Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (897 page)

“Nor I,” said Steve.  “Where is he?”

The whole four of us stared with all our vision at the opening the miller had fallen from.  But his companion had vanished.

“Well — never mind,” said Miller Griffin, genially; “we’ll follow.  Which is the way?”

“There’s no way — we can’t follow,” answered Steve.

“Can’t follow! “ echoed the miller, staring round, and perceiving for the first time that the ledge was a prison.  “What — not saved!” he shrieked.  “Notable to get out from here?”

“We be not saved unless your friend comes back to save us,” said Job. “We’ve been calculating upon his help — otherwise things be as bad as they were before.  We three have clung here waiting for death these two hours, and now there’s one more to wait for death — unless the shoemaker comes back.”

Job spoke stoically in the face of the cobbler’s disappearance, and Steve tried to look cool also; but I think they felt as much discouraged as I, and almost as much as the miller, at the unaccountable vanishing of Cobbler Jones.

On reflection, however, there was no reason to suppose that he had basely deserted us. Probably he had only gone to bring further assistance.  But the bare possibility of disappointment at such times is enough to take the nerve from any man or boy.

“He must mean to come back!” the miller murmured lugubriously, as we all stood in a row on the ledge, like sparrows on the moulding of a chimney.

“I should think so,” said Steve, “if he’s a man.”

“Yes — he must!” the miller anxiously repeated. “I once said he was a two-penny sort of workman to his face — I wish I hadn’t said it, oh — how I wish I hadn’t; but ‘twas years and years ago, and pray heaven he’s forgot it! I once called him a stingy varmint — that I did!  But we’ve made that up, and been friends ever since. And yet there’s men who’ll carry a snub in their buzzoms; and perhaps he’s going to punish me now!”

“ ‘Twould be very wrong of him,” said I, “to leave us three to die because you’ve been a wicked man in your time, miller.”“Quite true,” said Job.

“Zounds take your saucy tongues!” said Griffin. “If I had elbow room on this miserable perch I’d — I’d — ”

“Just do nothing,” said Job at his elbow. “Have you no more sense of decency, Mr Griffin, than to go on like that, and the waters rising to drown us minute by minute?”

“Rising to drown us — hey?” said the miller.

“Yes, indeed,” broke in Steve. “It has reached my feet.”

CHAPTER V

How We Became Close Allies with the Villagers.

Sure enough, the water — to which we had given less attention since the miller’s arrival — had kept on rising with silent and pitiless regularity.  To feel it actually lapping over the ledge was enough to paralyze us all.  We listened and looked, but no shoemaker appeared.  In no very long time it ran into our boots, and coldly encircled our ankles.

Miller Griffin trembled so much that he could scarcely keep his standing.  “If I do get out of this,” he said, “I’ll do good — lots of good — to everybody!  Oh, oh — the water!”

“Surely you can hold your tongue if this little boy can bear it without crying out!” said Job, alluding to me.

Thus rebuked, the miller was silent; and nothing more happened till we heard a slight sound from the opening which was our only hope, and saw as light light. We watched, and the light grew stronger, flickering about the orifice like a smile on parted lips. Then hats and heads broke above the edge of the same — one, two, three, four — then candles, arms and shoulders; and it could be seen then that our deliverers were provided with ropes.

“Ahoy — all right!” they shouted, and you may be sure we shouted back a reply.

“Quick, in the name o’ goodness!” cried the miller.

A consultation took place among those above, and one of them shouted, “We’ll throw you a rope’s end and you must catch it.  If you can make it fast, and so climb up one at a time, do it.

“If not, tie it round the first one, let him jump into the water; we’ll tow him across by the rope till he’s underneath us, and then haul him up .

“Yes, yes, that’s the way!” said the miller.  “But do be quick — I’m dead drowned up to my thighs.  Let me have the rope.”

“Now, miller, that’s not fair!” said one of the group above the Man who had Failed, for he was with them.  “Of course you’ll send up the boys first — the little boy first of all.”

“I will — I will — ’twas a mistake,” Griffin replied with contrition.

The rope was then thrown; Job caught it, and tied it round me.  It was with some misgiving that I flung myself on the water; but I did it, and, upheld by the rope, I floated across to the spot in the pool that was perpendicularly under the opening, when the men all heaved, and I felt myself swinging in the air, till I was received into the arms of half the parish. For the alarm having been given, the attempt at rescue was known all over the lower part of West Poley.

My cousin Steve was now hauled up.  When he had gone the miller burst into a sudden terror at the thought of being left till the last, fearing he might not be able to catch the rope. He implored Job to let him go up first.

“Well,” said Job; ‘so you shall — on one condition.”

“Tell it, and I agree.”

Job searched his pockets, and drew out a little floury pocket-book, in which he had been accustomed to enter sales of meal and bran.  Without replying to the miller, he stooped to the candle and wrote.  This done he said, “Sign this, and I’ll let ye go.

The miller read: I hereby certify that I release from, this time forth Job Tray, my apprentice, by his wish, and demand no further service from him whatever. “Very well — have your way,” he said; and taking the pencil subscribed his name. By this time they had untied Steve and were flinging the rope a third time; Job caught it as before, attached it to the miller’s portly person, shoved him off, and saw him hoisted. The dragging up on this occasion was a test to the muscles of those above; but it was accomplished.  Then the rope was flung back for the last time, and fortunate it was that the delay was no longer.  Job could only manage to secure himself with great difficulty, owing to the numbness which was creeping over him from his heavy labours and immersions. More dead than alive he was pulled to the top with the rest.

The people assembled above began questioning us, as well they might, upon how we had managed to get into our perilous position.  Before we had explained, a gurgling sound was heard from the pool.  Several looked over.  The water whose rising had nearly caused our death was sinking suddenly; and the light of the candle, which had been left to burn itself out on the ledge, revealed a whirlpool on the surface. Steve, the only one of our trio who was in a condition to observe anything, knew in a moment what the phenomenon meant.

The weight of accumulated water had completed the task of reopening the closed tunnel or fissure which Job’s and Steve’s diving had begun; and the stream was rushing rapidly down the old West Poley outlet, through which it had run from geological times. In a few minutes — as I was told, for I was not an eye-witness of further events this night — the water had drained itself out, and the stream could be heard trickling across the floor of the lower cave as before the check.

In the explanations which followed our adventure, the following facts were disclosed as to our discovery by the neighbours.

The miller and the shoemaker, after a little further discussion in the road where I overheard them, decided to investigate the caves one by one.  With this object in view they got a lantern, and proceeded, not to Nick’s Pocket, but to a well-known cave nearer at hand called Grim Billy, which to them seemed a likely source for the river.

This cave was very well known up to a certain point. The floor sloped upwards, and eventually led to the margin of the hole in the dome of Nick’s Pocket; but nobody was aware that it was the inner part of Nick’s Pocket which the treacherous opening revealed. Rather was the unplumbed depth beneath supposed to be the mouth of an abyss into which no human being could venture. Thus when a stone ascended from this abyss (the stone I threw) the searchers were amazed, till the miller’s intuition suggested to him that we were there.  And, what was most curious, when we were all delivered, and had gone home, and had been put into warm beds, neither the miller nor the shoemaker knew for certain that they had lighted upon the source of the mill stream. Much less did they suspect the contrivance we had discovered for turning the water to East or West Poley, at pleasure.

By a piece of good fortune, Steve’s mother heard nothing of what had happened to us till we appeared dripping at the door, and could testify to our deliverance before explaining our perils.

The result which might have been expected to all of us, followed in the case of Steve.  He caught cold from his prolonged duckings, and the cold was followed by a serious illness.

The illness of Steve was attended with slight fever, which left him very weak, though neither Job nor I suffered any evil effects from our immersion.

The mill-stream having flowed back to its course, the mill was again started, and the miller troubled himself no further about the river-head; but Job, thanks to his ingenuity, was no longer the miller’s apprentice.  He had been lucky enough to get a place in another mill many miles off, the very next day after our escape.

I frequently visited Steve in his bed-room, and, on one of these occasions, he said to me, “Suppose I were to die, and you were to go away home, and Job were always to stay away in another part of England, the secret of that mill-stream head would be lost to our village; so that if by chance the vent this way were to choke, and the water run into the East Poley channel, our people would not know how to recover it.  They saved our lives, and we ought to make them the handsome return of telling them the whole manoeuvre — ”

This was quite my way of thinking, and it was decided that Steve should tell all as soon as he was well enough. But I soon found that his anxiety on the matter seriously affected his recovery. He had a scheme, he said, for preventing such a loss of the stream again.

Discovering that Steve was uneasy in his mind, the doctor — to whom I explained that Steve desired to make personal reparation — insisted that his wish be gratified at once — namely, that some of the leading inhabitants of West Poley should be brought up to his bedroom, and learn what he had to say. His mother assented, and messages were sent to them at once.

The villagers were ready enough to come, for they guessed the object of the summons, and they were anxious, too, to know more particulars of our adventures than we had as yet had opportunity to tell them.  Accordingly, at a little past six that evening, when the sun was going down, we heard their footsteps ascending the stairs, and they entered. Among them there were the blacksmith, the shoemaker, the dairyman, the Man who had Failed, a couple of farmers; and some men who worked on the farms were also admitted.

Some chairs were brought up from below, and, when our visitors had settled down, Steve’s mother, who was very anxious about him, said, “Now, my boy, we are all here. What have you to tell?”

Steve began at once, explaining first how we had originally discovered the inner cave, and how we walked on till we came to a stream.

“What we want to know is this,” said the shoemaker, “is that great pool we fetched you out of, the head of the mill-stream?”

Steve explained that it was not a natural pool, and other things which the reader already knows. He then came to the description of the grand manoeuvre by which the stream could be turned into either the east or the west valley.

“But how did you get down there?” asked one. “Did you walk in through Giant’s Ear, or Goblin’s Cellar, or Grim Billy?”

“We did not enter by either of these,” said Steve. “We entered by Nick’s Pocket.”

“Ha!” said the company, “that explains all the mystery.”

“ ‘Tis amazing,” said the miller, who had entered, “that folks should have lived and died here for generations, and never ha’ found out that Nick’s Pocket led to the river spring!”

“Well, that isn’t all I want to say,” resumed Steve.  “Suppose any people belonging to East Poley should find out the secret, they would go there and turn the water into their own vale; and, perhaps, close up the other channel in such a way that we could scarcely open it again.  But didn’t somebody leave the room a minute ago? — who is it that’s going away?”

“I fancy a man went out,” said the dairyman looking round.  One or two others said the same, but dusk having closed in it was not apparent which of the company had gone away.

Steve continued: “Therefore before the secret is known, let somebody of our village go and close up the little gallery we entered by, and the upper mouth you look in from.  Then there’ll be no danger of our losing the water again.”

The proposal was received with unanimous commendation, and after a little more consultation, and the best wishes of the neighbours for Steve’s complete recovery, they took their leave, arranging to go and stop the cave entrances the next evening.

As the doctor had thought, so it happened.  No sooner was his sense of responsibility gone, than Steve began to mend with miraculous rapidity. Four and twenty hours made such a difference in him that he said to me, with animation, the next evening: “Do, Leonard, go and bring me word what they are doing at Nick’s Pocket.  They ought to be going up there about this time to close up the gallery.  But ‘tis quite dark — you’ll be afraid.”

“No — not I,” I replied, and off I went, having told my aunt my mission.

It was, indeed, quite dark, and it was not till I got quite close to the mill that I found several West Poley men had gathered in the road opposite thereto.  The miller was not among them, being too much shaken by his fright for any active enterprise.  They had spades, pickaxes, and other tools, and were just preparing for the start to the caves.

I followed behind, and as soon as we reached the outskirts of West Poley, I found they all made straight for Nick’s Pocket as planned.  Arrived there they lit their candles and we went into the interior.  Though they had been most precisely informed by Steve how to find the connecting gallery with the inner cavern, so cunningly was it hidden by Nature’s hand that they probably would have occupied no small time in lighting on it, if I had not gone forward and pointed out the nook.