Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)

by Thomas Hardy

  Accordingly we gathered up the candles that remained, descended from the niche, recrossed the deserted bed of the stream, and found our way to the open air, well pleased enough with the adventure, and promising each other to repeat it at an early day. On which account, instead of bringing away the unburnt candles, and the wood candlestick, and the spade, we laid these articles on a hidden shelf near the entrance, to be ready at hand at any time.

  Having cleaned the tell-tale mud from our boots, we were on the point of entering the village, when our ears were attracted by a great commotion in the road below.

  “What is it?” said I, standing still.

  “Voices, I think,” replied Steve. “Listen!”

  It seemed to be a man in a violent frenzy. “I think it is somebody out of his mind,” continued my cousin. “I never heard a man rave so in my life.”

  “Let us draw nearer,” said I.

  We moved on, and soon came in sight of an individual, who, standing in the midst of the street, was gesticulating distractedly, and uttering invectives against something or other, to several villagers that had gathered around.

  “Why, ‘tis the miller!” said Steve. “What can be the matter with him?”

  We were not kept long in suspense, for we could soon hear his words distinctly. “The money I’ve sunk here!” he was saying; the time — the honest labour — all for nothing! Only beggary afore me now! One month it was a new pair of mill-stones; then the back wall was cracked with the shaking, and had to be repaired; then I made a bad speculation in corn and dropped money that way! But ‘tis nothing to this! My own freehold — the only staff and dependence o’ my family — all useless now — all of us ruined!”

  “Don’t you take on so, Miller Griffin,” soothingly said one who proved to be the Man who had Failed. “Take the ups with the downs, and maybe ‘twill come right again.”

  “Right again!” raved the miller; “how can what’s gone forever comeback again as ‘twere afore — that’s what I ask my wretched self — how can it?”

  “We’ll get up a subscription for ye,” said a local dairyman.

  “I don’t drink hard; I don’t stay away from church, and I only grind into Sabbath hours when there’s no getting through the work otherwise, and I pay my way like a man!”

  “Yes — you do that,” corroborated the others.

  “And yet, I be brought to ruinous despair, on this sixth day of September, Hannah Dominy; as if I were a villain! Oh, my mill, my millwheel — you’ll never go round any more — never more!” The miller flung his arms upon the rail of the bridge, and buried his face in his hands.

  “This raving is but making a bad Job worse,” said the Man who had Failed. “But who will listen to counsel on such matters.”

  By this time we had drawn near, and Steve said, “What’s the cause of all this?”

  “The river has dried up — all on a sudden,” said the dairyman, “and so his mill won’t go any more.”

  I gazed instantly towards the stream, or rather what had been the stream. It was gone; and the mill wheel, which had pattered so persistently when we entered the cavern, was silent. Steve and I instinctively stepped aside.

  “The river gone dry!” Steve whispered.

  “Yes,” said I. “Why, Steve, don’t you know why?”

  My thoughts had instantly flown to our performance of turning the stream out of its channel in the cave, and I knew in a moment that this was the cause. Steve’s silence showed me that he divined the same thing, and we stood gazing at each other in consternation.

  CHAPTER II

  How We Shone in the Eyes of the Public.

  As soon as we had recovered ourselves we walked away, unconsciously approaching the river-bed, in whose hollows lay the dead and dying bodies of loach, sticklebacks, dace, and other small fry, which before our entrance into Nick’s Pocket had raced merrily up and down the waterway. Further on we perceived numbers of people ascending to the upper part of the village, with pitchers on their heads, and buckets yoked to their shoulders.

  “Where are you going?” said Steve to one of these.

  “To your mother’s well for water,” was the answer. “The river we have always been used to dip from is dried up. Oh, mercy me, what with the washing and cooking and brewing I don’t know what we shall do to live, for ‘tis killing work to bring water on your back so far!”

  As may be supposed, all this gave me still greater concern than before, and I hurriedly said to Steve that I was strongly of opinion that we ought to go back to the cave immediately, and turn the water into the old channel, seeing what harm we had unintentionally done by our manoeuvre.

  “Of course we’ll go back — that’s just what I was going to say,” returned Steve. “We can set it all right again in half an hour, and the river will run the same as ever. Hullo — now you are frightened at what has happened! I can see you are.”

  I told him that I was not exactly frightened, but that it seemed to me we had caused a very serious catastrophe in the village, in driving the miller almost crazy, and killing the fish, and worrying the poor people into supposing they would never have enough water again for their daily use without fetching it from afar. “Let us tell them how it came to pass,” I suggested, “and then go and set it right.”

  “Tell ‘em — not I!” said Steve. “We’ll go back and put it right, and say nothing about it to any one, and they will simply think it was caused by a temporary earthquake, or something of that sort.” He then broke into a vigorous whistle, and we retraced our steps together.

  It occupied us but a few minutes to rekindle a light inside the cave, take out the spade from its nook, and penetrate to the scene of our morning exploit. Steve then fell to, and first rolling down a few large pieces of stone into the current, dexterously banked them up with clay from the other side of the cave, which caused the brook to swerve back into its original bed almost immediately. “There,” said he, “it is all just as it was when we first saw it — now let’s be off.”

  We did not dally long in the cavern; but when we gained the exterior we decided to wait there a little time till the villagers should have discovered the restoration of their stream, to watch the effect. Our waiting was but temporary; for in quick succession there burst upon our ears a shout, and then the starting of the mill-wheel patter.

  At once we walked into the village street with an air of unconcern. The miller’s face was creased with wrinkles of satisfaction; the countenances of the blacksmith, shoemaker, grocer and dairyman were perceptibly brighter. These, and many others of West Poley, were gathered on the bridge over the mill-tail, and they were all holding a conversation with the parson of the parish, as to the strange occurrence.

  Matters remained in a quiet state during the next two days. Then there was a remarkably fine and warm morning, and we proposed to cross the hills and descend into East Poley, the next village, which I had never seen. My aunt made no objection to the excursion, and we departed, ascending the hill in a straight line, without much regard to paths. When we had reached the summit, and were about half way between the two villages, we sat down to recover breath. While we sat a man overtook us, and Steve recognized him as a neighbour.

  “A bad Job again for West Poley folks!” cried the man, without halting.

  “What’s the matter now?” said Steve, and I started with curiosity.

  “Oh, the river is dry again. It happened at a quarter past ten this morning, and it is thought it will never flow any more. The miller he’s gone crazy, or all but so. And the washerwoman, she will have to be kept by the parish, because she can’t get water to wash with; aye, ‘tis a terrible time that’s come. I’m off to try to hire a water-cart, but I fear I shan’t hear of one.”

  The speaker passed by, and on turning to Steve I found he was looking on the ground. “I know how that’s happened,” he presently said. “We didn’t make our embankment so strong as it was before, and so the water has washed it away.”

  “Let’s g
o back and mend it,” said I; and I proposed that we should reveal where the mischief lay, and get some of the labourers to build the bank up strong, that this might not happen again.

  “No,” said Steve, “since we are half way we will have our day’s pleasure. It won’t hurt the West Poley people to be out of water for one day. We’ll return home a little earlier than we intended, and put it all in order again, either ourselves, or by the help of some men.”

  Having gone about a mile and a half further we reached the brow of the descent into East Poley, the place we had come to visit. Here we beheld advancing towards us a stranger whose actions we could not at first interpret. But as the distance between us and him lessened we discerned, to our surprise , that he was in convulsions of laughter. He would laugh until he was tired, then he would stand still gazing on the ground, as if quite preoccupied, then he would burst out laughing again and walk on. No sooner did he see us two boys than he placed his hat upon his walking-stick, twirled it and cried “Hurrah!”

  I was so amused that I could not help laughing with him; and when he came abreast of us Steve said “Good morning; may I ask what it is that makes you laugh so?”

  But the man was either too self-absorbed or too supercilious to vouchsafe to us any lucid explanation. “What makes me laugh?” he said. “Why, good luck, my boys! Perhaps when you are as lucky, you will laugh too.” Saying which he walked on and left us; and we could hear him exclaiming to himself, “Well done — hurrah!” as he sank behind the ridge.

  Without pausing longer we descended towards the village, and soon reached its outlying homesteads. Our path intersected a green field dotted with trees, on the other side of which was an inn. As we drew near we heard the strains of a fiddle, and presently perceived a fiddler standing on a chair outside the inn door; whilst on the green in front were several people seated at a table eating and drinking, and some younger members of the assembly dancing a reel in the background.

  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?”