THE BRICKED PASSAGE
Now I don't know whether you have ever been up a drain pipe which just
takes you, and no more. I suppose you have--in nightmares, after
supping on cold boiled pork and greens, or some nice little digestible
morsel like that. But really awake, and with the birds singing on the
trees, the winds lightly scented with bog myrtle and pine and bracken
breathing all about you--to be told to shove yourself up a built rabbit
hole, not knowing what you may come on the next time you put out your
hand!--Well, Hayfork Minister or no Hayfork--I had the hardest row to
hoe that time! I don't think any fellow, even if he has climbed all
the mountains that are, has any right to let a boy in for a thing like
that without telling him beforehand. And smiling about it all the
time, as if he were merely sending you into Miss Payne's to buy
butter-scotch!
I felt as if I could have killed him the first half-dozen "creeps" I
took. And what was the worst of his cheek, he shoved me behind with
the oak branch, which he had sharpened, and said, "Go on!"
If I could have got him then--up a drain--me with that same oak goad, I
would have given it to him--cheerful, I would. Cheerful is no name for
it!
Inside the tunnel the bricks were not all of the same size. Some had
dropped a little and pinched my shoulders. Some were wanting
altogether. And that fiend of a Hayfork, at the mouth, all safe
outside with the rope's-end in his hand kept singing up to me, "A-a-all
right--a-a-right--it will get wider as you get farther in!"
Much he knew! Had he been up, I'd like to know?
However, he was right as it happened--right without knowing anything
about it. The passage did widen a bit. I found offshoots--smaller
passages leading I don't know where. And I didn't put in my hand to
feel, having a dislike to be bitten by water rats--or any other kind of
rats. And it was an awful "ratty" place that, by the smell of it.
Also, for all that Mr. Ablethorpe said, I was in mortal fear of coming
across poor Harry's leg, or of Mad Jeremy arriving and "settling" Mr.
Ablethorpe, without my knowing anything about it. And when I came
out--I should find myself face to face with the oily curls, the
sneering lip, and--specially, with the knife I had seen gleaming in his
teeth when he swam the Moat to make an end of Elsie and me.
I wasn't frightened, of course. Only I just thought what a fool I was
to be there. I am not the first, nor will I be the last to think the
same thing--when, like me, they are doing something dreadful noble and
heroic.
There were curious side passages, as I say, on each side of the tunnel
along which I was crawling--oh, so slowly. Some of these were narrow
and smooth, where a brick had fallen out, and smelled "rat" yards off.
I did not meddle with these. But there were bigger offshoots, too,
properly bricked round and as tight as ninepence--no rats there.
Well, it was in one of these that I came on my first treasure-trove. I
felt a lot of things all tied together in a rough bag or cloth--heavy,
too, and of course all clammy with moisture or mould or something like
that. No wonder--I felt all green-mouldy myself, after only a minute
or two.
I tugged at the rope, and, almost before I knew it, I was out again in
the dancing speckle of the sunshine sifted through the leaves. Blinded
by the sudden glare which sent blobs of colour dancing across my
eyeballs, as if I had looked at the sun, I did not realize for a moment
that I had brought anything with me.
"Let go!" I heard Mr. Ablethorpe say, and I was quite unconscious what
I was holding on to. Yet what I had found was little enough to the
eye--a piece of rough sacking, roughly sewn about a quantity of
metallic objects which jingled as Mr. Ablethorpe cut the outer covering
open with his big "gully" knife.
"Money!" the thought came natural to a boy; "have I disinterred a
treasure?"
And for the moment I was all ready to go back again to look for more.
But the blade went on cutting, and presently the contents tinkled out
upon the bank--about a dozen and a half of copper rings, rather thick,
and each made with a hook at the bottom. I could not imagine what they
were for.
But Mr. Ablethorpe bounded upon them, examining each one before putting
it in his pocket. Lastly he looked at the piece of canvas in which
they had been wrapped, long and carefully.
"Ah!" he said, "that, I think, will do!"
And he closed the iron sliding door carefully, as it had been before,
and thrusting his fingers into the shallow pool, he lifted up double
handfuls of oozy mud and plastered it all over the entrance.
"When that is dry," he said, "it will take a clever man to tell where
you have poked your nose this afternoon, Joseph!"
This seemed likely enough and satisfactory, from his point of view.
But, as for me, I wanted very much to be told what it was all about.
So I asked him what it was I had found, and why he wanted me to crawl
up there, at any rate.
"You found some copper rings and a piece of dirty canvas," he said,
"neither more nor less. And I asked you to go up there because I was
too fat to go myself. Were you nearly at the end, think you?"
I told him no--that the passage seemed to widen as it went farther on.
I think that at these words he was nearly replacing the rope, which he
had begun to coil, round my waist again.
But he looked at his watch, and shook his head.
"We have not the time to do it safely," he said; "but--let us see--if
it widens as you say, Joseph, it is very likely that it has another
opening."
He took a small plan out of his pocket, a tiny little measuring scale,
nodded once or twice, and then began slowly to pace through the wood at
right angles to the course of the Backwater.
All at once he dropped to the ground as if shot. I judged it best to
efface myself, too, and that promptly. So I crawled behind a big pine
tree, about whose roots the male ferns were growing tall, and, putting
their thick scaly stems aside with my hand, I lay watching the heels of
the boots which Mr. Ablethorpe wore.
He kept quite still, apparently intent upon something I could not see.
Now, of course (you will not have noticed it), but I am very curious
about things that don't concern me in the least--not to talk about, you
understand, but just to _know_. So, as the ferns grew pretty
continuously, and the pines held close together, shooting their
indigo-blue umbrellas into the sky, I wriggled along till I could lay
my hand on one of the minister's boot heels.
It was a foolish thing to do, for it nearly made him cry out. I saw
him set his teeth to shut in the sound. He had a nerve, the Hayfork
Minister, but I could see from his look that he would give it to me
after for coming on him like that. However, it was some fun to see him
in a funk.
And, indeed, with reason! For not more than a dozen yards down the
slope, between us and the wall of the old orchard, I saw Mad Jeremy, on
his knees, digging with his fingers, eager as a terrier at a rat hole.
Then I called to mind the mysterious crime of which Miss Aphra had
found him guilty, and her stern accusation, "You've been digging
again!" the day Elsie and I were at the Grange. Last of all, his
repeated denial, his attempts to rub off the earth pellets, his
sentence, tears, and punishment. Yes, I saw him digging with his
fingers just as his sister had said.
Jiminy, how I wished I was at home!
I might wish, indeed, but there we were stuck and had to wait--Mr.
Ablethorpe and I--till Mad Jeremy, having finished his task, stamped
down the sods he had edged up at either side, and set with care a great
square flagstone in its place.
Then he stood rubbing his hands together and grinning for some minutes,
evidently well pleased with himself. A voice far away called:
"Jeremy! Jeremy!"
At the sound the smile was stricken from his face. The madman looked
guiltily at his hands, and seeing the condition in which they were, he
made straight for the Backwater, passing us within (I declare) four
yards. But the bracken was thick and tall, and we lay close, so that
Jeremy failed to see us. Besides, his mind was evidently ill at ease.
The voice from the direction of Deep Moat Grange continued to call:
"Jeremy! Jeremy!" He did not reply, and we could hear him mutter,
"What shall I say? What shall I say if she finds out?"
Then, having pulled round the long tails of his coat, one after the
other, he dried his hands carefully, held them up to see that they were
clean, and took his way up the side of the Backwater toward the
drawbridge, whistling as he went.
For me, I was scared out of a year's growth. But the Hayfork Minister,
lifting himself out of the ferns, and dusting lightly the knees of his
black cord trousers, pointed to the great flagstone on which the turf
showed ragged edges, and said gravely: "The secret is there. That is
the other end of the tunnel!"
He meant, I felt sure, to send me in again, in spite of all that we had
seen.
As for me, however, I resolved to keep very clear of the Hayfork
Minister. He was a nice man, Mr. Ablethorpe, and a pleasure to know.
But to be in a drain pipe for his sake, with the fear of Mad Jeremy
meeting one face to face half-way up, put too high a price on his
friendship. I resolved, therefore, in future to cut Mr. Ablethorpe's
acquaintance.