The Weathercock Part 36

Everything had been finished in such excellent time, consequent upon certain bribery and corruption in the shape of half-crowns, that early in the evening, Vane, free from all workmanlike traces, was able to point triumphantly to the neat appearance of the job, and explain the working of the supply cistern, and of the stop-c.o.c.ks between the boiler and the pipes to his aunt and uncle.

"I thought there ought only to be one tap," said Vane; "but they both declared that there ought to be one to each pipe, so as to stop the circulation; and as it only cost a few s.h.i.+llings more I didn't stop the smith from putting it in."

"Humph!" said the doctor as Vane turned first one and then the other tap on and off, "seems to work nice and easy."

"And it does look very much neater than all those bricks," said Aunt Hannah. "But I must say one thing, my dear, though I don't like to damp your project, it does smell very nasty indeed."

"Oh, aunt, dear," cried Vane merrily; "that's nothing: only the Brunswick black with which they have painted the pipes. That smell will all go off when it's hard and dry. That wants to dry slowly, too, so you'll be sure and tell Martha about not lighting the fire."

"Oh, yes, my dear, I'll see to that."

"Then now I shall go up to the rectory and tell them I'm coming to lessons in the morning, and--" he hesitated--"I think I shall give up doing rough jobs for the future."

"Indeed," said the doctor with a humorous twinkle in his eye; "wouldn't you like to take the church clock to pieces, and clean it and set it going again?"

Vane turned sharply on his uncle with an appealing look.

"Now really, my dear, you shouldn't," cried Aunt Hannah. "Don't, don't, pray, set the boy thinking about doing any more such dirty work."

"Dirty work? quite an artist's job. I only mentioned it because Mr Syme told me that a man would be over from Lincoln to-morrow to see to the clock. Quite time it was done."

Vane hurried off to escape his uncle's banter, and was soon after in the lane leading up to the rectory, where, as luck had it, he saw Distin walking slowly on in front, and, acting on the impulse of the moment, he ran after him.

"Evening," he cried.

Distin turned his head slowly, and looked him coldly in the face.

"I beg your pardon," he drawled, "were you speaking to me?"

"Oh, hang it, Distie, yes," cried Vane. "What's the good of us two being out. Shake hands. I'm sorry if I said anything to offend you and hope you'll forgive me if there is anything to forgive."

Distin stared at him haughtily.

"Really," he said in rather a drawling manner, "I am at a loss to understand what you mean by addressing me like this, sir."

"Oh, I say, Distie, don't take that queer tone to a fellow," cried Vane, who could not help feeling nettled. "Here, shake hands--there's a good fellow."

He held out his own once more for the other to take, but Distin ignored it, and half turning away he said:--

"Have the goodness to address me next time when I have spoken to you. I came down here to read with Mr Syme, and I shall go on doing so, but I presume it is open to me to choose whom I please for my a.s.sociates, and I shall select gentlemen."

"Well," said Vane, shortly, "my father was a gentleman; and do you mean to insinuate that my uncle and aunt are not a gentleman and lady?"

"I refuse to discuss matters with every working-cla.s.s sort of boy I am forced to encounter," said Distin, haughtily. "Have the goodness to keep yourself to yourself, and to a.s.sociate with people of your own cla.s.s. Good-evening."

"Have the goodness to a.s.sociate with people of your own cla.s.s!" said Vane, unconsciously repeating his fellow-pupil's words. "I don't like fighting, but, oh, how he did make my fingers itch to give him one good solid punch in the head."

Vane stood looking at the retiring figure thoroughly nettled now.

"Ugh!" he exclaimed, "what a nasty mean temper to have. It isn't manly.

It's like a spiteful boarding-school girl. Well, I'm not going down on my knees to him. I can get on without Distin if he can get on without me. But it is so petty and mean to go on about one liking to do a bit of mechanical work. One can read cla.s.sics and stick to one's mathematics all the same, and if I can't write a better paper than he can it's a queer thing."

Vane turned to go back to the Little Manor, for, in spite of his defiant, careless way of treating Distin's words, he could not help feeling too much stung to care about continuing his journey to the rectory, for the feeling would come to the front that his fellow-pupil had some excuse for what he had said.

"I suppose I did look like a blacksmith's or bricklayer's boy to-day,"

he said to himself. "But if I did, what business is it of his? There's nothing disgraceful in it, or uncle would soon stop me. And, besides, Gilmore and Macey don't seem to mind, and their families are far higher than Distin's. There: I don't care. I was going to give up all kind of work that dirties one's hands, but now I will not, just out of spite.

Dirty work, indeed! I'll swear I never looked half so dirty over my carpentering and turning and scheming as I've seen him look after a game at football on a wet day."

But all the same, the evening at the Little Manor seemed to be a very dull one; and when, quite late, the carrier's cart stopped at the gate, and cook got down, Vane felt no interest in knowing what she would say about the alterations in her kitchen, nor in knowing whether Aunt Hannah had spoken to her about not lighting the kitchen-fire.

But he revived a little after his supper, and was eager to take a candle and go out of the hall-door and along the gravel-path, shading the light, on his way to the greenhouse, where he had a good quiet inspection of his work, and was delighted to find that the india-rubber joints hardly leaked in the least, and no more than would be cured by the swelling of the caoutchouc, as soon as the pipes were made hot, and the rings began to fit more tightly, by filling up the uneven places in the rough iron.

Everything looked delightfully fresh and perfect; the pipes glistened of an ebon blackness; the two bra.s.s taps shone new and smooth; and the various plants and flowers exhaled their scent and began to master that of the Brunswick black.

Soon after satisfying himself that all was right, he made his way up to his bedroom, so thoroughly tired out by the bodily exertion of the two past days that he dropped off at once into a heavy, dreamless sleep, which was brought to an end about eight o'clock the next morning by a sensation of his having been seized by a pair of giant hands and thrown suddenly and heavily upon the bedroom floor.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

A LESSON ON STEAM.

Half-stunned, confused, and wondering, Vane Lee awoke to the fact that he really was lying upon the carpet at the side of his bed, and for a few moments, he felt that he must have fallen out; but, in an indistinct fas.h.i.+on, he began to realise that he had heard a tremendous noise in his sleep, and started so violently that he had rather thrown himself than fallen out of bed, while to prove to him that there was something terribly wrong, there were loud shrieks from the lower part of the house, and from the pa.s.sage came his uncle's voice.

"Vane, my lad, quick! jump up!"

"It's an earthquake," panted Vane, as he hurried on his clothes, listening the while with fear and trembling, to the screams which still rose at intervals from below.

"That's Eliza's voice," he thought, and directly after as he waited, full of excitement, for the next shock, and the crumbling down of the house, "That's cook."

Almost at the same moment a peculiar odour came creeping in beneath and round the door; and Vane, as he forced a reluctant b.u.t.ton through the corresponding hole with fumbling fingers took a long sniff.

"'Tisn't an earthquake," he thought; "that's gunpowder!"

The next moment, after trying to think of what gunpowder there was on the premises, and unable to recall any, he was for attributing the explosion, for such he felt it to be, to some of the chemicals in the laboratory.

That idea he quickly dismissed, for the screams were from the kitchen, and he was coming round to the earthquake theory again, when a thought flashed through his brain, and he cried aloud in triumph, just as the doctor threw open his door:--

"It is gunpowder."

"Smells like it, boy," cried the doctor, excitedly, "but I had none.

Had you?"

"No, uncle," cried Vane, as a fresh burst of screaming, arose; "but it's cook. She has been blowing up the copper hole to make the fire draw."

"Come along! That's it!" cried the doctor. "Stupid woman! I hope she is not much burned."

This all took place as they were hurrying down into the hall, where the odour was stifling now: that dank, offensive, hydrogenous smell which is pretty familiar to most people, and as they hurried on to the kitchen from which the cries for help came more faintly now, they entered upon a dimly-seen chaos of bricks, mortar, broken crockery, and upset kitchen furniture.