“I can forgive you now, Dumiger, all your neglect, in the hope of seeing you famous and honored by all your fellow-townsmen.”

“Ay, Marguerite,” replied Dumiger, “there it is; it is fame for itself I care for—­to be great, powerful and wealthy, is a matter of but small importance.  One can live without rank, without power, without wealth, and perhaps be all the happier for wanting them.  This little room, small and ill-furnished though it be, contains in it as much happiness as any one heart can enjoy.  If we have everything we desire, what care I in how small a compass they may be expressed?  For instance, I would not yield one of your kisses, Marguerite, for all the palace of the Grand Master can offer.  Some of my friends have richer abodes, but what matter?  Where did Van Eyck, who immortalized himself by that one painting, known throughout Europe as the Dantzic picture, reside?  Why, in one of those wretched buildings, ill supported by props and pillars, near the Grime Thor, but which his fellow-townsmen are at this moment prouder of than they are of the Artimshof or the Stockthurm.  How did Andreas Stock live?  In obscurity and penury, without one smile of good fortune to gild the darkness of existence.  But do you suppose that these men were unhappy?  Oh no, Marguerite, to make everything in nature beautiful there is but one element in nature essential, and that is light.  To make everything in the heart rejoice there is but one sensation essential, it is love.  How think you, Marguerite?”

Her only reply was a long, long kiss.

And they retired to rest as the bells of the city chimed in the merry morning, arousing in that city its slumbering passions, fears, loves, difficulties, and perils, which had been for long hours buried in sleep.  But amid the various sounds which began to echo through the streets, there was one wanting to give evidence that the dawn, of a great town was breaking.  No clock worthy of the noble Dom, imitated by Ritter of Strasburg from St. Sophia, arrested the attention of those who were starting forth on their several pilgrimages of toil or joy:  none had yet been wrought worthy of the mighty majestic pile which overshadowed the free city, and reared its towers lofty as the great League to whose wealth it owed its origin.  To construct such a clock was the object for which Dumiger labored; and not he alone, but hundreds of skilled workmen, toiled anxiously through the long autumn nights, for the citizens of Dantzic loved that glorious fane whose lofty towers looked upon their birth, and beneath whose shadow the noblest of their freemen were buried.  To connect their names with that great monument, seemed to them to be an object well worthy of the noblest and oldest commercial houses.  Two years had been allowed for the undertaking, and the time for deciding the prize was drawing near; and amongst all who toiled to win it, none more zealously labored in the work than Dumiger Lichtnau, known to history as Dumiger of Dantzic.