Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (896 page)

But I can hardly bear to recall this terrible hour even now, at a distance of many years.  My suspense was, perhaps, more trying than that of the others, for, unlike them, I could not escape reflection by superhuman physical efforts.  My task of economizing the candles, by shading them with my hat, was not to be compared, in difficulty, to theirs; but I would gladly have changed places, if it had been possible to such a small boy, with Steve and Job, so intolerable was it to remain motionless in the desperate circumstances.

Thus I watched the rising of the waters, inch by inch, and on that account was in a better position than they to draw an inference as to the probable end of the adventure.

There were a dozen, or perhaps twenty, stones to extract before we could hope for an escape of the pent mass of water; and the difficulty of extracting them increased with each successive attempt in two ways: by the greater actual remoteness of stone after stone, and by its greater relative remoteness through the rising of the pool.  However, the sustained, gallant struggles of my two comrades succeeded, at last, in raising the number of stones extracted to seven.  Then we fancied that some slight passage had been obtained for the stream; for, though the terrible pool still rose higher, it seemed to rise less rapidly.

After several attempts, in which Steve and Job brought up nothing, there came a declaration from them that they could do no more.  The lower stones were so tightly jammed between the sides of the fissure that no human strength seemed able to pull them out.

Job and Steve both came up from the water. They were exhausted and shivering, and well they might be. “We must try some other way,” said Steve.

“What way?” asked I.

Steve looked at me. “You are a very good little fellow to stand this so well” he said, with something like tears in his eyes.

They soon got on their clothes; and, having given up all hope of escape downward, we turned our eyes to the roof of the cave, on the chance of discovering some outlet there.

There was not enough light from our solitary candle to show us all the features of the vault in detail; but we could see enough to gather that it formed anything but a perfect dome. The roof was rather a series of rifts and projections, and high on one side, almost lost in the shades, there was a larger and deeper rift than elsewhere, forming a sort of loft, the back parts of which were invisible, extending we knew not how far. It was through this overhanging rift that the draught seemed to come which had caused our candle to gutter and flare.

To think of reaching an opening so far above our heads, so advanced into the ceiling of the cave as to require a fly’s power of walking upside down to approach it, was mere waste of time. We bent our gaze elsewhere. On the same side with the niche in which we stood there was a small narrow ledge quite near at hand, and to gain it my two stalwart companions now exerted all their strength.

By cutting a sort of step with the pickaxes Job was enabled to obtain a footing about three feet above the level of our present floor, and then he called to me.

“Now, Leonard, you be the lightest. Do you hop up here, and climb upon my shoulder, and then I think you will be tall enough to scramble to the ledge, so as to help us up after you.”

I leapt up beside him, clambered upon his stout back as he bade me, and, springing from his shoulder, reached the ledge. He then handed up the pickaxes directed me how to make its point firm into one of the crevices on the top of the ledge; next, to lie down, hold on to the handle of the pickaxe and give him my other hand. I obediently acted, when he sprang up, and turning, assisted Steve to do likewise.

We had now reached the highest possible coign of vantage left to us, and there remained nothing more to do but wait and hope that the encroaching water would find some unseen outlet before reaching our level.

Job and Steve were so weary from their exertions that they seemed almost indifferent as to what happened, provided they might only be allowed to rest.  However, they tried to devise new schemes, and looked wistfully over the surface of the pool.

“I wonder if it rises still?” I said.  “Perhaps not, after all.”

“Then we shall only exchange drowning for starving,” said Steve.

Job, instead of speaking, had endeavoured to answer my query by stooping down and stretching over the ledge with his arm.  His face was very calm as he rose again.  “It will be drowning,” he said almost inaudibly, and held up his hand, which was wet.

CHAPTER IV

How Older Heads than Ours Became Concerned.

The water had risen so high that Job could touch its surface from our retreat.

We now, in spite of Job’s remark, indulged in the dream that, provided the water would stop rising, we might, in the course of time, find a way out somehow, and Job by-and-by said, “Perhaps round there in the dark may be places where we could crawl out, if we could only see them well enough to swim across to them.  Couldn’t we send a candle round that way?”

“How?” said I and Steve.

“By a plan I have thought of,” said he.  Taking off his hat, which was of straw, he cut with his pocket-knife a little hole in the middle of the crown. Into this he stuck a piece of candle, lighted it, and lying down to reach the surface of the water as before, lowered the hat till it rested afloat.

There was, as Job had suspected, a slight circular current in the apparently still water, and the hat moved on slowly.  Our six eyes became riveted on the voyaging candle as if it were a thing of fascination.  It travelled away from us, lighting up in its progress unsuspected protuberances and hollows, but revealing to our eager stare no spot of safety or of egress.  It went further and yet further into darkness, till it became like a star alone in a sky.  Then it crossed from left to right.  Then it gradually turned and enlarged, was lost behind jutting crags, reappeared, and journeyed back towards us, till it again floated under the ledge on which we stood, and we gathered it in.  It had made a complete circuit of the cavern, the circular motion of the water being caused by the inpour of the spring, and it had showed us no means of escape at all.

Steve spoke, saying solemnly, “This is all my fault!”

“No” said Job. “For you would not have tried to stop the millstream if it had not been to save me.”

“But I began it all,” said Steve, bitterly. “I see now the foolishness of presumption. What right had I to take upon myself the ordering of a stream of water that scores of men three times my age get their living by?”

“I thought overmuch of myself, too,” said Job. “It was hardly right to stop the grinding of flour that made bread for a whole parish, for my poor sake. We ought to ha’ got the advice of some one wi’ more experience than ourselves.”

We then stood silent. The impossibility of doing more pressed in upon our senses like a chill, and I suggested that we should say our prayers.

“I think we ought,” said Steve, and Job assenting, we all three knelt down. After this a sad sense of resignation fell on us all, and there being now no hopeful attempt which they could make for deliverance, the sleep that excitement had hitherto withstood overcame both Steve and Job. They leant back and were soon unconscious.

Not having exerted myself to the extent they had done I felt no sleepiness whatever. So I sat beside them with my eyes wide open, holding and protecting the candle mechanically, and wondering if it could really be possible that we were doomed to die.

I do not know how or why, but there came into my mind during this suspense the words I had read somewhere at school, as being those of Flaminius, the consul, when he was penned up at Thrasymene:  “Friends, we must not hope to get out of this by vows and prayers alone.  ‘Tis by fortitude and strength we must escape.” The futility of any such resolve in my case was apparent enough, and yet the words were sufficient to lead me to scan the roof of the cave once more.

When the opening up there met my eye I said to myself, “I wonder where that hole leads to?”  Picking up a stone about the size of my fist I threw it with indifference, though with a good aim, towards the spot.  The stone passed through the gaping orifice, and I heard it alight within like a tennis ball.

But its noise did not cease with its impact.  The fall was succeeded by a helter-skelter kind of rattle which, though it receded in the distance, I could hear for a long time with distinctness, owing, I suppose, to the reflection or echo from the top and sides of the cave. It denoted that on the other side of that dark mouth yawning above me there was a slope downward — possibly into another cave, and that the stone had ricocheted down the incline.  “I wonder where it leads?” I murmured again aloud.

Something greeted my ears at that moment of my pronouncing the words “where it leads” that caused me well nigh to leap out of my shoes. Even now I cannot think of it without experiencing a thrill. It came from the gaping hole.

If my readers can imagine for themselves the sensations of a timid bird, who, while watching the approach of his captors to strangle him, feels his wings loosening from the tenacious snare, and flight again possible, they may conceive my emotions when I realised that what greeted my ears from above were the words of a human tongue, direct from the cavity.

“Where, in the name of fortune, did that stone come from?”

The voice was the voice of the miller.

“Be dazed if I know — but ‘a nearly broke my head!” The reply was that of the shoemaker.

“Steve — Job!” said I. They awoke with a start and exclamation.  I tried to shout, but could not.  “They have found us — up there — the miller — shoemaker!” I whispered, pointing to the hole aloft.

Steve and Job understood.  Perhaps the sole ingredient, in this sudden revival of our hopes, which could save us from fainting with joy, was the one actually present-that our discoverer was the adversary whom we had been working to circumvent.  But such antagonism as his weighed little in the scale with our present despairing circumstances.

We all three combined our voices in one shout-a shout which roused echoes in the cavern that probably had never been awakened since the upheaval of the Mendips, in whose heart we stood.  When the shout died away we listened with parted lips.

Then we heard the miller speak again.  “Faith, and believe me — ’tis the rascals themselves!  A-throwing stones — a-trying to terrify us off the premises!  Did man ever know the like impudence?  We have found the clue to the water mystery at last — may be at their pranks at this very moment! Clamber up here; and if I don’t put about their backs the greenest stick that ever growed, I’m no grinder o’ corn!”

Then we heard a creeping movement from the orifice over our heads, as of persons on their hands and knees; a puffing, as of fat men out of breath; sudden interjections such as can be found in a list in any boys’ grammar-book, and, therefore, need not be repeated here.  All this was followed by a faint glimmer, about equal to that from our own candle, bursting from the gap on high, and the cautious appearance of a head over the ledge.

It was the visage of the shoemaker. Beside it rose another in haste, exclaiming, “Urrr — r! The rascals!” and waving a stick. Almost before we had recognized this as the miller, he, climbing forward with too great impetuosity, and not perceiving that the edge of the orifice was so near, was unable to check himself. He fell over headlong, and was precipitated a distance of some thirty feet into the whirling pool beneath.

Job’s face, which, until this catastrophe, had been quite white and rigid at sight of his old enemy, instantly put on a more humane expression. “We mustn’t let him drown,” he said.

“No,” said Steve, “but how can we save him in such an awkward place?”

There was, for the moment, however, no great cause for anxiety.  The miller was a stout man, and could swim, though but badly-his power to keep afloat being due rather to the adipose tissues which composed his person, than to skill. But his immersion had been deep, and when he rose to the surface he was bubbling and sputtering wildly.

“Hu, hu, hu, hu! O, ho — I am drownded!” he gasped. “I am a dead man and miller — all on account of those villainous — I mean good boys! — If Job would only help me out I would give him such a dressing — blessing I would say — as he never felt the force of before.  Oh, hub, hub, hu, hu, hu!”

Job had listened to this with attention. “Now, will you let me rule in this matter?” he said to Steve.

“With all my heart,” said Steve.

“Look here, Miller Griffin,” then said Job, speaking over the pool, “you can’t expect me or my comrades to help ye until you treat us civilly.  No mixed words o’ that sort will we stand.  Fair and square, or not at all.  You must give us straightforward assurance that you will do us no harm; and that if the water runs in your stream again, and the mill goes, and I finish out my ‘prenticeship, you treat me well. If you won’t promise this, you are a dead man in that water to-night.”

“A master has a right over his ‘prentice, body and soul!” cried the miller, desperately, as he swam round, “and I have a right over you — and I won’t be drownded!”

“I fancy you will,” said Job, quietly.  “Your friends be too high above to get at ye.”

“What must I promise ye, then, Job — hu — -hu — hu — bub, hub, hub!”

“Say, If I ever strike Job Tray again, he shall be at liberty to leave my service forthwith, and go to some other employ, and this is the solemn oath of me, Miller Griffin.  Say that in the presence of these witnesses.”

“Very well — I say it — bub, bub — I say it.” And the miller repeated the words.

“Now I’ll help ye out,” said Job.  Lying down on his stomach he held out the handle of the shovel to the floating miller, and hauled him towards the ledge on which we stood.  Then Steve took one of the miller’s hands, and Job the other, and he mounted up beside us.

“Saved, — saved!” cried Miller Griffin.

“You must stand close in,” said Steve, “for there isn’t much room on this narrow shelf.”

“Ay, yes I will,” replied the saved man gladly.  “And now, let’s get out of this dark place as soon as we can — Ho! — Cobbler Jones! — here we be coming up to ye — but I don’t see him!”