by Thomas Hardy
“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 wer
e 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.
They thanked me, and the dairyman, as one of the most active of the group taking a spade in one hand, and a light in the other, prepared to creep in first and foremost. He had not advanced many steps before here appeared in the outer cave, looking as pale as death.
CHAPTER VI
How all Our Difficulties Came to an End.
“What’s the matter!” said the shoemaker.
“Somebody’s there!” he gasped.
“It can’t be,” said a farmer. “Till those boys found the hole, not a being in the world knew of such a way in.”
“Well, come and harken for yourselves,” said the dairyman.
We crept close to the gallery mouth and listened. Peck, peck, peck; scrape, scraper scrape, could be heard distinctly inside.
“Whoever they call themselves, they are at work like the busy bee!” said the farmer.
It was ultimately agreed that some of the party should go softly round into Grim Billy, creep up the ascent within the cave, and peer through the opening that looked down through the roof of the cave before us. By this means they might learn, unobserved, what was going on.
It was no sooner proposed than carried out. The baker and shoemaker were the ones that went round, and, as there was nothing to be seen where the others waited, I thought I would bear them company. To get to Grim Billy, a circuit of considerable extent was necessary; moreover, we had to cross the mill-stream. The mill had been stopped for the night, some time before, and, hence, it was by a pure chance we noticed that the river was gradually draining itself out. The misfortune initiated by Steve was again upon the village.
“I wonder if the miller knows it?” murmured the shoemaker. “If not, we won’t tell him, or he may lose his senses outright.”
“Then the folks in the cave are enemies!” said the farmer.
“True,” said the baker, “for nobody else can have done this — let’s push on.”
Grim Billy being entered, we crawled on our hands and knees up the slope, which eventually terminated at the hole above Nick’s Pocket — a hole that probably no human being had passed through before we were hoisted up through it on the evening of our marvellous escape. We were careful to make no noise in ascending, and, at the edge, we gazed cautiously over.
A striking sight met our view. A number of East Poley men were assembled below on the floor, which had been for awhile submerged by our exploit; and they were working with all their might to build and close up the old outlet of the stream towards West Poley, having already, as it appeared, opened the new opening towards their own village, discovered by Steve. We understood it in a moment, and, descending with the same softness as before, we returned to where our comrades were waiting for us in the other cave, where we told them the strange sight we had seen.
“How did they find out the secret?” the shoemaker inquired under his breath. “We have guarded it as we would ha’ guarded our lives.”
“I can guess!” replied the baker. “Have you forgot how somebody went away from Master Steve Draycot’s bedroom in the dusk last night, and we didn’t know who it was? Half an hour after, such a man was seen crossing the hill t
o East Poley; I was told so to-day. We’ve been surprised, and must hold our own by main force, since we can no longer do it by stealth.”
“How, main force?” asked the blacksmith and a farmer simultaneously.
“By closing the gallery they went in by,” said the baker. “Then we shall have them in prison, and can bring them to book rarely.”
The rest being all irritated at having been circumvented so slily and selfishly by the East Poley men, the baker’s plan met with ready acceptance. Five of our body at once chose hard boulders from the outer cave, of such a bulk that they would roll about half-way into the passage or gallery — where there was a slight enlargement — but which would pass no further. These being put in position, they were easily wedged there, and it was impossible to remove them from within, owing to the diminishing size of the passage, except by more powerful tools than they had, which were only spades. We now felt sure of our antagonists, and in a far better position to argue with them than if they had been free. No longer taking the trouble to preserve silence, we, of West Poley, walked in a body round to the other cave — Grim Billy — ascended the inclined floor like a flock of goats, and arranged ourselves in a group at the opening that impended over Nick’s Pocket.
The East Poley men were still working on, absorbed in their labour, and were unconscious that twenty eyes regarded them from above like stars.
“Let’s halloo!” said the baker.
Halloo we did with such vigour that the East Poley men, taken absolutely unawares, well nigh sprang into the air at the shock it produced on their nerves. Their spades flew from their hands, and they stared around in dire alarm, for the echoes confused them as to the direction whence their hallooing came. They finally turned their eyes upwards, and saw us individuals of the rival village far above them, illuminated with candles and with countenances grave and stern as a bench of unmerciful judges.
“Men of East Poley,” said the baker, “we have caught ye in the execution of a most unfair piece of work. Because of a temporary turning of our water into your vale by a couple of meddlesome boys — a piece of mischief that was speedily repaired — you have thought fit to covet our stream. You have sent a spy to find out its secret, and have meanfully come here to steal the stream for yourselves forever. This cavern is in our parish, and you have no right here at all.”
