night.” ”

“ The guard-houses are like jewels having many facets. The elaborate horizon of the roofs is like a thread on which are strung fantastic jewels—red and gold and green and turquoise blue. Dragons and strange fishes and curling waves and plumes are strung upon the fringe of the pale sky. The central gate is the great pendant on the breast of the sky; the dark door of the city is set in a square mass of red plastered wall and over the archway the lines of the gold tiles are dramatically sober. ”

“ All able to bear arms in the party have been formed into three companies, and each of these into four watches; every third night it is the duty of one of these companies to keep watch and ward over the camp, and it is so arranged that each watch takes its turn of guard duty through the different watches of the night. Those forming the first watch to-night will be second not on duty, then third and fourth, which brings them through all the watches of the night. ”

“ Watch is properly applicable to the night only, (being called among our Teutonic ancestors wacht or wacta [e] ) and it begins at the time when ward ends, and ends when that begins; for, by the statute of Winchester, in walled towns the gates shall be closed from sunsetting to sunrising, and watch shall be kept in every borough and town, especially in the summer season, to apprehend all rogues, vagabonds, and night-walkers, and make them give an account of themselves. The constable may appoint watchmen at his discretion, regulated by the custom of the place ”

“ The watch in most of the out-parts of the town stand in awe of them, because they always come in a body, and are too strong for them, and when any watchman [145] presumes to demand where they are going, they generally misuse them. ”

“ Watchman,” an old man with one arm who used to come by the house where the small boy lived. He was a watchman somewhere at a railroad crossing, a solid, weary, brown faced white haired man who in winter wore a heavy great coat, in summer a loose, brown jacket, the pockets of which, or one pocket, at least, always, and every day, nearly, contained something which, if the little boy would only hurry out each morning or evening and climb on the fence and reach for, he might have. ”

“ One watchman is generally best even in very large buildings. ‘An instance [4] is on record in which a building [104] standing in its own grounds was watched by four men, two of whom patrolled within and two without the walls, and yet the alarm of fire which happened in this building was first given by a street-constable who happened to see the light while going round his beat. ”

“ In the interval I improved my time by getting better acquainted with the city. Emboldened by my body-guard, I slept for two nights in Henry's room, and with one to watch outside the door, one lying on a mattress just inside, and a new lock and bolt, I was free from disturbance. ”

“ The dusky avenues of trees, whose spreading boughs still permitted enough of the fading daylight to enter to reveal the box-bordered gravelled paths, invited thoughtful, pleasant strolls, and the watchman at the back of the house afforded a sufficient guarantee that no intruder would steal after the youths. ”

“ But I soon recovered some remnants of self-possession, and began feeling for the knob I could no longer see. Finding it after a few futile attempts, I was relieved to discover that this door at least was not locked; and, opening it with a careful hand, I listened intently, but could hear nothing save the smothered sound of men talking in the room below.
Should I signal for my companions? No, for the secret was not yet mine as to how men passed from this room into the watery grave which was the evident goal for all wearers of the blue ribbon. ”

“ It is surrounded and cut off from all communication from every living human being by a brick wall. Only the watchman in the central tower and the birds that wing their way over the prison can see him in his little yard. ”

“ If a robbery or crime occurs, the first thing is to give notice at the nearest guard-house, which, by a code of signals, is able to pass on the news to the next guard-house, and so it spreads through the country. Each watchman knows what passports and on what business every one has passed during the night, and suspicion thus often falls on the right person. ”

“ Watchman. Thank you.”
And then the old watchman would go trudging onward with his bucket on his arm, and the boy would munch his candy or his peanuts or his apple and forget how kind and strange old Mr. Watchman really was—and how pathetic.
Then one day, some time later, after a considerable 390absence or silence on the part of Mr. Watchman, the small boy was taken to see him where he was lying very still in a very humble little cottage, in a black box, with nickels on his eyes—and the little boy wanted to take the nickels, too. ”

“ It was, according to legends, the meeting-place of the Watch, in the old days before the era of police; and there they not only met, but stayed, the captain ever and again rising, with the words, “Now we will have another glass, and then go our rounds”; upon which, emptying their glasses, they all would walk round the tables and then re-seat themselves.
A great deal of old Jacobean and other furniture has been collected, to fill the rooms of the “Seven Stars,” and in the “Vestry” is the “cupboard that has never been opened” within the memory of living man. ”