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The Vast Abyss, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 48 |
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_ CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT. "Them four lights from the cowcumber frames, Master Tom, lifted off, carried eight-and-forty foot, dashed down and smashed, so as there arn't a single whole pane o' glass left." "That's a bad job, David," said Tom, as he stood looking about him at the ruin caused by the hurricane; "but the telescope is all right." "Yer can't grow cowcumbers with tallow-scoops, Master Tom. The first thing I see as soon as I goes into the little vinery there was two big slates off the top o' the house, blowed off like leaves, to go right through the glass, and there they was sticking up edgeways in the vine border." "Well, only a job for the glazier," said Tom. "Strikes me there won't be glass enough left in the village to do all the mending. Mrs Bray's front window was blowed right in, and all the sucker and lollypop glasses knocked into a mash o' glass splinters and stick. There's a limb off the baking pear-tree; lots o' branches teared loose from the walls; a big bit snapped off the cedar, and that there arby whitey blowed right sidewise. It's enough to make a gardener as has any respect for himself break his 'art." "Never mind, David; I'll come out and help you try to put things straight." "Will you, Master Tom?" "Of course I will." "But we can't mend them there frame-lights. The wood's gone too." "No, but I'll ask uncle to buy some new ones; they were very old." "Well, if you come to that, sir, they was that touch-woody that if it hadn't been for the thick paint I put on 'em every spring, till they had quite a houtside skin o' white lead, they wouldn't ha' held together. Stop, that arn't all: the tool-house door's blowed right off. Natur's very well in some things, but I never could see what was the good o' so much wind blustering and rampaging about. I was very nigh gettin' up and coming to see how things was, on'y the tiles and pots was a-flying, so that I thought I'd better stop in bed." "I wish you had come," said Tom. "Ay, that's all very well, Master Tom; but s'pose one o' they big ellums as come down on the green--four on 'em--had dropped atop o' me, what would master ha' done for a gardener? There's nobody here as could ha' kept our garden as it ought to be." "It was a terrible night, David." "Terrible arn't the word for it, Master Tom. Why, do you know--Yah! You there again. Here, stop a minute." David ran to a piece of rock-work, picked up a great pebble, and trotted to the side of the garden, whence a piteous, long-drawn howl had just arisen--a dismal mournful cry, ending in a piercing whine, such as would be given by a half-starved tied-up dog left in an empty house. David reached the hedge, reached over, hurled the stone, and sent after it a burst of objurgations, ending with-- "Yah! G'long home with yer. Beast!" "That's about settled him," he said as he came back, smiling very widely. "Strange dog, David?" "Strange, sir? Not him. It's that ugly, hungry-looking brute o' Pete Warboys'. That's four times he's been here this morning, chyiking and yelping. You must have been giving him bones." "I? No, I never fed him." "Then cook must. We don't want him here. But I don't think he'll come again." "Did you hit him?" "Hit him, sir? What with that there stone? Not I. Nobody couldn't hit him with stick or stone neither. Keepers can't even hit him with their guns, or he'd been a dead 'un long ago. He's the slipperest dog as ever was." "_Hy--yow--ow--oo--ooo_!" came from a distance--a pitiful cry that was mournful in the extreme. "Hear that, sir?" Before Tom could answer the gardener went on-- "So you had the trap-door atop busted open, did yer, sir?" "Yes, and a terrible job to shut it," said Tom. "I thought we should never get it fast." "Ah, I arn't surprised. Wind's a blusterous sort o' thing when its reg'lar on. Just look: here's a wreck and rampagin', sir. What am I to begin to do next?" "David!" "Yes, sir; comin', sir," cried the gardener, in answer to a call; and as he went off to where his master was pointing out loose slates and a curled-up piece of lead on the roof to the village bricklayer, the miserable howl came again from much nearer. "Pete must be somewhere about," thought Tom; and then, after giving another glance round at the damage done by the storm, he hurried out to have a look round the village, going straight to the green, where half the people were standing talking about the elms, which lay broken in a great many pieces, showing the brittleness of the wood, for the huge trunks had snapped here and there, and mighty boughs, each as big as a large tree, were shivered and splintered in a wonderful way. Every here and there a ruddy patch in the road showed where tile or chimney-pot had been swept off and dashed to pieces. The sign at the village inn had been torn from its hinges, and farther on Tom came upon the Vicar examining the great gilt weather-cock on the little spire at the top of the big square, ivy-clad tower. He was at the edge of the churchyard using a small telescope, and started round as Tom cried, "Good-morning." "Ah, good-morning, Tom. What a night! There, you try. Your eyes are young." He handed the telescope. "It's terrible, my lad," he said. "There's a barn out at Huggins's laid quite flat, they say, and two straw-stacks regularly swept away." "The stacks, sir?" cried Tom, pausing, glass in hand. "Well, not all at once, but the straw. They tell me it has been swept over the country for miles. I never remember such a storm here. I've seen them on the coast." "Why, the bar under the letters has bent right down, sir," said Tom, after a minute's examination. "I can't see whether it's broken." "Not likely to be, Tom," said the Vicar; "it is of copper. See anything else broken?" "One of the arms--the one with the E on it--is hanging right down." "Hah! Well, it must be mended. Did you hear the small bell in the night?" "No," said Tom. "It kept on giving a bang every now and then, for the tower shutters are all gone on the other side. Four came into my garden. I can't find more, so I suppose they have been blown into the tower among the bells. Good-morning. I must go round the place and see who is damaged. Your uncle says you nearly had the top off the mill, and that you behaved splendidly." "Oh, nonsense, sir!" said Tom, colouring. "I only nailed down the top shutter." "Only? Well, Tom, I wouldn't have got up there and nailed it down for all the telescopes in England. Good-morning." They parted, and Tom continued his way round by the church, getting a glimpse of the gaping window opening in the tower where the bells hung exposed; and then after passing a great horse-chestnut lying in the next field, he went on round by Mother Warboys' and the other cottages, catching sight of the old woman standing at her door, with her hand over her eyes, as if watching. The next minute she caught sight of him, and shouted. Then she shook her stick at him, and said something in a threatening way. But the boy hurried on, crossed the fields, got into the narrow lane, and then went on and on till he was able to turn into the road which divided his uncle's field and grounds from the mill-yard. No sooner had he turned into the sandy road than his ears were saluted by the dismal howling of Pete's dog, which was evidently somewhere near the mill. "What a nuisance!" thought Tom, and he paused for a few moments, looking in that direction. "Bound to say Master Pete's hanging about somewhere, and the dog can't find him." However, he did not stop, but trotted off in the opposite direction to have a look at Huggins's barn, which lay completely flat, the thatch scattered, and the wooden sides and rafters strewed all over the farm-yard. Of the two straw-stacks nothing was visible on the spot but the round patches of faggots upon which they had been raised. The straw itself decorated hedges, hung in trees, and was spread over fields as far as he could see. All at once he heard a yelp, and turning, there was Pete Warboys' dog racing toward him as hard as it could come. As it drew nearer, tearing along the sandy road, it began to bark furiously, and looked so vicious that Tom stooped and picked up a big stone. That was sufficient; the dog yelped aloud, turned, leaped over a hedge, and ran for its life. "Awful coward, after all," muttered Tom, throwing down the stone and returning to the house, where he set to work and helped David for the rest of the day. Three times had David charged out after the dog, which kept coming and howling close at hand, and each time the gardener came back grumbling about some one having been "chucking that there dog bones." "Cook says she arn't, sir, and t'other says she arn't; but I put it to you, sir, would that there dog come a-yowling here if he warn't hungry?" "Perhaps that's why he has come, David," said Tom. "No, sir, not athout he expected to get something. I wish him and Pete Warboys had been jolly well blowed out o' the parish last night, that I do." That night at intervals the dog came howling about the place, and kept Tom awake for a while, but the exertions of the past night and the work of the day had told so upon him that he fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep, but only to be awakened just after sunrise by the mournful howl. _ |
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