The Vast Abyss
“Drive in, sir?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll have the boxes in the stable-yard. Pull up at the door first. But ring, and the gardener will come to help.”
The gate was swung back and the fly was led in, now, between two wide grassy borders, with the soft, sandy gravel making hardly a sound beneath the wheels. This drive wound in and out, so that a couple of minutes had elapsed before they came in sight of the front of the house, with its broad porch and verandah.
“Welcome to Heatherleigh, Tom – our home,” said his uncle. “Ah, here’s Mrs Fidler.”
This was as a very grim, serious-looking, grey-haired woman appeared in the porch.
“Back again, Mrs F.,” cried Uncle Richard cheerily. “Here, this is my nephew, who has come to stay. Get my telegram?”
“Oh yes, sir, and everything’s ready, sir.”
Just then a sun-browned man, with a blue serge apron rolled up and tucked in round his waist, came up, touched his hat, and looked at the luggage.
“Morning, David. The box and portmanteau for indoors. The boxes to be very carefully placed in the coach-house. Glass, mind. Here, driver, give your horse some hay and water; David will see to it, while you go round to the kitchen for a crust of bread-and-cheese. Mind and be careful with those packages.”
“Oh yes, sir, certainly,” said the man; and he led the horse on amongst the shrubs; while as Tom followed his uncle into the prettily-furnished museum-like hall, he thought to himself —
“I wonder whether uncle knows how they laugh at him behind his back.”
“Dinner at two, Mrs Fidler, I suppose?” said Uncle Richard just then.
“Yes, sir, precisely, if you please,” was the reply.
“That’s right. Here, Tom, let’s go and see if they have smashed the glass in the packages.”
Uncle Richard led the way out through a glass door, and across a velvety lawn, to a gate in a closely-clipped yew hedge. This opened upon a well-gravelled yard, where the rusty-looking old fly was standing, with its horse comfortably munching at the contents of its nose-bag, and David the gardener looking on with a pail of water at his feet.
“Why, David, how was it that the horse was not put in the stable and given a feed?”
“He’s having his feed, sir,” said the gardener. “Them’s our oats. The driver said he’d rather not take him out, because the harness do give so, sir, specially the traces; so he had the nose-bag pretty well filled, and the horse have been going at ’em, sir, tremenjus.”
“Boxes all right?”
“Yes, sir; I don’t think we’ve broke anything; but that big chest did come down pretty heavy.”
“What?” cried his master; and he hurried into the coach-house to examine the packing-case. “Humph! I hope they have not broken it,” he muttered; “I won’t stop to open it now. Come, Tom, we’ll just walk round the garden, so that you may see my domain, and then I’ll show you your room.”
The domain proved to be a fairly extensive garden in the most perfect order, and Tom stared at the tokens of abundance. Whether he was gazing at fruit or flowers, it was the same: the crop looked rich and tempting in the extreme.
“We won’t stop now, my lad. Let’s go and see if Mrs F. has put your room ready.”
Uncle Richard led the way, with Tom feasting his eyes upon the many objects which filled him with wonder and delight; and even then it all seemed to be so dreamlike, that he half expected to wake up and find that he had been dozing in the hot office in Gray’s Inn.
But it was all real, and he looked with delight at the snug little room, whose window opened upon the garden, from which floated scents and sounds to which he had long been a stranger.
“Look sharp and wash your hands, boy, the dinner-bell will ring in ten minutes, I see, and Mrs Fidler is very particular. Will your room do?”
“Do, uncle!” cried Tom, in a tone which meant the extreme of satisfaction.
“That’s right. You see they’ve brought up your box. Come down as soon as you are ready.”
He went out and closed the door; and, with his head in a whirl, Tom felt as if he could do nothing but stand there and think; but his uncle’s words were still ringing in his ears, and hurriedly removing the slight traces of his journey, he took one more look from his window over the soft, fresh, sloping, far-stretching landscape of garden, orchard, fir-wood, and stream far below in the hollow, and then looked round to the right, to see standing towering up within thirty yards, the windmill, with its broken sails and weatherworn wooden cap.
He had time for no more. A bell was being rung somewhere below, and he hurried down, eager to conform to his uncle’s wishes.
“This way, Tom,” greeted him; and his uncle pointed to the hat-pegs. “You’d better take to those two at the end, and stick to them, for Mrs Fidler’s a bit of a tyrant with me – with us it will be now. Place for everything, she says, and everything in its place – don’t you, old lady?”
“Yes, sir,” said the housekeeper, who was just inside the little dining-room door, in a stiff black silk dress, with white bib and apron, and quaint, old-fashioned white cap. “It saves so much trouble, Master Tom, especially in a household like this, where your uncle is always busy with some new contrivance.”
“Quite right,” said Uncle Richard. “So take your chair there, Tom, and keep to it. What’s for dinner? We’re hungry.”
Mrs Fidler smiled as she took her place at the head of the table, and a neat-looking maid-servant came and removed the covers, displaying a simple but temptingly cooked meal, to which the travellers did ample justice.
But Tom was not quite comfortable at first, for Mrs Fidler seemed to be looking very severely at him, as if rather resenting his presence, and sundry thoughts of his being an interloper began to trouble the lad, as he wondered how things would turn out. Every now and then, too, something was said which suggested an oddity about his uncle, which would give rise to all sorts of unpleasant thoughts. Still nothing could have been warmer than his welcome; and every now and then something cropped up which made the boy feel that this was not to be a temporary place of sojourning, but his home for years to come.
“There,” exclaimed Uncle Richard, when they rose from the table, “this is a broken day for you, so you had better take your cap and have a good look round at the place and village. Tea at six punctually. Don’t be late, or Mrs Fidler will be angry.”
“I don’t like to contradict you, sir,” said the housekeeper, smiling gravely; “but as Master Tom is to form one of the household now, he ought, I think, to know the truth.”
“Eh? The truth? Of course. What about?”
“Our way of living here, Master Tom,” said the housekeeper, turning to him. “I should never presume to be angry with your uncle, sir; I only carry out his wishes. He is the most precise gentleman I ever met. Everything has to be to the minute; and as to dusting or moving any of the things in his workshop or labour atory, I – ”
“Oh!” exclaimed Uncle Richard, grinding his teeth and screwing up his face. “My good Mrs Fidler, don’t!”
“What have I done, sir?” exclaimed the housekeeper.
“Say workshop, and leave laboratory alone.”
“Certainly, sir, if you wish it.”
“That’s right. Well, Tom, what are you waiting for?”
“I thought, if you wouldn’t mind, I should like to help you unpack the boxes.”
“Oh, by all means, boy. Come along; but I’m going to have a look over the windmill first – my windmill, Mrs Fidler, now. All settled.”
“I’m very glad you’ve got over the bother, sir.”
“Oh, dear me, no,” said Uncle Richard, laughing; “it has only just began. Well, what is it?”
“I didn’t speak, sir.”
“No, but you looked volumes. What have they been saying now?”
“Don’t ask me, sir, pray,” said the housekeeper, looking terribly troubled. “I can’t bear to hear such a good man as you are – ”
“Tut! stuff, woman. Nothing of the kind, Tom. I’m not a good man, only an overbearing, nigger-driving old indigo planter, who likes to have his own way in everything. Now then, old lady, out with it. I like to hear what the fools tattle about me; and besides, I want Tom here to know what sort of a character I have in Furzebrough.”
“I – I’d really rather not say, sir. I don’t want to hear these things, but people will talk to David and cook and Jenny, and it all comes to me.”
“Well, I want to hear. Out with it.”
“I do wish you wouldn’t ask me, sir.”
“Can’t help it, Mrs Fidler. Come.”
“Bromley the baker told cook, sir, that if you were going to grind your own flour, you might bake your own bread, for not a loaf would he make of it.”
“Glad of it. Then we should eat bread made of pure wheat-meal without any potatoes and ground bones in it. Good for us, eh, Tom?”
“Better, uncle,” said the boy, smiling.
“Well, what next?”
“Doctor told David out in the lane that he was sure you had a bee in your bonnet.”
“To be sure: so I have; besides hundreds and thousands in the hives. Go on.”
“And Jane heard down the village that they’re not going to call it Pinson’s mill any more.”
“Why should they? Pinson’s dead and gone these four years. It’s Richard Brandon’s mill now.”
“Yes, sir, but they’ve christened it Brandon’s Folly.”
“Ha, ha! So it is. But what is folly to some is wisdom to others. What next? Does old Mother Warboys say I am going to hold wizards’ sabbaths up in the top storey, and ride round on the sails o’ windy nights?”
“Not exactly that, sir,” said Mrs Fidler, looking sadly troubled and perplexed; “but she said she was sure you would be doing something uncanny up there, and she hoped that no evil would descend upon the village in consequence, for she fully expected that we should be smitten for your sins.”
“Did she tell you this?”
“No, sir; she said it to Mr Maxted.”
“Told the vicar?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what did he say?”
“She says he insulted her, sir, and that she’ll never go into his church any more. She’s been telling every one so – that he called her a silly, prejudiced old woman.”
“Is that all?”
“It’s all I can remember, sir.”
“And enough too. Look here, Tom, you had, I think, better call David, and tell him to put the pony in and drive you back to the station. I’m sure you would rather go back to your uncle James, and be happy with your cousin Sam.”
Tom smiled.
“You can’t want to stay here.”
“Are you going up to the mill now, uncle?” said Tom, with a quaint look.
“Oh yes, directly, if you are going to risk it. Ready?”
“Yes, uncle.”
“Then come on.”
Chapter Eight
Uncle Richard frowned and looked very serious, but he uttered a low chuckle as he led the way into a snug little room, half-library, half-museum. A long, heavy chest stood on one side, formed of plain, dark-coloured wood; but upon its being opened, Tom saw that it was all beautifully polished ornamental wood inside, and full of drawers, trays, and fittings for bright saws, hammers, chisels, and squares.
“My old tool-chest, Tom. I used to have that at Sattegur in my bungalow, and do most of my carpentering myself, for the natives there are not much of hands when you want anything strong. When you want a tool – bradawl, gimlet, pincers, anything – here they all are.” He opened and shut drawers rapidly as he spoke. “Nails, screws, tacks, you’ll know where to find them, only put things back when done with. What did I come for? Oh, a rule. Here we are.” He took a new-looking boxwood rule from its place, closed the lid, and then led the way out into the garden, up a flight of steps formed of rough pieces of tree, and leading in a winding way through a shrubbery to a doorway in a wall. Passing through this, they were in a narrow lane, and close to the yard which enclosed the great brick tower of the mill.
“Nice and handy for conveying the flour-sacks to and fro, Tom, eh?” said Uncle Richard, smiling. “Now then, let’s have another inspection of the new old property.”
He took out a bunch of old keys, unlocked the gate, and entered; and then they crossed the yard, which was littered with old wood, and with here and there a worn-out millstone leaning against the walls, two extra large ones bound with rusty iron standing up like ornaments on either side of the mill-tower door, one above whitened with ancient flour, having evidently been used for loading carts drawn up close beneath.
“Splendid place, eh, Tom?” said Uncle Richard, as he unlocked the door, which uttered a low groan as its unoiled hinges were used, and a peculiar odour of old mildewed flour came from within. “We shall have a place now in case of invasion or civil war, ready for retreat and defence. We can barricade the lower doors, and hurl down the upper and nether millstones on the enemies’ heads, set the mill going, and mow them down with the sails, and melt lead ready to pour down in ladlefuls to make them run from the scalding silver soup. A grand tower for practising all those old barbaric delights.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom uneasily, for his uncle looked at him penetratingly, as if expecting an answer.
“Is he serious, or only joking me?” thought Tom the next moment. “He must be a little wrong. Got windmills in his head, like Don Quixote.”
“Yah! yah! Who shot the moon?” came in a coarse yell from outside the gate.
Tom started, flushed, and turned round angrily, with his fists involuntarily clenching.
“Yah! yah! old wind-grinders!” cried the voice again, followed by several heavy bangs on the gate, evidently delivered with a stick.
“The impudent scoundrel!” cried Uncle Richard. “Go and tell that fellow that – ”
But he got no further, for, taking all this as an insult meant for his uncle, Tom had darted off for the gate, which he threw open, and found himself face to face with a big, shambling, hobbledehoy sort of fellow of about eighteen or nineteen, who stepped back for a yard or two, swinging a heavy stick to and fro, while a mangy-looking cur, with one eye and a very thin tail like a greyhound’s, kept close at his heels.
“What is it?” said Tom hotly. “Did you knock at the gate like that?”
“What’s it got to do with you?” said the lad, insolently. “Get in, or I’ll set the dog at yer.”
Tom glanced at the dog and then at its master, and felt as he often had when his cousin Sam had been more than usually vicious.
“I’ll jolly soon let yer know if yer give me any o’ your mouth. Here, Badger, smell him, boy – ciss – smell him!”
The cur showed his teeth, and uttered a low snarling growl, as its master advanced urging him on; while Tom drew one leg a little back ready to deliver a kick, but otherwise stood his ground, feeling the while that everything was not going to be peaceful even in that lovely village.
But before hostilities could begin, and just as the dog and his master were within a yard, the gate was suddenly snatched open, and Uncle Richard appeared, when the lout turned sharply and ran off along the lane, followed by his dog, the fellow shouting “Yah! yah! yah!” his companion’s snapping bark sounding like an imitation.
“Come in, Tom,” said Uncle Richard. “I don’t want you to get into rows with Master Pete Warboys. Insolent young rascal!”
Tom looked at his uncle inquiringly.
“That’s the pest of the village, Tom. Nice young scoundrel. An idle dog, who has had a dozen places and will not stay in them, though he has no Cousin Sam to quarrel with.”
Tom winced, for the words were a decided hit at him.
“So he has settled down into a regular nuisance, who does a bit of poaching, steals fruit, breaks windows, and generally annoys every one in the place. If he were not such an ugly, shambling cub some recruiting sergeant might pick him up. As it is, we have to put up with him and his ways.”
“Yah!” came from a distance; and Tom’s nerves tingled, for he did not like to hear the insult directed at his uncle, however strange he might be.
“There, let’s go on with our inspection, my boy,” and the gate was closed again, and they walked together up the slope into the mill.
There was not much to see on the ground-floor, save the whitened brick walls, a huge pillar or post in the middle, and a ladder-like flight of steps on one side, up which Uncle Richard led the way; and as Tom emerged from a trap-door, he found himself in a circular chamber, a little less than the one below, with three windows at the sides, the doorway he had seen from without, and three pairs of millstones placed horizontally, and connected by shafts with the mechanism above the cobwebby and flour-whitened ceiling. There was a flight of steps, too, here, and Tom now noticed that there was a trap-door overhead, formed with two flaps and a hole in the middle, while a similar one was at his feet.
“For sending the sacks up and down,” said Uncle Richard. “The floors are thoroughly solid, and made of good stuff. Excellent,” he continued. “Let’s go up to the top.”
He led the way up the second flight of steps into the next chamber, which was wonderfully like the floor below, minus the millstones; but the roof, instead of being a flat ceiling of boards and beams, was a complication of rafters, ties, posts, and cog-wheels, while at one side was the large pivot passing out through well-greased and blackened bearings, which bore the five sails of the mill, balanced to a great extent by the projecting fan, which, acted upon by the wind, caused the whole of the wooden cap which formed the top to revolve.
“There’s the way out to repair the sails, or oil the great fan,” said Uncle Richard, pointing to a little sloping doorway in the curved cap roof. “Think the place will do? It’s a good fifteen feet from the floor to the curve.”
“Do, sir?”
“Do, uncle, please. Yes, do! The whole top revolves easily enough, and will do so more easily when there are no sails or fan.”
“Do you mean for defence, uncle?” stammered Tom.
“Defence? – nonsense. Attack, boy. The roof will only want modifying, and a long narrow shutter fitting, one that we can open or close easily from within. The place when cleaned, scraped, painted, and coloured will be all that one could wish, and is strong enough to bear anything. We can mount a monster here.”
Tom looked more puzzled than ever. Monster?
“In the floor below make our laboratory, and keep chemicals and plates.”
“Yes, uncle,” said Tom; for he could understand that.
“And on the ground-floor do our grinding and fining.”
“But the millstones are on the floor above,” said Tom.
“Yes, I know, my boy, for the present; but I’ll soon have them lowered down. There, the place will do splendidly, and Mrs Fidler will be at peace.”
Tom did not see how Mrs Fidler could be at peace if the corn was ground on the basement-floor of the mill, but he said nothing.
“Now we’ll go down,” said Uncle Richard. “I’m more than satisfied. I’ll have two or three stout fellows to lower down the stones; the rest we will do ourselves.”
He led the way down, locked up the mill again and the outer gate, and then entered the garden and crossed it to the coach-house, where the packages brought down were waiting.
“Go to the tool-chest and fetch an iron chisel and the biggest hammer,” said Uncle Richard. “No, it’s screwed down. Bring the two largest screw-drivers.”
Tom hurried away, and soon returned, to find that his uncle had opened one of the packages he had brought down, and was untying some brown paper, which proved to contain brass tubes and fittings, with slides and rack-work.
“Know what these are?” said Uncle Richard.
“They look like part of a photographic camera,” said Tom.
“A good shot, my lad, but not right. Now for the big chest. I hope they are not broken. Try and get out some of the screws.”
These were gradually drawn from the very stout chest, the lid lifted, a quantity of thickly-packed straw removed, and a round package of brown paper was revealed.
“Out with it, Tom,” said his uncle. “No, don’t trust to the string.”
Tom bent down to lift out the package, but failed, and his uncle laughed.
“Let’s both try,” he said, and getting their fingers down, they lifted out something exceedingly heavy, and bore it to a stout bench. “Now for the other,” said Uncle Richard; and after removing more straw, a second package was seen precisely like the first, which on being taken out and opened, proved to be a great solid disc of ground-glass made fairly smooth but quite opaque.
“Bravo! quite sound,” cried Uncle Richard. “Now the other.”
This proved also to have borne the journey well, and Tom looked from the two great discs to his uncle.
“Well,” said the latter; “do you see what these are for?”
“To grind flour much finer?”
“To grind grandmothers, boy! Nonsense! Not to grind, but to be ground. Out of those Tom, you and I have to make a speculum of tremendous power.”
“A looking-glass, sir?” said Tom, feeling rather depressed at his uncle’s notion. For what could a sensible man want with looking-glasses made round, and weighing about a hundredweight each?
“Yes, a looking-glass, boy, for the sun and moon, and Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and the rest to see their faces in, or for us to see them. I can’t afford to give five or six hundred pounds for a telescope, so you and I will make a monster.”
“Telescope!” cried Tom, as scales seemed to fall from before his eyes. “Oh, I see!”
“Well, didn’t you see before?”
“No, uncle, I couldn’t make it out. Then that’s what you want the windmill for, to put the telescope in, with the top to turn round any way?”
“To be sure; it will make a splendid observatory, will it not?”
“Glorious, uncle!” cried the boy, whose appearance underwent a complete change, and instead of looking heavy and dull, his eyes sparkled with animation as he exclaimed eagerly, “How big will the telescope be?”
“A little wider than the speculum – about eighteen inches across.”
“And how long?”
“Fifteen feet, boy.”
“Yes,” cried Tom, excitedly. “And when are you going to begin, uncle?”
“Now, my boy. At once.”
Chapter Nine
“Uncle James was always calling me a fool,” said Tom the next morning; “and I must be, or I shouldn’t have thought poor Uncle Richard half crazy. What a lot of stuff I did get into my head.”
He was dressing with his window wide open; the sun was shining warmly, though it was only about six o’clock, and a delicious scent floated in from the garden and the pine-woods beyond.
“Grinding corn and turning miller!” he said, and he burst into a merry fit of laughter, and then stopped short with a hair-brush in his hand, staring at his face in the glass, for he hardly knew it; he looked so different to the sad, depressed lad whose countenance had gazed wearily at him from the mirror when he rose of a morning in London.
“It must be the fresh country air,” he said to himself; but all the same he felt that it must be something more, and he hastened to finish dressing and go down, so as to have a good look round before breakfast punctually at eight.
“Seems like coming out for a holiday, or being at home again,” he thought, as he went down-stairs softly, wondering whether he could easily get out, but to find that the front door was wide open, and hear the servants busy in the kitchen; while, as he stepped out on to the lawn, he suddenly heard the musical sound of a scythe being sharpened, and the next minute he was alongside of David, who had just begun to sweep the keen implement round and lay the daisies low.
“Mornin’, sir, mornin’. Going to be reg’lar hot day. – Eh? Want to get up into the pine-woods. Best go straight to the bottom of the garden, and out into the field, and then strike up to your left.”
Tom hurried through the bright grounds, followed the directions, and in a few minutes he was climbing a slope of rough common-land, here velvety short turf full of wild thyme, which exhaled its pungent odour as his feet crushed its dewy flowers, there tufted with an exceedingly fine-growing, soft kind of furze, beyond which were clumps of the greater, with its orange and yellow blooms, and rough patches of pale-bloomed ling and brilliant yellow broom.
Beyond this wide strip the closely-growing fir-trees began, forming a dense, dark-green wood.
It was for this that he was aiming; but as he reached the edge, he turned to stand in the bright sunshine looking down at the village.
There was the square-towered, ivy-covered church, with its clock-face glistening, and the hands pointing to twenty minutes past six. Beyond it, what seemed to be an extensive garden beside the churchyard, and the ivy-covered gables of a house that he immediately concluded was the Vicarage. Other attractive cottage-like houses were dotted about. Then he caught sight of the green, with its smaller places. Another more pretentious place or two, and as his eyes swept round, he reached, close at hand, his uncle’s home – his home now, with the windmill towering above it just on the top of the ridge.