The Vast Abyss Part 31

"Pst! pst!" came from among the bushes, and the boy turned sharply, to see David working his arms about like an old-fashioned telegraph.

"Can't stop. What is it?" said Tom roughly.

"I ain't going to stop you, Master Tom; but you go and tell the truth."

"Bah!" cried Tom.

"The truth may be shamed, sir, but can never be blamed," said the gardener oracularly.

"Get out, you topsy-turvy old humbug," cried Tom wrathfully. "Think I don't know you?" and he ran on, and caught up to his uncle as he was pa.s.sing through the yard gate.

He did not speak, but went on toward the observatory door.

"Shall I open it, uncle?" said Tom eagerly.

"No," was the abrupt reply; and Tom shrank within himself like a snail touched with the end of a walking-stick on a damp night. Then the key was rattled into the lock, the door was thrown open, and Uncle Richard, looking very grave and stern, stalked into the workshop straight to the table, glanced at the speculum, and pushed the pieces apart, frowning angrily.

"I'd sooner have given a hundred pounds than that should have happened,"

he said.

"Yes, uncle; it's horrid," said Tom.

"How did you do it?" said Uncle Richard, turning sharply, and fixing him with his keen eyes, as he had often fixed some deceitful, shivering coolie, who had looked up to him in the past as master and judge in one.

"I didn't do it," cried Tom pa.s.sionately. "Everybody misjudges me, and thinks it was I."

"Then how did it happen?"

Tom told him briefly.

"Was that window left open last night?"

"I don't think so, uncle; I'm almost sure I fastened it."

"Almost!" said Uncle Richard, in the same cold, hard way in which he had spoken before. "Then, sir, you accuse David of having meddled and broken it?"

"No, I don't, uncle," said Tom, speaking quite firmly now. "I told you everything."

"Fetch David."

Tom hurried out, and had no difficulty in finding the gardener, who had hardly stirred from where he had left him.

"I knowed the master'd want me. Did you own up, sir, like a man?"

"No, I didn't," said Tom angrily. "Come to uncle directly."

"Then--"

David said no more, but gave his old straw hat a smart rap on the crown, and walked sharply on before Tom, unrolling and shaking out his blue ap.r.o.n, prior to rolling it up again very tightly about his waist. He strode along so rapidly that Tom had hard work to keep up with him; and in spite of his efforts, David strode into the workshop first, pulled off his hat, dashed it down on the floor, and struck one hand loudly with his fist.

"What I say is this here, sir. I've sarved you faithful ever since you come back from the burning Ingies--"

"Silence!"

"And made the garden what it is--"

"Silence!" said Uncle Richard, more sternly.

"And if Master Tom's been telling you a pack o' lies about me--"

"Silence, man!" cried Uncle Richard angrily.

"Why, all I've got to say is--"

"Will you hold your tongue, sir? My nephew has not even accused you.

He has merely told me his own version of the accident."

"Oh!" said David, looking from one to the other, thoroughly taken aback.

"Now give me your account, sir," continued Uncle Richard.

David threw in a few pieces of ornamentation about his narrative, but its essence was precisely the same as Tom's.

"Humph!" said Uncle Richard. "It looks as of one of you must be in fault."

"I take my solemn--"

"Silence, sir! you have spoken enough. Tell me this, as the man I have always been a good master to, and have always trusted. I know it is a serious thing, but I want the simple truth. Did you have an accident, and break that gla.s.s?"

"I wish I may die this minute if I did, sir," cried David; "and that's an awful thing to say."

"Thank you, David; I believe you," said Uncle Richard quietly, and the gardener's face glowed as he turned his eyes on Tom, and then frowned, and jerked his head, and seemed to say--

"Now out with the truth, my lad, like a man."

Tom was darting back an angry look, when his uncle turned to him, with eyes that seemed to read him through and through.

"I thought it was your doing at first, Tom, in my vexation," he said.

"Then I suspected poor David here, very unwillingly. But you see we are at fault."

"Yes, uncle," cried Tom eagerly, for there was something in his uncle's tone, stern as it sounded, that was like a friendly grasp of the hand, and turning towards him, in quite an excited burst, he cried, "Then you don't think I did it?"

"Of course not, my boy. What have you ever done that I should doubt your word?"

Tom could not speak, but he made a s.n.a.t.c.h at his uncle's hand, to feel it close warmly upon his own.

David looked from one to the other, and then stooped and picked up his hat, put it on, recollected himself, and s.n.a.t.c.hed it off again.