“Yes, wrong as wrong,” said Constable Bates, as he came away from the Little Manor, “and me niver to think o’ they two lungeing looking young dogs. Why, of course it was they. I can see it clear now, as clear—a child could see it. Well, I’ll soon run them down.”
Easier said than done, for the two gipsy lads seemed to have dropped quite out of sight, and in spite of the help afforded by members of the constabulary all round the county the two furtive, weasel-like young scamps could not be heard of. They and their gang had apparently migrated to some distant county, and the matter was almost forgotten.
“It doesn’t matter,” Vane said, as he grew better. “I don’t want to punish the scamps, I want to finish my boat;” and as soon as he grew strong he devoted all his spare time to the new patent water-walker as Macey dubbed it, and at which Distin now and then delivered a covert sneer.
For this scheme was the outcome of the unfortunate ride on the river that day when Vane sat dreaming in the boat and watching the laborious work of those who wielded the oars and tried to think out a means of sending a boat gliding through the water almost without effort.
He had thought over what had already been done as far as he knew, and pondered over paddle-wheels and screws with the mighty engines which set them in motion, but his aquatic mechanism must need neither fire nor steam. It must be something simple, easily applicable to a small boat, and either depend upon a man’s arm or foot, as in the treadle of a lathe, or else be a something that he could wind up like old Chakes did the big clock, with a great winch key, and then go as long as he liked.
It took so much thinking, and he was so silent indoors, that Aunt Hannah told the doctor in confidence one night that she was sure poor Vane was sickening for something, and she was afraid that it was measles.
“Yes,” said the doctor with a laugh, “sort of mental measles. You’ll see he will break out directly with a rash—”
“Oh, my dear,” cried Aunt Hannah, “then hadn’t he better be kept in a warm bed?”
“Hannah, my beloved wife,” said the doctor, solemnly, “is it not time you learned to wait till your ill-used husband has finished his speech before you interrupt him? I was saying break out directly with a rash desire to spend more money upon a whim-wham to wind up the sun.”
“Ah, now you are joking,” said Aunt Hannah. “Then you do not think he is going to be ill again?”