The Watchmaker's Daughter and Other Tales (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Watchmaker's Daughter and Other Tales

Gerhard Vaudubon was a peculiar man. He was a Swiss, the son of a Swiss, who, when the boy was little more than fifteen,, had settled in this country, and, in the face of many difficulties, by dint of perseverance, parsimony, and obsequiousness, had contrived, not only to establish a solid business, but to amass a considerable sum of money, to both of which Gerhard had succeeded by natural inheritance, when he was within the shade of his. fortieth year.

Then, and not until then, did he take a wife, and then not so much for a wife as a housekeeper. Servants scoffed at the meagre fare he prescribed for them as well as for himself, so he cast his eyes on a fair, but portionless girl, whose father had died in his debt. This circumstance, and her utter friendlessness, were both artfully employed to wring from her a reluctant consent, and one who had been born to better fortune passed a mistress into that dreary house in Northampton-square, Clerkenwell, which was marked out by a large brass plate, inscribed "Gerhard Vaudubon, Watchmaker."

This calculating watchmaker had chosen well for himself; ill for the Christian gentlewoman brought into contact with his worldliness and parsimony.

His cry was ever of pressing creditors and losses in business, necessitating - frugality and retrenchment frugality and retrenchment, that is, until a marvellous watch he was inventing was completed; a model watch that was to bring a fortune to the inventor.

Schooled in adversity, and lacking firmness to resist, her care was ever to bring her moderate wants down to his narrow and narrowing requirements; and he requited her patient endurance with fresh exactions.

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