"And the soot falls, and great is the fall of it! Splendid! Couldn't be better. We'll have a ripping day to-morrow."
Next morning, soon after breakfast, Mrs. Trenchard set off for the market town, driving one of the light carts herself. The farmer went off to his mangold fields; the maids were busy in the dairy across the yard; and the inventors had the house to themselves. The simple materials they needed were easily obtained, and within an hour the novel sweeping apparatus was ready. It had been decided that Templeton should climb to the roof, while Eves remained in the room to see how the invention succeeded.
Only when he was left to himself did it occur to Eves that something should be hung in front of the fireplace to prevent the soot from flying into the room, as he had seen done by professional sweeps, and he ran to the potato shed to find an old sack or two that would answer the purpose. While he was still in the shed, a man entered the yard and looked cautiously around. He was a strange figure. A straw slouch hat, yellow with age, covered long, greasy black hair. His long, straight upper lip was clean shaven, but his cheeks and chin were clothed with thick, wiry whiskers and beard. He wore a rusty-black frock-coat, grey trousers very baggy at the knees, and white rubber-soled shoes. It was none other than Philemon Noakes, the owner of the village store, grocer, oilman, draper, seedsman—a rustic William Whiteley.
Seeing no one about, he approached the farmhouse, walking without once straightening his legs, glanced in at the open door, then round the yard, and, after hesitating a moment, entered the room. Mr. Trenchard's desk, open and strewn with papers, stood against the wall to the left. Noakes walked to it, and had just bent down, apparently with the object of looking over the farmer's correspondence, when a muffled sound from the neighbourhood of the fireplace caused him to start guiltily and turn half round.
At that moment Eves, carrying a couple of sacks, arrived at the door. Seeing the man start away from the desk, he stepped back out of sight to watch what was going on.
Noakes, as if to resolve a doubt or satisfy his curiosity, crept across the room, doubled himself, and looked up the chimney. There was a rattling sound, and Noakes was half obliterated in a mass of soot, clouds of which floated past him into the room. Hatless, choking, rubbing his eyes, he staggered back.
"THERE WAS A RATTLING SOUND, AND NOAKES WAS HALF OBLITERATED."
"I say, Mr. Noakes, what are you up to?" said Eves, entering with the sacks. "What a frightful mess you're in!"
"'Tis your doing," spluttered Noakes, shaking the soot from his clothes. "'Tis you, I know 'tis, and I'll—I'll——"