Mr. Tuke and his man were employed upon a very profitless and monotonous task. The one—the first—was engaged in drawing stagnant water from a well in a bucket; the other received and toiled away with each vessel-full in succession, and flung it broadcast about the garden.
They had cleared from the well-rim the torn earth and rubbish that encumbered it. A flap of wood had originally protected the mouth of the hole; but the slobbering tooth of Time had chewed this to the veriest pulp, upheld only by the clutch of the grass roots that had spread over and beyond it, and it had become the merest question of accident as to whose foot should first break into the pitfall.
Despite the unchancy look of the place, measurement with a plumb revealed the fact that not so much as four feet of dead water lay at the bottom of the inky funnel; and this four feet Mr. Tuke had set himself patiently to withdraw, in fulfilment of a certain promise made to a couple of rather colourless beaux yeux.
Now, for an hour had the two been regularly dipping and spilling, in the remote hope of finding a gold chain and bréviaire curled snugly in the pail after some particular haul. But it seemed a forlorn and fruitless search. If the gewgaw had in truth slipped in, it was for a certainty imbedded in the silt and slime at the bottom.
Fatigue was telling a little upon the loose physique of the servant. His cheeks were hot and his breath laboured. But the master worked on, vigorous and pre-occupied, and gave little thought to the other’s condition.
Indeed, his want of consideration could plead the excuse that he had much present matter to meditate and digest. He had inherited, it seemed, the lonely lordship of many mysteries; and to the devil’s captured attorneys, he could have thought, had been committed the task of drawing up his new lease of life, so teeming was it with uninterpretable perplexities, after the most admired human models.
Once or twice he spoke to his servant, in a stern, even voice that was really little of an invitation to confidence.
“Whimple,” he had said, “had you any previous knowledge of the fellow who called yesterday?”
“I have seen him about, sir.”
“Had he ever spoken to you before?”