“There can be no pleasure enjoyed, my dear, without some trouble,” said the doctor. “It is tiresome, I know, all that stoking and poking when the glass is below freezing point, and once more, I say I wish there could be some contrivance for heating the greenhouse without farther trouble.”
Vane pricked up his ears again, and for a few moments his uncle’s words seemed about to take root; but those wheels rolled into his mind directly after, and he was wondering where they could belong to, and how it was that he had not missed them when he put the others back.
Then the grilled chicken interfered with his power of thinking, and the greenhouse quite passed away.
The evenings at the Little Manor House were very quiet, as a rule. The doctor sat and thought, or read medical or horticultural papers; Aunt Hannah sat and knitted or embroidered and kept looking up to nod at Vane in an encouraging way as he was busy over his classics or mathematics, getting ready for reading with the rector next day; and the big cat blinked at the fire from the hearthrug.
But, on this particular night, Vane hurried through the paper he had to prepare for the next day, and fetched out of the book-cases two or three works which gave a little information on horology, and he was soon deep in toothed-wheels, crown-wheels, pinions, ratchets, pallets, escapements, free, detached, anchor, and half-dead. Then he read on about racks, and snails; weights, pendulums, bobs, and compensations.
Reading all this was not only interesting, but gave the idea that taking a clock to pieces and putting it together again was remarkably easy; but there was no explanation about those missing wheels.
Bedtime at last, and Vane had another scrub with the nail-brush at his hands before lying down.
It was a lovely night, nearly full-moon, and the room looked so light after the candle was out that Vane gave it the credit of keeping him awake. For, try how he would, he could not get to sleep. Now he was on his right side, but the pillow grew hot and had to be turned; now on his left, with the pillow turned back. Too many clothes, and the counterpane stripped back. Not enough: his uncle always said that warmth was conducive to sleep, and the counterpane pulled up. But no sleep.
“Oh, how wakeful I do feel!” muttered the boy impatiently, as he tossed from side to side. “Is it the chicken?”
No; it was not the chicken, but the church clock, and those two wheels, which kept on going round and round in his mind without cessation. He tried to think of something else: his studies, Greek, Latin, the mathematical problems upon which he was engaged; but, no: ratchets and pinions, toothed-wheels, free and detached, pendulums and weights, had it all their own way, and at last he jumped out of bed, opened the window and stood there, looking out, and cooling his heated, weary head for a time.