The Vast Abyss Part 12

"Yes, Tom, now. My very own, my boy. It was about that I came up yesterday--to pay the rest of the purchase-money, and get the deeds.

Now we can set to work and do what we like."

Tom tried hard, but he could not help looking wonderingly at his uncle, of whom he had previously hardly seen anything. He knew that he had been in India till about a year before, and that his mother had once spoken of him as being eccentric. Now it appeared that he was to learn what this eccentricity meant.

"Did you learn any chemistry when you were at school, Tom?" said his uncle, after a pause.

"Very little, uncle. There were some lectures and experiments."

"All useful, boy. You know something about physics, of course?"

"Physics, uncle?" faltered Tom, as he began to think what an empty-headed fellow he was.

"Yes, physics; not physic--salts and senna, rhubarb and magnesia, and that sort of thing; but natural science, heat and light, and the wonders of optics."

Tom shook his head.

"Very little, uncle."

"Ah, well, you'll soon pick them up if you are interested, and not quite such a fool as your uncle made out. Do you know, Tom, that windmill has made me think that I never could have been a lawyer."

Tom was silent. Things seemed to be getting worse.

"Four times have I had to come up to town and see my lawyer, who had to see the seller's lawyer over and over again--the vendor I ought to have said. Now I suppose you wouldn't have thought that I was a vendee, would you?"

"Oh yes, I know that," said Sam. "You would be if you bought an estate."

"Come, then, you do know something, my lad. But it has been a tiresome business, with its investigation of t.i.tles and rights of usance, and court copyhold fines, and--Bother the business, it has taken up no end of time. But there, it's all over, and you and I can go and make the dust fly and set the millstones spinning as much as we like. Thumpers they are, Tom, three feet in diameter. I wish to goodness they had been discs of gla.s.s instead of stone."

"Do you, uncle?" said Tom, for his companion was evidently waiting for an answer.

"Yes; we could have tried some fine experiments with them, whereas they will be useless and unsalable I expect."

To Tom's great relief the conversation reverted to his life at Gray's Inn and Mornington Crescent, for the impression would keep growing upon him that what people said about his uncle's queerness might have some basis. But this opinion was soon shaken as they went on, for he was questioned very shrewdly about his cousin and all that had pa.s.sed between them, till all at once his companion held out his hand.

"Shake hands, Tom, my boy. We are just entering Furzebrough parish, and I want to say this:--You came to me with an execrable character--"

"Yes, uncle; I'm very sorry."

"Then I'm not, my lad. For look here: I have been questioning you for the last hour, and I have observed one thing--in all your statements about your cousin, who is an abominably ill-behaved young whelp, you have never once spoken ill-naturedly about him, nor tried to run him down. I like this, my lad, and in spite of all that has been said, I believe that you and I will be very good friends indeed."

"Thank you, uncle," said Tom, huskily. "I mean to try."

"I know that, or I wouldn't have brought you home. There, there, look!

quick! before it runs behind that fir clump, that's the old madman's windmill."

Tom turned sharply to the window, and caught sight of a five-sailed windmill some five miles away, on a long wooded ridge.

"See it?"

"Yes, uncle; I just caught sight of it."

"That's right; and in five minutes, when we are out of the cutting, you can see Heatherleigh in the opening between the two fir-woods."

"That's your house, uncle?"

"Yes, my lad--that's my house, where I carry on all my diabolical schemes, and perform my incantations, as old Mother Warboys says. You didn't know what a wicked uncle you had."

"No, sir," said Tom, smiling.

"Oh, I'm a dreadful wretch; and you did not know either, that within five-and-thirty miles of London as the crow flies, there is as much ignorance and superst.i.tion as there was a couple of hundred years or so ago, when they burnt people for being witches and wizards, and the like.

There, now look; you can just see Heatherleigh there. No; too late-- it's gone."

Tom felt puzzled. One minute he was drawn strongly towards his uncle, the next he felt uneasy, for there was something peculiar about him.

Then he grew more puzzled as to whether the eccentricity was real or a.s.sumed. But he soon had something else to think of, for five minutes after a run through a wild bit of Surrey, that looked gloriously attractive with its sandy cuttings, commons, and fir-trees, to a boy who had been shut up closely for months in London, his uncle suddenly cried, "Here we are!" and rose to get his umbrella and overcoat out of the rack.

"Let's see, Tom," he said; "six packages in the van, haven't we? Mind that nothing is left behind."

The train was slackening speed, and the next minute they were standing on the platform of a pretty attractive station, quite alone amongst the fir-trees. The station-master's house was covered with roses and clematis, and he and the porters were evidently famous gardeners in their loneliness, for there was not a house near, the board up giving the name of the station as Furzebrough Road.

"Shall I take the luggage, sir?" said a man, touching his hat; and at the same moment Tom caught sight of a solitary fly standing outside the railings.

"Yes; six packages. By the way, Mr Day, did a box come down for me?"

This to the station-master, who came up as the train glided off and disappeared in a tunnelled sandhill a hundred yards farther.

"Yes, sir; very heavy box, marked 'Gla.s.s, with care.' Take it with you?"

"Yes, and let it be with care. Here, I'll come and pay the rates. Tom, my lad, see that the things are all got to the fly."

Tom nodded; and as his uncle disappeared in the station-master's office, he went to where the two porters were busy with a barrow and the luggage.

They were laughing and chatting with the flyman, and did not notice Tom's approach, so that he winced as he heard one of the porters say--

"Always some fresh contrapshum or another. Regular old lunatic, that's what he is."

"What's he going to do with that old mill?" said the other.

"Shoot the moon they--Is this all, sir?" said the flyman, who caught sight of Tom.

The boy nodded, and felt indignant as well as troubled, for he had learned a little about public opinion concerning his uncle.

"Be careful," he said; "some of those things are gla.s.s."

"All right, sir; we'll be careful enough. Look alive, Jem. Where will you have the box as come down by's mornin's goods?"

"On the footboard. Won't break us down, will it?"

"Tchah! not it. On'y about a hundredweight."