The Vast Abyss

“Then I arn’t going to let you, sir.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause my muskles is hard and yours is soft, and may get stretched and strained. Hold that there door back. It’s all up-hill, you know; master never thought o’ that.”

David wheeled the heavy case up to the door of the old mill, helped to carry the case in, and then in a whisper said —

“Let’s have a look at him when you’ve done, Master Tom.”

“Look at whom?” said the boy wonderingly.

“Man in the moon,” replied David, with a chuckle, as he trotted back with the barrow, and Uncle Richard came down from the observatory to take out the screws and unpack the two discs.

Within an hour they were at work again, and day after day passed – wasted days, David said.

“Master and you had a deal better set to work and build me a vinery to grow some more grapes,” he grumbled; but Tom laughed, and the speculum gradually began to assume its proper form.

There had only been one brief letter in answer to two sent making inquiries, and this letter said that Uncle James was much better, and regularly attending the office.

“My vegetables,” said David, when he was told. “Nothing like ’em, and plenty o’ fresh air, Master Tom, to set a man right. But just you come and look here.”

He led the way down the garden to where, the Marie Louise pear-tree spread its long branches upon the wall, each laden with the soft green fruit hanging to the long thin stalks, which looked too fragile to bear so great a weight.

“Pears?” said Tom. “Yes, I was looking at them yesterday, and thinking how good they must be.”

“Nay, but they am’t, Master Tom; that’s just it. If you was to pick one o’ they – which would be a sin, sir – and stick your teeth into it, you’d find it hard and tasting sappy like chewed leaves.”

“Why I thought they were ripe.”

“Nay, not them, sir. You want to take a pear, sir, just at the right moment.”

“And when is the right moment for a pear?”

David laughed, and shook his head.

“Tends on what sort it is, sir. Some’s at their best in September, and some in October. Then you goes on to December and January, and right on to April. Why the round pears on that little tree yonder don’t get ripe till April and May. Like green bullets now, but by that time, or even June, if you take care on ’em, they’re like brown skins’ full o’ rich sugary juice.”

“But these must be ripe, David.”

“Nay, sir, they’re not. As I told you afore, if you pick ’em too soon they srivels. When they’re quite ripe they’re just beginning to turn creamy colour like.”

“Well, they’re a very nice lot, David.”

“Yes, sir; and what am I to do?”

“Let ’em hang.”

“I wish I could, sir, but I feel as if I dursn’t.”

“Dare not! Why?”

“Fear they might walk over the wall.”

“What, be stolen?”

“Ay, my lad. I come in at that gate at six this morning, and was going gently down the centre walk, when it was like having a sort o’ stroke, for there was a head just peeping over the wall.”

“A stranger?”

“I couldn’t quite see, sir; but I’m ’most ready to swear as it was Pete Warboys, looking to see if they was ready to go into his pockets.”

“Then let’s pick them at once,” cried Tom.

“Dear lad, what is the use o’ my teaching of you,” said David reproachfully. “Don’t I keep on telling o’ you as they’d srivel up; and what’s a pear then? It ain’t as if it was a walnut, where the srivel’s a ornyment to the shell.”

“Then let’s lie wait for my gentleman with a couple o’ sticks.”

David’s wrinkled face expanded, and his eyes nearly-closed.

“Hah! Now you’re talking sense, sir,” he said, in a husky whisper, as if the idea was too good to be spoken aloud. “Hazel sticks, sir – thick ’uns?”

“Hazel! A young scoundrel!” cried Tom.

“Nay, he’s an old ’un, sir, in wickedness.”

“Hazel is no good. I’d take old broomsticks to him,” cried Tom indignantly. “Oh, I do hate a thief.”

“Ay, sir, that comes nat’ral, ’speshly a thief as comes robbin’ of a garden. House-breakers and highwaymen’s bad enough; but a thief as come a-robbin’ a garden, where you’ve been nussin’ the things up for years and years – ah! there’s nothing worse than that.”

“You’ve got some old birch brooms, David,” cried Tom, without committing himself to the gardener’s sentiments.

“Birch, sir? Tchah! Birch would only tickle him, even if we could hit him on the bare skin.”

“Nonsense! I didn’t mean the birch, I meant the broomsticks.”

“Oh, I see!” said David. “But nay, nay, sir, that wouldn’t do. You see, when a man’s monkey’s up he hits hard; and if you and me ketched Pete Warboys over in our garden, and hit as hard as we could, we might break him; and though I says to you it wouldn’t be a bit o’ consequence, that there old rampagin’ witch of a granny of his would come up here cursing every one, and making such filliloo that there’d be no bearing it.”

“Well, that wouldn’t harm anybody.”

“I dunno, sir; I dunno,” said David thoughtfully.

“Why, David, you don’t believe in witches and ill-wishing, and all that sort of stuff, do you?”

“Me, sir?” cried the gardener; “not likely. But it’s just as well to be the safe side o’ the hedge, you know, in case there might be something in it.”

Tom laughed, and David shook his head solemnly.

“Why, I believe you do believe in it all,” said Tom.