The Vast Abyss Part 28

We've been polishing one."

"Oh! them," cried David. "My word! Wonder what old miller would ha'

said to see his place ramfoozled about like this?"

"Come along," cried Tom; and the drawers were carried up, each being crammed full of papers and books, and laid on the floor close to the old mill-post.

"Worser and worser," said David, looking round. "Dear, dear! the times I've been up here when the sacks was standing all about, some flour and some wheat, and the stones spinning round, the hopper going tippenny tap--tippenny tap, and the meal-dust so thick you could hardly breathe.

I 'member coming out one night, and going home, and my missus says to me, 'Why, Davy, old man, what yer been a-doing on? Yer head's all powdered up like Squire Wink.u.m's footman.' It was only meal, yer know."

"And now you can come and go without getting white, David," said Tom, moving a stool from under the newly put up shelves. "This is where the bureau is to go."

"Is it now?" said David, scratching his head. "Why that's where the old bin used to be. Ay, I've set on that bin many's the time on a windy night, when miller wanted to get a lot o' grist done."

"Back again," said Tom; and two more drawers were carried over. Then the framework and desk were fetched, with Mrs Fidler standing ready, dustpan and brush in hand, to remove any dirt and fluff that might be underneath.

"Tidy heavy now, Master Tom," said David, as they bore the old walnut-wood piece of furniture across the garden and up to the mill, only setting it down once just inside the yard by way of a rest, and to close the gate.

Then the piece of furniture was carried in, and after some little scheming, hoisted up the steep ladder flight of steps, David getting under it and forcing it up with his head.

"Wonderful heavy bit o' wood, Master Tom," said the gardener.

"It's an awkward place to get it up, David," replied the boy. "Now then, just under those shelves. It will stand capitally there, and get plenty of light for writing."

But the bureau did not stand capitally there, for the back feet were higher than the front, consequent upon the floor having sunk from the weight of millstones in the middle.

"She'll want a couple o' wedges under her, Master Tom," said David.

"Yes. I've got a couple of pieces that will just do--part of a little box," cried Tom. "I'll fetch them, and the saw to cut the exact size.

You wait here."

"And put the drawers in, sir?"

"Not till we've got this right," replied Tom, who was already at the head of the steps; and he ran down and across to the house, obtained the saw from the tool-chest, and hurried back to the mill, where he found David down in the workshop, waiting for him with his hands in his pockets.

"Didn't yer uncle ought to leave his tool-chest over here, sir?" said the gardener.

"Oh yes, I suppose he will," said Tom. "It would be handier. Halloo, did you open that window?"

"No, sir. I see it ajar like when we first came, and it just blowed open like when the door was swung back."

Tom said no more, but led the way up-stairs, where the pieces of wood were wedged in under the front legs, sawn off square, and the drawers were replaced.

"Capital, Master Tom," cried the gardener. "You'd make quite a carpenter. I say, what's it like up-stairs?"

"Come and see," said Tom, ready to idle a little now the work was done, and very proud of the place he had helped to contrive.

David tightened his blue serge ap.r.o.n roll about his waist, and followed up into the observatory, smiling, but ready to depreciate everything.

"Ay, but it's a big change," he said; "no sacks o' wheat, no reg'lar machinery. There's the master's tallow scoop; he give me a look through it once, and there was the moon all covered with spots o' grease like you see on soup sometimes. Well, it's his'n, and he's a right to do what he likes with the place. Ah, many's the time I've been up here too. Why, Jose the carpenter chap's cut away the top of the post here.

You used to be able to move a bit of an iron contrapshum, and that would send the fan spinning, and the whole top would work round till the sails faced the wind."

"Well, the whole top will work round now, David."

"Not it, sir, without the sails."

"But I tell you it will," said Tom, moving a bar, and throwing open the long shutter, which fell back easily, letting in a long strip of sunshine, and giving a view of the blue sky from low-down toward the horizon to the zenith.

"Well, you do get plenty of ventilation," said David oracularly.

"Nothing like plenty of air for plants, and it's good for humans too.

Make you grow strong and stocky, Master Tom. But the top used to turn all round in the old days."

"So it does now, so that uncle can direct his telescope any way. Look here!"

The boy moved to the side, and took hold of an endless rope, run round a wheel fixed to the side, pulled at the rope, and the wheel began to revolve, turning with it a small cogged barrel, which acted in turn upon the row of cogs belonging to the bottom of the woodwork dome, which began to move steadily round.

"Well, that caps me," said David. "I thought it was a fixter now."

"And you thought wrong, Davy," said Tom, going up two or three steps, and pa.s.sing out through the open shutter, and lowering himself into the little gallery that had once communicated with the fan, and here he stood looking out.

"All right there, Master Tom?"

"Yes."

"May I move the thing?"

"If you like."

David, as eagerly as a child with a new toy, began to pull at the rope, when the top began to revolve, taking the little gallery with it, and giving Tom a ride pretty well round the place before the gardener stopped, and turned his face through the opening left by the shutter.

"Goes splendid!" he said, as Tom came in and closed the shutter. "I wouldn't ha' believed it. And so the master's going to build a big tallow scoop up there, is he?"

"Yes; and we've got a good deal of it done. There, let's get down.

Uncle may want me."

"Ay, and I must get back to my garden, sir. There's a deal to do there, and I could manage with a lot of help."

"Uncle was talking of making this place quite a study, and putting a lot of books here, the other day," said Tom, as they descended to the laboratory.

"Was he now? Rare windy place, though, sir, isn't it? Windy milly place, eh?"

"Well, you said air was good," said Tom, laughing; and they went down into the workshop. "Mustn't have that window left open though," said Tom; and, going to the side, he reached over the bench with the blanket spread over it, drew in the iron-framed lattice window, and fastened it, and was drawing back, when the blanket, which had been hanging draped over a good deal at one end, yielded to that end's weight, and glided off, to fall in a heap upon the stones.

Tom stooped quickly to pick it up, but as his head was descending below the level of the great bench-table, he stopped short, staring at its bare level surface, rose up, turned, and looked sharply at the gardener, and then in quite an excited way stepped to where the upturned cask stood covered with its blanket, and raised it as if expecting to find something there.

But the gla.s.s disc his uncle spoke of as a tool lay there only; and with a horrible feeling of dread beginning to oppress him, Tom turned back to the heap of blanket lying upon the floor, stooped over it, but feared to remove it--to lift it up from the worn flagstones.

"Anything the matter, sir?" said David, looking at him curiously from the door.

"Matter? Yes!" cried Tom, who was beginning to feel a peculiar tremor.