The Vast Abyss Part 18

Uncle Richard smiled.

"It would be wasting valuable time, Tom," he said, "even if we could do it; but we could not. I've thought it over, and we shall have to content ourselves with making the gla.s.s."

On reaching the mill-yard it was to find half-a-dozen people there with ladders, scaffold-poles, ropes, blocks, and pulleys. There was a short consultation, and soon after the men began work, unbolting the woodwork of the sails, while others began to disconnect the millstones from the iron gearing.

This business brought up all the idlers of the village, who hung about looking on--some in a friendly way, others with a sneering look upon their countenances, as they let drop remarks that contained anything but respect for the owner of the place. But though they were careful not to let them reach Uncle Richard's ears, it seemed to Tom that more than once an extra unpleasant speech was made expressly for him to hear; and he coloured angrily as he felt that these people must know why the mill was being dismantled.

The work went on day after day, and first one great arm of the mill was lowered in safety, the others following, to make quite a stack of wood in a corner of the yard, but so arranged that one side touched the brickwork, as there was no need to leave room now for the revolution of the sails.

By this time the building had a.s.sumed the appearance of a tower, whose sides curved up to the wooden dome top, and the resemblance was completed as soon as the fan followed the sails.

Meanwhile the iron gearing connected with the stones had been taken down inside; then the stones had followed, being lowered through the floors into the bas.e.m.e.nt, and from thence carefully rolled, to be leaned up against the wall.

"Hah!" said Uncle Richard, "at the end of a week," as he went up to the top-floor of the mill with his nephew.

"Is it only a week, uncle?" said Tom. "Why, it seems to me as if I had been here for a month."

"So long and tedious, boy?"

"Oh no, uncle," said Tom confusedly. "I meant I seem to have been here so long, and yet the time has gone like lightning."

"Then you can't have been very miserable, my boy?"

"Miserable!" cried Tom.

That was all; and Uncle Richard turned the conversation by pointing to the roof.

"There," he said, "that used to swing round easily enough with the weight of those huge sails, which looked so little upon the mill, but so big when they are down. It ought to move easily now, boy."

Tom tried, and found that the whole of the wooden top glided round upon its pivot with the greatest ease.

"Yes, that's all very well," said his uncle, "but it will have to be disconnected from the mill-post. I shall want that to bear the new gla.s.s."

"That?" said Tom, gazing at the huge beam which went down through the floor right to the bas.e.m.e.nt of the mill.

"Yes, boy; that will make a grandly steady stand when wedged tight. To a great extent this place is as good as if it had been built on purpose for an observatory. I shall be glad though when we get rid of the workmen, and all the litter and rubbish are cleared away."

That afternoon a couple of carpenters began work, devoting themselves at first to the wooden dome-like roof, which they were to furnish from top to bottom with a narrow shutter, so formed that it could be opened to turn right over on to the roof, leaving a long slip open to the sky.

That night, after he had gone up to his bedroom, Tom threw open his window, to sit upon the ledge, reaching out so as to have a good look at the sky which spread above, one grand arch of darkest purple spangled with golden stars. To his right was the tower-like mill, and behind it almost the only constellation that he knew, to wit, Charles's Wain, with every star distinct, even to the little one, which he had been told represented the boy driving the horses of the old northern waggon.

"How thick the stars are to-night," he thought, as he traced the light cl.u.s.ters of the Milky Way, noting how it divided in one place into two.

Then he tried to make out the Little Bear and failed, wondered which was the Dog Star, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn, and ended by giving his ear a vicious rub.

"A fellow don't seem to know anything," he thought. "How stupid I must seem to Uncle Richard. But I mean to know before I've done. Hark!"

He listened attentively, for in the distance a nightingale was singing, and the sweet notes were answered from somewhere beyond, and again and again at greater distances still, the notes, though faint, sounding deliciously pure and sweet.

"Who would live in London?" he said to himself; and a curiously mingled feeling of pleasure and sadness came over him, as he dwelt upon his position now, and how happy life had suddenly become.

"And I thought of running away," he said softly, as he looked down now at the dimly-seen shrubs about the lawn. "Uncle Richard doesn't seem to think I'm such a fool. Wonder whether I can learn all about the stars."

Just then he yawned, for it was past ten, and the house so quiet that he felt sure that his uncle had gone to bed.

"Yes, I'll learn all about them and surprise him," he said. "There are plenty of books in the study. Then I shall not seem so stupid when we begin. What's that?"

He had put out his candle when he opened the cas.e.m.e.nt to look at the stars, so that his room was all dark, and he was just about to close the window, and hurry off his clothes, when a faint clinking sound struck upon his ear.

The noise came from the mill-yard to his right, where he could dimly make out the outlines of the building against the northern sky; and it sounded as if some of the ironwork which had been taken down--bolts, nuts, bands, and rails--and piled against the wall had slipped a little, so as to make a couple of the pieces clink.

"That's what it is," thought Tom, and he reached out to draw in his cas.e.m.e.nt window, when he heard the sound again, a little louder.

"Cat walking over the iron," thought Tom; but the noise came again, only a faint sound, but plain enough in the stillness of the night.

All at once a thought came which sent the blood flus.h.i.+ng up into the boy's cheeks, and nailed him, as it were, to the window.

"There's some one in the yard stealing the old iron."

The lad's heart began to beat heavily, and thoughts came fast. Who could it be? Some one who knew where it all was, and meant to sell it.

Surely it couldn't be David!

Tom leaned out, gazing in the direction of the sounds, which still continued, and he made out now that it was just as if somebody was hurriedly pulling bolts and nuts out of a heap, and putting them in a bag or a sack.

Hot with indignation, as soon as he had arrived at this point, against whoever it could be who was robbing his uncle, Tom half turned from the window to go and wake him.

No, he would not do that. It must be some one in the village, and if he could find out who, that would be enough, and he could tell his uncle in the morning.

Tom had only been a short time at Furzebrough, but it was long enough to make him know many of the people at sight, and, in spite of the darkness, he fancied that he would be able to recognise the marauder if he could get near enough.

He did not stop to think. There was a heavy trellis-work covered with roses and creepers all over his side of the house, and the sill of his window was not much over ten feet from the flower-beds below.

He had no cap up-stairs, and he was in his slippers, but this last was all the better, and with all a boy's activity he climbed out of the window, got a good hold of the trellis, felt down with his feet for a place, and descended with the greatest ease, avoided the narrow flower border by a bit of a spring, and landed upon David's carefully-kept gra.s.s.

Here for a moment or two he paused.

The gate would be locked at night, and it would be better to get out at the bottom of the garden.

Satisfied with this, he set off at a trot, the velvety gra.s.s deadening his steps. Then, getting over the iron hurdle, he pa.s.sed through a bit of shrubbery, found a thick stick, and got over the palings into the lane.

Here he had to be more cautious, for he wanted to try and make out who was the thief without being seen, and perhaps getting a crack over the head, as he put it, with a piece of iron.

The lane would not do, and besides, the gate would be locked, and the wall awkward to climb.

Another idea suggested itself, and stopping at the end of the mill-yard, he pa.s.sed into a field, and with his heart increasing its pulsations, partly from exertion, as much as from excitement, he hurried round on tiptoe to the back of the mill-yard, and cautiously raising himself up, peered over the top of the wall, and listened.

To his disappointment, he found that though he could look over the top of the wall, it was only at the mill--all below in the yard was invisible, but the place was all very still now. Not a sound fell upon his ear for some minutes, and then a very faint one, which sounded like a load being lifted from the top of the wall, but right away down by where he had entered the field.

Tom stole back, bending low the while, but saw nothing, n.o.body was carrying a burden, and he was getting to be in despair, when all at once there was the sound of a stifled sneeze, evidently from far along the lane.