“Yes, that’s it—beast,” said another of the boys, snatching the bat from Glyn’s hand, while another boy got hold of the brick.
“Come on, boys,” cried Burton. “Let’s get a spade from the potting-shed and bury the beast before old Slegge knows.” And away they galloped, followed by a shout from the gardener:
“Here, I say, you mind you put that there spade away again!—They’re nice uns, Mr Severn, sir, and knew about it all the time.”
“Yes,” said Wrench; “that young Burton was chuckling and laughing so that he could hardly bear himself while he was waiting to see it come up.—Now, then, twist t’other bucket over, mate, and give it a drag round the bottom. What are we going to catch next?”
Glyn started once more, his heart beginning to beat fast with expectation; but it gradually calmed down as the time went on, bucket after bucket after a careful scraping along the bottom bringing up nothing but a very little mud, and he began to feel convinced that if there had been a morocco case down at the bottom of the well it must have been felt in the careful dredging the live rock received, even if it had not been brought up.
“There,” said Wrench, “that’ll do for to-day. It’s only scraping for nothing to get a little mud like that. I dare say there’ll be six inches of water in the bottom by to-morrow morning, and we will give the whole place a good scraping round in getting that out; then another the next day, and it ought to do.”
“But do you feel sure there’s nothing down there now?” said Glyn.
“Certain, sir. What do you say to going down yourself to see? You could stand in the bucket, and we’d let you down. You wouldn’t mind turning round as you went down?”
“No,” cried Glyn eagerly; “and there’s no water there now.”
“Not much more than enough to fill a teacup, sir. What do you say?”