Patience Wins Part 28

I went out across the yard and had a look at the dam, lay down on the stone edge, and bathed my face with the fresh cold water, turned my handkerchief into a towel, and walked back in the dim, grey light, seeing that morning was breaking, and beginning to rejoice that I had got rid of my drowsy fit, which seemed unaccountable.

Piter seemed as drowsy as I, holding his head down in a heavy way as if it were more than he could bear.

"Poor old boy! Why, you seem as sleepy as I am, Piter!" I said, as I seated myself on the stairs leading up to the office; and he whined softly and laid his head in my lap.

I thought I heard a noise just then, and looked up, but there was no repet.i.tion of the sound, and I sat there at a turn of the stairs, leaning against the wall, and wondering why the dog had not started up instead of letting his heavy head drop lower in my lap.

"Why, you are as drowsy as I am, Piter," I cried again, playing with his ears; "anyone would think you had been taking a sleeping draught or something of that kind."

He answered with a heavy snore, just like a human being, and I sat gazing down and out through the open doorway into the yard, thinking that it would not be long now before it was broad daylight instead of that half darkness that seemed so strange and misty that I could only just see through the doorway and distinguish the stones.

Then I could hardly see them at all, and then they seemed to disappear, and I could see all over the yard, and the dam and the works all at once. It was a wonderful power of sight that I seemed to possess, for I was looking through the walls of the upper shop, and all through the lower shop, and down into the water-pit. Then I was looking round the furnace, and in at the smiths' forges, and at the great chimney-shaft, and at the precipice by Dome Tor.

What a place that seemed! Since my uncle slipped over it the slaty, shaley face appeared to have grown twice as big and high, and over it and down the steep slope a man was crawling right in from the Dome Tor slip to our works. I saw him come along the stone edge of the dam and over the wheel with the water, to bob up and down in the black pit like a cork float when an eel is biting at a bait. There he went--bob--bob-- bob--and down out of sight.

It seemed such a splendid bite, that, being fond of fishing, I was about to strike, the absurdity of the idea of fishing with a man for a float never striking me for a moment; but, just as I was going to pull up, the man was crawling over the floor of the grinders' shop, and the water was not there, though the wheel seemed to be going round and uttering a heavy groan at every turn for want of grease.

There he was again, creeping and writhing up the stairs, and higher and higher along the floor among the lathes; then he was in the office, and over the bed where Uncle Bob lay making a snoring noise like the great water-wheel as it turned. What a curiously-long, thin, writhing man he seemed to be as he crawled and wriggled all over the floor and lathes and polishing-wheels. Down, too, into the smiths' shops, and over the half-extinct fires without burning himself, and all the time the wheel went round with its snoring noise, and the man--who was really a big eel--was ringing a loud bell, and--

I jumped up wide-awake, upsetting Piter, and throwing his head out of my lap, when, instead of springing up, he rolled heavily half-way down the stairs as if he were dead.

"Why, I've been to sleep," I said angrily to myself, "and dreaming all sorts of absurd nonsense! That comes of thinking about fishing for eels."

I was cold and stiff, and there was a bell ringing in the distance at some works, where the men began an hour sooner than ours. But I took no notice of that, for I was thinking about Piter, and wondering how he could lie so still.

"Is he dead?" I thought; and I went down and felt him.

He did not move; but it was evident that he was not dead, for he snored heavily, and felt warm enough; but he was too fast asleep to be roused, even when I took hold of his collar and shook him.

I was puzzled, and wondered whether he could have had anything to make him so sleepy.

But if he had had anything to make him sleepy I had not, and yet I must have been soundly asleep for two or three hours.

I remembered, though, that when I last went round the yard Piter had been sniffing about at something, and perhaps he might have eaten what had not agreed with him then.

"Poor old boy! He'll wake up presently," I said to myself as I lifted him up; and heavy enough he seemed as I carried him down to his kennel, just inside the door, where he lay motionless, snoring heavily still.

"Lucky thing that no one has been," I said to myself, as, feeling thoroughly ashamed of my breach of trust, I went down to the dam, taking a towel with me this time from out of my office-drawer, and there, kneeling on the stones, I had a good bathe at my face and forehead, and went back feeling ever so much fresher.

The sounds of toil were rising in the distance, and over the great town the throb and hum and whirr of the busy hive was rising in the sunny morning air, as, with the events of the night fading away, I went in to my office to put away the towel and use the comb and brush I kept there.

That done, I was going to call Uncle Bob and walk back with him to our home, for the men would soon be there.

Just then the water-bottle and gla.s.s upon my desk caught my eye, and, like a flash, I remembered that I had filled the gla.s.s and drunk a little water, leaving the gla.s.s nearly full so as to take some more if I wanted it, for a gla.s.s of water was, I found, a capital thing to keep off drowsiness when one was watching.

I was sure I had left that gla.s.s nearly full, and standing on the desk; but I had not been and drunk any more, of that I was sure. I don't know why I had not gone back to have some, considering how sleepy I was, but I certainly had not. I was sure of it.

Then the water-bottle! It was a common plain bottle such as is used on a wash-stand, and we had three of them always filled with fresh cold water on the desks. Mine was full when I poured some out in the night, and now it was quite empty; and as I stared at it and then about the room I saw a great patch of wet on the carpet.

I looked farther and there was another patch--a smaller patch or big splash, as if the contents of the gla.s.s had been thrown down.

It was very strange, and I could not understand it. I had not thrown the water down. If I had wanted to get rid of it, I should have gone to the sink outside or have opened the window, and thrown it out into the dam.

The matter was of small consequence, and I paid no more attention to it, but went to Uncle Bob, where he was lying, fighting with myself as to whether I should tell him that I had been to sleep.

I did not like to speak, for I felt--well I felt as most boys would under the circ.u.mstances; but I mastered my moral cowardice, as I thought, and determined to tell him--after breakfast.

"Ah, Cob, old chap," he cried, jumping up as I laid my hand on his shoulder, "what a delicious sleep! What a morning too--Hah! That's better."

He was dressed, for though whoever lay down, so to speak, went to bed, he never undressed; so that after a plunge of the face and hands in the cool fresh water, and a scrub and brush, Uncle Bob was ready.

"I want my breakfast horribly, Cob," he said; "and we've an hour to wait. Let's have a walk round by the hill as we go home. Have you unlocked the gate?"

"Yes," I said; "before I came up to call you."

"That's right. Ah, here the men come!" for there was the trampling of feet, and the noise of voices crossing the yard. "Fed Piter?"

"No; not yet," I said. "He's asleep."

"Asleep!"

"Yes; he has been asleep these three hours past--asleep and snoring.

He's in his kennel now. I couldn't wake him."

"Nice sort of a watch-dog, Cob!"

"Yes," I said, feeling very guilty and shrinking from my confession.

"Do you say you tried to wake him?"

"Yes," I said, "I took him up in my arms, and carried him down to his kennel, and he was snoring all the time."

"Carried him down! Where from?"

"The stairs. He went to sleep there."

"Cob!" he cried, making the blood flush to my face, and then run back to my heart--"why, what's the matter, boy, aren't you well?"

"My head aches a little, and my mouth feels rather hot and dry."

"And you've got dark marks under your eyes, boy. You've not been asleep too, have you?"

I stared at him wildly, and felt far more unwell now.

"Why don't you speak?" he cried angrily. "You haven't been to sleep, have you?"

"I was going to confess it, uncle, if you had given me time," I said.

"I never did such a thing before; but I couldn't keep awake, and fell asleep for over two hours."