I was full of imaginings of horror, and I fancied the fearful splash,
the darkness, the rising to the surface, and then the poor wretch--
myself perhaps--striving to get my fingers in between the slippery
bricks, and getting no hold, and then--"There!--what did I tell you?"
said Mr Solomon.
"She's a foul un, and no mistake," growled Ike.
"Oh! that's nothing," said the plumber. "I've been down worse wells
than that."
I was puzzled, for it seemed to me that the candle must be bad. As I
had watched it the flame grew brighter and brighter as it reached the
darkness, and then it burned more palely, grew smaller, and then all at
once it turned blue and went out.
He drew it up, lit it again, and lowered it once more, and it seemed to
go down a little lower before it went out.
He drew it up again, relit it, and once more sent it down; and this time
it went as far as the cylinder of the pump--which was fixed, I saw, on a
sort of scaffold or framework where the foot of the ladder rested.
I was able to see all this before the light went out and was drawn up
again.
"All right in a few minutes," said the plumber; and he unfastened the
candle, lowered down his basket of tools by means of the string, and
made it lodge on a bit of a platform close by the works of the pump.
It was all very interesting to me to see how low down the pump was
fixed, and that the handle worked an iron rod up and down--a rod of
great length.
The plumber took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, after
sticking the candle in his waist and the matches in his pocket, and
prepared to descend.
"Why, you are not going down like that--are you?" said Mr Solomon.
"I always do go down like that," said the man with a laugh. "How should
you go down-head first?"
"No," cried Mr Solomon angrily; "but with a rope fastened to my waist,
and a couple of men to hold it."
"D'yer think I'm a baby?" said the plumber, "or a little child?"
"Worse," said Mr Solomon shortly. "You can make them do what's right."
"Tchah! I know what I'm about, just as well as you know how to bud
roses."
"I dare say you do," said Mr Solomon sternly; "but that well's got a
lot of foul gas in it, and you're not going down without a rope to hold
you."
"Rubbish!" said the plumber, laughing; "I am."
"And who's going to use the water agen if you're drowned in it?" said
Ike seriously. "It'll be all full o' white-lead and putty, and kill the
plarnts!"