"Out of the well," was the answer.
"Are you aware that it is one mass of animal and vegetable impurities, and that you are liable to typhoid and every other kind of disease as the natural effect of drinking such filth?"
The landlord stared, and then stammered that he would have the well cleaned out in the morning, not knowing what sort of a health officer was before him. But the crowd at the bar said it was good enough for them, as long as the critters were well killed off with a good drop of rye or malt. Wilkinson asked for a glass of beer, which came out sour and flat. "See me put a head on that," said the landlord, dropping a pinch of soda into the glass and stirring it in with a spoon. The schoolmaster tried to drink the mixture, but in vain; it did not quench the thirst, but produced a sickening effect. He felt like a man in a strange land, like a wanderer in the desert, a shipwrecked mariner. Oh, to be on the Susan Thomas, with miles of pure water all round! Or even at home, where the turning of a tap brought all Lake Ontario to one's necessities.
"Is there no other water than this about?" he asked in despair.
"Wy, yees," answered Matt; "thay's the crick a ways down the track, but it's that black and masshy I guess you wouldn't like it no better."
"Well, get us some from there, like a good man, to wash with if we cannot drink it, and have it taken up to our room," for it had appeared that the two pedestrians were to inhabit a double-bedded apartment.
"'Ere, you Timotheus, look spry and go down to the crick and fetch a pail of water for No. 6."
A shambling man, almost a hobbledehoy, of about twenty five, ran out to obey the command, and, when he returned from No. 6, informed Wilkinson civilly that the water was in his room. Something in his homely but pleasant face, in his shock head and in his voice, seemed familiar to the dominie, yet he could not place his man; when Coristine came along and said, "You've got a brother on the Susan Thomas, haven't you, and his name is Sylvanus?" The young man shuffled with his feet, opened a mouth the very counterpart of "The Crew's," and answered: "Yes, mister, he's my oldest brother, is Sylvanus; do you happen to know Sylvanus?"
"Know him?" said the unblushing lawyer, "like a brother; sailed all over Lake Simcoe with him."
The lad was proud, and went to his menial tasks with a new sense of the dignity of his family. He was called for on all sides, and appeared to be the only member of the household in perpetual request; but, though many liberties were taken with him personally, none were taken with his name, which was always given in full, "Ti-mo-thé-us!" Wilkinson was too tired, thirsty and generally disgusted to do anything but sit, as he never would have sat elsewhere, on a chair tilted against the wall. Coristine would fain have had a talk with "The Crew's" brother, but that worthy was ever flitting about from bar-room to kitchen, and from well to stable; always busy and always cheerful.