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Glyn Severn's Schooldays, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 19. Wrench Is Confidential |
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_ CHAPTER NINETEEN. WRENCH IS CONFIDENTIAL The Doctor was very fond of lecturing the boys on the beneficial qualities of water. "Gentlemen," he said, "I pass no stern edicts or objections to the use of beer, and for those who like to drink it there is the ale of my table, which is of a nature that will do harm to no one"--which was perfectly true--"but I maintain that water--good, pure, clear, bright, sparkling spring water--is the natural drink of man. And being the natural drink of man, ergo--or, as our great national poet Shakespeare puts the word in the mouth of one of his clowns, _argal_--it is the natural drink of boys." As he spoke, the Doctor poured out from a ground-glass decanter-like bottle a tumblerful of clear cold water, which he treated as if it were beer, making it bubble and foam for a moment before it subsided in the glass. The Doctor said good, pure, sparkling water, and the supply of the school possessed these qualities, for it came from a deep draw-well that went right down, cased in brick, for about forty feet, while for sixty feet more it was cut through the solid stone. The Doctor was very particular about this well, which was furnished with a mechanical arrangement of winch and barrel, which sent down one big, heavy bucket as the winder worked and brought up another full; and it was Wrench's special task to draw the drinking-water from this well for the whole of the school, that used for domestic purposes coming from two different sources--one an ordinary well, and the other a gigantic soft-water tank. One morning early, after Singh and Glyn descended from their dormitory, and were strolling down towards the Doctor's neatly-kept garden by a way which led them past the well-house, they stopped to listen to a clear musical pipe that was accompanied by the creaking of a wheel and the splash of water. The pipe proved to be only Wrench the footman's whistle, and its effect was that of a well-played piccolo flute, as it kept on giving the boys the benefit of a popular air with variations, which stopped suddenly as the big full bucket reached the surface and was drawn sideways on to a ledge by the man, while a hollow musical dripping and tinkling went on as a portion of the superfluous water fell splashing back into the depths. As Wrench uttered a grunt and proceeded to fill the water-can he had brought and a couple of jugs, he turned slightly and saw that the shadow cast into the cool, moist-smelling interior was that of the two boys. "Morning, gentlemen," he said. "What do you think of this for weather?" "Lovely," cried Glyn. "Why, Wrench, you beat the blackbirds." "Oh, nonsense, sir! I have often tried; but I can't get their nice soft, sweet notes." "No; but your whistle is of a different kind.--It's beautiful; isn't it, Singh?" "Yes; it's just like those minas that we have got at home.--Give me a glass of water." "Haven't got a glass, sir, only a mug. Here, I'll run and fetch you one." "No, no," cried Singh, and taking up the mug he held it to be filled and then drank heartily, Glyn following his example. "Beautiful clear water, young gentlemen, isn't it?" said the man. "The Doctor says it will make you strong, and there's iron enough in it to do any man good. I should like to have a well like that in my place when I start for myself. I should put out bills about it and call it mineral water, same as the Doctor says this is." "How deep is the well really?" "Just a hundred foot, sir." "How do you know? You haven't measured it." "Well, I measured the rope, sir. When the Doctor bought a new one for it, just a year ago, he let me fit it on instead of getting the workpeople in. That cost nothing, and the men would have made a regular job of it." "But I meant the water. How deep is the water itself?" "Oh, the water, sir. That gets to be about twenty or thirty feet in the winter-time; but in the summer it gets very low--in the dry time, you know. I don't suppose there's above six or eight feet in now." "But I say," cried Glyn, "set up for yourself? Why, you're not going to start a school?" "School, sir?" said the man, laughing. "'Tain't likely! No, sir; me and somebody--never you mind who--is going to be married one of these days, when we have saved up enough, and we are going to take a house at the seaside and let lodgings to visitors who come down for their health. Why, a well of water like that would be the making of us." "Oh!" cried Glyn, with his eyes twinkling. "You with your somebody and your never mind who! Why, I have found you out, Wrenchy. I know who the lady is." "Lady she is, sir," said the man sharply, "and right you are, though she's only poor and belongs to my station of life. But, begging your pardon, with all your Latin and Greek and study, you haven't found that out." "That I have," cried Glyn. "It's the cook." The man turned scarlet and stood gazing at the boy with his mouth a little way open. "Why, who telled you, sir?" he stammered at last. "She did," said Glyn quietly. "What! My Emily told you that?" cried the man. "In them same words?" "No; she never spoke to me in my life," replied Glyn. "Singh and I were going down the garden one day, down one path, and she'd been to get some parsley, while you were carrying in one of the garden chairs, and she looked at you. That was enough, and we two laughed about it afterwards. So you see we know." "Well, I always did say as you was two sharp uns, sir," said the man. And then confidentially, "Yes, sir, that's right. We have been thinking about it for the last five years, and we'd like it to come off at any time. For, you see, it's just the same with us, sir, as it is with rich people--I mean, well-to-do people. It don't do to get married until you see your way." "Till you can see your way?" said Singh, frowning. "What does he mean by that?" "Oh, I'll soon tell you, sir. Money enough to make a fair start. There's plenty of hard work to do here with the Doctor and such a large family of you young gentlemen as he's got; but he's a very good master, kind-hearted and just, and if any of us is unwell there's everything he could want, and plenty of rest. And one don't like to give up a comfortable home and start one that's worse. It's money that's in the way, sir. We have both been saving ever since we were engaged; but it takes a long time to make your saving much when you can only put away a few pounds apiece every year." "Oh, well, look here," cried Glyn; "if you'll promise not to get married while we are here at the school, I'll give you--let's see, what shall I say?--five pounds. I dare say father will give it to me.--Now, Singh, what will you do?" "Just the same," replied Singh. "Thank you, gentlemen," cried Wrench. "Come, I call that handsome; but you know," he added laughingly, "I shouldn't like to make any promises, for I don't know what a certain lady would say. Thank you all the same, both of you. You've both been very pleasant gentlemen and very nice ever since you have been here. You neither of you ever called me a lazy beast and shied your boots at me because they wasn't black enough, or called me a fool for not making your water hotter so as you could shave." "Why, who did then?" cried Glyn. "Oh, I am not going to tell tales, gentlemen. Some young gents are born with tempers and some ain't, while there are some again that come here as nice and amiable as can be, after a year or two get old and sour and ready to quarrel with everything. I don't know; but I think sometimes it's them Greek classics, as they call them. You see, it's such unchristian-like looking stuff. I have looked at them sometimes in the Doctor's study. Such heathen-looking letters; not a bit like a decent alphabet. But there, I must be off, gentlemen. I have all my work waiting, and I am going away--only think of it!--ten pounds richer than when I first began to turn that there handle this morning, if--if I stop here--I mean, if we stop here till you young gents have done schooling." Wrench finished filling his cans of water and stooped to pick them up, but set them down again, to look at them both thoughtfully. "My word, gentlemen, you would both begin to wonder at the times and times I have laid awake of a night trying to hit a bright--I mean, think of some idea by which I could make a lot of money all at once: find some buried in a garden, or bring up a bag of gold in the bottom of one of those two water-buckets, or have somebody leave me a lot, or pick it up in the street and find afterwards it belonged to nobody. I wouldn't care how I got it." "So long as it was honest, Wrenchy?" said Glyn, laughing. "Oh, of course, sir--of course. You see, a man's got a character to lose, and when a man loses his character I suppose it's very hard to find it again; so I have been told. But I never lost mine. But I do want to get hold of a nice handy lump of money somehow, and when I do, and if I do--" "Well, what would you do then?" cried Singh. "Well, sir, I shouldn't stop here till you two gents had done schooling." Then, picking up his two water-cans once more, the Doctor's footman trudged off towards the house. "That must have been old Slegge who threw his boots at him," said Singh thoughtfully. "What a disagreeable fellow he is!" "Yes," said Glyn. "I wish I had been there to stop it. He's been knocking some of the little fellows about shamefully because he says that they have hidden his bat." "You wish you had been there?" said Singh. "Why, I thought you said that you wouldn't fight any more." "To be sure; so I did. Well, then, I don't wish I had been there. But I say," continued Glyn, laughing merrily, "what a lot of Greek he must know!" "But he doesn't," cried Singh. "He doesn't know much more than I do, for he came to me to help him with something the other day." "Well, then, as Wrenchy says, how what he does know must have disagreed with him!" "Yes," said Singh thoughtfully, as he laid his hand on his companion's shoulder and they strolled down the garden together, waiting for the breakfast-bell to ring. "Poor old fellow! Poor old fellow! Poor old fellow!" "Well, you are a queer chap, Singh! You say you want to be thoroughly English, and you talk like that." "Well, I do want to be English," cried Singh, "and I try very hard to do as you do, because I know what guardian says is right." "Well, you never heard me pity Slegge and call him poor old fellow." "I didn't. I meant poor Wrenchy, who wants money so badly. It must be very queer to want money very badly and not be able to get it." "I suppose so," replied Glyn. "I seem to have always had enough, while as for you, you're as rich as rich; quite a king you'll be some day, with servants and a little army, and everything you want. I say, what do you mean to do with all your money?" "I don't know," said Singh, laughing, and then knitting his brows, "but I should like to give Wrench some. He's such a good, hard-working fellow, and always does everything you tell him with such a pleasant smile. I wonder how he will get all he wants. Do you think he will find it some day in a garden or in the street?" "Or have a big lump of it tumble out of the moon, or find that it's been raining gold all over the Doctor's lawn some morning when he gets up? No, I don't--not a bit; and there goes the breakfast-bell, so come along." _ |
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