The Vast Abyss

“No, sir, I don’t,” replied Tom sharply. “Look at my face and hands.”

“Oh yes, they do show wounds of the warpath, Tom; but they were received in a grand cause. I knew there was good in the lad, and you have done a deal to bring it out.”

“I don’t see much good yet, sir,” said Tom, rather sulkily, for he was in a great deal of pain.

“Perhaps not,” said the Vicar, “but I do. It seems to me that by accident you have gone the right way to work to make a change in Pete Warboys. You have evidently made him respect you, by showing him that you were the better man.”

By this time they were getting pretty close to Heatherleigh, and the Vicar gave Tom’s arm a grip.

“I’m afraid I shall not see you at church next Sunday, Tom,” he said, with a smile.

“Are you going to be away, sir?” said Tom wonderingly.

“No: but you are.”

“I?” cried the boy. “Why?”

“Go up into your bedroom, have a good bathe at your face, and then look in the glass. That will tell you why.”

The Vicar walked away, and Tom slipped in quietly without being seen, hurried up to his room, and reversed the advice he had received; for instead of bathing himself first he walked straight to the glass, gave one long look, and turned away in despair, for his face looked far worse than it had done in the clear water.

“What will uncle say?” groaned Tom; and he forgot Mrs Fidler, who came up to his door to see if he had returned, and receiving no answer to her knock, she walked in, and then said a good deal, but it was while working hard to alleviate the boy’s pain.

In the midst of it all Uncle Richard came home.

“Now for it,” said Tom bitterly. “What will he say?”

He soon heard, and when he did, there was a singular choky feeling in his throat. For Uncle Richard called up the stairs —

“Feel well enough to come down, Tom? Never mind your looks.”

He went down, still expecting a severe rating, but instead of meeting an angry face there was a very merry one, for he was saluted by a roar of laughter.

“Upon my word!” exclaimed Uncle Richard. “You’re a nice ornament for the home of a simple country gentleman. But Mr Maxted says you gave him a thorough thrashing. Did you? Here, let’s look at your knuckles.”

Tom slowly held out his hands.

“Oh yes,” said his uncle, nodding. “There’s no mistake about that. And so you are going to make a model boy of Pete Warboys, eh?”

“I thought I’d try, uncle,” said Tom bitterly.

“Oh, well, go on boy, go on. You must have beaten the clay quite soft. When are you going to put it in the new mould?”

“I don’t know, uncle,” said Tom. “I expect the next thing will be that Pete will half kill me.”

Chapter Thirty Six

Tom saw very little more of Pete Warboys. He had slipped away to the fir-wood, and escaping all observation, went straight to the cave; but there was neither boy nor dog, and he left disappointed.

Three days passed, and he did not go out, feeling perfectly unfit to be seen.

Then he began to grow uneasy, and wondered whether Pete was ill from the beating he had received, and the dog dead.

But the time went on, and he heard that Pete had gone away. David had told Mrs Fidler, and she bore the news to Tom.

“And it’s a great blessing, my dear,” she said, “for he was a very bad, wicked boy, and I don’t know what he didn’t deserve for beating you so dreadfully.”

“Oh, but he was as bad, or worse,” said Tom.

“He couldn’t have been, my dear. Look at your poor face even now.”

“No. Bother! I don’t want to look at my face for ever so long yet,” replied Tom. “Perhaps it’s a good job though that he has gone.”

Then the winter came, with glorious, clear, starry nights, when the cold was forgotten, and Tom had his share of feasting upon the wonders of the heavens with the small telescope. Now it would be an hour with the great Nebula in Orion, then one with the wondrous Ring Nebula. Another night would be devoted to the double, triple, and quadruple stars, those which, though single to the naked eye, when viewed by the help of the glass showed that they were two, three, or four, perfectly separate. Then the various colours were studied, and diamond-like Sirius was viewed, as well as his ruby, topaz, sapphire, and emerald companions in the great sphere. The moon was journeyed over at every opportunity, with her silvery, pumice-like craters, and greyish-bottomed ring-plains, surrounded by their mighty walls of twelve to seventeen thousand feet in height. Tycho and Copernicus, with their long silvery rays; brilliant Aristarchus; dark, deep Plato; the straight valley, the so-called seas, the smooth, round, smaller craters, isolated Pico, the ridges, and the wildly-rugged battlements upon the terminator – all were scanned in turn, with Tom’s thirst increasing every time he looked.

For there was always something new to see, as well as plenty of surprises, when some meteor suddenly shot across the field of the telescope. But Uncle Richard said —

“Wait till we get the big one done!”

Saturn became a favourite object with Tom, who was never weary of gazing at the bright ring of light spread around the planet, which he could almost fancy he saw spinning as it glided across the field of the glass. Jupiter and his four moons, the former dull and scored with rings, the latter brilliant specks, had their turn; and soon books, which he had before looked upon as tedious and dry, became of intense interest; but Uncle Richard said that they must have a more perfect plane mirror.

Then came a bright wintry day, when Tom was out having a brisk run, and to his surprise he came upon Pete Warboys, who made a rush into the woods and disappeared, leaving his dog behind.

“Then he has come back,” said Tom to himself; and he stared at the dog, which stood looking at him – and the whole scene of the fight, and then the surgical operation upon the dog’s nose, came back.

“Then you did get well again, old chap,” said Tom sharply.

That was enough: the dog rushed forward, barking loudly, danced round him, and then bounded up the bank leading into the wood, where it turned to stand wagging its long thin tail, whisked round again, after giving another bark, and then bounded after its master.

“Come, I’ve made friends with him,” said Tom, “anyhow.” And though disappointed by Pete’s return after a long stay with some gipsy-like relatives of his grandmother, he could not help feeling glad that the dog displayed some gratitude for what had been done.

“Pete Warboys has come back, David,” cried Tom, hurrying down the garden as soon as he had ended his walk.

“Yes, bad luck to him, sir. I was going to tell you. I heared of it ’bout an hour ago. Been a-gipsying, I expect, with some of their people, who’ve got a door-mat van, and goes about with a screwy old horse. We shall be having some nice games again.”

“Not after the fruit, David.”

“Well, no, sir, ’cause there arn’t none. It’ll be eggs and chickens, and the keepers round about ’ll know my gentleman’s here. Say, Master Tom?”

“Yes.”

“Thought you was going to make a noo chap of him?”

“How could I when he wasn’t here?”

“No, course not; but your time’s come now, sir. What you’ve got to do is to sarve him as you do your specklums. You grind him down – there’s plenty on him – and then polish him into a fresh sort of boy.”

The gardener leaned upon his spade and chuckled.