“However, I have got rid of the farmer, and the dog, and the bull, and the bees—all’s well that ends well but how the devil am I to get out of the well?—All creation appears to have conspired against the rights of man. As my father said, this is an iron age, and here I am swinging to an iron chain.”
We have given the whole of Jack’s soliloquy, as it will prove that Jack was no fool, although he was a bit of a philosopher; and a man who could reason so well upon cause and effect, at the bottom of a well up to his neck in water, showed a good deal of presence of mind. But if Jack’s mind had been a little twisted by his father’s philosophy, it had still sufficient strength and elasticity to recover itself in due time. Had Jack been a common personage, we should never have selected him for our hero.
Chapter Seven.
In which Jack makes some very sage reflections, and comes to a very unwise decision.
After all, it must be acknowledged that although there are cases of distress in which a well may become a place of refuge, a well is not at all calculated for a prolonged residence—so thought Jack. After he had been there some fifteen minutes, his teeth chattered, and his limbs trembled; he felt a numbness all over, and he thought it high time to call for assistance, which at first he would not, as he was afraid he should be pulled up to encounter the indignation of the farmer and his family. Jack was arranging his jaws for a halloo, when he felt the chain pulled up, and he slowly emerged from the water. At first he heard complaints of the weight of the bucket, at which Jack was not surprised, then he heard a tittering and laughing between two parties, and soon afterwards he mounted up gaily. At last his head appeared above the low wall, and he was about to extend his arms so as to secure a position on it, when those who were working at the windlass beheld him. It was a heavy farming-man and a maid-servant.
“Thank you,” said Jack.
One never should be too quick in returning thanks; the girl screamed and let go the winch; the man, frightened, did not hold it fast: it slipped from his grasp, whirled round, struck him under the chin and threw him over it headlong, and before the “Thank you” was fairly out of Jack’s lips, down he went again like lightning to the bottom. Fortunately for Jack, he had not yet let go the chain, or he might have struck the sides and have been killed; as it was, he was merely soused a second time, and in a minute or two regained his former position.
“This is mighty pleasant,” thought Jack, as he clapped his wet hat once more on his head: “at all events, they can’t now plead ignorance; they must know that I’m here.”