Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (894 page)

We naturally felt much curiosity as to the cause of the merriment, which we mentally connected with that of the man we had met just before.  Turning to one of the old men feasting at the table, I said to him as civilly as I could, “Why are you all so lively in this parish, sir?”

“Because we are in luck’s way just now, for we don’t get a new river every day. Hurrah!”

“A new river?” said Steve and I in one breath.

“Yes,” said one of our interlocutors, waving over the table a hambone he had been polishing. “Yesterday afternoon a river of beautiful water burst out of the quarry at the higher end of this bottom; in an hour or so it stopped again. This morning, about a quarter past ten, it burst out again, and it is running now as if it would run always.”“It will make all land and houses in this parish worth double as much as afore,” said another; “for want of water is the one thing that has always troubled us, forcing us to sink deep wells, and even there, being hard put to, to get enough for our cattle.  Now we have got a river, and the place will grow to a town.”

“It is as good as two hundred pounds to me!” said one who looked like a grazier.

“And two hundred and fifty to me!” cried another, who seemed to be a brewer.

“And sixty pound a year to me, and to every man here in the building trade!” said a third.

As soon as we could withdraw from the company, our thoughts found vent in words.

“I ought to have seen it!” said Steve.  “Of course if you stop a stream from flowing in one direction, it must force its way out in another.”

“I wonder where their new stream is,” said I.

We looked round.  After some examination we saw a depression in the centre of a pasture, and, approaching it, beheld the stream meandering along over the grass, the current not having had as yet sufficient time to scour a bed.  Walking down to the brink, we were lost in wonder at what we had unwittingly done, and quite bewildered at the strange events we had caused.  Feeling, now, that we had walked far enough from home for one day, we turned, and, in a brief time, entered a road pointed out by Steve, as one that would take us to West Poley by a shorter cut than our outward route.

As we ascended the hill, Steve looked round at me.  I suppose my face revealed my thoughts, for he said, “You are amazed, Leonard, at the wonders we have accomplished without knowing it.  To tell the truth, so am I.”

I said that what staggered me was this — that we could not turn back the water into its old bed now, without doing as much harm to the people of East Poley by taking it away, as we should do good to the people of West Poley by restoring it.

“True,” said Steve, “that’s what bothers me.  Though I think we have done more good to these people than we have done harm to the others; and I think these are rather nicer people than those in our village, don’t you?”

I objected that even if this were so, we could have no right to take water away from one set of villagers and give it to another set without consulting them.

Steve seemed to feel the force of the argument; but as his mother had a well of her own he was less inclined to side with his native place than he might have been if his own household had been deprived of water, for the benefit of the East Poleyites. The matter was still in suspense, when, weary with our day’s pilgrimage, we reached the mill.

The mill-pond was drained to its bed; the wheel stood motionless; yet a noise came from the interior. It was not the noise of machinery, but of the nature of blows, followed by bitter expostulations. On looking in, we were grieved to see that the miller, in a great rage, was holding his apprentice by the collar, and beating him with a strap.

The miller was a heavy, powerful man, and more than a match for his apprentice and us two boys besides; but Steve reddened with indignation, and asked the miller, with some spirit, why he served the poor fellow so badly.

“He says he’ll leave,” stormed the frantic miller. “What right hev he to say he’ll leave, I should like to know!”

“There is no work for me to do, now the mill won’t go,” said the apprentice, meekly; “and the agreement was that I should be at liberty to leave if work failed in the mill. He keeps me here and don’t pay me; and I beat my wits’ end how to live.”

“Just shut up!” said the miller. “Go and work in the garden!  Mill-work or no mill-work, you’ll stay on.”

Job, as the miller’s boy was called, had won the good-will of Steve, and Steve was now ardent to do him a good turn. Looking over the bridge, we saw, passing by, the Man who had Failed. He was considered an authority on such matters as these, and we begged him to come in. In a few minutes the miller was set down, and it was proved to him that, by the terms of Job’s indentures, he was no longer bound to remain.

“I have to thank you for this,” said the miller, savagely, to Steve. “Ruined in every way!  I may as well die!”

But my cousin cared little for the miller’s opinion, and we came away, thanking the Man who had Failed for his interference, and receiving the warmest expressions of gratitude from poor Job; who, it appeared, had suffered much ill-treatment from his irascible master, and was overjoyed to escape to some other employment.

We went to bed early that night, on account of our long walk; but we were far too excited to sleep at once.  It was scarcely dark as yet, and the nights being still warm the window was left open as it had been left during the summer.  Thus we could hear everything that passed without.  People were continually coming to dip water from my aunt’s well; they gathered round it in groups, and discussed the remarkable event which had latterly occurred for the first time in parish history.

“My belief is that witchcraft have done it,” said the shoemaker, and the only remedy that I can think o’, is for one of us to cut across to Bartholomew Gann, the white wizard, and get him to tell us how to counteract it.  ‘Tis along pull to his house for a little man, such as I be, but I’ll walk it if nobody else will.”

“Well, there’s no harm in your going,” said another.  “We can manage by drawing from Mrs Draycot’s well for a few days; but something must be done, or the miller’ll be ruined, and the washerwoman can’t hold out long.”

When these personages had drawn water and retired, Steve spoke across from his bed to me in mine.  “We’ve done more good than harm, that I’ll maintain.  The miller is the only man seriously upset, and he’s not a man to deserve consideration.  It has been the means of freeing poor Job, which is another good thing.  Then, the people in East Poley that we’ve made happy are two hundred and fifty, and there are only a hundred in this parish, even if all of ‘em are made miserable.”

I returned some reply, though the state of affairs was, in truth, one rather suited to the genius of Jeremy Bentham than to me.  But the problem in utilitarian philosophy was shelved by Steve exclaiming, “I have it!  I see how to get some real glory out of this!”

I demanded how, with much curiosity.

“You’ll swear not to tell anybody, or let it be known anyhow that we are at the bottom of it all?”

I am sorry to say that my weak compunctions gave way under stress of this temptation; and I solemnly declared that I would reveal nothing, unless he agreed with me that it would be best to do so.  Steve made me swear, in the tone of Hamlet to the Ghost, and when I had done this, he sat up in his bed to announce his scheme.

“First, we’ll go to Job,” said Steve. “Take him into the secret; show him the cave; give him a spade and pickaxe; and tell him to turn off the water from East Poley at, say, twelve o’clock, for a little while. Then we’ll go to the East Poley boys and declare ourselves to be magicians.”

“Magicians?” I said.

“Magicians, able to dry up rivers, or to make ‘em run at will,” he repeated.

“I see it!” I almost screamed, in my delight.

“To show our power, we’ll name an hour for drying up theirs, and making it run again after a short time. Of course we’ll say the hour we’ve told Job to turn the water in the cave. Won’t they think something of us then?”

I was enchanted. The question of mischief or not mischief was as indifferent to me now as it was to Steve — for which indifference we got rich deserts, as will be seen in the sequel.

“And to look grand and magical,” continued he, “we’ll get some gold lace that I know of in the garret, on an old coat my grandfather wore in the Yeomanry Cavalry, and put it round our caps, and make ourselves great beards with horse-hair. They will look just like real ones at a little distance off.”

“And we must each have a wand!” said I, explaining that I knew how to make excellent wands, white as snow, by peeling a couple of straight willows; and that I could do all that in the morning while he was preparing the beards.

Thus we discussed and settled the matter, and at length fell asleep — to dream of to-morrow’s triumphs among the boys of East Poley, till the sun of that morrow shone in upon our faces and woke us. We arose promptly and made our preparations, having carte blanche from my Aunt Draycot to spend the days of my visit as we chose.

Our first object on leaving the farmhouse was to find Job Tray, apprise him of what it was necessary that he should know, and induce him to act as confederate. We found him outside the garden of his lodging; he told us he had nothing to do till the following Monday, when a farmer had agreed to hire him. On learning the secret of the river-head, and what we proposed to do, he expressed his glee by a low laugh of amazed delight, and readily promised to assist as bidden. It took us some little time to show him the inner cave, the tools, and to arrange candles for him, so that he might enter without difficulty just after eleven and do the trick.  When this was all settled we put Steve’s watch on a ledge in the cave, that Job might know the exact time, and came out to ascend the hills that divided the eastern from the western village.

For obvious reasons we did not appear in magician’s guise till we had left the western vale some way behind us. Seated on the limestone ridge, removed from all observation, we set to work at preparing ourselves. I peeled the two willows we had brought with us to be used as magic wands, and Steve pinned the pieces of old lace round our caps, congratulating himself on the fact of the lace not being new, which would thus convey the impression that we had exercised the wizard’s calling for some years. Our last adornments were the beards; and, finally equipped, we descended on the other side.

Our plan was now to avoid the upper part of East Poley, which we had traversed on the preceding day, and to strike into the parish at a point further down, where the humble cottages stood, and where we were both absolutely unknown. An hour’s additional walking brought us to this spot, which, as the crow flies, was not more than half so far from West Poley as the road made it.

The first boys we saw were some playing in an orchard near the new stream, which novelty had evidently been the attraction that had brought them there. It was an opportunity for opening the campaign especially as the hour was long after eleven, and the cessation of water consequent on Job’s performance at a quarter past might be expected to take place as near as possible to twelve, allowing the five and forty minutes from eleven-fifteen as the probable time that would be occupied by the stream in travelling to the point we had reached.

I forget at this long distance of years the exact words used by Steve in addressing the strangers; but to the best of my recollection they were, “How d’ye do, gentlemen, and how does the world use ye?” I distinctly remember the sublimity he threw into his hat, and how slavishly I imitated him in the same.          

The boys made some indifferent answer, and Steve continued, “You will kindly present us with some of those apples, I presume, considering what we are?”

They regarded us dubiously, and at last one of them said, “What are you, that you should expect apples from us?”

“We are travelling magicians,” replied Steve.  “You may have heard of us, for by our power this new river has begun to flow.  Rhombustas is my name, and this is my familiar Balcazar.”

“I don’t believe it,” said an incredulous one from behind.

“Very well, gentlemen; we can’t help that. But if you give us some apples we’ll prove our right to the title.”

“Be hanged if we will give you any apples,” said the boy who held the basket; “since it is already proved that magicians are impossible.”

“In that case,” said Steve, “we — we — ”

“Will perform just the same,” interrupted I, for I feared Steve had forgotten that the time was at hand when the stream would be interrupted by Job, whether we willed it or not.

“We will stop the water of your new river at twelve o’clock this day, when the sun crosses the meridian,” said Rhombustas, “as a punishment for your want of generosity.”

“Do it!” said the boys incredulously.

“Come here, Balcazar,” said Steve. We walked together to the edge of the stream; then we muttered, Hi, hae, haec, horum, harum, horum, and stood waving our wands.

“The river do run just the same, said the strangers derisively.

“The spell takes time to work,” said Rhombustas, adding in an aside tome, “I hope that fellow Job has not forgotten, or we shall be hooted out of the place.”

There we stood, waving and waving our white sticks, hoping and hoping we should succeed; while still the river flowed. Seven or ten minutes passed thus; and then, when we were nearly broken down by ridicule, the stream diminished its volume. All eyes were instantly bent on the water, which sank so low as to be in a short time but a narrow rivulet. The faithful Job had performed his task. By the time that the clock of the church tower struck twelve the river was almost dry.

The boys looked at each other in amazement, and at us with awe. They were too greatly concerned to speak except in murmurs to each other.

“You see the result of your conduct, unbelieving strangers,” said Steve, drawing boldly up to them. “And I seriously ask that you hand over those apples before we bring further troubles upon you and your village. We give you five minutes to consider.”

“We decide at once!” cried the boys. “The apples be yours and welcome.”